Guide to Mining

Mining is a job that can range from blandly safe to life-threateningly dangerous at the drop of a hat. Hazards can range from dangerous alien wildlife, to meteor belts, to roving bands of pirates out to steal your livelihood. Nevertheless, you are the Horizon's main source for precious materials, and in the wake of the phoron shortage, any hint of phoron you can unearth will gain the Operations account a hefty sum.

Your Base of Operations

This is the mining bay, your base of operations. It is located on deck one, just underneath the Operations Lobby. If you spawn in at roundstart, you'll start out in your locker room.

The mining bay of the SCCV Horizon.

Important Equipment

Within the orange lockers, you will find some items to help you start out your shift. This basic gear will be your way to gain some mining points so that you can gain better, more efficient gear (more on that later). Below is a list of the gear found in the lockers.

• Global positioning unit (GPS): A tool for tracking your position, and having others track your position, in case of emergency. To interact with it, click on the GPS while it is in your hand.
• Shortwave radio: A handheld radio that allows you to talk through communications while you're out of range of the Horizon's network. You can speak into it by prefacing your text with :r or :l, depending on which hand the radio is in.
• Ore detector: Alt-click on this nifty device to open a menu allowing you to pick which ores you can detect. Once you've selected them, click on the scanner while in hand to turn it on; ore will be highlighted on your screen with a green light over the tile it's on.
• Kinetic accelerator: Your primary mining tool; a ranged tool of sorts that allows you to clear rocks with compressed air. In order to fire it, you need to pump it by clicking Unique Firing Action on your UI, next to your hands.
• Pickaxe: A standard pickaxe that will break down a rock face in around three swings. Note that the pickaxe must be wielded by activating it in your hand for it to break rock walls quickly-- otherwise, it is incredibly slow.
• Shovel: Can be used to dig up sand and other minerals that may be lurking within the ground.
• Mining Satchel: Clicking on a tile with this bag will pick up all the ore on said tile into the bag for quick storage. While you're holding it in a hand, you can also walk over a tile and it automatically picks up ore for you. You can also store it on your belt!
• Analyzer: Click on this to get a reading of the atmosphere of your chosen mining site.

Kinetic Accelerators

Kinetic Accelerators (or, just KA for short) are handheld devices made to clear out both rock and hostile wildlife in a 3x3 tile radius. KAs are heavily unique depending on what you find; some KAs provide capacity for many shots without re-pumping again. Some KAs, however, may not work at all, and may print out an error code. The reason why is that KAs require parts to function.

As well as the frame of the KA, a KA requires 2 parts, a pump and a power converter. Optionally you can add a upgrade card to the KA that improves a certain aspect of the KA build. The frame of the KA limits what parts you can install (for example, a compact frame may only allow basic parts, while a heavy one allows more complex and advanced parts). If a KA happens to print out an error code, use a wrench to mix up certain parts; sometimes it may be a problem with a specific part. Examine parts and experiment!

The warehouse has a possibility of having unique KAs, and if you’re lucky, really good ones. Merchants may also sell parts. However a standard light KA from the mining locker is always a trusted choice as well.

EVA Equipment

Inside your locker room, you will find a rack with voidsuits, helmets, and magboots. Naturally, these are very important to be wearing in case you are mining in space or on a planet with a hostile environment. Begin by gathering up your helmet, suit, and magboots; if you're a human, you can attach the helmet and boots to the voidsuit by clicking on the suit while holding the equipment.

If you're a different species, you need to put the voidsuit and helmet (unattached to each other) in a suit cycler, then set it to your race. After cycling the suit, you can then attach everything to the voidsuit.

Next, move to the tank storage unit and deposit an oxygen tank. Fill it at an oxygen canister, then attach the oxygen tank to your voidsuit.

