Best Mining Ship in Star Citizen - Solo and fleet - Mole vs Prospector

[@DowntoEarthAstronomy]

I uploaded the wrong file at first. Sorry about that. Here is the right video. Enjoy :-)

[@JonasGrumby]

I equiped all stealth and took off my weapons on the prospector. You have to see me to get me on radar.

[@emanuelruettimann]

I love that idea 😁 would you care to share which components you built im specifically?

[@JonasGrumby]

@@emanuelruettimann Ya if you get attacked by a combat ship your only chance is to run anyway. You can use any grade A stealth spec comps.

[@durtyred86]

This would be great, if stealth was actually working lol. 🤣😂

[@Tabix80]

I run the same on mine

[@larrybremer4930]

Your guns dont emit any EM or heat when off, so just turn them off but carry them just in case you get a QT jam or some other situation where running is not an option, just power them up and you at least can defend yourself. I have killed NPC hurricanes with a prospector so you are only really in a jam if you are intercepted by a pirate or griefer player.

[@foxamongdeli6745]

Very interesting take! To be blunt at this stage in development, if you wish to make money mining it is always most efficient to do it solo as with practice one can do a run in less than half an hour, and using double surge modules and a bit of practice you can crack pretty much anything with a single lancet. On that basis the difference between prospector and mole is very small, I would argue there is a significant benefit to having more cargo capacity immediately on dropping in planetside you could find a cluster of a full 96scu of quant, mine it and be back to the refinery within half an hour - solo. Doing that twice would bring in a haul of not far off 2 million an hour :D. In the prospector you are immediately capped at about 500k an hour as you can’t carry more than 32scu of quant at a time and you can never do more than two runs an hour. However in practice the difference in efficiency is minimal in most situations you will be struggling to fill a prospector before returning to refine and I would assume that the mucking about moving from laser to pilot seat in the mole even further makes up that efficiency difference. The big difference in my opinion is something you mentioned - mining with a large group of friends/orgmates. We have a contingent of pvp ships and a contingent of mining ships. Everyone - 1 person per ship - prospects and when they find a good cluster it is called in. A small cluster will call in a prospector ship, a large one call in a MOLE although in all situations moles are ideal as then the combat pilot who found the cluster can hop into the MOLE and help with breaking and extraction. If the whole operation is busted by pirates, the combat ships can just drop their prospecting and go deal with the pirates. Those in the mining ships return to the refinery with their loads whenever, often with a combat escort. Once the jobs are done refining a couple days later we also often call in an escort when going to sell. All the profits go to one person who then divvies it up between everyone who helped. The entire operation hinges on a multi crew mining ship as it completely falls apart without the added cargo capacity and multicrew ability of the mole.

[@larrybremer4930]

your correct on all counts, but cracking ultra large rocks solo is still risking a blowout and also probably a lot of good material left behind. Mining in a loose alliance with a pair or trio works well where your buddies are there for mutual support to break big rocks easily, and then carry any left overs after the finder fills up. Everyone benefits that way. I usually say a realistic figure is 300k an hour mining solo in a prospy, but I have hit over 600k an hour working in small loose groups. The delivery mission box trick also helps when more than one good find is made at the same time where you drop a box on a site to mark it for a return later (or when scouting for a mole). Generally I do one round trip in about 45 minutes but that is almost always over 30cu pure quant because I am selective of what I mine, generally anything that will yield more than 1600kg of quant - ideal rocks would be over 1800kg of quant to pretty much assure a full 32cu pure load. My SC tag is "launchie", look me up after the 3.18 wipe so we can partner up on some quant mining.

[@CMDR_Elizium51RA]

At this point the vast majority of my experience in Star Citizen is mining. This was a fantastic video, you covered a lot of good information as always. My crew and I tend to fly in multiple prospectors for all of the exact reasons you mentioned. I do have one friend who solos in a mole, but it seems too inconvenient for me.

[@OperatorTigran]

Thank you for making SC videos, after spending 4 years in Elite, I decided to give up on it for now. SC is awesome, I hope they will add VR support soon.

[@road282productions]

This really helped me. The IAE is a tough time for my brain. A Prospector it is. Thx!

[@Rellik47]

Thanks for making it easy to pick which ship works for me with facts

[@dominik1023]

good info bro, presented from an angle I did not expect. Keep up the good work.

[@pitanpainter2140]

Thanks for this, I've been using a Prospector, and am thinking about a Mole - this helps clarify my options.

[@motoerhead1990]

i just got into mining and found your video. Well the 3 prospectors glued together part is true... but when you considor having also solo trips than its allready a win for the mole because you have that addidional cargo space you wouldt have lets say if you own 3 prospectors. plus the additional turrets give you the option to have them kitted out for different uses like one for big rocks.. your standard one and then one optimized for extracting to give you a higher yield there. plus as far as i know right now the prospector isnt filtering anything out while the mole apparently does some inert stuff out. So if you allways fly in groups then i think prospectors are better but if you also fly solo the mole makes more sense to me. Great video! cheer!

