Guide to Mining

Mining in a nutshell

Mining is quite an easy role to take for those learning the mechanics of the game, or for those who just want a break from the chaos on-station. Despite this, there are still somethings a rookie miner should know about. To put it simply, just grab a pick, break some rocks and scoop up the goodies that are inside. ALSO, it is important to note that you are able to click more than ONE square of asteroid at a time when mining or digging for sand! As long as it's accessible, you don't have to wait to finish digging before you start digging again, so you can have several dig jobs running in parallel. Just don't change hands or move until all dig jobs are done and save yourself some time!

If you run into rock with a pick or drill in your inactive hand, it will automatically start digging for you.

The Objective

You're here to mine, so get digging! Once you're full to bursting with ores, drag your ore box back to the station and head to cargo where the ore redemption machine sits. Insert your ID, and empty the box next to the machine to offload your ores and have them instantly processed into sheets. You gain points for doing this, so be sure to claim them and then retrieve your ID. Now take your crate and it's back to the mines!

How to Do This

1. Gear up! From the mining equipment locker, you will need Meson Scanner goggles, a Mining Scanner, and a Pickaxe. If you want, there are also fingerless (useless) gloves, an additional mining satchel, and a shovel.
2. Use your voucher on a mining vending machine to select your choice of mining tool. A kinetic accelerator or mining drone can help when fighting mobs.
3. Take and wear a mining hardsuit, breath mask, and oxygen tank from Mining EVA. On the western side of the base, there is a mini-Medbay from which you can borrow supplies. There is also a maintenance room adjacent to it where you can top off internals.
4. Before you go, you'll want an Ore Box - It can hold an infinite amount of minerals. Empty your Mining Satchel into it periodically and drag it about.
5. Pick a destination: Both sides have a transit tube you can shove yourself into for quick access to the relevant outposts, located near the Mining Shuttle.
6. Find dem minerals. There are more minerals on the west side of the asteroid, but the east side has no mobs to worry about. Use the scanner to be able to see valuable minerals. Try to get a mixture of:

   • Gold
   • Silver
   • Uranium
   • Plasma
   • Diamond

Sand can be dug up with a shovel or drill and iron can be seen without a scanner, but they do not redeem as many points as the other minerals.

1. Go to the ore redeemer and get points for the plasma and diamonds, deliver some materials to R&D (10-15 sheets each material except iron) and everything else to Robotics. Ask R&D for a diamond mining drill if they have diamonds.
2. At the mining equipment vendor you can get sonic jackhammers, jetpacks or MediPens with the points you've gained.
3. Repeat until bored or shuttle arrives. You are now officially a miner who can be useful and make yourself stronger.

The Gear

The following is a list of default mining equipment:

