Kanly's Newbie Miner Manual V 3.

1
VU10 Update

2.Feb.10

Introduction: This is a short mining manual that contains the techniques, tricks and theories I use personally for mining. I've grown a bit tired of typing this over and over again, as new recruits come into the society and want to start mining, so I've decided to write it all down in one easy to grab PDF. Please note that a lot of what I'm describing here is Theory and not fact...

Table of contents:
I Basics. II The Tools: Finders, Extractors, Refiners and Claims. III Mining Patterns. IV Skill Reading* V Amps & Claim Theory*. VI Advanced theory and practice: Bots and Bacon! OOTO Finds Unreachable Claims Double Bombing* A tale of three depths* PVP4 Mining tips and tricks VII Frequently Asked Questions. The asterisk denotes Theory subject to debate, some people believe in it, some don't, some of it is my own speculation based on observation, most of this is heavily debated in entropiaforum.com. The rest is cold hard fact.

I Basics
So you've decided to start mining! Mining is (at least for me) the most profitable profession in Calypso. If you know what you're doing, and use the right equipment in the right areas for your skill, even a bad mining run can turn profitable. This is because of Markup on the ores or enmatter found, even when you spend 50 peds on probes/bombs, and come home with only 40 ped TT value found, the markup on certain ores/enmatters can make up the difference and even make you profit. So now we'll start making sure that you know what you're doing. First you have to decide what are you going to start mining. On Calypso there are two types of mining: Ores or Enmatters, which one you choose is entirely up to you, and you can also mine for both in the same run, but I have a few suggestions to help you decide which way you may want to go: If you deposit, and money is no object: Go for ores!!! the highest markup can be found on them. But early on you won't be getting much stuff with nice markup. I would still recommend trying enmatters first, as the cost per probe is half of a bomb. Early on you make mistakes, and mistakes in mining can be costly. If you deposit but PEDs are tight: Go for enmatter for awhile, until you learn the ropes. This will also help you raise your professional level for ore mining, so you won't have to go thru the newbie period with ores, and will make you able to find ores with nice markup once you start. If you don't deposit and are part of the inventory at Nea's: Go for enmatter!, you can get Force Nexus straight away with a newbie finder and combine it with sweat to make Mind Essence. This enables you to sell your sweat for a premium! And this can turn a good run into Great Profit!, or make you recover all your peds on a bad run. So now that you've decided which type of mining you'll do, go to the Trade Terminal, in the mining section and get the following: For ores: Ziplex Z1 Oreseeker (this is the finder) Genesis Star Earth Excavator (this is the extractor) Omegaton Seismic Bomb (this is the ammo)

For Enmatter: Ziplex Ju10 Matterseeker (this is the finder) Genesis Star Enerby Excavator (this is the extractor) Omegaton Survey Probe (this is the ammo)

Now you need to bind the finder and extractor to some keys, it's done the same way as with weapons, and the game has the F6 map set aside for mining, no need to put the bombs/probes on the quickbar, they are used up by the finder just like a weapon uses ammo. Also, you might want to carry two TT extractors with you, just in case you get a large HOF, and your extractor decays all the way to zero, you won't need to go back to the Repair Terminal for awhile. For this same reason, getting a refiner is a good idea, find it under the Tools Section, and buy the appropriate one. Refiners are also discussed in more detail in the next section.

100 bombs/probes are what is generally accepted as a mining run, you can use less, or you can use more, but by using 100 you're spreading your risk. This means that with less bombs/probes, you could end up with a nice profit, or a very bad run, I've gone for 30 bombs without a claim, and at the end of the bad period started hitting quite nicely, even globaled, so the 30 bombs didn't affect me too much and it all ended up more or less even. 200 bombs is a nice number, 150 is a good run... also remember to use your common sense, check EntropiaTracker to see what the loot is doing, if all mining numbers are in red and you keep on hitting NRFs it might be a good idea to just stop mining and leave it for another day.