[@jamescossey854]

Even though it's not set up in game yet. The mole is suppose to be able to drop containers/cargo(the ore) so a transport ship can pick it up to take back. Meaning the mole does not need to leave the area

[@larrybremer4930]

I am not sure how useful that would be mining planets because moles eat up their fuel really fast. Also quantanium would still go unstable and blow I think so its only useful if dropping the packs stops the timer.

[@davidolson3776]

I prefer the Prospector, but that is only because I use a secondary account flying another prospector on my gaming laptop to break the big rocks. If my two prospectors find more than 10,000 Quantanium, then I'll fly a fully loaded Prospector back to Wide Forest and bring the Mole to extract the remaining quantanium. In other words, I don't break rocks with the Mole - I only use it for extraction.

[@Mortalsarthae]

All valid points. However there are some of us who run a seperate character as a mining operator. This allows one laser to be operated while piloting, and that character can also man a second laser. I tend to mine whatever ever high end ore I stumble across because I know if that Quant rock comes up I still have space to grab it. It allows less search time.

[@ricardo_1989]

How do u do this play 2 chars

[@Mortalsarthae]

@@ricardo_1989 Two Pc's, one streaming to the other using parsec.

[@drunkenfox2519]

Okay but this is obviously from the perspective of a person playing 1 character as the game is intended to be played.

[@Edukacyjny_pa-troll]

I think you missed one aspect. What about benefis of diffrent mining heads like -75% this, +30% that and so on. On prospector you would need mining gadgets, and lets not forget attachments. I'm not sure all this was in gameplay as of this video. Great content!

[@knightofxentar]

Allow the Mole to eject mined material, so the crew can optimize what's been collected.

[@shagal2142]

With those new mining gadgets comming with 3.17, you propably can even easily crack up like really huge stones even with a prospector. I also mine solo with a prospector, and sometimes its just insane on Lyria you drop in and within 3 minutes you find a halfway solid rock and start mine.

[@lostphotographs3936]

The effects stack with the mining lasers. In the mole its a bit easier to keep a laser in the front for cracking and two on the sides for the 2nd break and cleanup. Even when using 2. I do agree with 2 prospectors.

[@Leptospirosi]

One advantage of the mole is it's quantum engine which can be SIGNIFICANTLY faster then on a prospector and still have plenty of range. If you are mining inside the Aaron Belt, the mole is the better ship

[@humblemonk9237]

Analysis is correct, good video

[@theo.p.o.g.7695]

The mole is for a 2-man crew of best friends who want to hang out while mining. Which isn't efficient because a prospector and a fighter would be a better game plan

[@dt9233]

Very great tutorial😉💯👍

[@stevenrobinson2012]

I agree with all of that. My biggest problem with the idea of solo mining with a mole is just that I can’t easily crack a rock that’s behind another rock without climbing the ladder again and flying around just to go back down the ladder again. Way too tedious

[@Qrcodescan]

fantastic points! thank uu Sir

[@mur4s4m3]

10 times more shield and triple hp (if rock explodes), triple SCU and better range on Mole, mining in Aaron Halo to stay out of sight Much lighter, and smaller Prospector but less SCU if, stealthier (w/o weapons & w/ stealth items) when you're not mining in Aaron Halo or any discrete place

[@Prinzzenrolle]

I can't agree 100% with your video. From a solo miner perspective on 3.16.1 right now, you always want to mine in a Mole on Lyria as a experienced miner. I've started in 3.15.1 with mining in a Prospector and after 2 weeks a bought the Mole. All I can say, if i have the possibility to mine in a Prospector or a Mole, I always choose the Mole, it's much more efficient aUAC/hr.

[@darkstealthgaming2746]

its weird in my oppinion that the mole lasers cant be stronger so its easyer to crack the bigger rocks. It rarely happends that there are multiple high % rocks together or a rock actually allot more then 32scu

[@gregzavertnik1204]

