Is this bugged or just unreasonably difficult and working as intended?

[Caliopus "Calio" Jones]

Finally got my mining skills high enough to try UG mining and a society mate made me the lowest level (82 freq) equipment.  So far I have done over 200 scans for both minerals and ores and gotten absolutely no (zero, zilch, nada) hits. Not even one. The SAU rating on the scanners is 52% and rising. I'm getting SAU and skills and I've unlocked one skill (scanning practice), so I assume I'm not doing anything wrong that would prevent successful scanning.  I've tried south of Sar, east of Sar, in the hills north of Sar west, in the hills on the diagonal shortcut over the hills between NU and Sar, and specific places where Soc and Corp mates tell me there are definitely freq 82 deposits and gotten nothing at all on the scanners.
 
I know higher level freqs are working (soc mates are mining successfully).  Is 1 hit in >200 tries the expected norm for people just starting out in UG mining, is there something wrong with the low level freqs, or won't the scans work until I eventually unlock all the hidden mining skills (am I supposed to keep throwing out hundreds more scans until I eventually unlock them)?
 
Anyone able to tell me whether I should wait for a fix or just keep on burning up my rather expensive equipment in this rather frustrating attempt to be able to do UG mining?
 
Thanks for any info you can give me.

[Sifalio "Sifis" Kritikakis]

Hello Calio,


there is nothing wrong with your equipment.
Its just a mater of skills and locations.


All this info should be replied from your soc m8s! Talk to a more experienced miner from your soc....

[Nicky "osyman" Brown]

 I have 100% SR on 82, there are many claims around Sar to Sar W  for 82, got like 15 hits in a row but they all are pickable stones, have found so far only pickable but I guess i need to try some other places. I think you need to chip in few skills to get SR bigger

[Caliopus "Calio" Jones]

Hello Calio,


there is nothing wrong with your equipment.
Its just a mater of skills and locations.


All this info should be replied from your soc m8s! Talk to a more experienced miner from your soc....

I have talked to several very experienced Soc & Corp mates and have gone to the specific coordinates they've told me to go to (as well as the others places listed) and not gotten a single hit (not even of pickable stones, which are unlikely to have been mined out because other miners would have left them in place because they are not worth extracting).  They too (like you) can't think of anything that might be wrong. But...
 
My pick skilling and sau gain rates are both 12% and falling, so there isn't much more in the way of skills or sau to be gained from picking, and both my scanners are 50% (37-62) effective with 100% skilling rate and 53% sau gain rate and rising, which I would think would be high enough to get me at least an occasional hit.  If the problem is my skills being too low, then IMHO there's something wrong with a system that requires a player to chip in skills in order to make the jump from picking to UG mining, because that's about the only way I can still raise my skills in any meaningful way.  To say this whole thing is becoming extremely frustrating is an understatement.

[dale "dalewj" ofj]

two things.  If your eff rate is 50% that means you probably have to drop 3 bombs (maybe 4) in one spot to find something.
And your sadly not UG mining with  82 or 114 all your doing is spending lots of awd to get rocks that are above ground.  I recommend takingthe same awd and refining stones.  Start with NU stones and move to NU stones when you get to 0 slag.  When you get to zero slag with Sar rocks you'll be at 100G% 178.
I would have recommended doing it with trees but they are turned off for skills.
Dont mine until your at least 75%  eff on a 142.  your just throwing awd down the hole your not making

[Andrei "Andrei" Popov]

Ug mining is expensive job, it's not so easy to jump from picking to it. You need more special ug skills.

I have the same problem - my scanner has 52%+ SR, i know some places where resources are, but it's very hard for me to find them.
I saw one mate, who found about 20 claimes around for 2-3 minutes with same scanner but i still can't find any there.

[Jarod "Brickwit" McBrickerton]

My hope is that there will be some new tools in the near future that will help with the transition from using picks to using scanners, but so far there hasn't been any indication that this will happen.

I agree with dale's advice and I think it's what most people do to actually get claims with their scanners.

[Caliopus "Calio" Jones]

Many thanks guys for the useful advice. I was less concerned about the cost than about about having something different to do for a change.  In any case, that may have been the problem. I was never dropping more than 2 bombs of any type in the same place before moving 50 meters or so to another spot.  May try 1 more time in one spot with however many bombs it takes to get a hit, just to reassure myself that I can actually do it, before putting the scanners in storage until I grind out more skills by refining.

[dale "dalewj" ofj]

im sure 'da event' can give us the exact numbers.  but a 50% chance means a 2nd drop is really less then a 75% chance.  a third is maybe 82%.........   its all about the number of drops.

[Hugo "Lossehelin" Santos]

i had the same problem as you. my skill rate using that scanner is also 52%.  I was trying and nothing... Until i decided to scan inside NU. There my in 10 scans i would have 8 hits! BUt they are all pickable rocks.... that is the problem. ANd also mining takes so much time that it is not worth it to spend 1h mining 2kgs when ou can get the same stone (500kgs) in just about the same time...

[Sifalio "Sifis" Kritikakis]

The best place to just exploit the usefulness of the UG tools, is mine within NU!
There you will find lots of claims but only with pickable stones, like Lossehelin said.


Try there just to get a feeling of the tools and get the first UG mining skills!
Avoid mining untill you have reached a higher lvl.

[Gebeleizis "Hultaan" Kapnobatai]

Try there just to get a feeling of the tools and get the first UG mining skills!
Avoid mining untill you have reached a higher lvl.

if this is the real purpose of the scanners ..yellow ones, that's a shame for this profession in my opinion,the money invested to have tools,  the cd's, the crafting stages as mining profession lvl 1, the crafting itself as a resoult of some trubles for producing this tools, the stones for these frequencees, and the all ideea of UG is a bit nonsense , ...to not be able to start mining cause u cant find claims, or u cant get skills at the low stages as in any other profession having the necessary setting from the start, sounds like dead end for something already implemented, i pitty those noobs who want to go outhere and try to be miners from beggining, or as a personal choose from 2-3 professions availeble ..hunting ( melee/riffle/) crafting, minig, trading ( i mentioed in one of my earlier posts would be great to be added the 9 Q stones to basic finders, and if someone chose to "pick" like this way is his option)
 
i think this low freq scanners can be removed or just replace the stones from green to yellow finders among whit the stage necessary as requirement to be 100% grow on those tools, and red moved to green, and for the "new red" other new stones can be added, mixing the yellow whit green is same as the actual mining is working, no1 uses yellow if this is the resoult of "no resources found"...the old NRF found us here too it seems..
 
and btw as Sifis mentioned, the feeling must be "overwhelming" to not be able to find a claim in dozens of try outs, is great to feel the time spending is for nothing just losing it whit a tool in your heands, the landscape is great that's for sure, and the bombs explode artisticaly also, this can be a good reason to use them, and have them in the first place, ..but still..

[dale "dalewj" ofj]

i agree would be good to hav ea few unique rocks in UG yellow mining to give people a reason to mine and would be easy to find.  The lyst and belk of AW.

[Teesa "Teesa" Fisher]

I agree with Dale. Refine, refine then refine some more. What I would add to it though is if you really have that itch to use a scanner, use it while it's 90% growing to 90% falling. Then go back to refining. I drop a minimum of 5 bombs, if it takes that many to find a claim.

[Bold "Bertram" Blanshard]

Either I am confused about what determines the hit rate, or some of the previous posters are.

What has Skill Rate or SAU Rate got to do with the chance of finding anything? Surely it should be the Effectiveness which is the determining factor, as it is with weapons.

And for Picks, the Effectiveness determines the quantity obtained from each rock. Why doesn't UG mining work the same way?