II The Tools: Finders, Extractors, Refiners and Claims. In this section we will explain a bit about the stats of the various items you use/find while mining. Finders This is the basic tool for mining, with this you drop probes/bombs in the ground, and if you find something they print out claims. Now that you have a finder let's open the info window:

Let's see what these fields mean: Recommended level This is the professional level requirement to use this finder, since it's 0.0, this means anybody can use it, higher level finders have higher requirements, this number will tell you the level you have to reach, and the skill progress field will tell you how close you are to reaching that goal. Do not use finders where the skill progress is less than 100%. Learning Period This field tells you if you still get a Skill Increase Bonus when using this particular finder. Until you reach lvl 10 in your professional level, generally speaking you want this field to always say Yes, unless you're using an amp (I explain why in the amp section) or are not a miner newbie anymore and are squeezing all possible pecs from your mining.

Average Search depth Notice how this field gives you two numbers. The first one is your average search depth with your current skill level, and the second number is the maximum depth for this finder. These numbers are an average, so you will get claims deeper than these numbers, and some claims shallower than those numbers too. Generally speaking deeper average search depth won't give you more claims, but it will allow you to find rare ores/enmatter more easily. Also, some people say a finder can only be used to it's maximum efficiency when maxed. This supposedly means that while you haven't maxed your finder, you'll get less claims and smaller size, but you get a skill increase bonus. How you work with this is up to you, most people will race to reach level 12 prospector/surveyor, because you unlock Calypso Ground Assessment. Once that's done, some people will keep on using unmaxed finders with SIB, and some will use only maxed finders from then on. Range This field tells you the radius of the search that the finder does. Usually between 5355mts. What does this mean? Well, this means you should try to walk/run at least 100mts in between probes/bombs. Ideally you want to do something like this:

How far is 100mts in game?

Press P, walk what you think is 100mts in a cardinal direction (North, South, East or West) and press P again. The timer method Some people count the seconds it takes them to run 100mts, this is fine if your agility is above 40, below 20 Agility one point of is quite a dramatic improvement, so if you try this method, recalibrate your 100mts often. When you're loaded down with loot, say after a global, and your weight is in yellow or red numbers, you'll also slow down. Another shortcoming of this method is that if you're going uphill, your speed is reduced, and viceversa for downhill, keep that in mind if you decide to use this method. That being said, it's not the end of the world to go beyond 100mts or less than 100mts between bombs.

The eyeballing method Find a flat area, drop an object on the ground, zoom out as much as you can with the mousewheel and measure 100 mts with the Pos key, turn around and see how far the object is. Now that you have a measure, try to calculate the same distance to the object in a different direction, practice this until you can eyeball 100mts in any direction and then practice this around uneven ground. This is in my opinion the best method, but will take you time to master. You'll get the hang of it eventually by naturally mining as well, but practicing it often will give you an advantage early on. This way you can read soc chat, answer Private Messages and keep an eye on your radar (for PVP4 mining)all while mining, it becomes second nature and you won't have to think about it. - Why can't I simply use the P key every time? Because more likely than not, you'll be moving along both axis, X and Y, and it won't be as straightforward to calculate. (you know, trigonometry and all that) Durability This field tells you how bad the decay is on your tool. The higher level tools decay more per use than the lower level ones. Uses per minute / max Again, there's two numbers here, as your skill rises, you can drop more probes per minute. And yes, it's quite useless, you can drop more probes/bombs per minute, but still need to go the 100 mts between probes/bombs, unless you're doublebombing.

Extractors These are used to extract the ores/enmatter from a claim, you have to use the ore miners for ores and the energy extractors for enmatters, they only work for their respective type. Let's take a look at the info window of two extractors, the TT extractor and an OM-104:

Notice that a lot of the fields are very similar to the finder info window, most of them work in the same way, but there's a few differences. Excavation efficiency: Again there's two numbers there, the first being your efficiency with your current skill and the second one what your efficiency will be when you have it maxed. The higher your efficiency, the more ores/enmatter you'll get per use/pull. Notice how on higher level tools you can extract more per pull and have more uses per minute, effectively making extraction a lot faster, but for a cost on decay. Durability: Higher level extractors will cost more per use. The TT extractor is always the most economical to use, but it's slow, and has low TT value, this means that you might have to leave a claim and run to the nearest repair terminal because it's decayed all the way before you could extract that big HOF! One solution is to always carry two. Remember to always fully repair your extractors before a mining run!, or at least, the TT extractor. Uses per minute: More uses per minute and more mats per pull means you'll be done much more quickly excavating that big HOF! As I said before, I recommend to carry either two TT extractors or one TT extractor for tiny and very poor claims and a better one for large claims.

