Mole: A Semicomprehensive Review

The “Mole” is a recently released ship that can only be obtained by either paying 30-50$, or by mining LOTS of asteroids. About 1500 to be more precise. In this review we will be going over the pros and cons of the ship, and some of the easiest ways to grind out the parts for it bearing in mind the latest patch which broke a few methods.

 

 

 

 

Section 1: Obtaining the parts

There are a few methods to get the parts easily, but one that guarantees at least one part every time. To get parts for the Mole, you must perfectly extract the materials from an asteroid in Open Space. This is done by heating up asteroids (by shooting at them) and maintaining maximum heat until they explode. If an asteroid just explodes and drops nothing, it was a failed extraction. If it explodes and drops a lot of ores and a container, it was a perfect extraction.

 

Thi’Lith - Thilith.PNG.5080eae7ebb1cca1f29e712978e11d11.PNGThis pulsar-like alien weapon fits on fighters , and has a rate of fire (RoF) of 60 shots per minute. This RoF is almost perfectly ideal for mining asteroids , but with slightly higher fire-rate it becomes faster and easier.

For low rank ships, up to 8, it can be difficult to use this weapon to mine effectively, but if placed on a gunship using overdriveOverdrive.PNG.aba3ace48ba41463bc7a538cf699d14c.PNG, it will guarantee a part every time.

For higher rank ships, installing one Iridium HeatsinkIridiumHeatsink.PNG.943adb2babc9b368b529dc068b852774.PNG is typically enough to guarantee a part drops after mining.

 

It is recommended to install the Spatial Scanner SpatialScanner.PNG.496c4a83b81ed27d90935e821c8a5266.PNG and Extended Hull ExtendedHull.PNG.67949818ae4c8c2222c6c12c2d0413c3.PNG passive modules as well. The Spatial Scanner will make it much easier to identify and track nearby asteroids, and the Extended Hulls allow you to carry more items. Two Extended Hull modules will give your fighter matching cargo capacity of the Mole itself and allow you to carry all possible asteroid drops , as well as 3-4 other items.

 

 

Section 2: Pros of the Mole

To start off on a good note, there are still some nice things about the Mole that can’t be ignored. These attributes give it the edge against other ships as a mining vehicle , but are largely just comfort items.

 

  • Extended pickup radius - The Mole comes default with a pickup radius of 750m , which is 450m further than every other normal ship.
  • Extended cargo hold - The Mole also comes standard with 14 cargo spaces , which is as much as TWO extended hulls placed on a standard fighter.
  • Faster maneuverability - The Mole is marginally faster and more maneuverable than a standard Federation engineer of its class.
  • Mail Drone MailDrone.PNG.3918074286e5f2b258749130f798aa2d.PNG - The Mole also has the option to be fitted with a cargo drone. This can be used to send items to the station without actually needing to dock or locate one on the map.
  • Base hull and shield regeneration - The Mole comes fitted with " Repair Drones" that naturally and constantly regenerate the hull and shield of the ship, and can be used to heal allies as well.
  • Ability to use Warp Gates - The Warp Gate is a standard Engineer module that gives you somewhat greater sprint speed between asteroids.

 

 

 

 

Section 3: Cons of the Mole (Vs Thi'lith fighters)

While the Mole is spectacular compared to random ships at mining, and generally as a ship in Open Space, it does fall short drastically in some areas when compared to ships fitted specifically for mining.

 

  • Very slow top speed - When compared to the 600-800mps top speed of well-fitted fighters, the Mole has almost half the top speed.
  • Low-efficiency mining weapon - The Emitter MLEmitterML.PNG.10946a3882df8acfe02cf8c3c4fb0237.PNG (Mining Laser) may have advanced cooling systems , but it is very touchy when mining, and often fails to give maximum yield when mining.
  • Low combat efficiency - The Mole is an Engineer frigate, and an odd one at that, so it is often not suitable for combat if NPC’s or players pick a fight. The Thi’lith also allows you to take on enemies while still mining!
  • Extremely high initial cost - The Mole takes around 1500 asteroids to be mined in order to get the parts to craft it, and by then you might as well be a pro at using a normal ship to mine.
  • Can only mine one asteroid at a time - The Thi’lith allows the user to mine more than one asteroid simultaneously if within range. The Emitter ML only permits one asteroid to be mined, which takes full focus.
  • Obvious target - This is a nit-picky one, but normal fighters don’t often look like a prime target in Open Space for pirate players, while the Mole is obviously a ripe choice for piracy , and often falls victim to player pirates in PvP sectors.
  • Large, slow target - As stated above, the Mole is an engineer, and by that heritage is squishier overall , easier to hit from afar, and it’s often hard to hit fast targets with the mining laser.