Other Gear

• Ore boxes: The boxes that will hold all of your ore while you mine. Can be dragged around behind you easily, and comfortably loaded on the front of the Spark (but remember that the front of the Spark is in a vacuum while you're on the Horizon). They work most efficiently with ore satchels; pick up the ore with the satchel and click on the ore box with the satchel in-hand to transfer all of its contents into the box. When you've returned from your mining trip, they can be placed against the unloading machine. This will deposit its contents on the conveyor belt to the ore smelter.
• Portable suit cooling units: Used by IPCs to prevent overheating within voidsuits and hardsuits. Xion Industrial and Hephaestus G2 IPCs can wear suit coolers on their back and do not require a suit. Other IPC types, however, require a suit as well as a cooler in the suit storage slot.
• Mechanical toolbox: A toolbox containing a standard set of tools. Useful for adding and removing power cells and modules to hardsuits.
• Mobile ladder: A ladder that can be placed either below an open space (allowing the user to travel up a level) or on an open space (allowing the user to travel down a level).
• Hoist kit: A deployable and collapsible hoist that can be used to raise or lower objects between levels. To use the hoist kit, first click and drag the object to the clamp using your mouse. Next, click on the green frame of the hoist kit; this will give a message stating that you reverse the direction. Clicking the green frame again will raise or lower the clamp and thus, the object attached (however an object does not need to be attached for the hoist to raise/lower). To detach an object from the hoist, drag the clamp to an empty tile adjacent to the hoist that is not blocked. If there is nowhere to unclamp to, you can click and drag the hoist to your own tile, as this also works.

The Spark (and how to fly it)

See also: Guide to Piloting

Important: Don't walk into the doors by the Spark marked with "Vacuum" unless you're wearing a voidsuit. As the sign implies, there's no pressure, and you'll pop your lungs.

The SCCV Spark is the mining shuttle of the SCCV Horizon. Coming with a can of CO2 already attached to its thruster line, and having a functional sensor suite while docked to its main ship, it is very self-sufficient. Piloting it properly means you don't need to wait for the Horizon to ferry you to every away site.

The Spark will probably need an extra tank of fuel to move across the map in any great capacity. It's also a good idea to just have one in case of emergencies. To fill up your CO2 canister, use a wrench on your canister and drag it over to the Fuel Bay, which is just to the right of the Spark's hangar, beside the Intrepid. Open up the glass door, attach the canister to the rightmost connector, and turn on the pump. After a few minutes, you should have a decent amount of CO2 in the canister (roughly 5,000 kPa).

The Horizon will usually spawn next to an asteroid, planet, or other away site that you can mine freely. However, there may come a time when there's no away sites in range, and you have to actually pilot the ship. Finding these sites can be painful without the help of a sensor readout; these spawn at every communication console a few minutes into the round, and will list which away sites are in the sector. They will point to the radial direction that the away site is in; this means if a lush exoplanet is bearing 90 degrees, it's directly north of the Horizon.

An outline of what direction a bearing indicates.

While the Guide to Piloting will help with all the fine details, a new miner should remember the following:

• DON'T USE AUTOPILOT. It will take you on the straightest path to your destination possible-- through every hazard, with no regard for fuel.
• Enable the fuel pump to thrusters. This pump is helpfully labelled Fuel Tank to Thrusters; you can turn it on by clicking it and setting the output to MAX. This ensures that fuel will flow to your thrusters, and you can actually fly the shuttle.
• Set your engine thrusters to a value less than 100%. You can set the thrust percentage by clicking on the engine control console. You really don't need any more than 70-80%, and it means you'll conserve fuel.
• Your sensors don't activate immediately. You don't have to fly at the speed of molasses to make sure you don't bang up the shuttle, but if you're new to piloting, it's best to take it slow so you know what's in front of you.
• Inertia is a harsh mistress. In space, an object in motion stays in motion; you need to apply a reverse burn (or pressing the X on the center of your flight controls) to properly stop the Spark. You're not just going to slow down.

In case of emergency...

