1 (edited by Brains 2010-12-12 16:50:19)

Topic: Which Ore to Mine (answers inside!)

NEW! I've made a table for ease-of-use. No more calculator nightmare, you can now compare ore profitability easily here http://img152.imageshack.us/img152/9663 … tomine.png. The values are the price at which you expect to sell the ore, and the most profitable one is the one that is most to the right. See post #20 for an example on how to use it, if you're not sure. Note that this takes into consideration the information in the edit just below this.

RE-RE-EDIT : It seems Stermonit, Imentium and Liquizit get 20% more volume per cycle than Titan Ore and HDT (confirmed with a Dev). I'm adding a Corrected Ratio column.

The Data

Ore type         Volume/Unit         Ratio           CorrectedRatio

Titan Ore           0.00005               5                      5
HDT                   0.00005               5                      5
Stermonit          0.00010              2.5                    3
Imentium          0.00015            1.6667                 2
Liquizit              0.00020              1.25                  1.5
Epriton              0.00025               1                     1.5

Equation : Price x CorrectedRatio = Profitability Rating

Higher Profitability Rating is better.


The Explanation

The volume/unit column is the volume of a single unit of that ore type. For example, 1 titan ore takes up 0.00005 U of room in your cargohold.

This is useful because mining modules mine a specific volume per cycle. Correction : Stermonit, Imentium and Liquizit mine 20% more volume, meaning they fill your cargohold faster than Titan Ore and HDT. Epriton fills your cargohold 50% faster.

The third column shows a ratio of how many times more ore of that particular type you get per cycle compared to Epriton (the most voluminous ore).

To easily find out which ore is the most profitable to mine, multiply the price at which you would sell the ore, with the CORRECTED ratio found in the graph. Note that you must use the price PER UNIT.

EXAMPLE : if you can sell titan ore at 1 NIC each, and stermonit at 1.5 NIC each, you could be fooled into thinking you'd be better off mining stermonit. By using the equation found at the bottom of the graph, you will find that this is not the case.

From the EXAMPLE above :
Titan ore ->   1.0 NIC x 5 = 5
Stermonit ->  1.5 NIC x 3 = 4.5

From the EXAMPLE above : The titan ore has a higher "Profitability Rating", hence it would be more profitable to mine, assuming you intend to sell the ores at the prices you used in the equation.

IMPORTANT NOTE : This calculation does not take into consideration the fact that some ores may be harder to find, and further away from a terminal. Correction : it also does not take into account the fact that Stermonit, Imentium and Liquizit fill your cargohold 20% faster, making them slightly inferior to Titan Ore and HDT in a situation where the profitability is equal. As for Epriton, if you can mine it, you don't need equations to figure out that it's more profitable.

PS : tell me I'm pretty.

Re: Which Ore to Mine (answers inside!)

You lied. You said there were answers inside, but there were formulas. Now I have to think and use my brain. SHAME.

PS. You are pretty.

Re: Which Ore to Mine (answers inside!)

But isn't it true that as lower is ration as more expensive ore becomes since its volume requires bigger haulers - more trips to haul it. It kinda balances out in the end.

I mean for example if Titan ore costs 0.5 per unit - you mine 75K units which will take 3.75AU to transport and you can sell it for 37K.
While on the other hand the epriton will fill your hauler 5 times faster (just an example of available 3.75AU hauler) but it also costs more so you can make the same or even more money by selling just 15K of epriton.

I guess the trick here is to find that optimal profitability rating by considering your hauling and mining time and current ore demand on the market.

Re: Which Ore to Mine (answers inside!)

No easy answers in this post, I was dissapointet!

Re: Which Ore to Mine (answers inside!)

Some good info there, thank you.

6 (edited by Ketjup 2010-12-06 22:40:44)

Re: Which Ore to Mine (answers inside!)

Do make a little note in your post that while titan ore might have a better base for profit it highly depends on the market. titan ore yesterday gone for 0.6 nic.
while Stermonit  cost 1.6-2.0 nic. 

so while mining easy ores seems profitable, the harder to mine ore's usually give more.

on that note again, titan ore is highly needed in everything and might sell faster thus gaining profit faster (not more)

7 (edited by Brains 2010-12-07 00:54:56)

Re: Which Ore to Mine (answers inside!)

Chief Ubenor wrote:

But isn't it true that as lower is ration as more expensive ore becomes since its volume requires bigger haulers - more trips to haul it. It kinda balances out in the end.

