Moon mining: Difference between revisions

== 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—if anchored in 0.5 space or below near a moon mining beacon—can use a Standup Moon Drill to extract a chunk of the moon for mining.

Moon scanning is different than probe scanning from exploration, in two critical ways. First, Survey probes are consumed when they are launched, and cannot be recalled to the ship. Second, the ship must be pointed directly at the target moon when the probe is launched. If the ship is not facing the moon when a survey probe is launched, the probe may 'miss' the moon and return no results. The probe is still consumed when this happens.

There are three types of Survey probes. They differ in skill requirement, size, and the "maximum flight time" which is the measure used for how long it will take to return data. The data returned by each type of probe will always be the same, so the primary considerations are how many a ship can carry (if probing a system with lots of moons, or many systems) and how long it takes to get the results.

There is no T2 Survey probe, although the Gaze Survey Probe is restricted to Omega-only.

The Survey Probe Launcher fits in a high slot, but does not require a turret or launcher hardpoint. This allows it to be used on a wide variety of hulls. Unlike the probes themselves, there is a T2 variant of the launcher, which grants a 10% reduction to the probe's scan time. Only one survey probe launcher of either variant can be fitted to a ship at a time.

Survey Probes must be launched directly at the target moon, from within 100,000km of it. This means you must physically align your ship to the moon, as the probe is launched in a straight line along your path of travel. Once in range and aligned, cycle the Survey Probe Launcher to launch a probe. It does not auto-repeat, but it will auto-reload if emptied and additional probes are available in the cargohold.  

{{expansion past | On 3/30/2020, CCP pushed a [https://www.eveonline.com/article/q7v1q4/moon-mineral-distribution-update previously announced] but unscheduled update that changed moon ore distribution across all types of space. Prior to this change, moons provided both regular asteroid ores (but in a variant that gave a bonus 15% yield, a variant that was only available from moons) as well as moon-specific ores as mentioned elsewhere in this article. After the change, all asteroid type ores were completely removed from moons, and the refining yield of moon ores was adjusted to only give moon goo, with R4 (Ubiquitous) ore still providing Pyerite or Mexallon as well - all other normal minerals were removed.}}

In addition to the classic minerals that other ores provide, some materials required for T2 construction can only be found in moon ores. Like the normal asteroid ores, moon ores also have basic, improved, and excellent quality types. However, moon ore quality more strongly affects the reprocessed minerals received. The improved ores yield a 15% bonus, while the excellent ores provide a 100% bonus on minerals received through reprocessing.  

There are 5 classes of moon ore, as shown in the table below. All classes are available in low and null-sec systems, but High sec and Wormhole systems may only have R4 (Ubiquitous) ores.

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Moon-specific ores are often of mixed quality, with the same moon pull containing both regular and improved quality of the same ore. However there is a chance that, at the time of detonating a moon chunk to create the asteroid field, that there will be a bright blue flash - this has come to be known as a "jackpot" and indicates that the moon ores for that particular extraction will '''''all''''' be of the excellent quality instead.

The following tables show the minerals and special materials present in '''''1000 {{M3}}''''' of each moon ore. Values are for the basic ore. Any decimal values from the improved ores (+15%) are rounded up to the next whole number.

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! [[Image:Mineral pyerite.png|32px|link=]] Pyerite !! [[Image:Mineral mexallon.png|32px|link=]] Mexallon

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! style="width:90px" | Moon Ore !! R64 Minerals !! R16 Minerals !! R8 Minerals !! R4 Minerals

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{{Mining Links}}

[[Category:Mining]]