• You drifted into an electrical storm and lost power! Eject your ID, walk over to the Spark APC, and swipe your ID through the APC. This will unlock the APC, and allow you to control it. Turn all the options (Lighting, equipment, and environment) to AUTO. Now, go over to the power storage unit and turn it back on. This should give you the power to get the hell out of dodge.
• You're dying of something! Use the NanoMed in the Spark to vend bandages to bandage any bleeding. Vend an inaprovaline injector to stabilize you. If you're in pain, vend a Perconol pill. If you can't breathe, vend a blue low oxygenation pouch.
• You're lost on the surface of a planet/asteroid! Take out your GPS (you did bring your GPS, right?), open up the interface, and find the SPARK on the drop-down menu. Click on the button next to it labelled Compass. Marvel as you are now able to see the direction the Spark is in.
• Something's chasing you! Shoot it with a kinetic accelerator, you big baby. A full blast from a kinetic accelerator can take out a space carp in one hit; sharks and eels, however, are a little tougher.

Mining

Once you've actually touched down on an away site, it's time to cycle out of the Spark and start hunting for those ore veins.

Click on the internal access button next to the airlock to open it, and be sure to turn on your oxygen tank (on the right side of the screen) before you cycle. At the top left of your screen, you can turn on your helmet light by clicking the button that looks like your helmet. Grab your ore box and get to exploring for ore! Make sure to prioritize high-value ores like silver, gold, diamond, and platinum. You can set your ore detector to highlight these veins.

Safe kinetic accelerator use

You're going to be using your kinetic accelerator most of the time while you mine, as it's the fastest and simplest way to clear an area of rocks. Using a kinetic accelerator is simple:

1. Hold the kinetic accelerator in both hands by clicking on it while you have an empty hand highlighted.
2. Use the Unique Firing Action button, right next to your hands on your UI, to pump the kinetic accelerator.
3. Click on an area in front of you to fire the accelerator. The area is 3 tiles by 3 tiles if you're using a default one.

It's best to stand at least a tile away from any rock you want to clear with your KA; catching yourself in your own KA blast can be a quick and easy way to hurt yourself. In the worst case scenario, you can even break your own bones or rupture an artery with it, which causes internal bleeding.

Defending yourself (and your foot)

During your time on your exoplanet of choice you and your partner are bound to encounter a variety of creatures, some that are hostile to anything that happens to be within its line of sight. While the creatures you may encounter may vary and come in many forms, follow these tips to ensure you can protect yourself in case you happen to encounter one. Be sure to:

• Be wary of your surroundings, especially in wide, open areas. Scout the area a bit with your PKA pumped and ready before you put your guard down. Creatures may come from seemingly out of nowhere, and interrupt your progress.
• Keep a distance from creatures. Most of them tend to go straight at you, chasing you down. Allowing them to come to you makes fighting them harder (as your PKA might hit yourself), and limits your mobility. Try your best to run away from the creature by ditching your ore box and making a run for it. This allows you to gain some hits without breaking your arteries.
• Communicate. Your partner (if you have one) is your greatest defense. If you are injured and require help, call for them using your radio. Using their GPS, they can come to assist you and bring you back to the Spark for medical treatment and transportation back to the Horizon. If you don’t have a partner, try your best to make it back by using the equipment in your survival kit, and if your close to the Horizon and are physically unable to transport the Spark back, ask medical to assist you.

It is common for mining accidents to happen. By learning from each mistake you make, you can do better the next time you mine. If you do happen to survive and get enough ore, you’re ready to make a return trip to the Horizon and process your earnings.

Processing your goods

First and foremost, set up the smelter; see Furnace 101 below. Assuming you've collected your ore, you're going to want to transfer it to the smelting belt on the far right of the mining bay. To do this, either dump the ore in front of the unloading machine and it will start to move the items onto the belt. Assuming you set the smelter correctly and it is turned on, you should see materials go in as ore and come out as sheets and bars respective to the type of ore put in. After smelting, compressing or alloying, the materials will now follow the belt round to the stacking machine, which will stack the materials. The stacking machine can be controlled via the console on the wall below it . This will allow you to place the materials in a crate for cargo to ship to whomever needs them.

Mining Points And The Mining Vendor

As materials pass through the smelter you may notice that points begin to rack up within the ore processing console . Inserting your ID by clicking the blue "Insert ID" will allow you to claim the points for your own. This can be cashed in at the mining equipment vendor to purchase new tools and devices to aid your mining. Below is a table to give you some idea on what you can purchase within the mining vendor.

