Shaft Miner
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  Shaft Miner |
Access: Mining Station, Mining Station EVA, Cargo Office Difficulty: Medium Supervisors: Quartermaster and Head of Personnel Rank: Not defined Duties: Mine ores and process them into useful materials. Kill hostile wildlife. Guides: no external guide |
Welcome Miner, to the wonderful caverns of this Nanotrasen Claimed Asteroid.
Workin' In The Coal Mine
Being a miner can be somewhat boring, unless you go out and fight monsters. Just follow a few guidelines here to keep yourself from becoming dead in the mines. 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!
Take your Mining Pick in one hand and your Satchel in your active hand. Run into a rock. You're now automatically digging in it. Use this to mine using only your keyboard, for a quicker done job.
Working With Your Boss
Who is your boss? The answer is the Quartermaster. Generally he won't butt into any of your affairs other than (if he knows what he's doing) attempt to coordinate your efforts for the good of the station. After returning to the station with a load of minerals, hand them to the Quartermaster to distribute them for you. Or do it yourself, if you actually want some of those handy mining tools the R&D lab can produce.
The Objective
You're here to mine, so get digging! Once you're full to bursting with ores, drag your crate to the smelting room just across the way from the shuttle you took to get to the mining station. There, you can use the machines and computers to smelt raw ore to its finished states and stack them up to 50-count piles. From there, just ship everything to the Cargo Bay and it's off to wherever those resources need to be. Hopefully you have a Cargo Technician for that. Back to the mines!
The Gear
The following is a list of default mining equipment:
Mining Hardsuit and Helmet - 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. Get an O2 tank from the tank dispenser, and wear it on your backsuit.
Meson Scanners and 32px Mining Scanner - When used together will briefly flash any non-iron ore on screen.
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.
Lantern - For seeing in the dark. Put one in your pocket. Or three.
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.)- 32px Ore Crate - 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.
Crowbar - Just in case coming back from the mines you notice there is a black out. Spawns in your backpack.
Mining Voucher - Found in your backpack, exchange this at the mining equipment locker for your choice of one of...
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 two 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.
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.
The Ores
| Wall | Raw Ore | Processed Ore | Coin | Door | Name | Uses |
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Iron | For just about everything. |
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Plasteel | An alloy of iron and plasma, for AI cores and reinforced walls | |||
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Sand | For making glass, which has a plethora of station applications. Also used to make dirt, something not wanted by Hydroponics. | |
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Reinforced Glass | For reinforced glass, which is tougher than normal glass | |||
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Gold | For making various electronics or pimping out Beepsky. |
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Silver | Making dosh, mechs, and researching Bluespace. |
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Plasma | Ship sheets back to Centcom for bonus supply points. |
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Uranium | For making you radioactive. Delicious cocktails. |
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Diamond | For making mech parts, among other industrial uses. |
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Bananium | A rare and unusual mineral found only in clown-controlled space. Used for the H.O.N.K. mech. | |
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Gibtonite | For |
Who Needs What
- Scientists just want a little uranium, plasma, diamond and gold. Refine a little of each for research (5-10 blocks each should do it). In exchange, they may give you a bomb or more advanced mining tools (like a sonic jackhammer or diamond drill), both for even faster digging!
- Roboticists need diamond, uranium, silver and gold for building mech parts. Give them enough and you might get a big, fancy machine for your troubles! Too bad the Ripley is the only good mech for mining.
- The Quartermaster would want you to send them plasma sheets so they can trade them in for bonus supply points.
- Everybody could always use more iron, glass and plasteel, but especially Station Engineers and Roboticists.
- The Virologist, Chemist and Xenobiologist will all appreciate having extra plasma.
- 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.
Buried Secrets
Deep within the asteroid resides strange and unusual artifacts just waiting to be found. If you notice something unusual on your Meson Scanners, check it out!
Structures
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! The two main things you will usually find are loot caches or 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.
Dead Space
A traitorous miner has a lot of advantages. You have a space suit for free right away, a pair of gloves, access to highly explosive minerals, you start with a robust pickaxe and can also buy very dangerous "mining" tools and possibly even revive those monsters you've been fighting. As long as you have some mineral wealth or an ore box with you, no one will suspect your presence around the station, even in highly restricted areas like robotics or toxins, and if you are smart enough, you could get a big stompy mech to drill people to death! In addition, the mining station is isolated, hard to get to, and as expansive as you're willing to dig out. Plenty of room for somebody to get lost in... Forever!
