Shoot the little cannisters floating around in mine fields. Sometimes they drop stuff.

I want a penny for everytime this has been asked !
No offense tho, it is a rather unusal way to mine and Forum search is down.

I dont want to sound like an idiot but which small cannistars? been cruising minfield for quite some while now and havent seen anything that resembels cannisters.

Go in the mine field.
They are the things that are actually moving around.
If you just start shooting aimlessly chances are you'll see one blow up.
I have yet seen one have anything in it. It just explodes. I thought they were mines.

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If cats always land on thier feet. What would happen if you strap 2 cats back to back and drop them?
Probably destroy space and time.

Yeah thought that aswell, have been shoting everything that moves but still havent got anything out from it.. are we doing something worng or do you just have to keep shooting?

Alright, go into the middle of a debris field, and move your mouse around the screen and onto the little particles in space. Not the little itt bitty ones and not the ones that you can shoot for eternity. There are little particles that kind of fly around the screen, and when you move your mouse on them, a circling white crosshair appears on it. then you shoot it and you might get something from it. In the demo, you get scrap metal. (on a sidenote, sell the scrap metal at the shipyards)

*If you have a cat and a dog in the same house, will that be a problem? Of course not, you might just have solved world hunger*

Mining in the New York system is a waste of time... nothing but scrap metal.. .BORING!

Ýou mean the small "rocks" floating around? The things that move if your ship is halted? Been shooting them for eternity, still havent got anything.. Is it some particular minfields or some partikular weapon needed?

U need to look into the neural net map and see which debri fields or asteroidfields are minable. Its an icon for that. Shot up the floating randomly generated boxs or rocks flying by.

I Rule!!!!!

I'm not sure about this, but I think that you only get stuff if you shoot with a single crappy weapon. If you just blast it to bits, I think you destroy the contents as well as the debris/rocks.

To sum up the above....

1. You must actually be in a mine field, just because you can shoot stuff and it blows up does not mean you are in a minefield. Go to neural net and click on the icon that looks like 2 pick axes - it says mineable zones when you hover over it - this will put big white patches on the starmap showing mineable zones.

2. You are looking for small, fast moving rocks/canisters (depending on debris field or asteroid field). If your ship was the size of a car they are somewhere between the size of a football (soccer ball if you're from the states) and a beachball. Like JTCurry says the easiest way to spot them is 'cause when your target is over them your crosshair turns white. It is easiest to shoot them if you do come to a complete halt but make sure there are no hostile patrol paths around first.

3. Like Maverick says you do have to watch how much firepower you pump into the mining. One hit with any weapon is enough to destroy them so any more firepower and you risk blowing up the loot which drops immediately - same as when shooting wrecks for salvage. So best to switch off all your weapons bar one.

4. Tractor the loot.

Rinse and repeat

the things that you can shoot for stuff look like little barrells. they are not the big things, and they are not the tiny little plankton things floating around. they are little barrells. there is not too many of them, so dont expect to randomly fire and hit them.

Approximat running length: 11 inches

Look in the Spoiler Forum for a Complete listing of ALL Mining Zones - I just posted it