Miner

Cogmap2Cogmap1DestinyClarionOshanAtlasManta

Your workplace.

Your workplace.

Your workplace.

Your workplace.

Your workplace.

Your workplace.

Your ship, the Sea Turtle.

You haul 16 tons and what do you get? Radiation poisoning and blown up, most likely. The Miner is a special engineering role that starts in the Mining Department and braves the void of Space (or the depths of the Trench on Oshan) to procure ore for the station. With their easy and reliable access to plentiful amounts of ore, they make also great blacksmiths and craftspeople and are often enlisted for deep-space expeditions into the Debris Field, Mining Level, and beyond.

Your purpose in life

Being a miner is a mostly solitary job amidst cold space, but a skillful mining shift can be of enormous benefit to the station, gathering precious ores by the hundreds. Quartermasters, roboticists, and mechanics will always be thankful for the proper materials for their job, and people using the public arc smelter will be besides themselves with excitement when you bring them cool, new materials.

You also get a Quantum Telescope in your department so you pull in particularly mineral-rich asteroids. Expect the Research team to come knocking at your door to use so they can configure the long-range teleporter and go to all the cool hip locations.

Miners are equipped with the yellow-striped engineering headset to stay in touch with each other. To use it, simply type:

• say :e I'm gonna use a mining charge, watch out!

Gettin' to work

As a miner, your biggest preoccupations are going to be harvesting as much ore and as many gems as humanly possible, moving those things to where they're useful, and blinging yourself out with the coolest stuff the mining fabricator has to offer. The exact means of obtaining of this will depend on the map you're on:

Note: In any case, the majority of ore and gems won't be usable in the mining fabricator unless you process them with a portable reclaimer or material processor first. Not everything should be immediately processed, though; sometimes, it's better to leave it raw for the Quartermaster to sell. Check out the Guide to Mining for more info.

Cog1/Cog2/Destiny/Clarion: The Mineral Magnet

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The mineral magnet right below your workplace.

The mineral magnet, just a short walk (or conveyor ride) east of your spawn room.

The magnet below the ship. Watch out for engine fires!

The mineral magnet next door.

On most stations, you bring the ore to you rather than bring yourself to the ore; that is, you pull mineral-bearing asteroids (and occasionally wrecks) into the Mining Department with the mineral magnet and harvest the ores contained within. Not only is it safe, reliable, and easy to use, but it also means you're closer to both the people who directly benefit from your work and the people who can save you when you're hurting, burnt, and mildly radioactive.

Gearin' Up

Your primary gear includes:

• A space suit, most likely an engineering suit and helmet set from the rack.
• A jetpack from the rack.(goes on your back).
• A mining belt from the Miner equipment lockers (goes on your waist).
• Meson Goggles from the Miner equipment lockers (goes on your eyes).

Other essential equipment includes ore satchels, an ore scoop, concussive charges, a geological scanner, a geiger counter, and a powered pickaxe. You can take whichever of these you will need and put them in your pockets or the mining belt.

Make sure you have a breath mask (or equivalent) on too, so you can actually link up with the air supply in your jetpack. To turn internals and start breathing in the oxygen in your jetpack so you don't asphyxiate, click on the Toggle tank valve icon on the top left.

You might also want to claim a mining pod and upgrade it with better sensors, ore scoop, and magnet link array. Though you won't be able to mine rocks until you get a hold of a power source (telecrystal is usually the easiest, as it is not radioactive) for plasma cutters, you'll collect ore astonishingly quickly, especially if you have the other miners break rocks while you scoop up the ores.

Using the Magnet

All set? Great! Exit the airlocks, take a short walk on the catwalks, and find the mineral magnet's control terminal (it's often in its own little shed with a bunch of other machines.) Pull in an asteroid and start mining! It should be pretty intuitive. In fact, it's so simple that you don't even have to click on anything. You can mine rocks by just walking into them with your tool of choice in your active hand.

When it comes to ores your current tool has trouble breaking, it usually doesn't hurt to try again a few times in case you get lucky. Concussive charges are your best friend for dealing with rocks you can't even dent. Heck, you can even ignore some of them for the time being. You won't miss out, because there's a good chance they'll appear a few asteroids later, when you (hopefully) have better, stronger equipment.

Once you're done breaking up all the ore you want, gather it up by walking over it with an ore scoop with satchel. If you've outfitted a Space Pod with an ore scoop, you can simply fly over ores to collect them and then click-drag the pod's sprite onto a tile to deposit them somewhere. With an mineral accumulator, it's even easier. Simply pull into the middle of an asteroid, set the machine to the mineral magnet telepad, turn it on, and watch as the ore is magically sucked into and teleported into your refinery. From there, you have a whole lot of options as to what to do with the ore you've gathered

If you're in a pod, use the remote control to interface with the magnet directly. You can only pull in asteroids so often, unless you enable the override. There is also an automatic mode, which (if there aren't any obstructions) activates the magnet as soon as the cooldown has finished. Beware: uncollected ore is lost in the process!