I mean for example if Titan ore costs 0.5 per unit - you mine 75K units which will take 3.75AU to transport and you can sell it for 37K.
While on the other hand the epriton will fill your hauler 5 times faster (just an example of available 3.75AU hauler) but it also costs more so you can make the same or even more money by selling just 15K of epriton.

I guess the trick here is to find that optimal profitability rating by considering your hauling and mining time and current ore demand on the market.

All wrong. Since your module mines a specific volume per cycle (unless I'm mistaken), your cargohold fills at the same rate for each ore. The only variable is the money you make per mining cycle. To know that, you have to know the ratio of volume between each ore, hence the graph I created. That ratio is a constant, so the only variable is the price at which you expect to be able to sell the ore (which you enter into the equation based on the buy and sell orders you see on the market).

I made it because this information and the mechanics behind it are often misunderstood, and also because the volumes of each ore type are currently not shown in the game when you pull up the ore's info (due to missing decimals).

EDIT : for example, the ingame info on all ores says they all have a volume of 0.00 U.

Re: Which Ore to Mine (answers inside!)

Ketjup wrote:

Do make a little note in your post that while titan ore might have a better base for profit it highly depends on the market. titan ore yesterday gone for 0.6 nic.
while Stermonit  cost 1.6-2.0 nic. 

so while mining easy ores seems profitable, the harder to mine ore's usually give more.

on that note again, titan ore is highly needed in everything and might sell faster thus gaining profit faster (not more)

The little note was there in the form of "THIS IS AN EXAMPLE" written all over the example. I then decided to make it italic just to make sure no one confused it with actual significant data. Market prices obviously always change but as I said in my post, the only variables not taken into account are ease-of-finding (quantities found) and travel times. You should re-read my explanation.

9 (edited by Krupp 2010-12-07 09:26:16)

Re: Which Ore to Mine (answers inside!)

Your numbers are wrong, since ore per cycle is not volume based. Get an unskilled agent out in an arkhe and mine 1 cycle of each ore, instead of relying on volume and feeding wrong information.

10 (edited by LSDream 2010-12-07 11:50:11)

Re: Which Ore to Mine (answers inside!)

You are wrong about the ore harvested being based on volume.
Your miner will tell you what the harvested amount per cycle is based on your skills for me it is 126% at this point.

Go out and mine one cycle of each ore for simplicity I will use HDT and Liquizit and some data I acquired earlier
My results:
HDT 630
Liquizit 189

Now when the math comes out we realise that
Base yield
HDT = 500
Liquizit = 150

this number * your extraction efficiency = Actual Yield per cycle

Hope that helps you out. *steals cargo info*

EDIT: It is interesting that yield is NOT in ratio with volume. This means that certain ores will "fill you up" faster, finding that number and comparing it with market value for each ore could yield interesting results

Re: Which Ore to Mine (answers inside!)

Krupp wrote:

Your numbers are wrong, since ore per cycle is not volume based. Get an unskilled agent out in an arkhe and mine 1 cycle of each ore, instead of relying on volume and feeding wrong information.

I'm not feeding wrong information, you're failing to read the information I'm providing.

See the edits that I made to my OP many hours before your post, bold and underlined :

Brains wrote:

EDIT : my equation may be off. I'm trying to confirm what determines the amount of ore a mining cycle extracts, as it seems it may not be a constant volume.

RE-EDIT : I think I may have found a bug with the Argano's mining amount bonus. If there is such a bug, then my equations are correct afterall, and the problem would be that the Argano's mining amount bonus does not work on Titan Ore and HDT for some reason.

Even in this case, the volume I provide is right, and is not available ingame. Besides, the equations can still be used along with a "modifier" of 1.2 for Stermonit, Imentium and Liquizit. I have already found this, hence the edits, and am only missing the "modifier" of Epriton if there is one.

12 (edited by Brains 2010-12-07 17:08:45)

Re: Which Ore to Mine (answers inside!)

LSDream wrote:

You are wrong about the ore harvested being based on volume.
Your miner will tell you what the harvested amount per cycle is based on your skills for me it is 126% at this point.

Go out and mine one cycle of each ore for simplicity I will use HDT and Liquizit and some data I acquired earlier
My results:
HDT 630
Liquizit 189

Now when the math comes out we realise that
Base yield
HDT = 500
Liquizit = 150

this number * your extraction efficiency = Actual Yield per cycle

Hope that helps you out. *steals cargo info*

EDIT: It is interesting that yield is NOT in ratio with volume. This means that certain ores will "fill you up" faster, finding that number and comparing it with market value for each ore could yield interesting results

I've already run into this info yesterday. I mined 620 Titan ore per cycle, 620 HDT per cycle (so far so good, they have the same volume).

