Mining Lasers can be attached to constructs to mine asteroids in a brand new way. These are modelled from the Laser weapons and should be pointed in the direction that you want to mine. This means they can face forward for greater control or downwards for ships that hover just above an asteroid.
To start mining, you must interact with the laser. This will pop up an interface where you can see the ore pools of the asteroid, select the ore type and then click start. You can also see an “Open Widget” button which introduces the interactive aspect of this new feature - Hotspot Tracking.
Mining Lasers have a heat mechanic which can be slowed (but not stopped) using Coolant. If a unit reaches full heat - it takes damage and will become destroyed over time if the heat cap is continuously hit.
Although any tier of mining laser can be used for any ore; in order to get the best ore rates, the corresponding tier of Mining Laser should be used for each ore - e.g. Basic Mining Laser should be used when mining Tier 1 ore to get the best rates.
Players can open and use the widget to locate and track the hotspot on the asteroid. When the ship is in close proximity to the hotspot, a multiplier of up to 3.5x mining rate is applied to the ore yield. The hotspot changes periodically which means you must reposition your ship if you want to maximise the amount of ore gained.
Players can simply aim their Mining Laser at the asteroid and click “Start Mining” to begin obtaining ore.
With this release, we have generated ore pools for each asteroid based on the ores that can be hand mined on them. The pools are shared across all players and deducted from with each mining cycle until there is none left. This does mean there will likely be some healthy competition but the players who actively move to the hotspots instead of AFK mining will be rewarded more generously.
Mining Lasers range from Basic through to Exotic and can be crafted in their respective Assembly Line S. These follow a similar recipe pattern to the Laser weapons to keep everything uniform.
Coolant is a T3 consumable and a critical part of the new mining experience. Whilst any player can visit asteroids and mine without coolant, having coolant connected to your lasers drastically increases the idle timer between mining cycles by keeping the heat managed. The difference is approximately 2.5x the idle time.
Coolant Containers hold the coolant and on release are available in Small, Medium and Large - all Basic in variant. These must be linked to the Mining Laser in order for them to function correctly.