• File:RIG.png Mining Hardsuit - Used so you don't freeze to death in the airless tunnels of the resource-rich planetoid.
• Breath Mask and Oxygen Tank - So you can have oxygen when mining. Oxygen tanks are available from the tank storage unit, and they can be worn on hardsuit's storage slot. You can also use your emergency oxygen tank which can be placed on your suit. Running out of oxygen is unlikely with the full sized tank.
• File:Mining scanner.png Meson Goggles|Meson Scanners and Mining Scanner - When used together will briefly flash any non-iron ore on screen.
• File:Gps mining.png Global Positioning System, GPS - The crew monitoring console back on the station won't catch your suit sensor signal from all the way at the asteroid. Having one of these on you will help others track down your body if you happen to develop a case of the dead.
• Pickaxe - For tunneling through everything. Place this on your belt, it saves room. You also can get various drills and other tools from science and your mining vendor. These will dig faster, and may have other advantages!
• Shovel - Gathering sand. You can stick this in your backpack.
• File:OreSatchel.png Ore Satchel - For carrying ore without using a mining cart, holds 50 ore nuggets. Get at least one of these, make sure to set the bag to "all on tile". Use in conjunction with an ore crate. (Newbie tip: This does not work like a typical backpack. Hold it in your hand and click the ore with that hand to pick it up.)
• File:OreCrate.png Ore box - Used for carrying huge amounts of ore. While a satchel can only hold 50 nuggets, this can hold an unlimited sum. Use your satchel on the box to empty it into the box, place the box in the unloading machine's input slot to unload it. You cannot carry it but you can drag or push it with you.
• Crowbar - Just in case when coming back from the mines there is a blackout. Make sure to grab one from tool storage or a toolbox. Notice: No longer spawns in your backpack.
• Seclite - A robust flashlight used by security and mining. Can also be mounted to energy guns and Hybrid Tasers.
• Mining Drill - This drill can be used to pick through rock and dig up sand, so you can use this instead of a pickaxe or shovel.
• File:Mining voucher.gif Mining Voucher - Found in your backpack, exchange this at the mining equipment locker for your choice of one of the four options below.
• File:Kinetic accelerator.png Proto-kinetic Accelerator - A gun. The good part is that it packs a punch in a vacuum and has infinite shots. The bad part is that it tickles in pressurized environments, needs to be reloaded after each shot, and has a range of three steps. Each blast can clear a rock wall if you feel like digging using this.
• Resonator - Another deadly tool. This will instantly clear a rock wall when clicked on, and when used in hand or swung at empty space, will create a field on that spot that lasts for about five seconds before rupturing, causing serious damage to anything standing on it. Just like the kinetic accelerator, it does reduced damage in pressurized environments.
• File:Kinetic crusher.png Proto-Kinetic Crusher - A powerful melee weapon. Shoots kinetic bolts that don't deal damage, but can mark large creatures making the hammer deal increased damage when used on them. It will deal even greater damage on backstab.
• Mining Drone - This helpful little guy goes around collecting loose ore so you don't have to. Will drop its haul when you hit it with the mining scanner. Clicking on it with an empty hand will toggle it between ore collection and wildlife fighting mode, where it will attack xenos with its built-in kinetic accelerator and drill. Will not pick up sand with no nearby ore around, for some reason. Comes with an upgraded welding tool if redeemed via voucher. It cannot be repaired while it is fighting.

The Wildlife

While the eastern half of the asteroid is free of harmful things (save for the occasional murderous traitor, rogue cyborg, and gibtonite deposit), it's quite sparse in any ore more precious than plain iron. The western half has much richer bounty of minerals to harvest... but there's a bit of a problem in the form of a variety of bloodthirsty alien lifeforms populating the caverns. Fortunately, you can fight them if you know how, and useful items can be harvested from their corpses when you triumph. Many sporting miners even come to the west asteroid just for the sake of monster hunting.

File:Hivelord.gif Hivelords

Considered annoying at worst, and a free medkit at best. These strange creatures will unleash hivelord brood one after another at you whilst trying to keep distant. Fortunately, each of its spawn dies in a single hit, and deal tickle damage to you. It's best to go on the aggressive against these with pickaxe in hand, advancing constantly whilst picking away each of its brood. Once you've closed the gap or have it stuck in a corner, it's toast. It drops it's core when killed, which when eaten will instantly restore your health to its maximum, and even cure diseases or any other ailment on your body. It can magically be eaten through your helmet and breath mask! It also has the side effect of purging any beneficial chemicals from your system, so don't munch one just after injecting a stimulant. Don't think you can store these for later, though - They will spoil after a few minutes.

Attack with your pickaxe. Hack your way through the broods until the host is mush.

Goliaths

The bane of many careless miners. These monsters carry a hefty health pool, a mean wallop, and a deceptively dangerous ranged tentacle attack. They are inherently resistant to lasers, so using a kinetic accelerator is the best option regarding dealing with these. They move at a slow pace, stopping every couple seconds to burrow tentacles under you - These will trap you for a long duration if you stand on top of them for too long. Fighting them is simple: Shoot, step back, shoot, avoid tentacles. Repeat this process until it is dead and leaves a plate on the ground.

Goliath plates can be used to reinforce your hardsuit and helmet a maximum of three times, allowing you to turn your suit into something closer to a space-worthy piece of riot gear if you hunt some Goliaths. Their plates can also be used to reinforce ripleys.