 

 

 

 

Section 4: So should I dedicate my time/money to get it?

The easy answer to that is “it depends on you as the pilot,” but the answer for the average pilot is a decisive no. This ship is harder to get, more expensive, more unwieldy, and g enerally worse at mining than other dedicated builds. If you want a ship for mining in Open Space, spend a few resources on a Thi’Lith blueprint and weapon, instead of 24 hours worth of asteroid mining and several hundred monocrystals of parts to build a mediocre mining ship.

 

 

 

Section 5: How could it be better? (For the devs!)

The obvious answer is two-fold:

  1. Make the Emitter ML Mining Laser never fail at mining, and ALWAYS grant a perfect extraction. It’s a mining weapon on a  mining ship that is dedicated to mining and costs LOTS of time/resources to get. It should be perfect at doing its job. It should also potentially increase/double asteroid drops by default like a built-in Asteroid Conquerer license.
  2. Make it faster and more maneuverable. It’s slow and not hardy at all, so it falls short greatly when compared to dedicated mining fighters. Increasing the max speed by about 20-50% would be GREAT and with that increasing turn speed and acceleration.

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for giving this a read! I might add more info later as I continue playing with the Mole, but for now it is definitely NOT a great mining ship. It CAN mine well, but it takes concentration and a very steady hand, unlike other builds.

 

1 hour ago, TheDarkRedFox said:

Extended pickup radius - The Mole comes default with a pickup radius of 750m , which is 450m further than every other normal ship

Question is can Dessies be counted as “normal ships” as well? If yes they still beat the Mole in pickup range that is 900m so even aditional 150m more then the Mole but then again a dessy requires a lot of farming for Astros as well so i would assume now that in the time you have the Mole parts you have also enough parts to build at least 1 Rank 8 Dessy.

 

1 hour ago, TheDarkRedFox said:

Extended cargo hold - The Mole also comes standard with 14 cargo spaces , which is as much as TWO extended hulls placed on a standard fighter.

Again if we would put Dessies into the “normal ships” area as well they come already with 12 Slots so they are just 2 slots off in this situation. For OS if you go only for Astros a cargo of at least 8 is the absolute minimum for the duration of the event that is needed to load all possible drops in your ships (5 raw minerals + Enriched Mono Crystal + Alien Artifact (for 20 Iridium each) + Mole part). So if you want to go for some extra stuff 9+ is absolute optional.

 

2 hours ago, TheDarkRedFox said:

Mail Drone  MailDrone.PNG.3918074286e5f2b258749130f798aa2d.PNG - The Mole also has the option to be fitted with a cargo drone. This can be used to send items to the station without actually needing to dock or locate one on the map.

I see this a bit relative tbh for 2 reasons

  1. With a Cargo hold of 14 you can already cramp a lot of stuff inside and if the Mole is a miner it should only go for Astros that (as mentioned above) only requires a cargo hold of 7 when the event is over. So the other slots would be more for additional containers that are scattered around and not require fighting NPCs
  2. If i have seen it correctly it has a CD of 600 seconds (10 minutes) before it can be used again. Maybe if you are cranky on Iridium it is a nice thing to use but if flying in a wing where other pilots have just a small hold it would be required in much shorter intervalls then 10 minutes i guess.

2 hours ago, TheDarkRedFox said:

Low-efficiency mining weapon - The Emitter ML EmitterML.PNG.10946a3882df8acfe02cf8c3c4fb0237.PNG (Mining Laser) may have advanced cooling systems , but it is very touchy when mining, and often fails to give maximum yield when mining.