Refiners: This is a very useful tool. When you're doing well mining, usually means you got a lot of ores/enmatter in your inventory, now this can weigh you down and make you run slower, if you're counting the seconds to know when to drop the next bomb/probe, this could be a real problem. Refining ores or enmatter doesn't affect the TT value of whatever is refined, but it does reduce its weight. In most cases (but not all!), it also raises the markup of the refined materials. Let's take a look now at a MatterTransformer info window:

Not much info, and all of the fields we've already covered. One field that's absent is the efficiency field. With most tools, the TT equipment is always the most cost-efficient. Not with refiners. The TT refiner costs 0.031 pec per use, and the 104 costs 0.023 pec per use, now consider refining 3k of raw enmatter/ore, every day for a month... You can get the crafted refiners in Auction, under Tools Mining Ores/Enmatter Refiners. Refiners are a very important tool because of the Markup associated with the ores/enmatter, unrefined resources tend to have a smaller markup than refined ones, and 95% of the time you won't be profiting by TT value of loot. Most of the time you'll be profiting off the Markup value of resources, and raising the value of your loot by 2-3% (up to 300% sometimes, with some rares like angel scales) is something you shouldn't miss. Every ped helps keeping you profitable, or as the case might be, make you lose less.

Claims: When you drop a probe/bomb, and you get a claim, a loot window appears, a claim is automatically generated and appears in your inventory next to your PED card and any pets you might be carrying. When you double click the claim, the information window appears, and the map with a marker of it's location pops up as well, this is very useful because you can always look at the map to find your claim again in case you die before you get to it. To find your claim, you must follow the arrows on your finder window or go to the indicated coordinates.

Depth How deep the claim is. Size This gives you an approximation of the PED value of the claim. Check the following table for more information, the Expires column is the amount of time in hours you have to excavate the claim before it disappears. Minimal claims no longer appear in game. Also for claims above 4k PED you get an Extraction Tower, so you don't have to extract yourself, it gives you batches of about 4-6k PED every 24 hours, you do have to wait 24 hours for the first extraction to be ready. Double clicking on the tower gets you the mined materials and some skillgains. If you have a 4k ped claim, you will get it all after 24 hours have passed.

Size Minimal Tiny Very Poor Poor Small Modest Average Medium Ample Considerable Sizable Large Abundant Great Substantial Significant Plentiful Huge Extremely Large Massive Vast Enormous Rich Gigantic Mammoth Colossal Immense

Level I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI XII XIII XIV XV XVI XVII XVIII XIX XX XXI XXII XXIII

From 0.16 0.19 1 2 3 4.5 6 8 12 18 25 35 50 75 125 200 300 450 650 801 1172 2523 5015

To Expires 1 1 0.99 1 1.99 1 2.99 1 4.49 1 5.99 1 7.99 1 11.99 1 17.99 2 24.99 3 34.99 6 49.99 10 74 18 124 24 204 24 299 24 449 639 786 1176 2349 4862 23000 93072 120 72

XXIV 25606

XXV 109107 158000 XXVI XXVII PED PED Hours

table taken from entropedia.info

Resource The type of resource you claimed. Time Left Time left before the claim expires and the claim marker disappears Position Coordinates to find the claim again, if needed. Some people prefer to extract large claims at the end of the run, this way a large find won't stop them there for hour of extracting and it won't weigh them down either. On large claims especially, you have plenty of time to extract, so no need to worry about the claim expiring while you go mine the rest of your run.

The button on the lower right hand corner of the claim window now puts an * on your claim on your map. This works until you press the button again and maps another claim or log off.

III - Mining Patterns

There are several schools of thought on how mining works. I'll briefly describe the two main camps: Mining Veins exist. This theory says that there are sequential sets of claims on the ground, so where you found one claim, there's a high chance that other claims can be found if you travel in the direction of the vein. Mining veins run from SSW to NNE, or ENE to WSW, or any combination of directions, usually in a straight line or mild curve. Ideally you want to follow the vein, and get to the claims sequentially. I'll explain this in more detail in the skill reading section. Mining Veins do not exist. Pretty self explanatory. This doesn't mean that one theory is wrong and the other is right. They are more like different styles of mining, but once you pick one, I recommend to stick to it, some people say that your mining skills develop according to the mining style you use, and changing your style every other day is not advisable. That being said, I personally do mix mining styles depending on the area and how the claims are coming. As you can imagine, these differences translate as very different approaches to mining. Most of the Mining veins exist camp tries to follow the veins, and within this same group, there are those that believe in skillreading, and those that don't. And amongst the Mining veins do not exist unbelievers, there's the carpetbombers and straight-line miners. Straight-Line mining As the name indicates, these people run in a straight line dropping bombs/probes periodically, every 100 mts. Vein mining Basically the same as straight-line, except that you don't run in a straight line, you let the claims tell you what to do. Say you drop a bomb/probe and get a claim:

Next step is trying to identify where the vein is going, some people bomb/probe in the cardinal directions, some people try different things:

The Green circles is the area where the claim was found, the white circle are areas bombed looking for the vein. The second graph looks a bit much and a waste of bombs, but it's used mostly when you're skillreading anyways, so you don't start straight from N and move left, you try to keep the image in your head and bomb where the skills tell you to, check the skillreading section of this manual.

Once you have established the direction of the vein, you keep on going in that direction, until you don't find anything. Some veins skip a claim, (mainly because of straight-line miners that have been in the area before you, or so the theory goes), so one bomb without a claim doesn't mean that you've finished the vein. Also most veins do not travel on a straight line, so be sure to compensate for any deviation you see between claims, and some veins change direction after a certain point. Some people leave objects on the ground to make sure they know where they found the first claim on a vein, some people don't extract the first two or three claims to have an idea of how the vein is traveling.

Carpet Bombing: Pick an area you will carpetbomb, and the bombing pattern usually looks like this:

and so forth, it doesn't have to be 5 bombs to a side, can be whatever number you want. Use common sense too when doing this, if you feel like there might be claims in the dead zones where your finders range isn't searching, then bomb there as well. Whichever mining style you choose, you'll end up knowing the areas you mine quite well, so after awhile, you'll know which are the good spots in a certain area and where to start mining and where to stop. This knowledge is very important when you start using amplifiers. What is a cluster? A cluster forms where two veins meet, usually you will find more than one claim in this area when you doublebomb... Clusters also randomly appear at the end of veins. Since VU10, clusters are a regular occurrence for ore miners, I haven't found many for enmatters. Please check the Doublebombing section further ahead.

IV Skill Reading
This is a very controversial theory, some people will tell you that this certainly works, while some people will tell you that it absolutely doesn't work. Some people say it used to work in the past, but doesn't work anymore, while some people swear by it. If you go to entropiaforum.com, in the mining section you can even find videos on how to do this and plenty of people that laugh at fools that believe in this nonsense. Now here is a list of the mining skills and how to read them: Prospecting/Surveying: You're facing in the wrong direction. CGA(Calypso Ground Assessment): This means there's a claim in front of you in a 180 arch, range is 100 mts. (yellow area), this is also an unlockable skill, you won't get these readings straight away, only after lvl 12 prospector or surveyor. Geology: This means there's a claim behind you in a 180 arch, range is 100 mts. (blue area)

Perception: This is one of the most controversial skillgains, it allegedly means in this order: There's a large claim nearby, there's a rare find nearby, there's a cluster near or there's a vein nearby. Range is 400mts Intelligence: Same as perception, but in a different order: There's a vein nearby, there's a rare find nearby, there's a large claim, a cluster or there's a spaceship nearby. Range is 400mts

I've never got a spaceship after a perception skillgain, but I do get them regularly after an INT skillgain. And the million PED Question: does it work?

V- Mining Amps & Claim Theory

Amps increase the size of your claims by the efficiency factor listed in their information window. Amps decay really fast, so in practice, what you're doing is betting more per bomb/probe. This means that instead of a probe worth 50 pecs, you're putting in the ground the equivalent of the probe and the decay of the amp, for example on an Enmat Amp 101, the decay is 30 pecs per use, so you will be getting the yield of a probe worth 80 pecs. As a very basic example, if you were to drop a bomb, and your claim is a Very Poor (III) and you extract say, 1.20 PED worth of mats, if you had used an amp with an efficiency factor of 2.5 (OA-101), your claim would've been a Small (V), and you would have extracted around 3 PED worth of materials. For the sake of argument, let's say Claims are generated like this, you drop a bomb/probe, the loot server generates a query with your location, amplifier (if any) and finder. It does it's magic and two outcomes may come out, it either reports the NRF to your client software and displays it. On the other hand if it does find something, it then generates the claim, for example, say... kanerium ore, it then generates the value of the claim and adds the multiplier of the amp, if the value of the claim turns out to be less than the TT value of one unit of kanerium (2.50 PED), then it returns a NRF, if it's more, it does a division, and returns to your client the approximate size of the claim... you only get to extract the number of units of kanerium that fit the claim size and anything above but not quite making it to 2.50 PED gets discarded. That's why sometimes, even while using high end amplifiers, you'll still get to extract tinys and very poors. Let's take a look at the information window of an EnmatAmp 101 and a 106

