Topic: Mining etiquette
Figured id at least post something about how to mine on alpha among strangers, and how to properly mine a field when you wont be able to 100% kill it to respawn a fresh field.
When mining liquid ores such as HDT/Liquizit/Epriton:
Liquid ore flows to the source of mining. This means that if you see someone else mining liquid, its best to hit the same tile they are mining. This will cause the entire field to flow to that tile, meaning you wont ever have to move until the field is dead. For liquid ores it is acceptable and expected that you hit the same single tile as everyone else. Spacebar mine for liquids. Don't bother hitting multiple tiles here.
When Mining solid ores such as Titan ect:
This is a bit more difficult vs liquid ore. You will want to first and foremost kill every tile you mine. leaving behind a few cycles will mess up the field respawn until someone else comes along and finds that lone tile. If you are mining into a field can and plan on mining longer than a missions worth, youll want to put one laser on each tile, as many as you can mine, in a straight line.
You will often see rivalers mining 5 tiles across working down a line. Pay attention to this and try not to park your argano right behind him and hit two random tiles. The rivaler will most likely mine right through you which could cause a new player to assume hes getting grief mined. This is not the case.
if you are in a small bot, and don't plan on extended mining, hit some tiles on the edge of the ore field, don't park your bot in the center and hit a few tiles, creating holes in the field.
If you find yourself in the situation where there is only a row of 5 tiles and a rivaler working down it, just start on the opposite side and work towards them rather than starting the line behind them.
overall when mining your goal is to 100% kill the field to get the fresh respawn. Once a field is 100% mined out a new one spawns. Most "professional" miners will try to pay as little attention to mining as possible (they are either pvping, farming mobs, watching tv, ect while mining) Don't take offense if a big miner bot runs right through where you are mining, chances are you didn't notice the line down the field they are working.
Since ore is infinite, and respawns immediately after killing a field, there is never a need for getting upset at others mining your ore. The only thing that is typically upsetting is scanning down a field seeing it broken into many tiny sections with a lot of tiles with only a few cycles left. This causes people a lot of babysitting of that field in order to kill it, so a fresh field respawns.
You always want to leave a field in a condition where its simple to kill it, keeping to ore in a solid patch vs many broken sections with as few low density tiles left as possible. This will ensure someone else can quickly kill that field to spawn a new one.
Remember if you don't kill that field, someone else will have to, so leave it in a condition you would want to see.
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