Furry Dragon
Mongoose
So, I've been trying to figure out belt mining, as I'm starting a campaign more or less centered around my solo traveler PC running with a belt mining crew and throwing in the occasional random encounter here and there or bit of combat etc. Seems to be going well so far. But, looking everywhere, the whole Belt Mining section of 2nd Edition High Guard seems to lack, a lot, as far as how to figure out what you're getting and how to get it. For instance, the big concern i'm having is something like this.
We're in the N Zone and we do some prospecting, we locate some "Dense Materials" (Letter D on the Scan Potential chart) asteroid and go to scan it and get a better picture as per the rules from pages 74-75.
so then we move on to the next step, where I as the referee need ot secretly determine if there is anything actually in the asteroid and what it is as well as it's size and yield. great.
first things first, I roll on the Composition chart to determine if it's Mineral, Crystal, or Ice. I get a 7, it's a Mineral Composition.
Next, I use the rules as written of "Determine if the resource is present using the Resource Presence table. Cross reference the Composition of the material from the Composition table with the Resource indicated on the Scan Potential table. The result is the target number for a roll of 2D indicating the resource type is actually present."
So. it's a Mineral Composition, and it's Dense Material Resource I'm looking for, great. Going down the M column it is a 10+ for Crystal, a 9+ for Dense MAterial, an 11+ for Radioactives (a result that is not available at all on the Composition results anyway), or a 10+ if I was looking for Ice.
But, lets say I get a 10, great. I confirmed that there is in fact Dense MAterials inside the asteroid and my players' crew didn't waste 6 hours scanning the rock for nothing.
now I roll for Size and yield. lets just say it's a 1,000 ton asteroid with 10% yield. so it has 100 tons of "something" in it.
The confusion comes with the fact that, of those 100 tones of "Dense Materials" found in the N Zone rock (the common metal zone) as "M class asteroids are reasonably dense in composition, containing high-grade sources of metal, along with exotic elements such as radioactives and super-dense metals."
Now, I go to the commodities table to find the materials, and from the above description it could either be the Nickle Iron "Common" Ore for 1000 Cr/ton, or possibly the Dense Metals at 50,000 Cr/ton. And, the fact that the Scan Potential came up as Dense Materials in the common Metal composition, that the ore is obviously Dense Metals for the 50KCr/ton, and in another light, this being the only way to actually have the ore be in the asteroid and not have it just be raw rock, then logically, it would be impossible to ever get the low price common ore.
That is unless it means that, for instance, if I'm looking in the N Zone fore ore, and roll a Potential of say 2 and get Dense Material again, then find the Composition to be Metallic again, so I need that 9+ on the Resource Presense table, and I get a 5 and fail, does that then mean that the Metal asteroid is still Dense (for the +1 Yield) but it is now just regular metal and not Dense metal? Or does it, like the rules suggest, not actually have anything useful in it?
Of as another example, still in the N Zone, I pick up another Potential Dense asteroid, and then scan it to find it is Crystal Composition rock. So I need to get a 10+ to actually have there be crystals inside this metal asteroid. If I succeed, obviously that means there is Crystal in it not metal, but if I fail, does that mean it is just common nickle iron ore, or is it just useless stone?
it's all very confusing, and given the prospects of being able to potentially have my player find for instance a one million ton asteroid with (given incredible luck) 96% yield, giving him 960,000 tons of dense metal ore, coming out at a flat market value of 48 Billion credits if they managed to ferry and sell it all at the normal market value, is insane. and, even if it's only common ore (wich the issue is still unclear on how to even obtain the low value ore through the tables) then that's 960 MCr potential there.
I think, my biggest confusion comes from the fact of weather or not failing the secret Resource Presense check means nothing is there, or if it is just common ore? As well as the confusion of in the event they roll a planetoid of some kind, how to deal with that, and how to do the math to determine the volume of the planetoid, and to figure out what it would mean in terms of, if for instance they want to sell it as a ship hull, how much hull is it worth, does it get sold at the ship price of 4KCr per ton of possible ship hull (again determined on volume of the planetoid not diameter), and, if it is sold as a ship hull, do they still receive the appropriate tonnage value of the 400cr/ton "Nickle Iron Planetoids" ore on top of the payment they receive for it being converted into a ship or habitat Hull as well?
So, did some maths, the smallest volume of a planetoid is a 200m radius sphere. this equals 3.35103×10^7 cubic meters. this equals 2,393,592 displacement tons, with some decimals repeating for infinity. wich comes out to be a ship hull valued at 9,574,368,000 Credits, with 1,914,870 tons of material scooped out of the inside, with, (again massive luck giving that magical 96% yield) a value of 1,838,280 tons of ore at 735,312,000 Credits of value.
Making the smallest planetoid one could roll, worth 10.3 Billion credits at it's most, and if they simply sell it on the spot, that's a 10% value of 1.03 billion credits, with the ability to sell it for an average of 103 Million credits through a broker in immediate cash funds. Tho, knowing my player, he would very much likely stay and mine out the while thing himself and just slowly amass more ships to mine more out faster and start his own free company or something at that rate. it's very confusing and concerning at the same time.