File:Basilisk.png Basilisks

Fierce, territorial beasts capable of firing freezing beams, cold enough to inflict serious freeze burns while the basilisk closes in and attacks its immobilized target. Fortunately, they don't attack unless someone comes very close to them, so if you don't feel confident, you can just wait until you have a few more goliath plates, or maybe some gibonite.

Despite the slow, Basilisks can be kited. However, it is often a better idea to just melee them with your pickaxe in the event that you have several goliath plates.

Tip: Basilisks are notably weak to explosions due to the nature of their bodies, taking over half their health in damage from even the weakest of explosions. Their eye chilling beam can also be blocked by ore crates and rock walls.

Goldgrubs

Mostly harmless and quite rare. These creatures swallow up any loose, valuable ore they can find and flee when approached by a human, smashing through even solid rock on their path of escape before burrowing into the ground. A tactic toward killing one is to throw an ore towards it, and quickly charging in to kill it while it's busy eating, it's worth noting that kinetic accelerator shots do nothing against these. Their skin is reflective, requiring a pickaxe melee smackdown to ensure a kill.

Tip: When killed, they spit up multiple pieces of ore, based on what they ate. Feed them many different types of ore before killing them, and they'll spit out more of each type than you gave it! Just don't let it get away after spooking it.

The Rewards

So, you've taken your crate of ores to the ore redemption machine and claimed a boatload of points tied to your id. Head on over to the mining equipment vendors and stick your id in to claim fabulous prizes!