Required Level The professional level you should have in order to be able to use the amplifier. Please note that just because you have the level required to use doesn't mean you should. Skill Progress How close you are to being able to use this amplifier, once this field shows you 100%, you'll be able to use the amplifier. However, having just reached the level and trying out one of these amps is a recipe for disaster, you should wait until you have a much higher level than the recommended one to make it worthwhile. Efficiency This is the multiplier that gets applied to the claims you find. For example if you were to get a claim of crude oil worth 1 ped, using the 101 you'll get a claim worth 1.30 PED, and with the 106 you should get a claim worth 12.5 ped. Durability How bad the tool decays. Here's a table from www.entropedia.info, decay is in pecs:
Name eMINE EA (L) EnMatAmp MA-101 EnMatAmp MA-101 (L) EnMatAmp MA-101 Light (L) EnMatAmp MA-102 EnMatAmp MA-102 (L) EnMatAmp MA-102 Light (L) EnMatAmp MA-103 (L) EnMatAmp MA-104 (L) EnMatAmp MA-105 EnMatAmp MA-105 (L) EnMatAmp MA-106 (L) EnMatAmp MA-107 (L) EnMatAmp MA-108 (L) EnMatAmp MA-109 (L) Type Enmatter Enmatter Enmatter Enmatter Enmatter Enmatter Enmatter Enmatter Enmatter Enmatter Enmatter Enmatter Enmatter Enmatter Enmatter Eff. 3.8 1.3 1.3 1.3 2.5 2.5 2.5 5 7.5 10 10 12.5 25 37.5 50 Decay 75 25 25 25 50 50 50 100 150 200 200 250 500 750 1000 Max.TT 105 78 78 30 100 100 50 114 150 200 200 250 260 300 350 Req 3 1 1 1 2 2 2 3 4 5 5 6 10 15 20 Source Crafted Mining Crafted Crafted Mining Crafted Crafted Crafted Crafted Mining Crafted Crafted Crafted Crafted Crafted # of uses 136 303 303 117 195 98 111 98 98 98 51 51 39 34

And here's the table for ore amps:

Name eMINE OA (L) OreAmp OA-101 (L) OreAmp OA-101 Light (L) OreAmp OA-102 OreAmp OA-102 (L) OreAmp OA-102 Light (L) OreAmp OA-103 OreAmp OA-103 (L) OreAmp OA-104 OreAmp OA-104 (L) OreAmp OA-105 OreAmp OA-105 (L) Type Ore Ore Ore Ore Ore Ore Ore Ore Ore Ore Ore Ore Eff. 7.5 2.5 2.5 5 5 5 10 10 15 15 20 20 Decay 150 50 50 100 100 100 200 200 300 300 400 400 Max.TT 105 78 50 100 100 75 114 114 120 120 160 160 Req 3 1 1 2 2 2 3 3 4 4 5 5 Source Crafted Crafted Crafted Crafted Crafted Crafted Mining Crafted Mining Crafted Mining Crafted # of uses 68 152 98 98 98 73 56 65 39 39 39 39

OreAmp OA-106 (L) OreAmp OA-107 (L) OreAmp OA-108 (L) OreAmp OA-109 (L)

Ore Ore Ore Ore

25 50 75 100

500 1000 1500 2000

200 230 255 340

6 10 15 20

Crafted Crafted Crafted Crafted

39 23 17 17

I was told once to stay away from amps until I hit level 10, it was very good advice. When you reach level 10 (natural skilling of course), you should have developed several areas that you know are good, identified some veins, and more or less know where they run and what time is good to mine there. If you really want to go mining with amps, no one is stopping you, but I would not recommend it, and if you really want to go with amps before level 10, I would suggest to stick to 101's. Do take into account that the higher level of amp, less claims you'll find. Amps seem to concentrate claims around you and just give you one big hit, this you can't see well with the 101, but you will certainly start feeling the effect with the 102. Just in case you missed it: Stay away from amps. \ Wait until you are level 10 prospector/surveyor. Only use amps with finders you know well and in areas you know they work. Only use amps on finders that you've already maxed, or in the last 50 meters of search depth.

