Hi, I’m Fraud. I speedrun mining. You’ve probably seen me do it. Maybe you think it’s lame to do it. Maybe you think it’s cool. I’ve heard both opinions. Still, no matter what people think, I’ve noticed that no one else really does it. A few people kill megafauna, sure, but no one seems to actually play the same way I do…so I wanted to make this thread not just to explain why I developed this playstyle, but also to offer some advice. Thus it’s not really a guide and not really a general thread, it’s a bit of both. It could easily belong in both subcategories, but general gets more views, hue.
Oh, and as an experiment, I’m providing a thread theme, maybe it helps with the reading experience.
I - Why Speedrun
So, I could wax philosophical here for ages and hope that someone gets what i’m saying, or, I could try this new method.
Right now, I could open a local instance of Beestation. I could play mining there for as long as I wanted. Now, ask yourselves, what is it that you can’t do on a local instance?
Hopefully, this got you thinking the right way, because for me, the answer is helping people and interacting with them.
It’s perhaps funny, but when I play mining, I try to minimize the time I actually spend in the mines because of this. Of course, if it’s a lowpop round, there’s not much else to do, but for every other occassion it counts.
Next, I have seen a paradox, where people compliment those who rush engines, tech/research, deliviries and such, but criticize miners for…playing optimally. After countless hours, I can safely say that there is no difference, really, but this “legacy miner hate” remains, and always confuses me. I write this solely so any aspiring miners can understand that there is nothing wrong with the job. People just have strange opinions sometimes. Don’t be discouraged, it’s just the shadows of old griefers, not you.
Finally - it’s fun. Ask speedrunners in general why they take it up, most will tell you that they simply enjoy doing it. Speedrunning mining is fun, it’s cool, it can be risky, and it leads to doing interesting tech. It definitely doesn’t make the job worse in my opinion.
So, before the next segment, I have to clear up some misconceptions.
• You don’t have to kill megafauna to speedrun mining. Sure, it’s optimal sometimes, it’s cool, might be fun, but just like how most speedruns aren’t a world record, you don’t have to do things optimally.
• You don’t have to discard roleplay to speedrun mining. For me, doing it lets me roleplay more than ever as a miner. The key distinction here is what your objective is, and reaching that objective, not literally mining fast the whole round.
• You don’t need experience, skill, robustness, whatever.
• And lastly, speedrunning is mostly pointless on lowpop. Use it to practice instead.
II - Okay, how do I do it (fake)
Let’s go by points.
• You just began your shift. You look at the kits available from the mining vendor. Every kit except extraction is bait. The amount of time saved by fultoning several tendril or boss chests, or fultoning one chest, yourself and your box, is uncontested.
• You just landed. You immediately grab the resonator. It has more damage than anything else you can muster at the start, and more dps than the crusher. This is why you take it.
• You immediately look at the signals. Are there swarmers? How close is the hierophant? How close is the blood-drunk miner?
• You return after your first trip, you immediately yell at sci for tech, then upgrade with 3x cooldown and 1x mining aoe. Time to mine again…
But, this is not a guide. In reality, speedrunning is not a list you can tick off. Every situation is different, every round is different. Take this for example:
• The hierophant is 50 away from base, but blocked by a lava lake. You go back to the base, take a welder, toss a capsule across the lake, PKA the storage unit until it pops, then weld the wall to get through. Or maybe you just order/d an RCD.
Okay, what if it’s even worse?
• Every signal is more than 150 away. You take the mining ship, land back on lavaland, and random drop until you are close to your targets, your finger is always ready to launch in case you land on a boss.
And, a favorite dillema of mine:
• Swarmers are present. Do you rush them immediately while they’re weak, or mine first, and upgrade?
See, the list can go on and on and on. But that’s not what speedrunning is. First, mining is basically a roguelite. Having a tick list…does not work. Second, there are people on the station. The round is not in your control! Having a complete plan won’t work! You don’t get to time your segments like a twitch streamer and route a game out…
III - Okay, how do I do it (real)
So, you’ve seen some tips and tricks from above, and sure, they’re useful, but if you’ve read the final paragraph, you should realize they have nothing to do with speedrunning.
The truth is, instead of following a list and having a bunch of tricks, speedrunning mining is about adapting to what you have and what’s happening. It’s simple, and only has two steps. Step 1 is having full awareness of the situation. This usually means having the GPS open and knowing what gear you have or can get. Step 2 is taking the best possible action for that situation. Rinse and repeat. Now, on to proper business.
First: What are your real goals in mining?
I: You are an important department, like sci and engi, the station needs you or the round gets slowed, departments get crippled, other people end up spending more time on jobs than rp, the exact thing we’re trying to avoid.
II: You must deliver ores. Especially uranium and diamond.
III: You should scan megafauna as fast as possible, unless sci is very competent.
IV: Finally, you have access to interesting things to spice the round up with for others (and yourself).
These are your real objectives. And as you might notice, you don’t need to kill a single thing, other than some watchers (3 harm mode resonator hits, then bandage yourself).
That extraction kit, it’s not the only option because the other things suck, it’s because you don’t need anything else at the start. The crusher, the minebot, a resonator, you can get them all once you feel like it, it’s just silly to do it immediately. Right now, you need to get those ores up fast to keep the round going!
You head down, and you stare at your gps, and then, you formulate a strategy. Sci will usually announce if they’re going to do toxins, if they’re silent, keep that GPS up and seek out all the bosses, scan them from afar. You just saved science tons of work.
You use the resonator to mine faster than anything else. It doesn’t matter if you kill a hierophant or colossus for ores, or just dig some tunnels, but you make sure that you have an even spread of every ore for a start, including digging sand. Then you go up. You’ve just allowed people to print things.