Mining Vendor Contents

Item	Picture	Cost	Description
Food Ration		5	Some food to keep you going.
Poster		20	A poster that you could put up somewhere.
Ore Scanner Pad		50	Points to the nearest ore deposit. Green means close, blue means quite close, red means far away.
5 Red Flags		50	Can be placed. Could be used for marking a route on the asteroid.
5 Green Flags		50	Can be placed. Could be used for marking a route on the asteroid.
5 Yellow Flags		50	Can be placed. Could be used for marking a route on the asteroid.
5 Purple Flags		50	Can be placed. Could be used for marking a route on the asteroid.
Ore-Bag		50	Can pick up large amounts of ore with just one click. Can also transfer said ore to an ore box or drop it all.
Meat Pizza		50	It's pizza... You eat it..
Lantern		75	Light source: Shines light around you with a radius. This also extends behind you. Good for avoiding holes.
Shovel		100	For digging holes in the sand.
Pickaxe		100	Used for breaking down rocks and gaining the treasures within.
Compressed Rail Cartridge		100	Used as ammunition for the Rapid Railway Fabricator
Ore Box		150	A huge, heavy box for storing large amounts of ore. When ordered through the equipment vendor, it is delivered via cargo shuttle.
Emergency Flood Light		150	A kit that can be assembled easily for a long range light source.
Premium Cigar		150	Some say they make you live longer.
Seismic Charge		150	A plantable explosive that delivers a low-medium intensity explosion for the purpose of shattering rock.
Material Scanners		200	Allows you to see materials within large rock formations.
Mining Drill		200	A drill that is faster than the pickaxe.
Deep Ore Scanner		250	Scans for mineral deposits within the ground.
Magboots		300	Can stop you from falling down open spaces
Autochisel		400	Allows you to sculpture.
Jetpack		400	Allows traversal up, down and across open spaces. Note that you must activate the jetpack and the stabilizers for it to work. It should also be placed on your back.
Drone Drill Upgrade		400	Allows you to upgrade the mining drill on a Mining Drone
Industrial Drill Brace		500	A large brace that is part of the Industrial Drill Assembly (See Drill 101)
Point Transfer Card		500	Gives you a card loaded with 500 points. Can be used to give points to other miners.
Explorers Belt		500	A belt that can hold multiple items, usually items to do with mining.
Item Warp Beacon		500	A beacon that is used along with the item warp pack to transport non-living matter. Extremely useful; see Warp Packs for more information.
Item Warp Pack		600	A pack that is used along with the item warp beacon to transport non-living matter. Has 3 charges.
Drone Health Upgrade		600	Increases the max health of a mining drone.
Rapid Railway Fabricator		600	A swift way of making tracks for minecarts.
Brute First-aid kit		600	Contains some bandages and trauma kits, useful in the event of an unexpected fall.
Ore magnet		600	Attracts nearby ores to your tile.
Minecart		600	A trolley that attaches to the Mining Engine
Resonator		700	A handheld device used for shattering rock.
Mining Rig		1000	A rigsuit that can hold multiple modules.
Mass Driver		800	A device that can "throw" objects and even people. Use with care.
Mining Drone		800	A nifty little drone that mines for you.
Mining Engine		800	The main mine-cart engine. Good for cross-asteroid transportation.
Drone Kinetic Accelerator Upgrade		800	Increases the efficiency of the Drone KA.
Ore Summoner		800	Teleports any ore you can see onto your tile instantly. Note that it does not work between levels.
Lazarus Injector		1000	A device that is able to raise animals from the dead.
Industrial Drill Head		1000	A large, automatic drill that digs for ore deposits underground.
Super Resonator		1250	An upgraded version of the Resonator.
Diamond Pickaxe		1500	A much better version of the standard pickaxe. Mines rock in 2 swings.
Thermal Drill		3750	A large drill that fires 2, 4 or 6 second bursts of laser-based projectiles to mine rock quickly.