Once you've maxed a finder, it's said to be working at maximum efficiency, just like weapons, on a maxed weapons you get the full damage possible, less missed hits and more crits. Same applies to finders, if you're going to risk PEDs on amps, at least give yourself a better chance and do it with maxed finders. Multiplier Rule for Amplifier Use: I teach this rule to my disciples, not all follow it, but I think it works quite well, at least you'll be avoiding major disasters.

Multiply recommended skill level by 5 and that's the level when you could start using the amplifier.
107, 108 and 109 amps are a special case, multiply by 4 for the 107, and 3 for the 108-9. Remember that up on CND if you amp, you'll be doing that on top of the 102 effect of CND itself.

amp 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 emine

lvl 1 2 3 4 5 6 10 15 20 3

Rec lvl 5 10 15 20 25 30 40 45 60 15

Loot Caps on certain Ores/Enmatter Some ores/enmatter have loot caps, FPC has decided that they won't flood the ingame market with these, so even if you're using a 109 amplifier you won't be getting a tower of these:
Devil's tail Dunkel particle Rugaritz Langotz Maganite Quantium Zanderium Tridenite Redulite Adomasite Blood Moss Himi Vegetation Spore

YES, there have been towers on some of these, but that was a long time ago, whether this will happen again, we don't know but it seems unlikely.

A special note on EA-101 The EA-101 only has an efficiency of 1.3, that means if you go to a growth molecule, devils, dunkel or binary fluid rich area, you might end up amping for nothing... with relatively high TT enmatters there's the risk of getting a lot of II's, and getting only one of said enmatters per claim, if you get only one, 30% of 47 pecs still doesn't give you another one, so the amp effect is wasted. According to the mining claim theory explained above, you might be lucky enough so that your claim wasn't exactly 47 pecs, but a bit more, and with the boost of the amp you might get a second one, but this won't be happening all the time... a lot of the time you'll be wasting peds using amps in said areas, 102s are a better bet to use.

VI Advanced theory and practice

Bots and Bacon!
(Note: No Strange Signals yet on VU10, they will be reintroduced at a later date, the system might change once it gets reintroduced) Every once in awhile you will get a strange signal on your finder and it will flash red. You have found a spaceship!

Mark your position with the p key and make a mental note about the general direction of the arrow indicating the find (N, S, E or W). Follow the arrows on your finder until you can see the bots and the spaceship or the red dots on your radar, try not to die on the way. Once you know where the spaceship is (it can be quite far away from where you dropped the bomb/probe), check again your position with the p key, you're doing this in case you die, you'll have at least a general idea where the spaceship might be in case the bots get you before you get the spaceship and you need to run back to it. Bots are quite tough, and you won't be able to take them down with an opalo. Two solutions for this: I. Shout in soc channel that you've found a spaceship, and surely someone that can kill the bots will teleport to your location. Only problem with this is other players, anybody can loot the spacecraft, not just you. II. Forget about killing the drones: Get close to the spaceship, drag the Red button away from it, and operate (click on the dragged away bar). You will automatically run and open the spaceship, get your global, and the bots will send you back to the nearest revive. This works best when you have a bit of dodge, 100 pts in dodge minimum recommended to try this last bit.

Here you can see in the picture quite clearly; the Red Button, the dragged away bar, the XXX examined Robot Spacecraft message, the lucky shot the drone got and even some swirlies! The loot window picture deserves an explanation: you see a Robot Beacon and some robot residue, most of the time a spaceship only has residue, and only sometimes you'll get a Beacon. All Robot Spaceships are automatic globals, they're all worth 50 ped, so you'll get swirlies no matter what. When you get a Beacon, the value of the residue plus the value of the beacon will add up to 50 PED. Beacons come in different sizes, 23 ped, 25 ped, 29 ped, 35 ped and the uber 42 ped one, they have very good markup, never ever sell one for TT or sell it to the TT. There's people in the society that run regular beacon missions, you can always ask around in soc chat and someone will be interested or know someone that will buy it. The TT value of a beacon marks it's difficulty level, the 23 ped beacon is a quite nice and easy beacon, mostly gen 01 drones and a warrior as the boss, the 42 ped one is for ubers.