Maintenance is required at regular intervals - simply use a welding tool on the mineral magnet to repair minor damage. In case of severe structural damage, the wiring has to be replaced with a cable coil first. If it has suffered catastrophic damage, replacement parts are required to build a new magnet by using the existing chassis.

Along the way, you might want to try out the quantum telescope, a nifty little computer that can find especially mineral-rich asteroids, including erebite and miracle matter asteroids! However, it takes a fair bit of time to find and pinpoint said asteroids, so you might want to delegate one miner towards telescope work while the other ones stick to the regular magnet.

Oshan Laboratory & Manta: The Trench

If you're on Oshan Laboratory or Manta, you'll be kicking it old school by exploring a whole another Z-level, the Trench for ores and minerals. It's dark, hot, full of angry robots and mines, and easy to get lost in, but if you find your way, great bounties and wonders await.

Suiting Up

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At roundstart, you spawn on-station in the Mining Department, with most of your gear on the racks and in the lockers. This time, your primary gear includes:

• A mining belt from the Miner equipment lockers (goes on your waist)
• A pair of meson goggles from the Miner equipment lockers (goes on your eyes)
• A tank of oxygen (handily color-coded blue for your convenience) from the tank dispenser (can stay in your hand, but can also fit on your back)
• A diving suit. The suit alone is enough protect you from the Trench's heat, though you might appreciate the extra light from the helmet.

As for footwear, you have a choice between magboots for less knockback when moving in and out of the water when they're activated and flippers for faster movement speed underwater. Most people prefer the latter.

At roundstart, you spawn in one of the dorms of the Sea Turtle, an side ship attached to the east/right/starboard side of Manta through a walkway in the maintenance area right of the Sub Bay (Starboard). All your gear is either on the rack or the equipment cabinet in the dorm. Speaking of which, primary gear includes:

• A mining belt from the Miner equipment lockers (goes on your waist)
• A pair of meson goggles from the Miner equipment lockers (goes on your eyes)
• Some flippers for your feet, which help you move faster underwater and in fluid puddles. On dry ground however, they just slow you down, you might want to keep your shoes handy so you can walk unimpeded through the mining rig.
• A jetpack for your back. To remove your backpack so you can put the jetpack on, click-drag the backpack onto an empty hand slot.
• A diving suit. The suit alone is enough protect you from the Trench's heat, though you might appreciate the extra light from the helmet.

Don't forget to put on a breath mask too and click on the Toggle tank valve icon on the top left so you can breathe in the air from your tank. You'd be surprised how new miners have died from not knowing how to turn on internals.

Other essential equipment include ore satchels, an ore scoop, concussive charges, a geological scanner, a geiger counter, and a powered pickaxe. A Space GPS or two can be very useful - you will be able to locate many traders and other underwater structures that contain their own GPS devices, each with a unique identifier, and get directions to them via Select Destination. You can take whichever of these you will need and put them in your pockets or the mining belt.

It's also a good idea to claim a mining minisub. Though its starting Mining Phaser System digs slowly, it weakens rock and ore, so you can collect ores that normally require a power hammer or better with a humble power pick. Outfit it with better sensors to all the ore around you and ore scoop for excellent (300 stacks/pieces!) ore storage capacity, and you have quite a remarkable little ship. Not to mention, if you get lost or stuck in a bad situation in the Trench, you can just warp out!

Exploring the Trench

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All set? Good. Enter the hangar in the northeast part of the Mining area and make your way to the Trench. If you're feeling brave, you could head outside into the Seafloor and drive a minisub or simply walk into the deep hole northeast of you. (The latter is surprisingly survivable.) The safest option is usually to hitch a ride on the Sea Elevator. Follow the trail of floor lights (you should go northward, then take a turn eastward, or right relative to you), then use the computer to ride the elevator platform down.

Once you're there, just start mining as you usually would. Break up rock with your power pick/concussive charges, pick up ores and gems with your ore scoop, and haul them back to the Mining Department. From there, you have a lot of options. You could refine them in the material processors and put it into the mining fab to make into better gear. You could put it into the RockBox and sell it for profits. You could put it into the nanofabs and make novel instruments for your entertainment. There's a huge range of options!

Just try not to get lost. If you're in a minisub, it's hardly a concern, since, again, you can just make a wormhole back to any of the station's hangars if you stray too far. If not, be careful. Stay close to the base of the Sea Elevator if you know you have no sense of direction, or make a trail of "breadcrumbs" (like with the random rocks you mine or the glowsticks at the bottom of the Sea Elevator). Those Space GPS units in your your department are godsends here. The Sea Elevator begins each round with a GPS inside - identifier "NT-E". When you're lost, you can get directions to the elevator by clicking the GPS in-hand, clicking Select Location, and entering the coordinates listed under that NT-E GPS. (Though actually getting there safely is another thing entirely.)

All set? Good. Go ahead and make your way to the Trench. Click on the Mining long range teleporter (LRT) in the refinery area north of the dorms of the Sea Turtle and you'll end up on a small outpost in the Trench. Go through the Engineering airlocks and exit through the external airlocks, easily identified by their iconic red color.

