Since these are probably going to be coming online in the next few patches, I've decided to write something up that summarizes what we know about a few mechanics coming soon to Star Citizen.
Before we begin; Star Citizen is not a RPG, you don't have skill-points or classes, you can be a miner one day and scientist the next. "There is no artificial concept of a character having to select a specific profession or character progression based upon gradually incrementing numeric attributes. The only thing that dictates your success or failure at a given endeavor are the actual capabilities of you and your companions and the equipment you bring to bear." This also won't have typical MMO mechanics; "There are no aspects [..] that allow a player to simply press a button and wait without concern for a result, or that require players to perform an action repeatedly without some element of thought and/or dexterity coming into play."
We'll start with what we know about the gameplay and mechanics behind Mining so far.
As a miner, you have two options, freelance or work on a contract. As a freelancer, you'll be able to mine whatever ores you'd like and unload them at whatever port that accepts them. While this has the most potential, it leaves you at risk to the ireggularites of the trading market. Working under a contract, you have less risk, but the fixed price means you'll be working on a discount. Failing to meet the requirements of a contract will result in your reputation being harmed.
There will be well known sites that hold abundant common ores. The most valuable ores will be those that are hard to find, meaning that to find the most profit, you'll either have to look for them yourself or pay for information that was picked up by explorers or information brokers. It's important to act on this information quickly, if a valuable new field is made known to the public, prices of these valuable ores will crash following a large increase in volume.
The most valuable ore will reside in dense fields, meaning the most experienced pilots who can navigate through these fields without damaging their ship will be required. Many asteroids are filled with dangerous materials that, under the right conditions, can blow the asteroid to pieces, increasing the value of a good pilot that can quickly navigate a ship to a safe distance.
Finding out the contents of a specific rock (the ores/minerals/contents inside them) are done by the scanning operator. Telemetry data is sent back to the ship and informs them of the precise material composition. The scan operator must scan for suitable insertion posts for remote material anaylsis packages to inject into. The confidence of the scan operator plays a significant role.
Mining is done from a beam, the beam injects energy into the deposit and agitates particles inside to extract only the materials that you deem worthy of collecting.
The more energy you put into the deposit, the more of a risk that it blows up, or cause a chain reaction where it can damage your ship. If you do not put enough energy, you cannot collect anything from it, or only non-valuable minerals. It's important to have a skilled beam operator to keep your beam's energy output optimal to increase efficiency, without risking damaging the ship. Based on the elements inside the rock, you may have to keep adjusting your energy output. Every minable material has its own unique set of parameters dictating how much energy a given quantity can absorb, how quickly it can dissipate energy, how easily it can transfer excess energy to surrounding materials, its probability of fragmentation as energy levels reach critical levels, and numerous other things.
The mining beam is equipped with a high-energy scanning probe called the Analytical Materials Processor that provides constant feedback as to what type of materials lie beneath the surface – within range of the probe – in the specified direction. Each material identified is presented on a horizontal bar graph replete with information regarding the depth at which it can be found and the approximate quantity.
The cargo operator utilizes a console on the bridge of the ship that allows them to monitor a camera mounted within the forward-facing input port. The input port contains a powerful crusher that quickly reduces any incoming asteroid fragments to rubble and stores them in attached cargo modules for transport or, on ships with an integrated refinery, subsequent processing into their purified elemental forms. With an integrated Fragment Scanner – providing immediate feedback in regard to the fragment's precise composition. The operator is able to get a sense as to the value of the fragment, and whether it is worth attempting to guide it into the input port, or whether it contains so little of value that it's best avoided so as to preserve precious cargo space or time-consuming refining effort.
The position of refinery operator only exists on mining ships that contain an integrated refinery. Refineries allow raw ore to be gradually converted into their purified component forms, with the undesirable elements being ejected back out into space in the form of dust. Purified materials consume a small fraction of the storage space of their unrefined counterparts, which is of particular concern when dealing with low quality asteroid fields that possess valuable elements only in a highly diffused form, or when attempting to minimize the number of return trips back to a trading or storage facility. The refinery operator controls the routing of ore to a variety of specialized processing units, each of which has a different role to play in the separation of one material from another. Operator errors in the refinement process can cause sensitive equipment to fail, stalling the conversion process and costing valuable time until the affected item is replaced, typically with a surplus part stored in the ship's inventory.
Any job can be done by a NPC or player.
It's important to note that this information is gathered from different sources, I probably missed some stuff, both new and old, but nothing has been contradicted as of yet. It's also important to add that we are getting Mining on Planetary Bodies only, no space, in 3.2 which releases at the end of June.
