Short and Simple Plasma Mining would be a new mining method that combines the use of multiple Ship types which takes a dedication of time and effort but results in higher profits and dedicated mineral extraction. To that end a few pieces of equipment are required. Please note that numbers are not fixed.
Torch: For lack of a better name it’s a Strip miner without the tractor beams juiced up to 15, it bombards a Target asteroid heating it up and converting it to plasma. Can only be fit on Exhumer class mining barges. Each cycle it applies “heat” to the asteroid , once enough heat has been applied ( based on the amount of M3 left) the asteroid will start to generate Plasmas based on the minerals the ore would produce( veldspar would only produce tri plasma while a scordite would produce both Tri and Pye plasma) , once you have a heat level equal to the M3 left it will start converting to Plasma, higher heat levels increase the conversion rate. Asteroids under this effect would generate a cloud like sphere effect that will replace the asteroid (sphere gets bigger asteroid shrinks). In order to keep this going you require CFG’s (see below) or both heat and materials will evaporate into space
TLDR, Converts asteroids into a collection of mineral direct sub type plasma’s.
T2 Torch: allow for mineral modulation, using a script the Torch will break down all other Mineral plasmas in favor of the target type, up to 10% of each of the other minerals plasma’s can be converted in this manner with skills increasing total, Note that T1 Torch’s are more effective in overall heating to plasma while T2 can burn off unwanted materials.
TLDR, you can target a certain material and in fact get more at the expense of literally burning all others.
Containment field Generator: CFG’s for short come in beam and drone types and work to contain plasma generation sites, preventing evaporation of plasma from the target, the more CFGs on a target the higher the M3 of generated plasma can exist before evaporating, any plasma generated over this threshold will start to evaporate taking both heat and material with it. Naturally larger cfg’s will hold more. They Come in Standard ( usable on everything) , Industrial( mining badge/exhumer) , and capital ( orca/ rorqual) , beams look similar to strip miners while drones are static emplacements. Any asteroid under a CFG will show an overlay with the current plasma/ capacity and a Shield like sphere around it.
T2 CFG’s: have stronger containment fields.
TLDR, increased the storage size of the plasma before it starts to evaporate, do not effect material burn from T2 Torchs.
Siphons: Once you have plasma you need to harvest it, this is the Siphons function, only equipable on Orcas (2) or Rorquals (4) they will rapidly collect any produced plasma which converts it into “X-Particulate” with X being any one of the minerals, particulate is useful in that it both only produces one mineral and that’s its sized to be equivalent to ground ore for material space size.
T2 Siphons: These advanced Siphons take nearly twice the system resources than a standard siphon but are capable of pulling the “Moon Goo” Type material type plasma’s.
TLDR, converts plasma into its respective “ore” form that only refines to one mineral and is pre-ground saving space.