Mining
EDFM // Mining
Mining turns asteroid resources into refined cargo through method-specific extraction, collection, refining, and market planning.
Mining is the ship-based activity of extracting minerals, metals, and other commodities from asteroids, refining them into cargo, and selling them through commodity markets in Elite Dangerous. This hub separates durable mining knowledge — methods, equipment, locations, and procedure flow — from time-sensitive information such as current best prices or high-demand sell stations.
Start here
A mining run usually has five parts:
- choose a mining method and fit the ship for that method;
- bring enough limpets and cargo space for the planned run;
- travel to a suitable planetary ring, hotspot, or known mining location;
- prospect, extract, collect, and refine the desired resources; and
- check current market data before selling the cargo.
New commanders should begin with How to Start Mining. Commanders who already understand the loop can use the method, equipment, and procedure tables below to jump to the relevant reference page.
Quick route by goal
| Goal | Start with | Main equipment | Procedure |
|---|---|---|---|
| Simple asteroid-fragment mining | Laser Mining | Mining Laser, Prospector Limpet Controller, Collector Limpet Controller, Refinery | How to Laser Mine |
| Cracking fissured asteroids | Core Mining | Pulse Wave Analyser, Seismic Charge Launcher, Abrasion Blaster, collectors, refinery | How to Core Mine |
| Extracting internal deposits | Sub-surface Mining | Sub-surface Displacement Missile, prospector, collectors, refinery | How to Sub-surface Mine |
| Breaking visible deposits | Surface Deposit Mining | Abrasion Blaster, collectors, refinery | How to Mine Surface Deposits |
| Finding a target hotspot | Mining Hotspot | Detailed Surface Scanner | How to Scan Planetary Rings for Mining Hotspots |
Field Procedures
- How to Core Mine (Draft) — Identify core asteroids, place seismic charges, crack the asteroid safely, and collect exposed deposits.
- How to Find Somewhere to Sell Mined Commodities (Draft) — Choose a market for mined commodities using in-game market data and current third-party trade tools where appropriate.
- How to Find a Mining Hotspot (Draft) — Travel to a mapped ring hotspot, drop into the ring safely, and begin prospecting inside the target area.
- How to Ignore Unwanted Mining Commodities (Draft) — Use the contacts and refinery workflow to stop collector limpets from repeatedly bringing in fragments you do not want to keep.
- How to Laser Mine (Draft) — Extract surface fragments from asteroids with mining lasers, collect them with limpets, and refine useful commodities.
- How to Mine Surface Deposits (Draft) — Break surface deposits from asteroids with an abrasion blaster and collect the resulting materials or commodities.
- How to Resolve a Full Refinery (Draft) — Clear blocked refinery bins and cargo problems so mining can continue without losing valuable fragments unnecessarily.
- How to Scan Planetary Rings for Mining Hotspots (Draft) — Use a Detailed Surface Scanner to map a planetary ring and reveal mining hotspots that can guide commodity targeting.
- How to Start Mining (Draft) — Prepare a ship for a first mining run and complete the basic loop of finding, extracting, refining, and selling mined commodities.
- How to Sub-surface Mine (Draft) — Extract sub-surface deposits from asteroids with displacement missiles and collect the released chunks.
- How to Use Collector Limpets (Draft) — Deploy collector limpets efficiently and avoid common mistakes that destroy limpets or slow collection.
- How to Use a Prospector Limpet (Draft) — Launch and read prospector limpets to identify asteroid contents before committing time and collector limpets.
- How to Use a Refinery (Draft) — Turn collected fragments into cargo by managing refinery bins and transferring completed tonnes into the cargo hold.