Then, you can finally take a look at the rest. The speedrun isn’t over, it never is, but now the question is, what can you do? Sure, you can get armor from a drake or bubblegum, I do it quickly, but like I mentioned, that’s not what it’s about, or necessary.
You look for anything that the station can use, anything to give to people, anything to show to people. Maybe you just do a tendril sweep with some fultons, clean them all up and unbox, then spread the loot out to people. Maybe you gift the voice of god to the qm or captain. Give the hierophant to medbay so they rescue easier. Maybe loot that syndicate base? Is it occupied? Maybe get people to raid it with you. At this point, you can treat it as an open world game, basically, and so you get going…
…but, you do it fast. Because rounds are limited, and, hopefully, like me, you’d rather be discussing something interesting with other people. Or maybe, if you like your combat, you’d rather be fighting a truly menacing threat with a player on the other side, than fighting NPC monsters for 30+ minutes.
Closing Thoughts
So, there you have it. All it takes is an open mind, some situational awareness and the desire to improve. The same can be said about many undertakings far more important than a job in a silly game. It’s all about knowing your capabilities and surprisingly not about trying to game super hard.
My number one bit of advice for any aspiring miner is: MENTORHELP. If you think you can do something interesting but don’t know how, ask! There are a lot of scenarios that I haven’t covered here, and if I made a thread just for mining advice it would be insanely huge. Besides, that robs you of learning things. Still, if you hit a hitch, ask for advice! We have the role purely for that!
PS: Open gateway (even just on one side) enables sentient swarmer spawn.
And also, pet your local ashwalkers.
V - Bonus QnA
Questions seen across time are gathered here and answered.
Q: Is there anyone else doing this?
A: Yes. Sparky is doing this exact same practice, only with xenobiology.
Q: Is there a real downside?
A: Only if you’re at the level of rushing megafauna, and even then it’s with an asterisk. You see, you might “steal kills” from other miners, since some might be playing the job to kill stuff instead of, well, existing, in which case you end up being rude to them by proxy. You can prevent this by just announcing when you want to start a boss fight and asking if they want to join.
Q: It’s not fun!
A: You’re probably forcing it. I explained why I speedrun it here, it doesn’t mean it’s the objectively right way to play. Take it easy, and if you’re just trying to get better at mining, try taking one tip at a time. It also goes without saying that using the crusher is basically hard mode, so an antithesis to speedrunning. Don’t let it stop you, after all, if you use a crusher, you’re just running crusher%, do what you can!
Q: I keep dying!
A: Your two options are practicing in a local instance or observing and asking an admin for some training in the centcom base. Our admins are nice, they’ll probably oblige if your ahelp or prayer is polite.
Q: Asteroid Mining?
A: Not very fast! I wish it was. But asteroids can spawn empty, shuttle time is huge, and there’s no megafauna to scan! Good ores if you get lucky though!
Q: How is lowpop mining different?
A: Threats pop up less often and rounds last way longer. There’s less people to interact with. On rounds like this it’s more justified to lurk in lavaland and hone your skills, but don’t forget your duties. Despite what I said, I’ve had some lovely roleplay on rounds like this! It certainly lets me do silly things like killing Legion though.
Q: I’m concerned about actual powergaming. Where is the line?
A: To preface: I haven’t gotten a ban or warning for mining powergaming in, I think, more than a year. The closest was getting warned for upgrading an AI against nukies once (which was justified, but sadly, not very balanced, so don’t do this, it ruins nukie rounds). If you want to completely defeat powergaming, just ask yourself this question: do you really need X? Or if you already have X: “Who needs X?” So let’s see a few examples.
Do you really need the antique gun or stetchkin? Well, if there’s swarmers or if station is under specific threats (blob, xenos, etc), otherwise, give it to someone who does, mostly command and sec, maybe your shady QM…
You want an RCD for lava or abyss, time to break into engi? See, in this case it’s justified to seek it out, but would your character break the law just to bridge some lava? Ask instead, or order one if it’s roundstart, or honestly ask AI or command for the EVA one.
You found a meat hook, do you keep it to fuck over attacking antags? Well, why are you carrying around a meat hook as a miner? Just to fuck up antags - the guys you know nothing about? Wouldn’t a chef or, hell, officer prefer that? Unless, of course, you do know about the war declared on your station, in which case, hook away!
Ask yourself not only what makes sense OOC but also what an actual, non-psychopatic person would do in your position.
Extend this logic and you’ll find what’s truly powergaming very easily.
Q: I want to learn X advanced mining technique / I’ve seen you do X, how/why?
A: Ask me in a PM here or on discord. Same username. I will answer as in-depth as you wish.
Salty Stuff
Q: But you’re lying, you just speedrun killing fauna.
A: Because I know how to do it fast, and killing fauna offers ores and artifacts for the crew. (or a suit that lets me wait less)
Q: Something something roleplay, powergaming
A: So mining fast is bad because “gamer”, but making a bomb that can blow an entire department in 5 minutes is actually extremely cool? Perhaps you’d like me to stare at slimes for an hour? How well or fast you do a job has nothing to do with how you roleplay or interact. This is fact.
Q: If you like roleplay so much, go play a gimmick job or bartender? (accusatory undertone)
A: From my experience, people simply do not take these jobs seriously. I have given them all a shot, usually not with my known character, and witnessed that they are seen more as a nuisance than anything. My conclusion is that doing a helpful job and also interacting with people actively is seen as less imposing than just butting in or chilling in bar or medbay all round. It also doesn’t help that these gimmick rp-only jobs tend to work far more for specific ideas and, well, literal gimmicks, than more level-headed roleplay.
A2: I do actually play some more inherently social jobs, but not with my miner character. No, I’m not telling you which. People will find out eventually anyway.