From asteroid to starship: a player tutorial

This walkthrough takes one character from finding ore to commissioning a small ship and fitting two player-made industrial modules. It uses the short numbers printed by the game wherever possible. Do not type the database-style IDs you may see in bug reports or old documentation.

The examples use 1, 2, and similar values only as examples. Always use the number shown in your list; it can be different for another character or at a different facility.

Before you begin

You need the following:

• A persistent ship in space. To follow Part 1 yourself, it needs an operational mining module; a standard mining emitter is enough. A survey scanner makes choosing a deposit much easier. Parts 3 and 4 explain how to build both modules once you have construction materials.
• A way to fly that ship to an industrial facility with a linked starport. Your ship may remain docked at that starport while you use the facility.
• Enough cargo space for ore and the usual crew access needed to operate the ship. Mining also requires a player operating from engineering or the cockpit.
• Blueprint knowledge. New industrial characters receive starter patterns; blueprints list shows what you know. At a construction facility, blueprints vendor list shows more patterns you can buy and learn.

If you do not yet have a mining-capable ship, join another player as crew or buy/trade for the first ore. The industry tutorial tracks progress without requiring you to repeat completed steps:

The first survey, extraction, and refining objectives award their listed pattern rewards. The command names used below (mining, refine, and construct) count toward these missions.

Part 1 — Find and mine an asteroid

1. Board your ship, launch, and enter normal spaceflight. Mining cannot begin while landed, docked, in combat, or travelling too fast.

2. List nearby resource contacts:

   mining

   The list is numbered. Pick a nearby, low-hazard contact for your first run.

   The following known nodes provide these resources and grades:

   Node name	Resource	Quality	Space sector
   Hoth System Ice Field	Volatile ice	Impure	Hoth Space
   Carida Asteroid Field C34	Crystal matrix	Impure	Coruscant Space
   Carida Asteroid Field A67	Exotic-element ore	Impure	Coruscant Space
   Hoth Asteroid Cluster	Carbonaceous silicate	Impure	Hoth Space
   Coruscant Asteroid Cluster	Conductive ore	Impure	Coruscant Space
   Coruscant Outer Systems Asteroid Field	Metallic ore	Impure	Coruscant Space

3. Survey the contact. This reveals its numbered deposits and, with a good survey, their grade, hardness, and remaining reserve:

   mining scan 1

4. Set an approach course, fly into your mining module's operating range, and slow to the safe extraction speed shown by the game:

   mining approach 1

5. Start a short standard batch against one surveyed deposit. Omitting the mode lets the game choose your first compatible installed miner; for 5 keeps this first batch to five minutes:

   mining start 1 1 for 5

   Use careful when you have a precision cutter, or fast when you have a strip-mining array. Those modes require their matching installed modules.

6. Check progress and let the 60-second extraction cycles finish:

   mining status

   You can stop safely with mining stop. A batch also stops safely if you leave range, enter combat, fill the hold, lose the operator, or the deposit becomes unavailable.

7. Confirm the raw resource is in the ship hold:

   mining cargo

Repeat this part until you have a useful amount of the raw resource needed by the refining recipes and blueprints you plan to use. The next parts show you how to check the exact requirements before committing materials.

Material grades

Resource grade ranks from lowest to highest as Impure, Common, Pure, then Exceptional. Grade is the quality of the material, not the separate craftsmanship quality of the finished item.

The refining percentage multiplies the normal recipe output, so higher-grade ore produces more refined material from the same batch. When starting a construction project, choose one material grade; every required input must be available at that same grade, and the finished product records that material grade. Finished craftsmanship—Standard, Fine, Exceptional, or Masterwork—is earned separately through the project's milestones and selected optimization.

Pure and Exceptional each have a +1 construction-check modifier in the grade data. That modifier is not currently applied to construction milestone checks, so their active advantage is the higher refining yield.

Part 2 — Dock, unload, and refine the ore

1. Return to an industrial facility and dock the ship at its linked starport. Enter the facility, then see its warehouse, eligible docked ships, and the transfer instructions:

   refine storage

   This screen shows the player-facing ship ID required by the transfer commands. It is not a hidden database ID; copy the ship number displayed in this list.

