Where can I find more Element Zero?

Question

While my probes have netted me more palladium than I'll ever be able to use, I have played through the entire game finding almost no Element Zero.

Is there a secret to finding planets which contain Eezo, or is there just not much of it out there?

Asked by Steve V.

Answer

Like the other answer, there are lists you can use to find planets for any particular mineral.

If you don't want to use a list, there are a couple of tips:

• Asteroids generally have Eezo.
• Wave your scanner over the planet, if there's any Eezo there, there'll be a lot, and it'll show up immediately.
• You only need ~50k (I think, forgot) to research every single upgrade which needs it, so don't keep mining afterwards (unless you need to respec a lot).
• Game completion bonuses should give you more than the above amount, so you won't need to mine Eezo at all.

Answered by sykora

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How do you handle a station that is both a source and a destination for a resource?

Question

I have a large station with a forest on one end and a sawmill on the other. Wood is piling up in the station; does any portion of it get consumed directly by the sawmill? What do I need to do to get the rest of it consumed as well (preferably by the same sawmill)?

Asked by fbrereto

Answer

This station is exactly like a passenger station that both generates and accepts passengers:

• the wood that is being generated there needs to be taken to another station that accepts wood.
• the station will accept wood from other sources, but never from itself.

None of the cargo is "absorbed" by the local sawmill - you will need to transport all of it away, and if you want that local sawmill to generate goods you will need to transport wood in from another source.

Answered by DMA57361

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Where's the best place to find lumps of earth?

Question

I need lots of earth, but it's so rare I'm having a hard time finding it. Is there a region in which it is more commonplace?

Answer

The best resource for locating resources in the game is Zog's Glitchy Tools. In addition to telling you where all the Dirt Piles are, it will also suggest the closest location to you to find some using the Glitch API.

Kajuu, for instance, is absolutely buried in dirt.

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What are the Mass Effect 2 planet scan materials limits?

Question

When scanning planets for resources (uh, it is obnoxious work — not fun!) there are indicators that fill up as you acquire more resources. (Eezo, Iridium, Platinum, Palladium)

Do these indicators show the maximum spare resources your ship can store? If so, how many resources is 100% on the indicator for each material? Or can you go over these limits? Or if you try to go over is the material wasted? If you go over this limit by picking up materials when not planet scanning (when down on a planet or space station), do you get credit rewards instead, like if you go over your Medi-gel limit?

Answer

The bars cap out at 25,000, but they don't represent a resource stockpile limit. You can continue to accrue rare materials long after the bar is filled.

I think I made it up to 70,000 units of Palladium, once.

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Where are the mining streets?

Question

While I was doing the exploration achievements, I remember two of the streets that are locked had a ton of mining nodes, but I can't remember which two. Anyone know?

Answer

The two you're looking for is Ajaya Bliss in Ilmenskie Deeps and Neva Neva in Callopee. Both have a large number of fast spawning Sparkly rocks for easy mining and requires a Teal-White Triangle key which is highly sought after and sells for very high price on Auction.

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Underground Dirt and Gravel

Question

Is dirt and gravel underground supposed to be a an indication of something (eg. minerals or ores) or is it just placed there when the world is generated just for the hell of it?

Answer

Dirt and Gravel are found underground, along with stone, water, lava, and occasionally obsidian. All of these are 'natural', with no significance. (You can also sometimes find sand)

Moss Stone indicates Dungeons, and if you find Wood/Rails, that's usually an indication you've wandered into an abandoned mine-- but gravel and dirt alone are inconsequential. They're just there for variety.

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How do I export goods if there's a factory consuming them?

Question

I have a few missions that need me to export pineapples and fish, but I have a cannery that takes them in to produced canned food. How do I fulfill those requests?

Answer

Well I don't know how I would prove that it was the raw resource not the processed resource being exported if I tried to outpace the factory, so I'll just suggest the most obvious solution.

Shut down the factory. It may be painful, but you should be able to shift income to other exports for a while.

As you can see, the factory has produced nothing in at least 1 year, and I'm still successfully exporting Tobacco. $11,822 worth, to be exact.

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How can I get a lot of iron with non-excessive effort?

Question

While iron isn't very rare, it is needed for a lot, especially if you want to build a structure out of it, build long railways or something like that.

What should you do to find/get a lot of iron with non-excessive effort (an inital effort for a good long-term solution is good though)?

Answer

Some tips:

1. Mine in the southwest quadrant (positive x and z), twice as much ore there (explanation)
2. Become familiar with depths, see this guide. Iron lives under the sea level.
3. Don't branch mine: don't listen to that guide, or this answer. Since you're looking for iron, I suggest trying caves.

The "mathematical analysis" is seriously flawed, because you're not looking to get every single ore in the block. Instead, you want to get as much ore as possible per second. This means that you need to see as many "fresh blocks" as possible per second. Let's look at one statement made in the analysis:

Not bad. With every 2 blocks destroyed (or 8 seen), we get 3.7% iron. Halve that to get the value of one block, which is 1.83% iron per block. That means for every 54 blocks of stone we mine, we'll get 1 iron ore.

