Postby Norwin Palmer » Sun Mar 31, 2019 1:45 am
I did try laser mining in a double overlapping Painite hotspot (several more have been found), I guess the adopted nomenclature is Painite2 for that. I mined 200 ton in 75 minutes and sold for 570K cr/ton or 114M credits.
I didn't measure round trip travel to market and back because I wasn't going back but my guess would be close to 2 hours total if I had. If I had been willing to travel 160Ly I could have sold for 789K cr/ton but I think that round trip might take longer than the mining.
Making more money doesn't make laser mining more fun (unless you already like laser mining anyway) and it turned out to be a lot harder than I though. When I looked into how they were making 100 to 200/hr they are using highly specialized ships engineered out the wazoo and with Guardian modules I have not unlocked. They have more jump range on their miners than I have on my DBX and have engineered power distributors that can power 6 mining lasers to deplete an asteroid in seconds.
So in my opinion deep core mining is still the king of cash for now, it is fun, easier to get started both in capitol investment and ship requirements, no engineering is involved for the tools, and finding good places to mine is easier. The down sides are there is a learning curve to spotting core asteroids and the result is more like gambling as it could be jackpot or bust, but I enjoy a little gambling sometimes too.