2. List the resource stacks on that ship, then move the desired numbered stack to your private facility warehouse. Replace <ship-id>, <cargo #>, and <amount> with the values on your screens:

   refine cargo <ship-id> refine deposit <ship-id> <cargo #> <amount> refine storage

   Deposits and withdrawals take five seconds and show the same progress timer used for landing and launching. The final message confirms that the materials are safely in the warehouse. You can reverse a transfer with:

   refine withdraw <ship-id> <warehouse #> <amount>

3. List the available refining recipes:

   refine recipes

   Choose a recipe that accepts the ore you deposited. The recipe list shows its number; its output is a standardized construction material rather than raw asteroid cargo.

4. Start a single batch at Common grade for a low-risk first run. refine start accepts a displayed recipe number, an optional grade name or number, and the number of batches:

   refine start 1 common 1 refine status

5. Once the job is ready, collect it:

   refine collect <job-id> refine storage

   The completed material is now in this facility's warehouse. If the job needs more time, refine status tells you so; inputs are already reserved, so do not start the same job again.

6. Continue mining and refining until you have a useful stock of construction materials. The next part introduces construction and shows how to inspect the exact material shortfall before refining more.

Part 3 — Choose patterns and plan the builds

Construction turns a learned blueprint into a module or ship hull. It uses the materials in your private facility warehouse; construct catalog only lists your choices and construct inspect is a safe preview that spends nothing. At the same industrial facility, start with a clean overview:

For this tutorial, plan these two modules first:

1. A Survey Scanner Mk I.
2. A Mining Emitter Mk I (or a different mining module your ship and blueprint knowledge support).

Find their catalog numbers, then inspect each one before building it:

Each inspection shows the exact materials required, what is already in your warehouse, and the numbers needed by construct start. If any material is missing, return to Parts 1 and 2 to mine and refine it, then inspect again. Only begin construction after the inspection reports that the materials are complete.

Then plan a Prospector or Excavator hull. If a pattern is missing, use the vendor at the facility:

blueprints learn permanently records the pattern and consumes the item only after saving that knowledge. Re-run construct catalog afterwards.

Use the same inspection step for every other planned item:

Inspection is the decision screen. It shows numbered material grades, allowed optimization focuses, work estimate, and output destinations. Mine/refine the shortfall first. Do not start until the materials line is complete.

Part 4 — Build the two modules

For each module whose inspection has complete materials, use its own catalog, grade, focus, and output-locker numbers. Choose the facility output locker as the destination for the simplest fitting workflow:

Starting reserves the exact material stacks in your private facility warehouse. The project has three saved milestones. Up to half of each milestone can advance with time; help it along with one skill-scaled work session:

Work sessions have a saved 30-second cooldown. Follow the “next action” in construct status rather than spamming work.

If a milestone needs rework, the first roll is already saved—there is no reroll to chase. Review the additional material cost, obtain it if necessary, and explicitly authorize it:

When all milestones are ready, collect the module exactly once:

It appears in your private facility output locker. Repeat the same process for the second module. Player-made results are at least Fine quality; the selected focus and final quality are displayed by the project and the completed item.

Part 5 — Fit the modules

Remain at the facility with the target ship docked there or at the linked starport. shipmodules lists your locker modules and eligible ships:

Install each module from the locker. The first command is a preview; it selects a valid mount automatically and shows compatibility, Robotics requirement, fee, and botch risk. Add confirm only after reading that preview:

Inspect again after each fit. If you need to remove one, it returns to that ship's cargo rather than your character inventory:

You now have a repeatable loop: survey with the scanner, mine with the emitter, bring ore home, refine it, and use the warehouse materials for better projects.

Part 6 — Build and commission your small ship

1. Use construct catalog and inspect the Prospector or Excavator blueprint. Refine the exact material shortfall it reports.

2. Start the hull with the displayed grade and hull-focus choices. Hull inspection supplies the correct destination: the completed ship will be claimed at this facility's linked starport.

   construct start <hull catalog #> <grade #> <focus #> <starport destination #>

3. Use the same construct status, construct work, and, only if required, construct rework loop until the hull becomes ready.

4. Preview commissioning, then claim it under a one-word name:

   construct collect <hull project #> construct collect <hull project #> Wayfarer

   The first command is intentionally a preview. The second claims the ship at the linked starport and saves its name. Use the normal ship commands to board it, then return to the facility to fit the two modules as in Part 5.

A compact repeatable routine

Once the first ship and modules are complete, the everyday production loop is:

Common snags

For concise command reference in game, use help space-mining, help refine, help blueprints, help construction, help shipmodules, and help industry-missions.