Furnace 101

The furnace can be loaded via the unloading machine and must be turned on via the ore redemption console infront of it. It is also configured from here. You can produce multiple products at once, but smelting or compressing something that has no corresponding product will produce useless slag.

an example of a working setup for the smelter.

The Ores

Name	Wall	Raw Ore	Smelted	Compressed	Door	Uses
Hematite			Iron	None		For use in steelmaking.
Impure silicates						For making glass, which has a plethora of station applications.
Native gold				None		For making various electronics.
Native silver				None		Making mechs and for material research.
Phoron			None			The reason you're here.
Diamond			None			For making mech parts, among other industrial uses.
Pitchblende				None		For various radioactive tasks.
Coal				None	None	For use in steelmaking and plastics.
Platinum				Osmium	None	For making osmium or sending to Centcomm via Cargo.
Hydrogen	None		Tritium		None	For making tritium fuel or metallic hydrogen for R&D.

The Alloys

Raw Ores	Product	Name	Uses
		Steel	For use in all kinds of tasks around the station.
		Plasteel	An alloy of hematite, platinum and coal, for reinforced tables and reinforced walls

Upgrading Your Equipment

Kinetic Accelerators

For the futuristic space miner. Kinetic accelerators can be modified, upgraded, and altered to a miner's preference, but they require a frame, a focusing chip, and a power converter. To take apart a kinetic accelerator, you need to use a wrench on it.

At the start of the round, you can use the coin that spawns in your hand on the mining vendor to get one upgraded part for your kinetic accelerator.

Item warp packs

Possibly one of the most useful upgrades you can buy for a relatively small amount of mining points. A warp beacon can be attached to your ore box by clicking on the box with the beacon in hand, and the warp pack can be attached to your mining satchel. Tap the mining satchel to the ore box, and you should get a message that your warp pack and beacon are linked. From now on, any ore that you pick up with the satchel will be deposited directly into the ore box; this means you can leave the ore box next to the unloader while you mine.

Pickaxes

These come in different forms and flavors. The material usually affects how efficient you can get to your ores. Make sure to wield it with both hands while you swing. While not the most fancy option, they fit into an excavation belt and can make short work of any dangerous creatures you encounter on an asteroid. Rarely, digging with them also allows you to find anomalies and artifacts, prized by specialized scientists. Just make sure to be extra careful with anything that glows more than it should.

Shovel

The classic concept of digging through the dirt for valuable materials. If you just need some glass sheets, this is a quick way to get some sand to smelt. Dig deep enough and you will be able to reach a lower level of the asteroid. Just make sure to use a ladder or jetpack when traversing, since gravity can be notoriously unfriendly. Some materials can only be found in the dirt instead of rocks.

Resonators

This little device creates a force field which crumbles everything inside of it like paper. Can be used to crush a lot of rocks rapidly. Activating the field again when set up lets it collapse instantly. Just make sure that you do not step into your own fields if you value your bones. The biggest bonus of those is that they never run out of charge and make mining a job for the not so muscular.

Seismic Charges

Those can be purchased from the mining vendor. Think of dynamite in space. Find a mineral rich area and plant one of those to rip a big hole into the rock. Keep a safe distance when it goes off and you should be able to collect any ore it broke free. Although designed to remove lose rocks, the charges should be planted with a little distance to the station to ensure nobody gets spaced during their lunch break.

Mining Mech

If Robotics is supplied and able, odds are one of the first creations from their lab will be a mech for Mining. The machine is typically outfitted with a drill and a hydraulic clamp. All mechs usually offer external lighting and life support. To load an ore box into the mech, click on the box while facing it with an active hydraulic clamp. To mine, walk into the rock wall with your drill active or click on the floor to start digging through the sand. Refer to this guide for more information on how to pilot your new mech and keep in mind that miners would probably not know a lot about repairing or modifying those complex machines.

Shipping the Ores

To ship ores that you've processed, they need to be in a crate on the cargo shuttle. One of the main reasons the SCCV Horizon exists is to search for phoron, meaning that sheets of phoron will be very highly prized compared to the other materials that you've shipped. While gold, silver, and diamonds will bring in good credits, phoron brings in the most.