Shaft Miner
| SUPPLY STAFF | |
  Shaft Miner |
Access: Mining Station, Mining Station EVA, Cargo Office, Mineral Storage Difficulty: Hard Supervisors: Quartermaster and Head of Personnel Duties: Mine ores and process them into useful materials. Kill hostile wildlife. Guides: No external guide. |
Welcome Miner, to the wonderful caverns of this Nanotrasen Claimed Asteroid.
Workin' In The Coal Mine
Being a miner can be somewhat boring, unless you go out and fight monsters. Just follow a few guidelines here to keep yourself from becoming dead in the mines. ALSO, it is important to note that you are able to click more than ONE square of asteroid at a time when mining or digging for sand! As long as it's accessible, you don't have to wait to finish digging before you start digging again, so you can have several dig jobs running in parallel. Just don't change hands or move until all dig jobs are done and save yourself some time!
Take your Mining Pick in one hand and your Satchel in your active hand. Run into a rock. You're now automatically digging in it. Use this to mine using only your keyboard, for a quicker done job.
Working With Your Boss
Who is your boss? The answer is the Quartermaster. Don't expect to interact with this guy much, though, as he'll often be too busy directing his cargo tech slaves or sleeping in his office to ever regard your existence.
The Objective
You're here to mine, so get digging! Once you're full to bursting with ores, drag your crate or ore box back to the station and head to cargo where the ore redemption machine sits. Insert your ID, and empty the box next to the machine to offload your ores and have them instantly processed into sheets. You gain points for doing this, so be sure to claim them and then retrieve your ID. Now take your crate and it's back to the mines!
The Gear
The following is a list of default mining equipment:
Mining Hardsuit and Helmet - Used so you don't freeze to death in the airless tunnels of the resource-rich planetoid.
Breath Mask and Oxygen Tank - So you can have oxygen when mining. Get an O2 tank from the tank dispenser, and wear it on your backsuit.
Meson Scanners and 
Mining Scanner - When used together will briefly flash any non-iron ore on screen.
Global Positioning System - The crew monitoring console back on the station won't catch your suit sensor signal from all the way at the asteroid. Having one of these on you will help others track down your body if you happen to develop a case of the dead.
Pickaxe - For tunneling through everything. Place this on your belt, it saves room. You also can get various drills and other tools from science and your mining vendor. These will dig faster, and may have other advantages!
Shovel - Gathering sand. You can stick this in your backpack.
Lantern - For seeing in the dark. Put one in your pocket. Or three.
Ore Satchel - For carrying ore without using a mining cart, holds 50 ore nuggets. Get at least one of these, make sure to set the bag to "all on tile". Use in conjunction with an ore crate. (Newbie tip: This does not work like a typical backpack. Hold it in your hand and click the ore with that hand to pick it up.)
Ore Crate - Used for carrying huge amounts of ore. While a satchel can only hold 50 nuggets, this can hold an unlimited sum. Use your satchel on the box to empty it into the box, place the box in the unloading machine's input slot to unload it.
Crowbar - Just in case coming back from the mines you notice there is a black out. Spawns in your backpack.
Mining Voucher - Found in your backpack, exchange this at the mining equipment locker for your choice of one of...
Proto-kinetic Accelerator - A gun. The good part is that it packs a punch in a vacuum and has infinite shots. The bad part is that it tickles in pressurized environments, needs to be reloaded after each shot, and has a range of two steps. Each blast can clear a rock wall if you feel like digging using this.
Resonator - Another deadly tool. This will instantly clear a rock wall when clicked on, and when used in hand or swung at empty space, will create a field on that spot that lasts for about five seconds before rupturing, causing serious damage to anything standing on it. Just like the kinetic accelerator, it does reduced damage in pressurized environments.
Mining Drone - This helpful little guy goes around collecting loose ore so you don't have to. Will drop its haul when you hit it with the mining scanner. Clicking on it with an empty hand will toggle it between ore collection and wildlife fighting mode, where it will attack xenos with its built-in kinetic accelerator and drill. Will not pick up sand with no nearby ore around, for some reason. Comes with an upgraded welding tool if redeemed via voucher.
