Mining

"The pursuit of mineralogy can make a person very happy indeed!"

- Smokefinger

Mining is a non-combat activity that allows players to excavate various minerals and ores used as resources in Cetus. It can be performed in the Plains of Eidolon and Orb Vallis.

Gear Acquisition
Before players can begin mining, they must first acquire a Nosam Cutter from Old Man Sumbaat in Cetus or a Sunpoint Plasma Drill from Smokefinger in Fortuna  They can either be bought for Ostron/Solaris Standing, or selected as a free Ostron/Solaris ranking reward. Players must then equip the mining tool on their Gear menu to be able to use it.

Finding Veins
Out on the Plains or Orb, players have several means of finding resource deposits.
 * Veins stand out visually as bright colored spots surrounded by light grey patches on rocks and rock formations. Red spots denote Ores, while Blue spots denote Gems. Note that the various fossilized Sentient bones littering the Plains are not rocks (despite bearing a superficial resemblance to them) and will not have any mineral veins.
 * The Nosam Cutter has several tools to find minerals from a distance. Equipping the Nosam Cutter (default hold and select the cutter) will bring up a HUD with the following features:
 * The left side of the HUD will display icons of rocks indicating the number of mineral deposits within the detector's range (higher tiers of Cutters will increase the detectable number).
 * The right side of the HUD is equipped with a rangefinder that shows the distance to the nearest mineral vein being detected (higher tiers of Cutters will increase the detection range).
 * Finally, an audible repeating tick (akin to a metal detector) will be heard if the detector is within range of a deposit. This sound will grow in pitch if the player is looking in the direction of the vein, and tick more frequently the closer player is to the source.

Mining Process
Once the player has located a vein, they can begin mining it by equipping their Cutter, and then zooming in on the vein (default hold ). This will reveal up to three blue drilling spots. Aim onto a drilling spot, then Press and Hold the fire button (default ) while remaining still. A ring of unlit colored lights with white brackets will appear.

The goal is to stop firing when the colored lights reach as close to the middle of these white brackets as possible. The white brackets may or may not be sliding, and may or may not have another pair of tiny, white stationary brackets below it. If this exists, these tiny brackets are the optimal area to stop cutting in, presenting a high-risk high-reward scenario, if one wishes to attempt it.

A progress gauge will fill up at the top of the Cutter's HUD, composed of 5 small mineral icons determining the amount of resources gained and the quality of the deposit that was just mined, all affected by the timing of the cut. The mining is completed once the yellow gem bar fills up, which will reward a random mineral, either Ore or Gem depending on whether an Ore or Gem-type deposit was mined (Red denotes Ore deposits and Blue denotes Gem deposits).

The more accurate the timing during cutting, the higher likelihood a better-grade mineral will be mined, and the higher the amount of minerals will be given upon completion. Players can halt cutting at anytime, however doing so will immediately "complete" the drilling spot that was cut into, preventing a retry of that spot, and thus reducing the quality and quantity of extracted minerals. This makes uninterrupted cutting most desirable, after clearing the immediate area of enemies.

Cutters
Cutters can be purchased from Old Man Suumbaat or Smokefinger for standing. More advanced Cutters feature more accurate mining beams, as well as longer detection ranges for minerals.

Additionally, the Advanced Nosam Cutter has a minimap radar and – depending on the quality of the cut – a 15% ~ 30% chance of extracting an Eidolon Gem (Sentirum or Nyth).

All cutters work on Plains of Eidolon and Orb Vallis. However, the Sunpoint Plasma Drill purchased from Smokefinger, is required to mine the rarest Gems in Orb Vallis. Like the Advanced Nosam Cutter, the Sunpoint drill also possesses a minimap radar and is able to extract Eidolon Gems.

Gems
Raw gems found on the Plains of Eidolon can be turned in to Suumbaat for standing, while those found in the Orb Vallis can be turned in to Smokefinger:

Tips

 * Mining veins spawn in greater numbers in areas with many rocks packed closely together, such as caves, rock tunnels and Grineer excavation sites.
 * The area on the Plains where one can consistently find the most mining veins in the smallest area is the bay known as Er-Phryah's Vigil. It is located west and slightly north of the Cetus gates, around Grineer Base #2 (as marked on the map). This bay area can be recognized by the towering Sentient bones in the local shallows, which are periodically electrified by a nearby Grineer machine. This bay and the nearby cave will almost always have 15 or more veins in a relatively small 100 square meter area, making it ideal for mining.
 * While Grineer-occupied caves have a high concentration of veins, they may generate in areas that are also quite difficult to reach with a cutter, such as high up rock faces and on ceilings. Using Ivara's Dashwire Arrow to create elevation can make reaching these veins much easier.
 * Titania can use the cutters when in Razorwing mode, which can aid in scouting overland areas quickly for veins and also for reaching any hard-to-get ones (or to position yourself better for a cleaner cut).

Patch History
Minería