How to train dodge fast? Easiest way is to train during a robot invasion with 2x skill multiplier. Go to an area invaded by the bots, then keep on running towards them every time you revive, you'll build dodge quite fast this way. Be careful not to bother hunters killing the robots, or send more robots their way, this is a fast way to get yourself banned from Entropia, if you do this, stay away from hunters, nothing wrong with skilling this way, but it's wrong to get other people mobbed by bots and with some armors, decay can be murder, be considerate of the hunters and all will be well. Robot invasions aren't as often as we'd like tho, if you've never seen one, there's also another way: go to Treasure Island Castle, walk W from the TP and find Bristlehogs, sweating them can build dodge, this is rather slow skilling tho... The obvious and fastest way to train dodge outside of a robot invasion would be to hunt drones.

OOTO Finds:

Out Of The Ordinary finds you don't need to dig up, they appear directly on your loot window with the claim. You can get one of several things. Sometimes you get Hansidian rock, sometimes Angel scales, very rarely you will get DNA or an Unlimited Amplifier. Getting DNA or an Amplifier means in most cases you've hit an UberLoot. Angel Scales and Hansidian have very good Markup, check the MU window on them, and count the zeros carefully before you put them in auction... of course they're worth more if you refine them. DNA means an animal skin or other obvious part of a mob not yet deployed, and rich land owners salivate at the sight. Do not EVER sell a DNA part you've looted to the TT before you have asked around in soc chat, or looked the part up in Entropedia.info... if the part doesn't appear there, be sure that the part is worth hundreds if not thousands of peds to someone out there. Amplifiers you get in OOTO finds are Unlimited, that means they can be repaired, serious miners pay thousands of peds for them. If I ever loot one, I'm certainly not going to sell it...

Unreachable Claims: Underwater claim?

Simply equip your extractor, get in the water and go into first person view, you can select and drill your claim when you're in the water, but not from the surface. (VU10 note: Underwater claims seem to no longer exist)

Claim on a cliff?
The claim is unreachable because you can't run up the mountain, what to do? run around the mountain, climb it and drop on top of the claim marker, if you can stand on it, you can drill it.

No way up the mountain? Then get some furniture and jump on it. Shelves are particularly good for this task, even tables work, just be careful there's not other people around, because anything on the floor is a temptation.

No shelves available? Use your Teleport Chip to get up the mountain. As of VU 10 it seems you can make stairways with textures, this requires that you have a gun equipped and the gun must have a sight, where you place the texture. Check the player made stairways in Twin Peaks.

A big bad mob is sitting on my claim!

If you're near water, you can always drown the mob, try to stay on the surface and jump into deep water, that way the depth will prevent the mob from hitting you. Avoid jumping into waters infested with rippersnappers too... Tsk-Tsk, Kingfisher and other flying mobs are different, they won't drown in the water, they will stay flying above the water, and if you're swimming on the surface they'll kill you... so the reverse goes for them, dive deep! If you're not near the water, then simply drag the mobs away from your claim by stepping inside their aggro range, run in the opposite direction and die, repeat until the claim is outside their aggro range and drill away.

Double bombing
When to re-bomb? Some people bomb again the same area when they get a large hit, some people rebomb every time they get a claim. I use a bit of skillreading to tell me when to re-bomb. When I get a shallow claim and a skill gain at the same time, I double bomb. A shallow claim is for example, when you get a claim at 200 mts depth when your finder has an average of 500, anything under 50% of the average of your finder/skill is a shallow claim. This does not yield a second claim 100% of the time, the skill might be for a claim further ahead, but I do get double claims over 50% of the time using this method. Some of the people that I've helped with mining have gotten up to 4 finds within 5 meters of each other using this method.

A tale of three depths

Apparently there's three different depths for claims, shallow, mid and deep. This means that three different finders will find different claims at different depths, this also means that different finders might or might not work with an area. Shallow claims won't appear for a mid or deep finder, except on certain occasions. This means that even if an uberminer was in the same area you are about to search, shallow claims will still be there. Do not despair if you see another miner, say hi and ask what finder they're using... if it's not the same you're using, chances are you'll be hitting different depths, but just to be on the safe side, you can ask which way they'll go (or are coming from) so you can avoid that area. If you both are using the same finder, then politely ask where he's been and you tell him where you've been mining... that way you won't bomb where he's already done so, and viceversa.

