Shaft Miner

Welcome Miner, to the wonderful caverns of this NanoTrasen Claimed Asteroid.

## Overview

Being a miner is an exciting job with many possibilities for career advancement. For a job that is primarily out in space, it's an extremely safe occupation, assuming you know exactly what you are doing. So make sure to follow a few guidelines here to keep yourself from becoming lost **forever** in the mines.

### Your Boss

Your superiors are the Quartermaster, and the Head of Personnel above him. Generally they won't butt into any of your affairs other than talking over the cargo channel and (if they know what they're doing) attempt to coordinate your efforts for the good of the station. Use your quartermaster like a lifeline, he and your fellow miners may be the only people on the station who will ever realize you have been lost in the void. After bringing your materials to the ore redemption machine for your payday, try utilizing Cargo Bay's disposal system to deliver them that much faster without fear of theft.

#### Chatting it Up

You can talk with all of your mining buddies, as well as the other cargo technicians and the all-important Quartermaster, over the cargo channel using **:u** the supply radio channel, or **:h** the department radio.

### The Gear

The following is a complete list of mining equipment:

* File:RIG.png **Mining Hardsuit and Helmet**: Used so you can mine with impunity on the airless, cold, resource-rich planetoid.
* File:BreathMask.png **Breath Mask and Oxygen Tank**: So you can have oxygen when mining. Get an O2 tank from the tank dispenser, and wear it on your suit storage slot with your RIG. Always make sure it is turned on before venturing out, you would not want to permanently damage your lungs.
* File:MGlasses.png **Meson Scanners**: Let's you see where the ore is through the rock. Allows you to see all terrains.
* File:Lantern.png **Lantern**: For seeing in the dark. Your meson scanners dont illuminate objects, and the Asteroid has little natural lighting.
* File:MiningPick.gif **Mining Tools**: For tunnelling through everything. Place this on your belt, it saves room. Alternatively, you can get various drills and other tools from science. These will dig faster, and may have other advantages such as the ability to drill through walls themselves!
* File:Shovel.png **Shovel**: For gathering sand directly from the Asteroid floor. You can stick this in your backpack.
* File:OreSatchel.png **Ore Satchel**: For carrying ore without using an ore box, and holds 25 ore nuggets. Get at least one of these and make sure to set the bag to "all on tile" (should be set to this as default setting). Use in conjunction with an ore crate.
	+ Newbie tip: This does not work like a backpack. Hold it in your hand and click the ore pile with that hand to pick it up.
* File:OreCrate.png **Ore Crate**: Used for carrying huge amounts of ore. While a satchel can only hold 25 nuggets, this can hold 1000. Use your satchel on the box to empty it into the box, place the box in the unloading machine's input slot or near the Ore Redemption Machine in the Cargo Office to unload it. Drag this around with you for easy carrying. Can be loaded into a Ripley exosuit using a hydraulic clamp for even faster mining.
* File:Crowbar.png**Crowbar**: For opening doors during a power outage, don't expect to use it often.
* File:MiningScanner.png**Mining Scanner**: Use it to check if those diamond deposits are genuine, or if it's in fact gibtonite. If you accidentally pick into gibtonite, use the scanner on it to stop the countdown and allow the gibtonite to be harvested. The less time was remaining before explosion, the stronger the gibtonite will be.

**Gear that will be very handy, but not included:**

* File:Ripley.png **Ripley**: Just because these mechs are awesome at mining. A Ripley equipped with a drill and with an ore box loaded up (using the Hydraulic Clamp) mines three squares at a time and automatically picks up any ore gained from the squares. Can be upgraded with diamond drill for even faster mining.
* File:Minebot.png **Mining Drone**: also known as **Nanotrasen Minebot**, they little bots have two settings: searching and storing any loose ore they can locate, or attacking all visible hostile wildlife. They will automatically switch to their offensive setting if an asteroid monster attacks them, and strike back with their built-in laser guns. You can switch settings by clicking on them with an empty hand. As such they make a reasonable alternative to carrying a crate around. To instruct them to drop all the ore that they have collected, just click on them with a mining scanner.

### The Objective

You're here to mine, so get digging! Put on your mining hard-suit (make sure to put a large oxygen tank in your suit storage), grab your pickaxe in one hand, click on an ore tile, and then pick up the ore with your mining satchel. You can then empty the satchel into an Ore Box, so it's probably best to drag one around with you.

Once you're full to bursting with ores, drag your crate to the conveyor belt outside of the airlock. If there's uranium coming down on the belt, wear your hardsuit inside the production area so you don't get a blast of radiation. From there, you can use the machines and computers to smelt raw ore to its finished states and stack them up to 50-count stacks.From there, it's off to wherever those resources need to be, but hopefully you have a Cargo Technician for that. Back to the mines!

### Who Needs What

* Scientists just want ~~a little uranium, plasma, and gold~~ everything you can mine, ESPECIALLY DIAMONDS. Refine a ~~little of each for research (5-10 blocks each should do it)~~ fuckload. In exchange, they may give you a bomb or more advanced mining tools (like the fabled Diamond Drill), both for even faster digging!
* If you feel adventurous, tales tell of another asteroid hidden somewhere in space where you can mine two exclusive minerals that are highly valued by scientists and clowns alike.
* Roboticists need plasteel, diamond, uranium, silver and gold for building mech parts. Give them enough and you might get a big, fancy machine for your troubles! Too bad the Ripley is the only good mech for mining.
* Everybody could always use more metal and glass, but especially Station Engineers.
* Chemists might have use for a few sheets of plasma and uranium.
* The bartender could brew some oh his rarest drinks if you gave him some uranium, silver, gold or plasma.

## Traitoring

A traitorous miner has a lot of advantages. You have a space suit for free right away and your mining tools are pretty good weapons too! As long as you have some mineral wealth on you, no one will suspect your presence around the station, even in highly restricted areas like robotics or toxins. In addition, the mining station is isolated, hard to get to, and as expansive as you're willing to dig out. Plenty of room for somebody to get lost in... *Forever!*