Mining

i

Draft

This article is still being written and may be incomplete.

Uncertain: Exact commodity profitability, current sell stations, and per-ring yields are intentionally not fixed in static text.

Status

Draft

Last reviewed

2026-08-23

Reviewer

Sythan

Game mode

Both

Version coverage

unspecified

Source quality

Research-backed draft architecture using current gameplay notes plus EDCD structured module and identifier data

Known uncertainty

Exact commodity profitability, current sell stations, and per-ring yields are intentionally not fixed in static text.

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.

Draft: This article is still a work in progress and may be incomplete. You can help improve it by adding or expanding its content.

Start here

A mining run usually has five parts:

1. choose a mining method and fit the ship for that method;
2. bring enough limpets and cargo space for the planned run;
3. travel to a suitable ring, hotspot, or known mining location;
4. prospect, extract, collect, and refine the desired resources; and
5. 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 and equipment tables below to jump to the relevant reference page or Field Procedure.

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.	—

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.

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.

Related Field Manual Entries

Trade Ships and Equipment Tools and Resources Field Procedures