Mining Loop Overview
Mining in Star Citizen transforms raw planetary and asteroid deposits into high-value unrefined materials or refined crafting stock.
The complete loop follows four core stages: Prospect → Extract → Refine → Sell.
[1. Prospect & Scan] ➔ [2. Fracturing Laser] ➔ [3. Extraction Beam] ➔ [4. Refinery / Crafting]
The main tool you should use for mining is SCMiner.
Rentable mining ships
Golem can be rented at Area 18, Levski, Lorville, Orison and Refinery Deck from 15,082 aUEC/day.
Prospector can be rented at Cargo Deck, Lorville and Refinery Deck for 69,575 aUEC/day.
MOLE can be rented at Cargo Deck, Levski, Lorville and Refinery Deck from 212,093 aUEC/day.
Purchasable mining ships
Golem can be bought at Buy & Fly (Ruin Station), New Deal (Lorville) and Teach's (Levski) for 1,005,480 aUEC.
Prospector can be bought at Buy & Fly (Ruin Station) and New Deal (Lorville) for 2,783,025 aUEC.
*MOLE can be bought at New Deal (Lorville) and Teach's (Levski) for 8,483,738 aUEC.
*Teach's offer a upgraded mole.
1. Prospecting & Long-Range Scanning
Finding valuable deposits no longer requires manual, close-range scans on individual rocks.
- Long-Range Narrow Pings: Set your scanner angle to max and ping, point your nose towards a target and narrow the ping angle, keep narrowing until you manage to scan your target. (V to toggle scan mode, scroll to adjust beam width). Ping rock clusters from 10-15 km away to reveal exact material compositions (e.g., Quantanium, Ricite, Baradon) on your HUD. This largely depends on how the server you are playing on is doing.
- Automatic Quality Inspection: Approaching a cluster and doing a tab-ping automatically displays the material quality across all nodes without requiring individual crosshair scans. Again, this is a bit server dependent.
- Targeting High-Value Ore: Focus on high-tier ores or crafting inputs (such as Copper and Sederic for laser crafting) while avoiding filler materials like Inert Materials or Aluminum.
- Ore delivery missions: If you plan on doing these missions you can mine bulk low level ore for those turn ins for blueprints.
2. Fracturing Technique
Once a target rock is selected, switch to your Mining Mode (M) to begin the fracturing process.
- Laser Power Management: Increase your laser intensity (Mouse Wheel Up) to heat the rock. Your goal is to fill the Charge Window and keep the charge level inside the Green Optimal Zone.
- Managing Overcharge: If the charge enters the Red Overcharge Zone, back off power or move your laser off target. Allowing the gauge to fill completely causes the rock to explode, destroying valuable ore and heavily damaging your ship.
- Crafted Laser Advantage: Equipping crafted mining laser heads (unlocked via Shubin reputation) provides up to 40%–60% higher base fracturing power, allowing solo operators in a Prospector or Argo Golem to break heavy, high-tier rocks.
- Sub-Break Scanning: After breaking a main rock into smaller fragments, tap Tab once. A single ping instantly reveals the material density and quality of every fractured piece scattered around you.
- Pulse-mining: Some rocks are very touchy and your ship might be a bit too powerful, tapping the laser on and off will allow you to crack squirrely rocks.
3. Extraction & Cargo Grid Storage
- Switching Beams: Toggle from Fracturing Mode to Extraction Mode (Right Mouse Button).
- Sucking Up Chunks: Focus your extraction beam on purple-bordered (fully fractured) chunks. The tractor beam pulls the raw ore directly into your ship's internal saddlebags or cargo hold.
- Capacity Monitoring: Keep an eye on your cargo grid display. Once your pods or hold reach 100% capacity, stow your laser and spool quantum drives to transport the haul.
4. Refining & Selling Options
Raw ore yields significantly lower profits if sold directly at an ore buyer. To maximize returns or produce materials for crafting, take your haul to a Refinery Deck (located at L-stations like ARC-L1, CRU-L1, or HUR-L1).
Some refineries have bonuses for processing certain ore: Use SCMiner to find ore and to find the correct refinery if you want that bonus.
- Managing Batch Material Quality: Do not combine high-grade and low-grade raw ores of the same type in a single refinery order. Refining calculates a weighted average of the batch quality; mixing even 1 SCU of pristine ore (e.g., 900+ Quality) with 90 SCU of low-tier ore (e.g., 200 Quality) will pull the entire batch down to a low average score, ruining your high-tier material for component crafting. Separate high-quality and bulk low-quality deposits into distinct refinery orders.
- Placing Refinery Orders: Access a refinery terminal, select your ship's stored inventory, and choose a refining process:
- Yield vs. Speed: Processes like Dinyx Solventation offer high yields with low costs but long processing times. Faster methods (like Ferron Exchange) sacrifice a percentage of your yield for quick turnarounds.
- Transporting Refined Goods: Once processing finishes, load the refined materials onto a cargo ship (such as a Hull A, RAFT, or Cutlass) and haul them to a planetary TDD to sell for maximum profit, or transport them to a fabricator for component crafting.
Refinery Methods
Check which method you prefer, My recommendation is Dinyx Solventation.
Essential Mining Keybinds
• Toggle Mining Mode: M
• Toggle Scan Mode: V
• Adjust Scanner Beam Width: Scroll Wheel (in Scan Mode)
• Adjust Laser Power: Scroll Wheel (in Mining Mode)
• Switch Fracturing / Extraction: Right Mouse Button (RMB)
• Ping Sub-Break Fragments: Tab