Stermonit mined 372 units instead of 310 (20% more than supposed)
Liquizit mined 186 units instead of 155 (20% more than supposed)
Imentium mined 248 units instead of 206.67 (20% more than supposed)

See the pattern? The problem is that yesterday I had 2 theories for this. The first being a 1.2 modifier for some ores. The second : My Argano's mining amount bonus happens to be exactly 20% so the probability of it being a bug with the Argano's mining amount bonus was pretty high.

To test it, all I have to do is take basic robotics 5 and see if the variation goes up to 25%. I couldn't test it yesterday (nor today) when I found this out because I didn't have the EP for basic robotics 5 (and still don't, and need my EP elsewhere at the moment). That's why I added the bold and underlined edits at the top of my OP warning people that there is still work in progress here.

EDIT : According to your info it would be a modifier. I'll try to confirm it and also get the modifier on Epriton, then I'll change the equations to fit the data. The only real difference this would make compared to my initial model is that now, some ores fill your cargohold faster. Strangely, those ores are the rarer ones, which is in favor of mining Titan Ore and HDT (assuming equal profitability).

Re: Which Ore to Mine (answers inside!)

Krupp wrote:

Your numbers are wrong, since ore per cycle is not volume based. Get an unskilled agent out in an arkhe and mine 1 cycle of each ore, instead of relying on volume and feeding wrong information.


Nice, you come into this guys post thats clearly worked hard to get these numbers, tell him he's wrong, and yet give no answer yourself.  Cite some evidence of why you think that it is not based on volume instead of just slamming his work for no reason.  Explain where this magical mining number you're coming up with comes from and I might pay attention to it.
  Everything I've noticed in this game points to a volume based extraction.. I'm usually mining for the same amount of time to fill up my holds (with 2 exceptions which is why he might be right on the glitch)

Re: Which Ore to Mine (answers inside!)

I talked to Dev Zoom and updated the OP.

15 (edited by Krupp 2010-12-08 11:39:37)

Re: Which Ore to Mine (answers inside!)

My point is test stuff for yourself instead of relying on others.
Unskilled numbers are per cycle:
Titan 500
Stermonit 300
Imentium 200
HDT 500
Liquizit 150
Epriton 150
Helioptris 300
Triandlus 200

Re: Which Ore to Mine (answers inside!)

Krupp wrote:

My point is test stuff for yourself instead of relying on others.
Unskilled numbers are per cycle:
Titan 500
Stermonit 300
Imentium 200
HDT 500
Liquizit 150
Epriton 150
Helioptris 300
Triandlus 200

I wasn't relying on others for my initial numbers, I just got unlucky because Stermonit, Imentium and Liquizit all mine the same volume per cycle.

On the other hand I'll be using your data for the corrected ratio of Epriton (didn't need the rest). I'll edit my data if/when it's needed.

17 (edited by Artem Blue 2010-12-09 16:30:40)

Re: Which Ore to Mine (answers inside!)

Simple multiplication to combine the information provided by Krupp and Brains (thanks!):
120 unskilled cycles to fill a 3U volume with hdt or titan
100 unskilled cycles to fill a 3U volume with stermonit, imentium, or liquizit
80 unskilled cycles to fill a 3U volume with epriton
Anyone have unskilled yield numbers for helioptris and triandlus?

EDIT: Sorry, I asked for the wrong thing - Krupp had already provided unskilled yield numbers. What's missing is the _volumes_ of helioptris and triandlus.

Re: Which Ore to Mine (answers inside!)

Artem Blue wrote:

Simple multiplication to combine the information provided by Krupp and Brains (thanks!):
120 unskilled cycles to fill a 3U volume with hdt or titan
100 unskilled cycles to fill a 3U volume with stermonit, imentium, or liquizit
80 unskilled cycles to fill a 3U volume with epriton
Anyone have unskilled yield numbers for helioptris and triandlus?

Krupp wrote:

Helioptris 300
Triandlus 200

Re: Which Ore to Mine (answers inside!)

Thanks for helping us make sense of all this Brains and others.

20 (edited by Brains 2010-12-12 16:07:36)

Re: Which Ore to Mine (answers inside!)

Updated the OP with a link to an easy-to-use table, found at the top of the post. After using my own equation, I decided it was still too much work and made it even easier. tongue

Example of how to use : if Liquizit goes for 2.00 and HDT goes for 0.80, you know HDT is more profitable to mine because it's further on the "more profitable" side of the table (the right side).

Re: Which Ore to Mine (answers inside!)

Any chance you could also add in the two plants?