// SYSTEMS
Mining
How to pull ore out of an asteroid without blowing up your cargo hold
Mining is the supply chain underneath everything else. Weapon crafting needs ore. Shield crafting needs ore. Station rations need ore. Every system in the game eventually terminates at a player parked next to a rock, staring at a progress bar, waiting for refined metals to drop into their cargo.
The system is intentionally simple to operate. The complexity is in knowing which sectors produce which ores and making sure you're in the right one.
How It Works
- Find a resource asteroid. Every sector from starter zones to endgame has mineable nodes. They're visible on your sensors as distinct objects — different icon from planets, stations, or nav points.
- Approach. Get within 30 units.
- Start mining. Select the node and trigger the mine action. A progress bar appears.
- Wait. Base mine time is 5–12 seconds depending on the ore tier. Higher-tier ore takes longer.
- Yield. When the timer ends, a randomized amount of ore (within the node's min-max range) goes to your cargo.
- Node depletes. The asteroid visibly depletes and becomes inert for a respawn window before it can be mined again.
If your cargo is full when mining completes, the yield is lost and a warning message fires. Dock and sell or store before topping up again.
Ore Tiers by Sector
Ore tier is tied to sector level. Higher-level sectors have harder mobs and harder-to-reach rocks, but they also produce the rarer ores that top-tier crafting recipes demand.
| Sector Level | Ore Pool | Mine Time | Yield | Respawn |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1–9 | Iron Ore, Copper Ore, Silicon Deposit | 5s | 2–5 | 60s |
| 10–19 | Ferrite, Carbon Compound, Titanium Ore | 6s | 2–4 | 90s |
| 20–29 | Cobalt Ore, Ferrite, Carbon Compound | 7s | 2–4 | 120s |
| 30–44 | Tungsten Ore, Cobalt Ore, Plasma Crystal | 8s | 1–3 | 150s |
| 45–59 | Stellite, Plasma Crystal, Tungsten Ore | 10s | 1–3 | 180s |
| 60+ | Aurite, Quantum Dust, Stellite | 12s | 1–2 | 240s |
Rule of thumb: if you need a specific ore, find the lowest-level sector band where it appears. That's where the mining pressure is lightest and the asteroids are easiest to reach.
The Ore Catalog
Tier 1 (entry)
- Iron Ore — base metal, ubiquitous. Refined into Alloy Plate. Backbone of every low-tier recipe.
- Copper Ore — conductor, used in all electrical components.
- Silicon Deposit — refined into Circuit Board. Electronics and scanners want silicon.
Tier 2 (mid-low)
- Ferrite — iron-nickel ore. Natural magnetism makes it the Mk II standard for coil fabrication.
- Carbon Compound — dense carbon lattice; composite structural material.
- Titanium Ore — lightweight premium metal for hull and armor plating.
Tier 3 (mid)
- Cobalt Ore — magnetic mineral. Engine coils and some reactors.
- Tungsten Ore — ultra-dense refractory metal. Projectile rounds, reactor containment, anything that needs to survive heat.
Tier 4 (upper-mid)
- Plasma Crystal — naturally occurring plasma lattice. Stores significant energy density; bridges into exotic crafting.
- Stellite — unusually dense exotic ore. Found only in high-radiation asteroid fields in contested space.
Tier 5 (endgame)
- Aurite — dense exotic ore from deep-field clusters. High-precision optics and advanced magnetic assemblies.
- Quantum Dust — exotic matter particles. Exhibits quantum superposition at macro scale. Endgame crafting ingredient.
Aurite and Quantum Dust are the items that gate Mk V crafting recipes. They don't appear outside the deepest sectors, which means the economy's supply is bottlenecked by how many players can survive in those sectors at any given time.
Yield Stacking
Base yield can be increased by several sources, stacked multiplicatively where appropriate.
- Prospect skill (passive, any class) — +10% yield per skill level
- Outrider racial perk — +15% on any resource node
- Mining Booster (consumable) — +50% for 120 seconds, stacks with skill
- Guild "Cargo Expansion" amenity — doesn't increase yield, but increases cargo capacity so you can mine longer before docking
- Oracle Psionic Read on node — reveals guaranteed yield breakdown before mining commits
Professions with dedicated yield perks (Outrider, deep Prospect investment) can roughly double base yields at rank 7. A focused miner is notably more productive than a combat pilot with the same equipment.
Where Asteroids Live
Every sector with a level range has mineable content. The current world has 127 mining nodes seeded across 21 sectors. Each sector's ore composition is drawn from its tier band (see table above). Within a sector, nodes are scattered at different distances from the origin — a full sweep of a sector takes roughly 3–5 minutes even without interruptions.
Hostile mobs in the same sector will aggro on mining ships. Combat classes often mine as a secondary activity; trader classes mine where they can and hire escorts where they can't.
Troubleshooting
"Too far away" — You're more than 30u from the node. Approach closer.
"Already mining" — You have an active mining operation. Cancel or wait for completion.
"Resource depleted" — The node was mined recently and is in its respawn window. Check another rock in the same sector or come back after the respawn timer.
Cargo loss warning on complete — Your cargo filled up mid-mine. Dock, offload, return.
No mining button — You don't have the resource node actually selected. Click the asteroid, confirm your target panel shows it, then initiate.