PVP4 Mining tips and tricks

PVP4 is a very tempting area to enter... ores and enmatters with great MU await those who dare! Remember that this area is lootable pvp, meaning that the avatar that kills you gets to loot you. Only stackables get looted, never equipment or ammo. By stackables I mean, all that you've looted from animals or mined... your equipment, bombs/probes, Mind Essence and ammo are safe. If you've looted equipment (armor, FAP, guns) from an animal, robot or mutant, that will be safe too. Equipment: Toxic shot is needed to go inside the lootable PVP areas. Equip it and use. This shot lasts as long as you're not killed by another player and will still keep on working even if you're killed by mobs inside the zone. Once you're killed and looted, you'll need to buy another one. Armor is optional, but something that could help you stay alive one more shot is always welcome. Lesser Teleport chip is a MUST have, notice that it better be a lesser, and not a minor or potent, because the lesser takes the least time to charge. A Katsuichi Determination/Valor is also optional. Some pointers: ALWAYS keep an eye on your radar, in pvp4 red dots are good, and green bad, very bad... Don't get caught on the flatlands, marber type plasma rifles have quite a good range, and it's always a good idea to have some trees/hills to hide behind while you charge up your teleport chip to escape. Try to teleport directly into water, if at all possible... it's very frustrating to jump away from a PKer and land on top of another. If it's not possible, pick mountains/hills or land in the middle of a mob spawn. Mine with some red dots nearby, in case you see a green dot, run into the red dots and die, if the red dots can't kill you that fast (attackers for example), try to put as many as you can in between you and the green dot, that way he'll have to kill a few just to get a clear shot at you. Mine near the water, if a green dot appears, then jump in the water and charge your teleport chip. You can't shoot into the water from the surface, so the green dot will have to follow you into the water and you'll have time (hopefully) to charge your chip and escape. Some Pkers will only appear briefly on radar and disappear. What they're doing is going outside your radar range, charging their own TP chip and getting ready to teleport right on top of you... beware of quickly disappearing GreenDots! If you see this happening, start charging your TP chip immediately.

Drop off your loot regularly at the service center, now there's one at every revive and you should take full advantage of them, how much loot you collect before going back is really up to you, but most people go back every 10-20 peds, and carrying 10 peds of blood moss is very different than carrying 10 peds of crude, I know that going back and forth is a pain, but it's more painful to lose it all... Keep a Katsuichi Determination with you... You can go into FPS mode and cut yourself with it (aim for your feet), with any luck you'll be dead with two hits, die and go with all your loot to the revive terminal. Or at the very least damage yourself more than 50% of your HP, making yourself unlootable by the Pker. Most PK armors are quite poor defenders against cut weapons, (they mainly defend against burn/penetration, laser and BLP) so wait behind a tree and jump at them ninja style! With some luck, they'll be the ones getting looted.

FAQ Where do I mine? This isn't a simple question, depending on your skill/finder, new areas open up to you and some areas stop working. It really depends on your skill/finder, there's a sticky thread in the mining section of Entropiaforum.com with all the enmatter and ores depth range. After you study this and find what ores/enmatter are within your reach, you can go to the sticky with the mining maps of eudoria/amethera, all the resources are listed per area, so pick an area where you'll be likely to find good stuff, and try your luck. Be careful however that you can actually kill the mobs in these areas, nothing worse than having an Ample IX, smack in the middle of three troxie dominants. Can I go mine on CP? There's no mining up on CP, only on CND. Can I go mine in CND? You can, of course, but I don't think you should. There's special rules for CND and the whole asteroid works like a 102 amp, and on top of that most people mine on CND amped, but as I mentioned before, you shouldn't touch amps until level 10 prospecting/surveying, so I would recommend not going to CND until you've unlocked CGA (Calypso Ground Assessment). Is there a better way to keep track of your claims and profit/loss than pen and paper? Yes, but not quite ready yet, several projects by the community are being developed, check EF for more information. Where do I find Robot Spaceships? They haven't been reimplemented yet. So patience...