I beg to differ with your assessment. The Mole is a extremely viable solo mining ship. I fully understand your points but I believe your conclusions are wrong. If you are mining on a planet, you are correct that you can attempt to get away from a pirate, should one appear, much easier. However as slow as the Prospector is, you are likely to be just as dead in Prospector as you would be in a Mole. So the travel time from a mining chair to the pilot seat provides little downside in actual affect rather than theory. Also, solo mining planet side is very different than in the Halo where you odds of getting jumped are almost non-existent. As for overcharging rocks, well that is a skill one needs to master regardless of the ship. Cargo size is most relevant, you mention that one would rarely fill the Mole with Quant. I profusely disagree. I regularly return to the refinery with 75+ SCU of Quant. The difference is that the mining tactics in the Mole are very different than a Prospector. I only mine Quant and I only mine single rocks greater than 35 or clusters where I can easily find 2-3 rocks in close proximity that allows me to mine 60+ SCU of Quant. Mining in the Mole, like you do in a Prospector, is extremely inefficient. In a Prospector you grab the first large Quant rock you find then run back. In the Mole, you rely on your long range scanners and throttle up to cover ground to search for targets with 90%+ signal strength at greater than 6-7Km. Those are larger single rocks or twins, but more often than not, clusters of 5-11 rocks. As soon as they pop in you can tell if they are tightly packed or not so you can make a quick determination on whether to move on. Also, a single scan of a single rock that does not show Quant at 3Km means there is no Quant in the cluster. Yes I pass up a lot of mine-able rocks with other materials or lower Quant yields but the time it takes me to find a high yield cluster and pull in 75+ Quant is far less than getting the same results from making at least 3 round trips and searches for Quant in a Prospector. In addition if, you mine in a Prospector with this strategy, you will find your self very frustrated ant all the Quant you will be leaving behind. VERY FRUSTRATED. The Mole has a specific use case when it comes to solo mining and is superior to the Prospector for that use case. Solo Quant cluster mining in the Halo. The Prospector does not come close to it and my ship fleet and aUEC proves it every day. In one hour I regularly bring back two full loads of Quant of approximately 1.3M+ aUEC total. Good pay for an hour, give or take. As for CGI improvements. The number one thing they can do to make the Prospector better in the Halo is to allow us to have a beacon as a mining gadget or new asset. Being able to drop a targeting beacon so that you could QT back to the same spot would benefit both the Mole and the Prospector but the Prospector more so as it could locate larger Quant yields and hop right back to mop it up. If a beacon is out of the question, let us enter in the exact distance we want to QT so that we could just auto drop out of QT at a precise point in space. or with in 10K like when we QT to a party member. Until then, if you have to fly and search, you will want a Mole to bring it all back in.

[@CotelioGrahamn]

You can also bring a delivery package with you to use as a nav marker :3 Not quite a jump beacon but it helps

[@cjwyalk7843]

This ding ding ding …..you may never fill up the mole, but with inerts, I don’t have to be picky in the mole…..in the prospector your constantly searching for that 32/32 quantanium pure haul….even on a bad run I can get that….I might have a equal amount of inert but who cares I probably also grabbed more than 32 scu of quantanium. Also, the main benefit of the prospector is spreading out and searching, being on site while someone runs back to refinery with a load….you can also do this with a mole, we have 2 in my group, and some prospectors….so it’s not like this multi ship strategy is limited to prospectors….

[@skeide1499]

$315 for mole + $215 for railen good combo? I have $470 in store credits.

[@rio20d]

I solo quant with prosp, just more convinient with piloting and mining in the same cockpit, yes mole is a multi crew ship , if you have friend better go to mole, I just dont get people solo mine with mole as it is just a hassle to go back to cockpit to move your ship if you suddenly have pirates inbound or if you overcharge and you need to move the ship away or just pray that your shield will tank those damage lol...

[@Zonker66]

I like the idea of mining, but I'd rather the space given to the additional mining lasers were given to storage, better shields, and the ability to mine from the pilot seat in the MOLE.

[@ikkeheltvanlig]

Doesn't the Mole have significantly more range on the scanners as well? 3x Prospectors would as well, but solo it will help you find valuable rocks faster, and as you mentioned a Mole owner can hire players without their own mining platform for a premium, say fixed pay to your crew leaving you with the variable overhead

[@snowdoll3778]

i was thinking a mole, so im glad i saw this. but problem now is i have money and no purpose for it, no upgrade path. i suck at ship combat, so all those are out. not sure what to aim for if i like calm gameplay or on foot gameplay

[@WarHawkAU24]

I prefer my prospector for all the reasons upu listed. If the mole had the ability to attack a fighter, I'd like that so you could a. Defend better and b. Send one crewmember to scout while i am dropping quantanium off. I like the idea of the longer stability period though.

[@robhowett7733]

My son and I enjoy working as a team together rather than separately, I'm currently looking into the mole for that reason, and at the end of the day it can be melted, would you recommend it on that basis?