Mining Equipment Vendor
File:Mining vendor.png

• Stimpack MediPen - 50 pts - A cheap stimpack that stimulates your body's adrenaline but can be fatal if abused. Use 3 at a time at most. Addiction without anti tox will be lethal over time.
• Teporone MediPen - 50 pts - A MediPen that can be used to rapidly stabilize your body's temperature if your hardsuit malfunctions or you run in to local wildlife.
• MediPen Bundle - 200 pts - An addiction kit! Comes with 5 stimpacks and for some god awful reason, enough epi pens to to overdose someone and get them addicted.
• Premium Havanian Cigar - 100 pts - Inject with drugs medicine for a good time. I don't even.
• Bottle of whiskey - 150 pts - Half the components for Beepsky Smash, and has various other uses.
• Soap - 200 pts - For cleaning up those blood trails made from assistants who the HoP let in dragging downed miners from asteroid beasts. A tile based stun that is amazingly robust for it's cost. Also cleans up evidence. Can piss off gang members.
• Advanced Scanner - 300 pts - An advanced mining that automatically scans nearby asteroid walls for mineral deposits. You need one if you're mining in a mech.
• Alien Toy - 450 pts - A toy facehugger with REAL face-clinging action! Scare your friends! Tear off your enemy's breath mask in a N2O flood. Laugh as the captain and head of personnel uselessly unload their energy guns on it! Really robust little toy. Strips gas masks off people's faces and blinds them. Can cause a large issue for wizards. Unsure how to properly weaponize it else-wise.
• Laser Pointer - 400 pts - Go for the eyes! Borg stunner. Amazing during malf, or when you need to stop a borg in it's tracks and don't want to invest in EMP or trying to flash it.
• Advanced Scanner - 400 pts - A upgrade over the default Mining Scanner. This tool has a much larger detection radius of seven tiles (the entire screen), and updates more frequently. This also works from inside the Ripley mech (Just in case robotics was lazy and did not make a mining scanner for the mech).
• Point Card - 500 pts - A card with 500 mining points stored, for trading amongst your coworkers. Simply use an id over it to claim the points stored on.
• Lazarus Injector - 1000 pts - A miracle injection capable of reviving simple living beings from death, making them friendly to you and the crew. useless on humans, monkeys, and other complex living beings. Resurrect Ian for all access from a thankful Head of Personnel! Or make yourself a pet Goliath. The lazarus injector can be EMP'd to make revived mobs hostile to everyone but you. Practical uses are reviving a Goliath and killing it for additional plates, or reviving a basilisk for more diamonds. Alternatively useful for bartering with the HoP or any staff with a pet. Flood the AI core with goliaths! EMAG FOR INTENSE TRAITOR ACTIONS (Don't use goliaths for this purpose, you can't drag them.)
• Wormhole Jaunter - 600 pts - A single use device that creates a wormhole set to a random teleport beacon, creates a quick way of getting out of a sticky situation. Just try not to lose your lunch.
• Mining Drone - 500 pts - Just like what the voucher can get you but without a melee upgrade already equipped. Comes with a welding tool. Useful if you want to amass resources and are lazy. Might also help kill a mob.
• Mining Drone Melee Upgrade - 500 pts - Increases the Drone's melee damage.
• Mining Drone Health Upgrade - 400 pts - Increases the Drone's health. Note: Mining drone acquired via voucher already has this upgrade.
• Mining Drone Ranged Upgrade - 600 pts - Decreases the Drone's ranged weapon's cooldown.
• Mining Drone AI Upgrade - 1000 pts - This upgrade allows a high tech AI (grants ghost control over the drone) to overtake your mining drone, making it an even more useful ally when mining to guard your back from xenomorphs and traitors, or to collect those valuable ores for you.
• Resonator - 650 pts - A handheld device that creates small fields of energy that resonate until they detonate, crushing rock. It can also be activated without a target to create a field at the user's location, to act as a delayed time trap. It's more effective in a vacuum. Inferior to the Kinetic Accelerator, but better for newbies or people who just want to mine faster.
• Kinetic Crusher - 750 pts - A powerful melee weapon. Shoots kinetic bolts that don't deal damage, but can mark large creatures making the hammer deal increased damage when used on them. It will deal even greater damage on backstab.
• Kinetic Accelerator - 650 pts - A deadly short-range kinetic shotgun that puts internal organs on the outside when in vacuums. Or, you know, you can crush rocks with it too I guess. Most Robust.
• Jetpack - 1500 pts - Has a special miner paint job so security won't beat you for stealing from EVA. Best bang for buck, can fit into your backpack if needed, but at the cost of some capacity. To function it needs to be put into your backpack slot.
• 1000 Space Cash - 2000 pts - DOSH! Bribe the gods!
• Gar Mesons - 500 pts - Stylish new Mesons, that are functionally the same as regular ones. Except the fact they are extremely pointy, can be used to stab people to death (10 brute) and have a tendency to get embedded into people like a throwing star.
• Brute First-Aid Kit - 600 pts - Contains bandages and brute-healing patches
• Silver Pickaxe - 1000 pts - Slightly better than the default pickaxe, but still a lot worse than your starting KA.
• Lazarus Capsule - 800 pts - A device used to capture creatures revived with the Lazarus Injector and carry them around on your person. Activate and toss the capsule to release the creature.
• Lazarus Capsule Belt - 200 pts - A belt that can hold up to six Lazarus Capsules.
• Diamond Pickaxe - 2000 pts - For when you want something shinier and better than your default pickaxe and the scientists are either too lazy or too dead to make drills or jackhammers. STILL worse than a basic KA.
• Super Resonator - 2000 pts - Like the regular resonator, but able to have 5 fields active at a time.
• Super Kinetic Accelerator - 3000 pts - An upgraded version of the proto-kinetic accelerator, with superior damage, speed and range.