Thank you for reading this far and please, if I have anything wrong here, please correct me.
We're in the N Zone and we do some prospecting, we locate some "Dense Materials" (Letter D on the Scan Potential chart) asteroid and go to scan it and get a better picture as per the rules from pages 74-75.
so then we move on to the next step, where I as the referee need ot secretly determine if there is anything actually in the asteroid and what it is as well as it's size and yield. great.
first things first, I roll on the Composition chart to determine if it's Mineral, Crystal, or Ice. I get a 7, it's a Mineral Composition.
Next, I use the rules as written of "Determine if the resource is present using the Resource Presence table. Cross reference the Composition of the material from the Composition table with the Resource indicated on the Scan Potential table. The result is the target number for a roll of 2D indicating the resource type is actually present."
So. it's a Mineral Composition, and it's Dense Material Resource I'm looking for, great. Going down the M column it is a 10+ for Crystal, a 9+ for Dense MAterial, an 11+ for Radioactives (a result that is not available at all on the Composition results anyway), or a 10+ if I was looking for Ice.
But, lets say I get a 10, great. I confirmed that there is in fact Dense MAterials inside the asteroid and my players' crew didn't waste 6 hours scanning the rock for nothing.
now I roll for Size and yield. lets just say it's a 1,000 ton asteroid with 10% yield. so it has 100 tons of "something" in it.
The confusion comes with the fact that, of those 100 tones of "Dense Materials" found in the N Zone rock (the common metal zone) as "M class asteroids are reasonably dense in composition, containing high-grade sources of metal, along with exotic elements such as radioactives and super-dense metals."
Now, I go to the commodities table to find the materials, and from the above description it could either be the Nickle Iron "Common" Ore for 1000 Cr/ton, or possibly the Dense Metals at 50,000 Cr/ton. And, the fact that the Scan Potential came up as Dense Materials in the common Metal composition, that the ore is obviously Dense Metals for the 50KCr/ton, and in another light, this being the only way to actually have the ore be in the asteroid and not have it just be raw rock, then logically, it would be impossible to ever get the low price common ore.
That is unless it means that, for instance, if I'm looking in the N Zone fore ore, and roll a Potential of say 2 and get Dense Material again, then find the Composition to be Metallic again, so I need that 9+ on the Resource Presense table, and I get a 5 and fail, does that then mean that the Metal asteroid is still Dense (for the +1 Yield) but it is now just regular metal and not Dense metal? Or does it, like the rules suggest, not actually have anything useful in it?
Of as another example, still in the N Zone, I pick up another Potential Dense asteroid, and then scan it to find it is Crystal Composition rock. So I need to get a 10+ to actually have there be crystals inside this metal asteroid. If I succeed, obviously that means there is Crystal in it not metal, but if I fail, does that mean it is just common nickle iron ore, or is it just useless stone?
it's all very confusing, and given the prospects of being able to potentially have my player find for instance a one million ton asteroid with (given incredible luck) 96% yield, giving him 960,000 tons of dense metal ore, coming out at a flat market value of 48 Billion credits if they managed to ferry and sell it all at the normal market value, is insane. and, even if it's only common ore (wich the issue is still unclear on how to even obtain the low value ore through the tables) then that's 960 MCr potential there.
I think, my biggest confusion comes from the fact of weather or not failing the secret Resource Presense check means nothing is there, or if it is just common ore? As well as the confusion of in the event they roll a planetoid of some kind, how to deal with that, and how to do the math to determine the volume of the planetoid, and to figure out what it would mean in terms of, if for instance they want to sell it as a ship hull, how much hull is it worth, does it get sold at the ship price of 4KCr per ton of possible ship hull (again determined on volume of the planetoid not diameter), and, if it is sold as a ship hull, do they still receive the appropriate tonnage value of the 400cr/ton "Nickle Iron Planetoids" ore on top of the payment they receive for it being converted into a ship or habitat Hull as well?
So, did some maths, the smallest volume of a planetoid is a 200m radius sphere. this equals 3.35103×10^7 cubic meters. this equals 2,393,592 displacement tons, with some decimals repeating for infinity. wich comes out to be a ship hull valued at 9,574,368,000 Credits, with 1,914,870 tons of material scooped out of the inside, with, (again massive luck giving that magical 96% yield) a value of 1,838,280 tons of ore at 735,312,000 Credits of value.
Making the smallest planetoid one could roll, worth 10.3 Billion credits at it's most, and if they simply sell it on the spot, that's a 10% value of 1.03 billion credits, with the ability to sell it for an average of 103 Million credits through a broker in immediate cash funds. Tho, knowing my player, he would very much likely stay and mine out the while thing himself and just slowly amass more ships to mine more out faster and start his own free company or something at that rate. it's very confusing and concerning at the same time.
Thank you for reading this far and please, if I have anything wrong here, please correct me.