This is imo the biggest failure of this ship cus its exclusive weapon that is for “mining” can and will blow up an Astro cus beam weapons have more an “hitscan” heating while in compare weapons with an “real” RoF keep the heat at the point that is required to get the guranteed perfect extraction and the sweet spot seems to be 60-70 RpM when holding left click. Considering that each Astro round takes ~20 seconds (no matter what weapon you use) indicates that the damage is absolute irrelevant. During my tests with Ze´Ta and Fission Launcher with an RoF of 54 (hold left click) i tried it with “frontal fire” and with “broadside fire” and it always took the same number of hits (18-19) until the Astro exploded but give the perfect extraction.

 

2 hours ago, TheDarkRedFox said:

Extremely high initial cost - The Mole takes around 1500 asteroids to be mined in order to get the parts to craft it, and by then you might as well be a pro at using a normal ship to mine.

This is “Just to craft the 2 cabins of the ship”. Next to this you have the packages that need to be crafted as well in order to even manufacture it and why i said earlier that you may have enough recources to even craft any Rank 8 Dessy as well if we exclude the huge amount of Monos needed for those packages.

 

2 hours ago, TheDarkRedFox said:

Make the Emitter ML Mining Laser never fail at mining, and ALWAYS grant a perfect extraction. It’s a mining weapon on a  mining ship that is dedicated to mining and costs LOTS of time/resources to get. It should be perfect at doing its job.

Depending on how hard it would be to implement it the “Mining Laser” should heat the Astro until the perfect extraction point and then destroy it directly while giving the perfect drop. This basicly is cutting the time from 20 seconds to 2 seconds cus beam weapons heat those Astros very quick so that they are more finicky to keep the “sweet spot” imo.

 

2 hours ago, TheDarkRedFox said:

Make it faster and more maneuverable. It’s slow and not hardy at all, so it falls short greatly when compared to dedicated mining fighters

As i mentioned in the other post give it an “private instance” where the player can mine in peace without any competition. When in a sector at least 2 players+ go for mining the Astros the respawn rate can in many instances not keep up and therefore leaving the sector empty for an awfully long time ranging from some seconds up to at least 1 minute. Next to this place in this “private instance” a good bunch of Astros with an respawn time of 30 secs and a distance of max 2000m so that it can do its job as a “miner” rather then chasing for an Astro in OS and when you approach it another player just started the process and you leave empty handed in combination with the long respawn times.

 

Considering the “reason” why the Mole has been created it is ridiculous how much it fails in his job.

Quote

With the beginning of the Second Invasion, the UMC leadership decided to create a miner ship so that they would not have problems with resources in the future. 

If the Mole is the answer for that then the UMC leadership should be worried about something else then a “shortage of recources” cus any fighter that has been fited for mining can outclass it in every aspect.

 

Next to this and considering how many Astros i takes to get this ship the rate of some recources is a joke. Mainly i talk here about Monocrystals that are needed for every single package but the rate of a Monocrystal seems to be ~1% chance (if not even lower) while it takes hundreds and hundreds of them to craft all parts in order to build 1 single ship. We may drown in raw material but the main component that is needed for production shines with its absence.

1 hour ago, Vesperion said:

Question is can Dessies be counted as “normal ships” as well? If yes they still beat the Mole in pickup range that is 900m so even aditional 150m more then the Mole but then again a dessy requires a lot of farming for Astros as well so i would assume now that in the time you have the Mole parts you have also enough parts to build at least 1 Rank 8 Dessy

Dessies are slow asf.

1 hour ago, Vesperion said:

Again if we would put Dessies into the “normal ships” area as well they come already with 12 Slots so they are just 2 slots off in this situation. For OS if you go only for Astros a cargo of at least 8 is the absolute minimum for the duration of the event that is needed to load all possible drops in your ships (5 raw minerals + Enriched Mono Crystal + Alien Artifact (for 20 Iridium each) + Mole part). So if you want to go for some extra stuff 9+ is absolute optional.