[@hsuhao5400]

Thank you good sir

[@tje.o.a5477]

Another reason to prefer the mole is you have 3 prospectors worth of people in one ship. So let's say there were 3 people per mole and four moles, that would be 12x the amount a sisngle prospector can bring in alone. So for the same amount of moles per prospector, it would be a better choice to have 4 moles over 4 prospectors. While yes it would be better to have 12 prospectora over 4 moles, you are getting the same profit for cheaper. If of course they are priced similarly. Finally, solo speaking, it would be better because if you are alone, if you kit yourself for stealth, you can stay hidden. Plus it would be better cus you would have space for a friend if needed. Org speaking, let's say you only have 32 players, you could send out 4 moles each with 3 players man-inf the mole, and two in seperate fighters in case of trouble. That would again be 12x the profit for only 20 people with 10 to spare. I have yet to get into sc so you can correct me if I am wrong here, but to me it woould make more sense to have the mole over a prospector. The only issue comes up when playing solo, having to get into the cockpit and all, but the better the reward the more the risk right?

[@STNeish]

The chairs at the start of your video look very comfortable, EXCEPT the arms. My elbows would be in agony after even one evening of playing on those hard things. We need padded armrests!

[@DowntoEarthAstronomy]

They are padded-ish. They are made of some kind of dense foam. It's not hard plastic

[@STNeish]

@@DowntoEarthAstronomy Ooh, that's ok then.

[@obiwonton369]

CIG EZ fix to make Mole better value DOUBLE QT Stable Timer 3x cargo 3x laser 3x crew at least give 2x stabilizer for QT true that Mole is cool hang with friends but it IS NOT Enough Prospector beats it earning power

[@peterhamilton7723]

multi-miners with a transporter would be a better choice

[@ashroskell]

This is a bit off topic, sort of, but I’m seeking advice from any experienced players. Simple question: How do you find an Earth-like or Water World as an explorer, that is completely unknown to others? I am a PS4 Horizons player and I LOVE this game. Seriously considering buying a gaming computer for the Odyssey version. I’m pretty new, having become, “Elite,” at exploring, simply due to an administrative error (not checking how far the data I was carrying was meant to go BEFORE accepting the mission) which took me 2,200+ light years from the bubble. Since attaining the rank, I decided to fit out a ship and earn the title. Now, I’m pretty good at exploring and well equipped for it. I’m deep out in space, with a jump range of 32 average, but frequently using the materials I’ve gathered to synthesise jumps which double my range, so I’m getting well over 100 light years in two jumps. My problem is, every time I find something worth logging, I find someone has already been there, seen that, reported it. In a game that’s meant to have 4 billion procedurally generated star systems, this seems like an impossibility. I get that a lot of people use third party products to identify targets and poach them from the web, but surely there’s room for people like me who just want to go into the black and make, “actual,” discoveries? They can’t ALL be spoken for, can they? What am I doing wrong? If I don’t want to simply look up someone else’s work and find real discoveries, how deep out do I need to go? I’ve tried going, “up,” and, “down,” along my routes, so I’m not just taking paths that everyone else has travelled. I chose my direction randomly, selected the right types of stars for my jumps, everything I can think of, without using third party software cheats. I have no problem with others doing that; everyone plays their own way and I understand (oh boy do I understand!) the need for serious cash when you start out. And, given that there’s so many stars out there, it’s a physical impossibility that everything has already been discovered? Isn’t it? Some of the names I see that have beaten me to an ammonia world, or water planet or whatever, seem suspiciously procedurally generated too? Do you have to be in open play or something? I’ve stayed in closed play because I have no weapons and would lose about half a billion in credits (no exaggeration) if I got ganked on my way back to civilisation. But, even when people are using third party services to poach all the Earth-likes, surely they can’t ALL be known? There has to be something, somewhere, that has never been seen by human eyes before? An entire system, right? If that’s never going to happen, I would like to know. Can anyone advise me?

[@cr1spbeatzplz]

Wrong game bud, this is star citizen 😳

[@mishterpreshident]

You're talking Elite Dangerous, not Star Citizen. I used to play ED and did a lot of exploring. Huge numbers of systems, the vast majority in fact, should be undiscovered. When I was playing, I found that almost all systems anywhere within reasonable range of the main inhabited systems were all identified long ago. I never started making discoveries of my own until I went way out into the black. Way out. Then I made hundreds of new discoveries. Ended up getting bored tho, cuz once you've discovered it, all you get for it is a little naming credit and some money, but weeks in the black won't net you anyhere near the kind of money you'd make in a couple hours of mining.

[@undercoverasiant696]

Hold on....... are you saying that walking through your " ship interior " gets frustrating at times ? . Well don't let yamiks know, that would make half his videos irrelevant.

[@joeparker3815]

mining gameplay is disappointing in SC. Only having 2 of of the tons of ships that can do mining just goes to show this. It's one of my favourite activities in Elite.

[@WarHawkAU24]

I actually enjoy mining more is star citizen than elite...and I loved mining in Elite

[@jonsays3762]

That gaming chair is the same as every other gaming chair. Buy a Serta or a Steelcase. Also, this doesn’t look like Elite Dangerous at all. :)

[@Zolier]

Fake news

[@MerlinMoorlo]

Main question: can i buy ships for ingame currency?