Mining Basics Part 2: Controlling Your Costs

Seems appropriate to make this the next topic of discussion. This is a continuation of the following post: http://entropiauniverseguide.blogspot.com/2011/12/mining-basics-part-1-pointers-for-noobs.html#comments

If you don't like the standard costs for prospecting (1 ped / 20 probes) or surveying (0.50 Ped / 10 probes), there is another option.

You may obtain a rookie finder and use rookie bombs. I believe it is 10 pecs per drop each for ore or enmatter, and 20 pecs if dropping both.  So you are spending 2 probes for ore and 2 probes for enmatter.

Your claims are going to be much smaller too, but people still global and even hof on a rookie finder. I have hit VIII's with my first few rookie bombs. This is useful for skilling, or testing a new area you aren't sure if you want to risk a more costly run on. And if you come by your peds the hard way and don't want to lose them fast, this might be a safer option for you.

If unamped mining is too low of a stake for you, you may join the "high rollers" and purchase amps.

The amplifiers will increase your cost per drop, thereby increasing your claim sizes. I believe every claim has a base size, and that your decay puts into effect a multiplier value that is unknown to all but the system. In this way, everyone is proportionately rewarded according to their spend.

However, it is curious that you might not hof or global with an amp but soon as you take it off, your hofs and globals start happening. Don't be discouraged. I recommend you follow the rule of thumb of 5 levels of skill per level of amp. And I don't recommend going past a level 2 or 3 until you are well above level 20.

By the time you reach the biggest of the amps, you are spending up to 10 peds to drop for ore. And if what I hear about amps costing the same decay no matter what you do, then it reasons that enmatters will cost about 9.50 peds per drop, or almost 20 peds when combined, and this doesn't take into account the markup of the amp. As you can see, it is quite possible to wager a significant amount if you so choose, or you may play for almost literally, peanuts.

Rookie Bomb Global/Hof: Fact or Fiction?

Since I have personally witnessed this happen a few times, it is definitely fact. However it seems strange to spend ten times the money on bombs and never hit one, yet buy a few peds worth of noob bombs and get globals. Consider that a rookie bomb costs as much as a click at basic filters crafting.

Although I have a theory as to why the Rookie bombs have been so effective for so many people... I mean on my first try just for the hell of it, I put two peds into a run, and came up with an VIII lysterium when I couldn't even hit a V amped with a normal finder. Seems ridiculous, right?

Well, I have observed most big hofs happen at shallow depths of say 150 to 300m... At least this is what I observe. They are quite shallow. The reason I believe is that most people go for the deeper finders. not to mention that a shallow finder isn't quite deep enough either. Well, statistically you can hit a few 1m depth deposits with a normal finder, but by and large this is uncommon.

Presumably the system spawns 1 to 5 m depth deposits, and since they can't generally be hit by normal full size finders, they perhaps grow. A rookie has a tenth of the multiplier that a full cost bomb has if mining... So you can expect what ever you find is one tenth the size of what you would have found if using a normal finder. Well, say you have a global of 50 peds on a rookie at shallow depths... A full cost bomb drop should have technically gave you around 500 peds... Is it not foreseeable that a 500 ped deposit is laying right under the surface?

Hitting a rookie global is no more strange than hitting a basic filters global, but the fact so many people have done it with such ease has me wondering why I was still using normal finders :-)