You are probably wondering why I am doing prospecting missions in the first place. I am UIT and I thought that it might fit in to my RP(roleplay). You know, the kind of adventuring/exploring type making a buck off lucrative enterprises and trades. I want to eventually finish them all so i can get something like "master prospector / explorer" attached to my pilot info to reinforce my RP. Ehh, that, and i just like flying around checking out where things are. Its always cool to have a bit of an explore when you are in a new universe.

The rewards are dismal though. I expect that the first few (finding carb/ferr) are low paying/ low xp. Heck, you can just fly outside your station and collect the asteroid positions in a matter of minutes. But, as I am finding out, they are getting increasingly harder. The type of asteroids you have to find are getting rare. Usually you have to traverse many sectors and perform dare devil flying around asteroid belts while being persued by increasingly dangerous bots. The last mission I did took 60 minutes (and i had a fair idea where the asteroids were too), I nearly lost my prize ship, and I was totally exhausted from performing fine thruster manoeuvres hugging the asteroids while avoiding the blazing fire of 5 high level guardians.

I pulled in to the station with a crippled ship. I opened the canopy and slumped to the ground. I whinced in pain when i saw hot liquid metal dripping off my ship, revealing its ribcage and arteries. My beloved steed was gutted. Standing on solid artificial gravity felt weird after the hour of pitching and rolling sensations of constant high G manoevres; I had space vertigo. I valiantly vomited behind a crate. I pealed off the top of my sweat soaked flightsuit. Being an adventurer was tough work. But heck, the scouting I did will keep my employers rich for weeks! I hit eureka! My boss approached me. Here we go! This is what it's all about. Paydirt. "Good work on that recon mission, I hear it was far in pirate space and you nearly bought it this time.. your services will be rewarded, oh yes..". I licked my lips as I always do when about to start my delicious meal of hard currency..

"Here is 500 bucks buddy. Oh, and 75 points on your licence. Catch you around"...

As I walked past the stout man he fell limp to the ground, ghasping for air. My wrist felt a little strained and I knew I'd have to start looking for a new employer. It was worth it.

Come on. 500 bucks/ 75 exp for all that work? In the same 60 minutes I can pull in 10 times the XP and money from just straight mining. Outside a station. I can make buckets from strafing mindless drones over and over.

The reward does not do justice to the amount of work you have to put in to a prospecting mission. Even courier missions (which i can blitz in about 10 minutes) are a little more lucrative.

Please increase the rewards as prospecting missions get harder!

amen

There are plenty of stations with decent(or even high level) ores nearby.

Also, if it took you an hour to mine 500c worth of ore, you prolly were both using one mining laser(do some trade missions, get the wraith, so you can use 2), and it sounds like you were mining hot roids or something. Make sure you only mine roids under about 50k. With the small mining laser, I would only mine a roid to about 20k, then find another. Once you get a better laser, you can mine hotter roids without it taking forever.

Also, if the ore is selling poorly, take it elsewhere. You can prolly get at least 60/ore for Ferric, and a bit less for Carbonic, Silicate, and Aqueas. Or you could look around till you find a place with VanAzek(not rare) or Ishik(only slightly rare) and mine them, and get a far better price. Again, look around, one station may have had a lot of ore of that type sold to it, but another station may be paying famine prices for it.

Another thing, don't mine in places with bots. Wormholes are a decent place to mine, as long as you stay out of grey space. If you want better safety, stay near a base. Again, plenty of bases have good ores nearby.

Edit: nice roleplay post, by the way.

Edit2: I just realized you meant the prospecting mission. I suggest next time, if you want mining experience, that you actually get a laser and mine. But if you want to do the prospecting mission, don't prospect in bot-infested areas. Stick to station sectors, they'll have all the roids you need.

<quote="Soltis">Stick to station sectors, they'll have all the roids you need.</quote>
Ever been to Dantia? Try finding a silicate roid there.
Unless, of course, the prospecting mission is now based on composition rather than roid type... (haven't bothered to find out)
-:sigma.SB

Tcoops.

While you are on a prospecting mission, mine ore and sell it back to a station. In a Centaur, 44 cargo, you can get >200 mining XP and >300 trade XP just by mining ferric or aquean rocks.

What ore were you looking for that was so hard to find?

I agree, prospecting doesn't give remotely the same XP as mining does, and its far more work.

However, I'm not sure that the only thing thats flawed here is the prospecting mission, I think the mining XP in general is a bit off. (Heck, getting over 800xp for filling my ship with ore? )

Same with trade, In the time when you get +400 xp for selling 10 spare pieces while doing a mission, and the missions pay 3-500 xp each?

*sigh* I'm getting concerned about the XP distribution.

Spider, I think it's only a short term concern.

While the exp. gains are a bit whacked, there's a real possibility what the devs are doing is building framework and tweaking, and the adjustments being made WON'T make sense till they're done adding in the other things that come subsequent to these changes.