Except, whenever you add a turn to your mineshaft your digging causes you to see the other faces of the same two blocks you just saw. So don't add turns - which is exactly what a branch mine does every 4 blocks. Furthermore, when you do find ore in your branch mine, you'll dig towards your other shaft, and this will let you see some blocks that... you already saw when you dug that other branch. If you're going to shaft mine, make it one long shaft at level 14.

So what about caves? How many "fresh blocks" do you see per second in a cave? Well... a lot. To get an estimate, I started a fresh game on normal, punched a couple trees, a couple stone picks, bunch of sticks, a sword. Found a decent cave system. Coal pretty quick, sticks became a bunch of torches, I hear groaning. Strategy? Run like a boss, place torches, look at ceilings, floors, nooks. Don't stand still. Found iron? Great: spot check for monsters, then mine it. (Don't mine around it hoping for more - 98% of the time there isn't/it doesn't spawn diagonally. Just move on.) Hit dead end? Go back, seal the cave shaft up with a horizontal line of cobble, so you don't go in again. I got 54 iron in 10 minutes of caving. And a lapis block. The guide says (I wouldn't trust the math) that I'll get that much in 21 minutes using branch mines. Caves are better. Also, cave mining is much more fun.

TLDR: go a ways SW of spawn, find a cave system, go deeper than sea level. Run through it placing torches.

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What constitutes luxury goods?

Question

I just received an objective stating to export 500 luxury goods. However, it didn't say which of the many things I'm exporting are luxury goods (apparently none).

What constitutes luxury goods?

Answer

Luxury Goods is it's own resource. It is imported by default, but I'm not sure why since I think that it has to be sold at the mall which will then make your citizens happier. The only way to obtain Luxury Goods is to import it from China; it's impossible to produce or export, so I believe that the objective actually states to import it. (i.e. Build a mall.)

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Where do I mine salt?

Question

I just told CEO Keith Preston that I would export salt to him. One problem though, there don't seem to be any salt deposits. Iron, Bauxite, Gold, but no salt. Do I just mine salt anywhere?

Answer

There are salt deposits, you can only place salt mines on salt deposits. When you choose to build a salt mine (note that they are a different building from normal mines), the map will highlight the potential locations. If you do not have any, then you cannot complete the quest. See the picture for an example.

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How do I control exports?

Question

In the first scenario, I accepted an assignment from one of the factions to export some Tobacco. Everything I find and click gives me an option to import stuff, but how do I export? Is that managed automatically?

Answer

Yes, as long as you have a tobacco farm, when the tobacco is harvested and there's no cigar factory, it will automatically be hauled to the dock.

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Are Diamond Pickaxes sustainable for diamond mining in Minecraft?

Question

Assuming use of the optimal mining pattern from this question at levels 11-15; will a diamond pickaxe on average find enough diamonds to make another before it runs out? Or, put another way, is mining for diamond with a diamond pickaxe sustainable?

Answers covering both single player and smp would be nice.

Answer

Further analysis of Diamond probabilities:

Facts we need:

1. Diamond occurs in 0.12% of rock (unverified).
2. Using an efficient strategy we can expose 16* blocks for every 4 we dig (the ascii art doesn't account for the floor or ceiling of the tunnels, so its actually 16, not 14). This breaks down to 4 blocks per dig. We're using Strix's method because diamond ore can appear in veins of 1, so you do not want to skip over any blocks. (if someone wants to do the math for the other methods, feel free to).
3. Diamond pick lasts 1563 blocks.
4. We're assuming worst case scenario of all rocks and no caves, as caves improves diamond probability due to increased surface area with no digging required.

Simple math after this point:

1563*4*0.12% = 7.5

So you can expect to find 7.5 diamonds per diamond pick in the worst case scenario with average luck so you will increase your pick count.

You want the floor of your dig to be at level 11 to avoid dropping into lava, which makes the ceiling at level 16, which is still inside the diamond zone.

Even if the ratio is 0.09%, you should expect 5.6 diamonds per pick, you'll still average more than you spend. The break even point is ~0.048%

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How do you handle a station that is both a source and a destination for a resource?

Question

I have a large station with a forest on one end and a sawmill on the other. Wood is piling up in the station; does any portion of it get consumed directly by the sawmill? What do I need to do to get the rest of it consumed as well (preferably by the same sawmill)?

Answer

This station is exactly like a passenger station that both generates and accepts passengers:

• the wood that is being generated there needs to be taken to another station that accepts wood.
• the station will accept wood from other sources, but never from itself.

None of the cargo is "absorbed" by the local sawmill - you will need to transport all of it away, and if you want that local sawmill to generate goods you will need to transport wood in from another source.

Check more discussion of this question.