Once you're out there, just start mining as you usually would. Break up rock with your power pick/concussive charges, pick up ores and gems with your ore scoop, and haul them back to the refinery section where the Mining LRT is. From there, you can refine it and put it into your fabs for better tools, give them to the Quartermasters to sell, all sorts of things.

Just try not to get lost. If you're in a minisub, it's hardly a concern, since, again, you can just make a wormhole back to any of the ship hangars if you stray too far. If you're not, try to be mindful of where you are relative to the outpost.

Those Space GPS units in the outpost can help. Pick one of the units up, click on it in-hand, and scroll through the list of GPS units for the one with the identifier "NT-MO". Click on Select Location and enter the coordinates you saw listed for the NT-MO GPS. Now you have a GPS unit that constantly points in the direction of your base!

Mining Hotspots

On occasion, on Oshan, the Engineers may ask you to mine out certain hotspots so they can boost geothermal power generation. It's very simple. Wherever the Engineer says the hotspot is according to the GPS unit, go to its corresponding location in the Trench and mine out as much hotspot rock as you can there. For instance, if a Engineer says to mine out a hotspot at (89, 201), you've to go to wherever (89,201) is in the Trench and excavate all the rock under the hotspot. You'll know the rock's under the hotspot if it releases sparks when you break it.

The only difficulty is actually getting there. If you're having trouble, try focusing on one axis/direction at a time. Again, having a Space GPS units helps. There's also usually a fair bit of hotspot rock, so you might be there for a while.

Profiting

So, what do you do with all the ore you mine? For one, you can put them in a crate and use the cargo transporter to send them to whatever department needs/requests it.

• The quartermasters themselves can occasionally get their hands on stuff that is useful to you, and generally look for a fair trade. This works particularly well for you, since some ores, like syreline, are worthless for tools and equipment, but sell for high prices on the market.
• Mechanics tend to consume a lot of materials during large-scale manufacturing projects. If you give them some materials, they might give some of the cool gadgets they've scanned in return.
• Roboticists need metal to construct cyborg bodies and require certain materials for the more advanced augmentations.

If the warmth and affection of your fellow station crew isn't enough to motivate you, miners have some other incentives to do their dirty work.

• You can insert your ore into a RockBox, mark it for sale, and set the price. This allows the crew to buy the ore you've mined up and stored at any manufacturer/fabricator. A portion of the proceeds are split among all Miner bank accounts.

• Using your ID card on a barcode printer will add your bank account information to any barcodes printed. A crate marked this way that ships from the cargo bay will split the sale profits with you, directly depositing to your account.

• You can refine them in the material processors and put it into the mining fab. Certain ores are required for a lot of higher-end gear and constructions. Armor that makes you rad-proof and explosion resistant, boots that make you run faster, and cool pod drills that also happen to be good weapons are some of the best stuff you can get through the work of miners.

• There is also an Nano-Fabricator (mining) that takes materials and makes them into various custom mining tools. Some tools can target several squares at once, but require multiple hits to completely break a rock; the better your materials, the faster they'll mine.

• You can put it into the Nano-Fabricator (refinery) and other material science machines. Nothing terribly useful and it's mostly interesting doodads, but the spears are serviceable weapons, instruments made from exotic materials are occasionally quite novel, and material sheets allow you to make some nifty furniture. Plus, you can alloy certain substances together to make amusing names, like dog breeding, but for nerds.

• Miners are also in a good position to go on salvaging missions in deep space, finding cool loot and making money in more dangerous, but also more exciting conditions.

Sturdy Metal, High Energy Conductor?! Help!

For a description of advanced mining equipment and the various ore classifications, check out Guide to Mining.

Crew objectives

As a loyal crew member, you can sometimes be assigned some strictly optional objectives to keep yourself busy while you wait for something to happen. Miners can expect to see the following:

Create at least 3 suits of industrial space armor
You want one for yourself anyway, so if you're of a mind to complete this objective, just get some more uqill and run the fabricators. You need not create them yourself, for other miners can create them. There simply needs to be three industrial armor suits produced by the end of the end.

Red Faction: Syndicate Miners

By default, a miner has access to EVA gear and top-quality internals, a remote area to spawn their items, and the ability to manufacture toys that the rest of the station does not easily get. Miners often have access to other identities, whether due to their colleagues spawning brain dead or by a quick murder of a co-worker out in the unforgiving void of space. Use your cool gear for hit-and-run style attacks on the station, retreating into the depths of space before sec can nab you.

The miner also has access to a special mining charge hacker. It turns regular mining charges from concussive to explosive and allows you to stick them onto anything (walls, floors, etc.) Mining charges are cheap to produce and you can carry several on your belt at once, so you do the math. A little bit of regular mining work will pay off as well. The mechanical boots will let you avoid security and vigilantes in space, and an industrial armor set will let you safely blow things up at point-blank range. A well-equipped mining traitor is basically an one-man nuke ops team. Make sure to gloat as you hold the station at your mercy.

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