The Wildlife
While the eastern half of the asteroid is free of harmful things (save for the occasional murderous traitor, rogue cyborg, and gibtonite deposit), it's quite sparse in any ore more precious than plain iron. The western half has much richer bounty of minerals to harvest... but there's a bit of a problem in the form of a variety of bloodthirsty alien lifeforms populating the caverns. Fortunately, you can fight them if you know how, and useful items can be harvested from their corpses when you triumph. Many sporting miners even come to the west asteroid just for the sake of monster hunting.
Hivelords
Considered annoying at worst, and a free medkit at best. These strange creatures will unleash hivelord brood one after another at you whilst trying to keep distant. Fortunately, each of its spawn dies in a single hit, and deal tickle damage to you. It's best to go on the aggressive against these with pickaxe in hand, advancing constantly whilst picking away each of its brood. Once you've closed the gap or have it stuck in a corner, it's toast. Drops its core when killed, which when eaten will instantly restore your health to its maximum, and even cure diseases or any other ailment on your body. Has the side effect of purging any beneficial chemicals from your system, so don't munch one just after taking a stimulant pill.
Goliaths
The bane of many careless miners. These monsters carry a hefty health pool, a mean wallop, and can even knock you down from a distance with a ground-bursting tentacle attack while they advance toward you, crushing through walls with ease. However, they're incredibly slow and mindless, leaving them extremely vulnerable to being lured into resonator fields or simply being hit and ran with a kinetic accelerator. The main issue is their tentacle attack, which can be dodged with the right know-how. Each time it attempts to trip you, four tentacles appear on and around you, always leaving one spot open, simply move there to avoid it. If a wall is blocking your safe spot, you'll need to be quick to clear it with your resonator or kinetic accelerator. Once dodged, you have some time to deal damage while the tentacles are on cooldown. When felled, these beasts leave behind their hide plates, which can be used on your hardsuit or helmet to reinforce them against melee damage. Up to five plates may be used on each to cap them at a hefty 90%(!) damage resistance.
Basilisks
Fierce, territorial beasts capable of firing freezing beams, cold enough to inflict serious freeze burns while the basilisk closes in and attacks its immobilized target. Fortunately, they don't attack unless someone comes very close to them, so one can easily just leave them be until prepared with stimulant pills to reduce the cold and slowdown or a few goliath hide upgrades to go toe-to-toe with them. Drops two diamond ores when taken down.
Goldgrubs
Mostly harmless and quite rare. These creatures swallow up any loose, valuable ore they can find and flee when approached by a human, smashing through even solid rock on their path of escape before burrowing into the ground. A tactic toward killing one is to throw an ore towards it, and quickly charging in to kill it while it's busy eating, it's worth noting that kinetic accelerator shots do nothing against these. When killed, they spit up any ore they have eaten prior to being put down.
The Rewards
So, you've taken your crate of ores to the ore redemption machine and claimed a boatload of points tied to your id. Head on over to the mining equipment lockers and stick your id in to claim fabulous prizes!
- Hot Chili Stew - 100 pts - Just like what the chef never makes.
- Premium Havanian Cigar - 100 pts - Inject with
drugsmedicine for a good time. - Bottle of whiskey - 150 pts
- Soap - 150 pts - For cleaning up those blood trails made from
assistants who the HoP let indragging downed miners from asteroid beasts - Bottle of Stimulant Pills - 350 pts - Five pills loaded with coffee, hyperzine, and ethylredoxrazine. For countering basilisk cold rays and running topspeed in your hardsuit.
- Alien Toy - 250 pts - A toy facehugger with REAL face-clinging action! Scare your friends! Tear off your enemy's breath mask in a n2o flood. Laugh as the captain and head of personnel uselessly unload their energy guns on it!
- Laser Pointer - 500 pts - Go for the eyes!
- Point Card - 500 pts - A card with 500 mining points stored, for trading amongst your coworkers. Simply use an id over it to claim the points stored on.
