Moon mining

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Background and History

The Lifeblood expansion was released on October 24, 2017, and brought with it substantial changes to the process of moon mining. Previously moon mining was completed using player-owned starbases, but the Lifeblood expansion introduced a new class of [Upwell structures] called [Upwell structures#Refineries|refineries] which are anchored in 0.5 space or below near a moon mining beacon and then used to extract a chunk of the moon for mining.

Moon Scanning

Moons may be scanned survey probes along with a survey probe launcher.

Moon scans return details on the average output of a moon, and allow would-be moon miners to understand what the value of the moon might be so that the best available moon can be selected. An example of a moon scan result is shown below.

Note: Additional details needed here.

Moon Ore Extraction

Once a moon has been identified as a good candidate, a refinery is anchored near the moon mining beacon and then the refinery must be equipped with a moon mining drill service module. The moon mining drill can then be activated to extract a chunk of the moon over a period of 6 to 56 days, slowly pulling the chunk closer to the refinery. The length of extraction is directly related to the amount which will be extracted, with larger extractions creating substantially larger ore fields. After the extraction period has passed, the refinery owner has a period of time to detonate the moon ore chunk into a mineable asteroid field which includes both normal ores and moon-specific ores. If the chunk is not detonated manually, it will automatically detonate after approximately three hours, modifiable with rigs.

Moon Ore Mining

Once a moon chunk has been extracted using a Refinery, it exists as an asteroid field which contains both normal ore types and special moon-specific ores. After extraction, the mining is performed using the same mining equipment and processes used for asteroid Mining. Mining crystals are available for each class of moon ore to improve efficiency of Tech 2 mining lasers.

Ore Types

Note: Additional details needed here.