The Ores

Wall	Raw Ore	Point Value	Processed Ore	Coin	Door	Name	Uses
	File:Ironore.png	1			File:Door iron.gif	Iron	For just about everything.
	File:Ironore.pngFile:Plasmaore.png	N/A	Metal_r.png			Plasteel	An alloy of iron and plasma, for AI cores and reinforced walls. Can now be produced via the ore redemption machine.
File:Sand.png	File:Sandore.png	1				Sand	For making glass, which has a plethora of station applications. Activate sand in your hand to make sandstone bricks. These can be used to make dirt which can be used to grow plants.
	File:Sandore.pngFile:Ironore.png	N/A	File:Glass r.png			Reinforced Glass	For reinforced glass, which is tougher than normal glass.
	File:Goldore.png	20				Gold	For making various electronics or pimping out Beepsky.
	File:Silverore.png	20				Silver	Making dosh, mechs, and researching Bluespace.
	File:Plasmaore.png	40				Plasma	Ship sheets back to CentComm for bonus supply points.
	File:Uraniumore.png	20				Uranium	For making you radioactive (notice: no joke, this shit is deadly as a wall or a door). Delicious cocktails.
	File:Diamondore.png	40				Diamond	For making mech parts, among other industrial uses.
File:GibtoniteWall.gif	File:Gibtoniteore.png	N/A				Gibtonite	For trolling miners blowing shit up, whether they be solid asteroid or other things. Hitting it with your mining tools will start a chain reaction. If you don't stop the reaction with your mining scanner in time, the gibtonite will explode. If you do, you can mine the ore, pick it up (you need both hands free) and use it as an explosive. The closer the gibtonite was to exploding before defused, the more potent its power. Cannot be forged or turned in to the ore redemption machine, so don't bring any of this to the station or else you'll be arrested ignored by security because they don't know what the hell it is. How to obtain Gibtonite: Hit ore, count to 8 flashes of the ore then hit it with your scanner. Gibtonite varies in the number of reactions it has, so you may get lower quality ore. Use 2 of the 0 reaction ores (the most potent) to blow open the AI core and make it cry at it's malf failure!
	File:Bananimumore.png	30		File:Coin bananium.png		Bananium	A rare and unusual mineral found exclusively in clown-controlled space. Used only for the H.O.N.K. mech.

Additionally, bluespace crystals have started to form on mining. These crystals can be used in various ways. Give it to science to increase bluespace science, or hold onto it to use as a risk free jaunter, or throw it at people to make them teleport randomly (often into space.)

Who Needs What

Miners don't have to deliver ores directly to departments -- they can if they want, or if those bastards are too lazy to leave their fortress of autism science -- but it never hurts to know what to aim for.

• Scientists just want a little (10-15 of each is enough to last them the entire round) uranium, plasma, diamond and gold. In exchange, they may give you a bomb or more advanced mining tools like a Sonic Jackhammer or a Diamond Drill, both for even faster digging!
• Roboticists need diamond, uranium, silver and gold for building mech parts. Give them enough and you've indirectly helped out most of the departments on the station if the Roboticists are competent enough to build helpful stompy mechs for everybody! Too bad the Ripley is the only good mech for mining.
• The Quartermaster may want plasma sheets to trade them in for bonus supply points.
• Everybody could always use more iron, glass and plasteel, but especially Roboticists and Station Engineers.
• A Clown with Bananium is a grateful and dangerous ally.
• The Bartender can use a few sheets of uranium or iron to craft some of his rarest cocktails.

Secrets of the Asteroid

While on the asteroid, you may come upon small boxed structures, usually made of plasma or reinforced walls. Dig in through openings, or use the blue toolbox in the hardsuit room to break down that wall and discover your prize! They could have items ranging from magical artifacts to alien facehuggers. A plasma wall doesn't necessarily mean an alien, always check. If you are at all unsure, always let your mining buddies know using :u before you tear down that wall.

You may randomly find a facehugger in one of the treasure rooms. Do not infect yourself with the facehugger. This makes the admins very cross. If you are an antagonist, or a responsible parent with a xeno baby den set up somewhere full of monkeys, you should consider yourself as having more leeway. Do not try to pick the facehugger up. Construct a locker and put the hugger in the locker, dragging it back to the station. It'll leap at the vulnerable targets it sees once it's re-opened.

Some super useful Treasures you might find while mining include:

• A mysterious medibot. It is black , and heals significantly better than other types.
• A Grinder. The limits depend on your ability to use it yourself.
• Cultist Armor, Faster than the mining one but can't be upgraded. Also can get you arrested.
• Various spellbooks. Ranging smoke, knock and blind. In the hands of a good miner, can make a huge difference.
• An E-cutlass. Considered one of the rarest and most desired items from mining, An e-sword in all regards.
• Creature : The creature comes from the Cultist room, if you are a traitor , emagging the laz injector gives you a potent ally that's fast and lethal.
• Soul Stone : Useful for slaving people as a traitor, less useful to non antags.
• Sonic Jackhammer : Breaks walls. ALL OF THEM. Requires power though.