Mining methods
| Method | What it does | Primary equipment | Location cue | Field Procedures |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Laser mining | Uses mining lasers to break ordinary surface fragments from an asteroid, then collector limpets and a refinery turn those fragments into cargo. | — | Commonly performed in planetary rings, especially in mapped hotspots for the target commodity. | — |
| Core mining | Uses a pulse wave analyser to locate candidate core asteroids, seismic charges to split fissures, and an abrasion blaster to dislodge exposed deposits after detonation. | — | Tied to asteroids with fissures and visible deposits rather than every asteroid in a ring. | — |
| Sub-surface mining | Uses sub-surface displacement missiles against scanned deposits inside an asteroid, releasing chunks for collection and refining. | — | Depends on asteroids that contain sub-surface deposits; prospectors identify deposits before firing. | — |
| Surface deposit mining | Uses an abrasion blaster to break visible surface deposits from an asteroid, usually as part of core mining or targeted deposit collection. | — | Requires visible surface deposits on the asteroid rather than normal laser-mining fragments. | — |
Equipment map
| Equipment | Group | Slot / mount | Mining role | Methods |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mining Laser | Extraction hardpoint | Hardpoint | Breaks standard mining fragments from laser-mineable asteroid material. | — |
| Abrasion Blaster | Extraction hardpoint | Hardpoint | Breaks exposed surface deposits from an asteroid. | — |
| Seismic Charge Launcher | Extraction hardpoint | Hardpoint | Places charges into asteroid fissures for core mining. | — |
| Sub-surface Displacement Missile | Extraction hardpoint | Hardpoint | Extracts sub-surface deposits after a prospector identifies a usable deposit. | — |
| Pulse Wave Analyser | Scanner hardpoint utility | Utility-style hardpoint scanner in EDCD outfitting data | Highlights asteroids with notable deposits, especially useful when searching for core candidates. | — |
| Prospector Limpet Controller | Limpet controller | Optional internal | Analyses an asteroid's contents before mining and enables informed target selection. | — |
| Collector Limpet Controller | Limpet controller | Optional internal | Collects fragments, chunks, and canisters so the ship is not scooping by hand. | — |
| Refinery | Processing module | Optional internal | Converts collected mining fragments into whole tonnes of cargo. | — |
| Detailed Surface Scanner | Discovery scanner | Optional internal | Maps planetary rings to reveal hotspots for commodities that can be targeted while mining. | — |
| Cargo Rack | Storage | Optional internal | Carries limpets before mining and refined commodity cargo after mining. | — |
A mining ship normally carries an extraction tool, collector support, a refinery, cargo space, and enough limpets for the planned run. The exact layout depends on the method: a laser miner does not need seismic charges, while a core miner generally does not need to spend hardpoints on mining lasers.
Locations and search concepts
| Concept | Use in mining | Working notes |
|---|---|---|
| Planetary rings | Primary environment for ship-based asteroid mining. | Ring type and reserve level affect what commanders expect to find, but live market value still has to be checked separately. |
| Mining hotspots | Mapped ring areas that increase the chance of finding a named commodity. | Hotspots are revealed by mapping the ring with a Detailed Surface Scanner. They guide targeting; they do not guarantee a full hold of the named commodity. |
| Resource Extraction Sites | Ring locations with NPC traffic, security/pirate activity, and mining opportunities in the same space. | Useful for some gameplay loops, but a quiet hotspot is often simpler for a dedicated mining run. |
| Ring reserve level | System-map reserve descriptions such as pristine or depleted give broad expectations for mining yield. | Treat reserve level as planning context, not a precise per-asteroid result. |
| Current trade and mining tools | Community tools are commonly used to find recent sell prices, demand, and reported hotspots. | Prices and demand move over time, so procedure pages should teach commanders to verify current data rather than hard-code old best-sell stations. |
Most ship-based mining happens in planetary rings. Ring hotspots revealed by a Detailed Surface Scanner are a planning aid rather than a guarantee; a commander still has to prospect individual asteroids and verify the current market before treating a run as profitable.
Commodity planning
Mined commodities are useful only after they become cargo and reach a market with demand. EDFM should avoid hard-coding a permanent "best" commodity or station on this page: hotspots, routes, background simulation state, carrier markets, demand, and third-party data freshness all affect the practical answer.
| Planning group | Examples | How it is used | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Common laser-mining targets | — | Generally found as asteroid fragments and refined into cargo. | This is a planning group, not a ranked money list; sell price and demand must be checked at the time of the run. |
| Common core-mining targets | — | Found in crackable core asteroids and collected from exposed deposits after detonation. | A hotspot helps search for a target commodity, but commanders still need to identify suitable core asteroids. |
| Deposit-based targets | — | Collected from surface or sub-surface deposits depending on the asteroid and equipment used. | Deposit labels come from prospecting/targeting the asteroid rather than from the commodity market screen alone. |
| Materials and by-products | — | Collected alongside or instead of the intended commodity during normal mining. | Procedures should cover ignoring unwanted fragments and clearing refinery bins so by-products do not stall the run. |
Reference build notes
The Mining section is being built from maintainable data modules so method pages, equipment pages, and Field Procedures can share the same canonical relationships instead of repeating hand-maintained lists. Current draft data lives in:
- Module:Data/Mining/Methods
- Module:Data/Mining/Equipment
- Module:Data/Mining/Locations
- Module:Data/Mining/Commodities
- Module:Data/Mining/Sources
- Module:Data/Procedures/Mining
Source posture
- Elite Dangerous current in-game mechanics — Used for procedure structure and gameplay loop descriptions; detailed numbers should remain draft until directly rechecked in the current Live client.
- EDCD coriolis-data outfitting records — Used as a structured, version-controlled reference for mining module families, slots, ratings, classes, and mount variants.
- EDCD FDevIDs commodity and outfitting identifiers — Used to cross-check commodity and module naming against Frontier identifiers.
- Current community market/trade data — Needed at use time for prices, demand, and station selection; static wiki text should avoid hard-coded best-sell claims.