EDMining

This page contains information related to the mining occupation in Elite: Dangerous.

Locations

Where should I mine?

There are two choices: Planetary rings and asteroid belts. Planetary rings are better, because they have a much higher density of profitable asteroids.
There are three types of planetary rings: Metallic rings (gray), rocky rings (brown), icy rings (white). Metallic rings are best because they contain the most profitable materials.
A planet has a certain amount of reserves in its rings. The reserves are shown when you select the planet in the system map. Low reserves are bad, high reserves are good.
Don't go to resource extraction sites (RES), they are infested with pirates and NPCs
You can approach a planetary ring anywhere you like. As soon as you are near enough the game will drop you from supercruise and you only need to boost closer a few more km before you can start to work.
Work on the dayside of the planet because, obviously, it is easier to work with more light. Your ship has shiplights if you need them, but I have never tested whether they provide sufficient lighting to work in a dark environment.
It is easy to get lost/confused among the asteroids once you are deep inside a ring. An simple method to counter this is to always keep the planet in sight and move towards the planet when you select the next asteroid.

Where should I sell the materials that I have mined?: Sell them in high tech or industrial systems. Don't sell them in refinery systems, they already have a high supply of metals so their buying prices will be substantially lower.

What refinery should I buy?: Get a refinery with at least 4 bins! You will be able to mine 4 different metals at a time. 5 bins are better because if you also find a mineral that is worthwile you can refine it there. 6 bins are even better because you have an additional "junk" bin. Obviously, more bins are better, but they may also result in your cargo hold being filled with stuff that is not profitable.

Is there an effect if I buy more than 1 laser?: Yes: More lasers means faster chipping, means more profit per hour. If you use collector limpets you will have to balance your chipping speed with the capacity of your limpets.

How do I know what kind of materials are inside an asteroid?: An asteroid can have more than only one material inside. The simplest way to find out how many materials and which ones there are: You start chipping fragments with your mining laser. This is also the slowest method. If you want to be faster you can use a prospector limpet controller (ED wiki page).

Do I have to hit the same spot on the asteroid to chip off fragments? This is important because the asteroid is rotating, so it would mean that I would have to move my ship to keep the laser cutting the same spot.: ???

How does venting the refinery work?

First trigger seems to switch the two entries
Second trigger vents all entries
TODO: Sometimes I have the entries "Rutile - Refined" and "Cobalt 4%"; when I vent in this situation, do I also vent Rutile?

What does it mean when I see the following messages?

"Resources unallocated", in red: A fragment contains a resource that was not allocated to one of the refinery bins
"Resources unallocated", in blue: A fragment contains a resource that was not allocated to one of the refinery bins. TODO: What's the difference to the message in red?
"Resources deallocated", in red: ???
"Resources deallocated", in blue: ???
"Resources processed", in blue: ???
"Collection failed": Probably when the collector limpet expires
"Refinery full": ???
"Resources processed": When a fragment was automatically processed by the refinery because its content matched one of the bins already allocated.
"Refinery communication to server failed": ??? This happens when the cargo hold is full and I deploy a limpet.