Tips

• Always go with at least 2 other people when mining. Not only can you mine faster together, the chance that they could both be 'lings/traitors is rather low. Pickaxe to the skull tends to put down most people.
• If you have a pickaxe in your non-active hand you can walk into ores and walls to automine them. What's even better, if you are holding a mining satchel in your active hand clicking the ores you just mined will NOT disrupt any more mining you are doing, meaning you can walk in a wall, start mining automatically, and then keep walking and pick the ore up as you go, AND unloading into an ore box you may (should) be dragging. Heck, you don't even need to click on the ore sprite, you just need to click the tile! Mining borgs can choke on it!
• If you have access, there are two first-aid kits and a sleeper on the mining station.
• You can view the contents of a mining satchel as if it were a backpack.
• Durands only require uranium and silver, which are abundant. Gygaxes require diamond, which is very rare in most cases. So if you find just 5 diamond, to get yourself a diamond drill, and mine out shit tons of metal, uranium and silver, you can make it Durand station 13!
• Wish soup is made of 20 units of water and nothing else, but sometimes (~25% of the time) will actually be generated with nutriment you can actually get full on. Meaning it's one of the only things you can make with the non-kitchen microwaves once the donk pockets run out. It's also the only thing you can make on the DJ station at all without importing ingredients (provided you bring something to hold the water in).
• From the Questions thread: Ctrl-Z (with no hotkey-mode) or just Z (with hotkey-mode on) apparently cocks the combat/mining shotgun. No more clicking in between shots!
• When mining alone, it's better to take the resonator. The gun doesn't do as much damage, is harder to use, and requires that you be right next to your target constantly, increasing the risk that you'll be stunned, pulverized, and your body guarded so you won't get back into the game. With the resonator, you can stand four or five tiles away at all times, wait for the tentacle attack, dodge it, move in, place a field(or two, if you feel robust), and move back out with a low risk of harm, and no risk of being stunned.
• Minebots are great at distracting targets. You just walk near and bash them with your drill (targets, not bots). They can take quite a beating, but goliaths can take them down pretty quickly if you're not quick enough. Plus they collect all the crap gibtonite left.
• The Proto-kinetic Accelerator can destroy electrified grilles without needing a pair of insulated gloves.
• The Proto-kinetic Accelerator will obliterate a space carp in one hit while in space.
• Hivelords drop remains which heals all damage and can be eaten without taking off your mask/helmet, but becomes useless fast and will remove stimulants from your body!
• Lazarus Injectors no longer make resurrected mobs hostile to other players, only other NPC mobs, and goliaths can't be dragged around once resurrected.
• The Head of Personnel will probably reward you with all access if you resurrect Ian. Also, sometimes the Research Director will reward you for a pet gold grub.
• If you're expecting trouble on the station, consider taking out a window on the mining shuttle before you return to make a quick getaway so you're not trapped like a rat in a cage.
• Taking stimulants before delivering materials to science will help keep you alive.
• The mining drone can be repaired with a welding tool, but not in the middle of a fight. A goliath will always win in a one on one fight with a mining drone.
• There are microwaves and a box of donks in every mining station that you can use for healing.
• Life improving things:
  • Mining rig upgrade : Goliath plates add +10% melee resist each time when applied to a rig, ideally if you're just mining you'd want to solely apply that to your chest piece. When maxed out you'll be able to fight a goliath without kiting and take minor damage. It is recommended to apply plates to the head instead if you plan to antag as players more often target your head. The plates will stack until they reach 80%. That makes your suit a space worthy riot suit.
  • Security Jumpsuit : This gives a +10% melee resist to everywhere but your head. Nag the QM or HoP to give you one.
  • Augmentations : Augs are VERY useful for miners, as healing with a welder is ultimately easier. Plus they work differently than armor when it comes to protection, instead reducing all brute damage taken by an augmented body part by 5 (4 for burn). Downside : EMP vulnerability.
  • If these all 3 are combined you become close to immune to melee, only a ninja's energy blade is robust enough to even so much as scratch you, and blobs are utterly hopeless. However, guns are still a threat, and anybody can still surprise you with a stunprod and strip away your precious +4 rig. And be wary, the gods may not take kindly to your hubris.
• Proto Accelerators can be used as infinite tools to navigate space , since every time you fire, it'll throw you in the opposite direction.