Mining! Type 8 / Type 11

There’s been quite the spate of mining in game recently. And lately I’ve been doing very little else, using a variety of ships to do it.

Now I’ve mainly been using the Type 8 and then switching to the Type 11 once it became available, but it’s not really fair to talk about these two ships as mining vessels without going first to what used to be, and for some still is, the meta mining medium vessel.

The Python Mk I

It always was a fine mining ship. This is the RushFleet’s Python Mk I the La Villa Strangiato and I had originally outfitted her to be a Robigo runner, packed with economy passenger cabins to take insalubrious passengers on the same sightseeing mission over and over again, avoiding any contract breaking scans from curious law enforcement ships. Then, toward the latter half of the latest Thargoid war, I had outfitted her to be a Thargoid scout sampler, but I never managed to actually go and sample any scouts as handing in samples suddenly stopped being the meta method of reducing thargoid influence in a system. And so she had languished in her hanger on board Garden ever since.

Along comes the latest mining community goal. I already have the Type 8, and I had just purchased the Type 11. What to name them both, I wondered? I remembered the La Villa Strangiato and the idea of names sprung into my head.

More about those later.

La Villa Strangiato is a more than capable mining ship of course and has been the go to mining ship for years. She surface mines with two medium mining lasers, and can also add a seismic charge launcher, sub surface displacement missile and abrasion blaster in the three large slots. Everything you need, although she did begin to feel a little sluggish manoeuvring around a core asteroid to find all the fissures.

Type 8 Transporter

Time to move to the Type 8! Introducing the Danforth and Pape!

I’m pretty sure the general consensus on the Type 8 is it’s a magnificent looking ship!

I’ve used the Danforth and Pape for haulage and it performs rather well. Especially using her SCO to quickly reach those distant outposts where the biggest profits can be made. But by far the most fun I’ve had in a Type 8 is mining.

As far as core mining goes, she feels great manoeuvring around the asteroids, carefully placing the seismic charges and then backing off to a safe distance. Its design gives it a wonderfully immersive utilitarian vibe, similar to the Keelback (another marvellous Lakon vessel). This also works wonderfully as you carefully pilot her through the dusty mist of the asteroid’s shattered remains, picking off the freshly revealed deposits with an abrasion blaster.

The main problem with the Type 8 as a miner, however, which puts it at a slight disadvantage to the Python is the tiny size 4 power distributor. And because she only has one medium hardpoint and five small that means I have to use the seismic launcher in the medium slot along with four small mining lasers and a small abrasion blaster.

Even so I have to fully engineer the power distributor for weapons in order for her to be an effective laser miner which I don’t necessarily have to do with the old python. Even the power generator had to be engineered in order to accommodate the shields and shield boosters. Not everyone uses such a large defence when mining but sometimes I like to have a bit of resilience in case I need to escape.

Danforth and Pape

Danforth and Pape is a crossroads in Toronto where Danforth Avenue intersects with Pape Avenue.

It is also the seventh section of the track “La Villa Strangiato” , the last track on Rush’s Hemispheres album, based on a particularly vivid dream Alex had been having. The intersection is known to get raucously busy during rush hour and is also home to several Greek and Mediterranean restaurants. The only words in the entire track here are spoken by Geddy in Yiddish and they go something like this:

“Patchy patchy kikhelekh, Zaydie v’kayfn shikhelekh, Bubie v’kayfn zekhlekh, A gezunt un (child’s name)’s bekhlekh!”

Roughly translated this turns out as, “Patty cake, Patty cake, Mother’s going to buy you shoes, Father’s going to buy you socks, Baby’s going to have red cheeks”

Quite why this is there is anyone’s guess.

I thought it appropriate to name my mining vessels as pieces of the track under which my original mining vessel the Python Mk I was named. Which brings us nicely onto my next ship, the Ghost of the Aragon (part six of La Villa Strangiato).

Type 11 Prospector

Finally I present my Type II prospector! Just like the Lakon Type 8 the Type 11 has that wonderfully immersive utilitarian feel to her. But there is a bit of a problem.

She is almost too good at what she does!

As far as manoeuvring is concerned, she thunders easily and effortlessly through the asteroid fields. She also is almost as nimble as the Keelback when it comes to searching for fissures or squeezing through the split remains of a cored rock. The offset cockpit didn’t put me off one bit and even added to the whole JCB aesthetic of the vessel.

The mining volley repeater or, as I am now going to exclusively call it, the “Spuff Canon” (thanks to Lave Radio’s Question of the Week and particularly Ser Obaeron for this) makes short work of surface mining and I was able to easily fill a hold of 262 tons well within 25 minutes. This included two upgraded size 6 racks and two upgraded size 5 racks won from a previous community goal. The Mk II mining multi limpet controller rather helped with this too although I used it exclusively for collector limpets, yep, all fourteen collector limpets and once the asteroid had been fully spuffed, I had plenty of time to send prospector limpets off from my separate prospector controller and would usually find another high percentage asteroid or two by the time the collectors had stuffed everything into the refinery.

I finally abandoned using a shield altogether in order to bring my total cargo capacity to 326t. It was a risk as I hadn’t bothered to fit even a reinforced hull. This is where the dedicated SLF bay came in very handy. On more than one occasion I had to send out the SLF with a brave crew member to distract a greedy pirate while I managed to boost in the other direction. That SLF saved my ship many, many times. Now, with the extra cargo, I was pushing 600 tons per hour which included trips back to Garden (the Rushfleet’s Fleet Carrier) to drop off a full load.

The problem is now, there’s no way I can go back to any other ship for mining!