See above

1 hour ago, Vesperion said:

If i have seen it correctly it has a CD of 600 seconds (10 minutes) before it can be used again. Maybe if you are cranky on Iridium it is a nice thing to use but if flying in a wing where other pilots have just a small hold it would be required in much shorter intervalls then 10 minutes i guess.

I’d mostly let others use it tbh. I don’t see much use for it myself with that cargo space.

1 hour ago, Vesperion said:

This is imo the biggest failure of this ship cus its exclusive weapon that is for “mining” can and will blow up an Astro cus beam weapons have more an “hitscan” heating while in compare weapons with an “real” RoF keep the heat at the point that is required to get the guranteed perfect extraction and the sweet spot seems to be 60-70 RpM when holding left click.

Same.

1 hour ago, Vesperion said:

This is “Just to craft the 2 cabins of the ship”. Next to this you have the packages that need to be crafted as well in order to even manufacture it and why i said earlier that you may have enough recources to even craft any Rank 8 Dessy as well if we exclude the huge amount of Monos needed for those packages.

Exactly!!!

1 hour ago, Vesperion said:

Depending on how hard it would be to implement it the “Mining Laser” should heat the Astro until the perfect extraction point and then destroy it directly while giving the perfect drop. This basicly is cutting the time from 20 seconds to 2 seconds cus beam weapons heat those Astros very quick so that they are more finicky to keep the “sweet spot” imo.

Agreed!

1 hour ago, Vesperion said:

If the Mole is the answer for that then the UMC leadership should be worried about something else then a “shortage of recources” cus any fighter that has been fited for mining can outclass it in every aspect.

This

12 hours ago, TheDarkRedFox said:

 

  • Very slow top speed - When compared to the 600-800mps top speed of well-fitted fighters, the Mole has almost half the top speed.

I can agree with that. Warp gate gives some more mobility, though. 15% speed increase would do honestly.

 

12 hours ago, TheDarkRedFox said:

Can only mine one asteroid at a time - The Thi’lith allows the user to mine more than one asteroid simultaneously if within range. The Emitter ML only permits one asteroid to be mined, which takes full focus.

You can mine up to 3 at the same cycle. Just hold your fire button and aim at 3 asteroids in sequence. Maybe it’s not the ideal solution, but works. Heating rate of the main gun is perfectly suited for this style of mining. I would love that the overheating allowance was increased with each level though. If it would hit around 5 seconds, that gun would be almost perfect.

5 hours ago, niripas said:

You can mine up to 3 at the same cycle. Just hold your fire button and aim at 3 asteroids in sequence. Maybe it’s not the ideal solution, but works.

Oh yeah I can keep going and going with the thilith lol. Only problem is finding asteroids that close to each other.

 

And by multiple at the same time I mean with the split beam literally hitting more than one at the same time. XD

9 hours ago, niripas said:

You can mine up to 3 at the same cycle. Just hold your fire button and aim at 3 asteroids in sequence. Maybe it’s not the ideal solution, but works. Heating rate of the main gun is perfectly suited for this style of mining. I would love that the overheating allowance was increased with each level though. If it would hit around 5 seconds, that gun would be almost perfect

 

4 hours ago, TheDarkRedFox said:

Oh yeah I can keep going and going with the thilith lol. Only problem is finding asteroids that close to each other.

 

And by multiple at the same time I mean with the split beam literally hitting more than one at the same time. XD

Considering how rare this situation happens that you have 2 or even 3 Astros in the range of 3.200m (without range enhancing) it still is a joke of a weapon when in compare you can use the Thi´Lith Beam that has “just 2.400m” but can deal with 2 Astros+ at the same time if the positioning is right. So an “none mining weapon” can under the right circumstances mine faster and with an guranteed perfect extraction rate then an “actual mining weapon” that only does increase the “critical temperatures timer by 2,3” and still leaving the risk of either destroy the astro with no drop at all or a non perfect extraction rate cus of to much cooling/to less heating/holding.