- Lazarus Injector - 1000 pts - A miracle injection capable of reviving simple living beings from death, making them friendly to just you. useless on humans, monkeys, and other complex living beings. Resurrect Ian for all access from a thankful Head of Personnel! Or make yourself a pet Goliath, do note that while hostile creatures will be friendly to you, they won't play nice with others.
- 1000 Space Cash - 5000 pts - DOSH
- Sonic Jackhammer - 500 pts - For when you want something slightly better than your default pickaxe and the scientists are either too lazy or too dead to make drills.
- Mining Drone - 500 pts - Just like what the voucher can get you. Doesn't come with a welding tool.
- Wormhole Jaunter - 200 pts - A single use device that creates a wormhole set to a random teleport beacon, creates a quick way of getting out of a sticky situation. Just try not to lose your lunch.
- Resonator - 750 pts
- Kinetic Accelerator - 1000 pts
- Jetpack - 2000 pts - Has a special miner paint job so security won't beat you for stealing from EVA
The Ores
| Wall | Raw Ore | Point Value | Processed Ore | Coin | Door | Name | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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1 | 
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Iron | For just about everything. |
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N/A | 
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Plasteel | An alloy of iron and plasma, for AI cores and reinforced walls. Cannot be produced via the ore redemption machine. The antiquated furnace on the mining station must be used to make these. | |||
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1 |  |
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Sand | For making glass, which has a plethora of station applications. Also used to make dirt, something not wanted by Hydroponics. | |
|
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N/A |  |
Reinforced Glass | For reinforced glass, which is tougher than normal glass | |||
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20 | 
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Gold | For making various electronics or pimping out Beepsky. |
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20 | 
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Silver | Making dosh, mechs, and researching Bluespace. |
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40 | 
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Plasma | Ship sheets back to Centcom for bonus supply points. |
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20 | 
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Uranium | For making you radioactive. Delicious cocktails. |
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40 | 
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Diamond | For making mech parts, among other industrial uses. |
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30 | 
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Bananium | A rare and unusual mineral found only in clown-controlled space. Used for the H.O.N.K. mech. | |
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N/A | Gibtonite | For |
Who Needs What
- Scientists just want a little uranium, plasma, diamond and gold. Refine a little of each for research (5-10 each should do it). In exchange, they may give you a bomb or more advanced mining tools (like a sonic jackhammer or diamond drill), both for even faster digging!
- Roboticists need diamond, uranium, silver and gold for building mech parts. Give them enough and you might get a big, fancy machine for your troubles! Too bad the Ripley is the only good mech for mining.
- The Quartermaster would want you to send them plasma sheets so they can trade them in for bonus supply points.
- Everybody could always use more iron, glass and plasteel, but especially Station Engineers and Roboticists.
- The Virologist, Chemist and Xenobiologist will all appreciate having extra plasma.
- A Clown with Bananium is a grateful and dangerous ally.
- The Bartender can use a few sheets of uranium or iron to craft some of his rarest cocktails.
Structures
While on the asteroid, you may come upon small boxed structures, usually made of plasma or reinforced walls. Dig in through openings, or use the blue toolbox in the hardsuit room to break down that wall and discover your prize! They could have items ranging from magical artifacts to alien facehuggers. A plasma wall doesn't necessarily mean an alien, always check. If you are at all unsure, always let your mining buddies know using :u before you tear down that wall.
Dead Space
A traitorous miner has a lot of advantages. You have a space suit for free right away, a pair of gloves, access to highly explosive minerals, you start with a robust pickaxe and can also buy very dangerous "mining" tools and possibly even revive those monsters you've been fighting. As long as you have some mineral wealth or an ore box with you, no one will suspect your presence around the station, even in highly restricted areas like robotics or toxins, and if you are smart enough, you could get a big stompy mech to drill people to death! In addition, the asteroid is isolated, hard to get to, dangerous, and as expansive as you're willing to dig out. Plenty of room for somebody to get lost in... Forever!
