Moon Mining

Moon Ore Extraction

Once a moon has been identified as a good candidate, a refinery is anchored near the moon mining beacon and then the refinery must be equipped with a moon mining drill service module. The moon mining drill can then be activated to extract a chunk of the moon over a period of 6 to 56 days, slowly pulling the chunk closer to the refinery. The length of extraction is directly related to the amount which will be extracted, calculated with 20.000 m³ per hour of preparation. After the extraction period has passed, the refinery owner has a period of time to detonate the moon ore chunk into a mineable asteroid field which includes both normal ores and moon-specific ores. If the chunk is not detonated manually, it will automatically detonate after approximately three hours, modifiable with rigs.

Moon Ore Mining

Once a moon chunk has been extracted using a Refinery, it exists as an asteroid field which contains both normal ore types and special moon-specific ores. After extraction, the mining is performed using the same mining equipment and processes used for asteroid Mining. Mining crystals are available for each class of moon ore to improve efficiency of Tech 2 mining lasers, provided the player trains the appropriate moon ore reprocessing skill.

Ore Types

Asteroid Ore

Moons can contain any type of normal asteroid-belt ore found in High, Low, or Null-security space, regardless of the security of the system the moon is in. The one exception to this is Mercoxit (the only asteroid ore to contain Morphite, used in T2 production) which is not available from moons.

The asteroid ores produced by moons are always of the same quality - 15% - which is higher than that obtainable from asteroid belts. Combined with the fact that even null-sec ores such as Gneiss and Spodumain are available at moons in high-security (0.5) space, makes moon-mining in high sec very lucrative.

Moon-specific Ore

The five different classes of moon ores are as follows: ubiquitous, common, uncommon, rare, and exceptional. 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.

Unlike with the regular asteroid ores that can be mined from moons, moon-specific ores are often of mixed quality, with the same moon pull containing both regular and improved quality. However there is a chance, at the time of detonating a moon chunk, 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.

Images of Athanor Creating a rock, Orca Mining Fleet and the Different Asteroid's