 

The fact stays that the “benefits” to obtain the ship does not outweight in the slightest way the disadvantages you have with it when using it. As i mentioned it Beam (or better said actual laser) weapons have an hitscan heating where the RpM is way to high and requires constand adjusting. Just take any hitscan beam like Gravi-Beamer and compare it with Thi´Lith Beam on the Astros and you see that even with the same RpM the Gravi-Beamer will be harder to controll the heat then a weapon with “real RpM” where a “projectile” is actually shot 1 after another at certain intervalls when holding the fire button.

 

Due the Emitter ML-V2 is an actuall laser it has the hitscan heating and tbh i rather prefer to “just hold my attack button for ~20 seconds then to actually tab itevery second just to miss the perfect extraction cus of one little slip in the rhytm or destroying the astro by accident”.

Maybe if the Emitter-ML doubled asteroid drops by default it would be worth using. Like a built-in “Asteroid Conquerer License”.

1 hour ago, Vesperion said:

 

Considering how rare this situation happens that you have 2 or even 3 Astros in the range of 3.200m (without range enhancing) it still is a joke of a weapon when in compare you can use the Thi´Lith Beam that has “just 2.400m” but can deal with 2 Astros+ at the same time if the positioning is right. So an “none mining weapon” can under the right circumstances mine faster and with an guranteed perfect extraction rate then an “actual mining weapon” that only does increase the “critical temperatures timer by 2,3” and still leaving the risk of either destroy the astro with no drop at all or a non perfect extraction rate cus of to much cooling/to less heating/holding.

Just tested that hypothesis. Actually was able to farm faster with laser than with Thi’lith. Also as you pointed out - if Thi’lith is limited to 2400 how would it actually shot two asteroids that are let’s say 3.5km apart?  That 2.3 seconds can actually guarantee a perfect extraction every time. I think it is a matter of preference here. I like beam weapons and I can still perfectly extract 3 asteroids and kill a few biomorphs in the meantime. If someone want’s to find asteroids that are closer together, wait 4 seconds to get them to the right temperature (not to mention that in most cases you won’t hit two asteroids with Thi’lith on first two shots) but all he needs to do is hold LMB for 25 seconds? Sure. No problem. With mining laser it heats up instantly - which can be beneficient as it reduces the total extraction time. HOWEVER. I am not saying that it is a perfect weapon for mining - it has it’s flaws. I would increase the time to hold the asteroid at critical temperature and/or reduce the total mining time. I hope it is just the first iteration of this mining system and it will be improved in the future.

I mean if we mine that much for a mining ship with a mining laser that is meant for mining, I’d expect to not need to work nearly as hard at mining with it. Just point, click, extract, profit.

16 minutes ago, niripas said:

Also as you pointed out - if Thi’lith is limited to 2400 how would it actually shot two asteroids that are let’s say 3.5km apart? 

This is why i mentioned that the Astros need to be in the right constelation that happens rarely and in 1 hour of farming may 2-3 times and those Astros need to be within 2.400 what basicly means if you are on one Astro the other needs to be within those 2.400 so that it can be hit as well.

 

19 minutes ago, niripas said:

With mining laser it heats up instantly

As i stated take any weapon that is a laser and you have the same affect in terms of heating but without of the added 2.3 seconds so that the risk is just higher to explode the Astro when using it.

 

22 minutes ago, niripas said:

With mining laser it heats up instantly - which can be beneficient as it reduces the total extraction time.

Tbh i have the feeling that the time is the same no matter what weapon type you use and in the end just “the temperature” is what matters for the drops when the timer runs out but i need to admit that i not really meassured the time. Considering however that my Thi´Lith Beam with 70 RpM takes ~20 seconds from start to finish like with my “Kai” Fission Launcher of my Ze´Ta with just 54 RpM it convinces me that it´s irrelevant if you can heat the astro quickly or slowly cus again at the end not the damage determines the drops but the “final temperature” does determine it.

 

31 minutes ago, niripas said:

I hope it is just the first iteration of this mining system and it will be improved in the future.

It will require a change for sure cus otherwise it really would be a waste of time and recources to craft the ship and after the event even a waste of money/GS cus the name and description of the ship gives a false impression of the ship and what it does/can do/it´s used for.