Elite Dangerous - How to Mine Void Opals for ~100 Million Credits per Hour 

Mining Void Opals has been around for a while now, but I've been asked a lot of questions about it. So here's a video to help out. :)

When you've been doing 80 hours of just shipping missions and find out that mining is the big thing now. oof.

After mining dozens of core asteroids, and thinking I knew all there is about it, I'm blown away by how you use your charges. I thought the strength of charge required was determined by the strength of the fissures. I've been using 1 level of charge on low strength fissures, medium on average and high on high. To see you blow up an asteroid with only 2 charges, being used in the opposite way than I thought was intended is really eye-opening. Thanks for another great video.

Manage to get one, 5 seconds later: "What are you holding?" "Gimme that."

The worst feeling is blowing up a Void Opal asteroid, then realizing you didn't install a refinery. RIP Me.

Pays better than hauling human excrement. Bonus.

After a nearly 12 month break, I've been itching to get back into this game and try out the new mining mechanics! Thank you for such a helpful video!

I've made close to a billion just playing over the past few days. It's been a ton of fun! I never get tired of seeing those asteroids burst apart.

Spent 6 hours mining today. Found water.

Ok so I just happened to dock at a station called obsidian orbital, and I thought it was just a coincidence, but now that I've landed I am amazed! Congrats on getting your own station

Hey ObsidianAnt, been following you for a long long time now and i'd like to THANK YOU for getting me back in E:D after +- a year of absence. You always bring great content and opinions, so here's to more of that ! ❤️

I remember when 300,000 credits was a good hour of bounty hunting. Now people won't leave the dock for less than 50 million per hour. What happened? Hyper inflation?

You are by far the most concise and patient tutorial for this on RU-vid. Thank you so much.

Good information CMDR.... O7 thanks. As an addendum to this, It is best to collect the loose fragments first as these degrade with time, when you have done this then blast off the ones still attached to the rock as while they are attached, they don't degrade.

Top notch "How-To", OA. This really helps a lot. I'm going to use your tactics tonight. Thanks!

Thank you so much! After a long time playing other games, I'd thought to jump back in ED for a while and try out mining. I've never really managed to gain a lot of money from other stuff, but now I finally have my A-rated Federal Dropship :D This method really opened up the game for me and the mining it self is so much fun and relaxing :) Keep up the good work man!

Thanks for posting this! While exploring is fun, and I fully intend to continue doing so, mining void opals just netted me in 5 minutes what I make in an hours from exploration data!

This was the only video to actually teach the workflow of mining the opals, and it got me mining them literally after I went out and messed around to familiarize myself with the modules needed.

Just got back into Elite, had no idea what these new mining tools were. Incredibly helpful video, thank you!

Thank you so much ObsidianAnt for this video and a lot of your others. I consider myself a good pilot but this last update really threw me a curve ball with the new mining and system scanner thingy. Again, thanks for this information which is both excellently produced while being pleasantly palatable, especially compared to that Yammiks guy whom I've stopped watching long ago.

Mining as the next big thing... Amazing.

I came back to this video since it's been a while that I've used this method and it got me my first billion. It's a lot of hard work but this video helped me a great deal to figure out how to get those valuable resources. Thank you for the quality content.

I went mining today, found a void opal hotspot and came here to learn how to mine them. I knew all the equipment already, and I was already prepared, but I needed some more guidance to know exactly how to do it. I managed to find 2 void opal asteroids today, I screwed one up but I still managed to get 17 opals from the one I got right. Extremely helpful tutorial, thanks a lot

finally a good explanation on how to do the new mining... i keep getting fail detonation before huhu... thanks CMDR!!

Excellent video as always Obsidian Ant. Now that the CG for this last week is over I am going to go get a Python or Krait and try this myself. I think it is going to look great in VR.

As always, thank you for sharing your knowledge. This was a great help.

I've been looking for a good guide for this, thanks!

Another outstanding how-to! So much that I will try this tonight. Once again, thx.

I’ve only been deep core mining for a few days, thought I had mastered the techniques. However, focusing on the prospect limpet showing the entire makeup of resources, I didn’t know!! Makes absolute sense 😅 also, I never thought about starting with high charge to low strength fissures and working up, I always just guessed for any fissure that pointed toward me... thank you for helping me perfect charge mining! Now, to beat all the inara campers to stations...

I'd like to thank you Obsidian Ant, this video has given me the the necessary motivation to reinstall Elite:Dangerous.

Immensely helpful guide, also got to have some very contrasting first 3 detonations. 1st: under charged, then over charged, so accidentally got rid of all the fissures removing my charges. 2nd: went perfectly 3rd: Spent way too long trying to rotate around (nearby rocks were a pain) and got to find out first hand my ship will indeed get 1 shot my a bunch of charges. Anyway so to speak your video helped me get to the point I could have such a unique experience, so thank you.

Thank you so much for the detailed explanation as usual, this helped immensely! I watched other videos, but somehow the detonation charge level was something that was completely lost on me. I had no idea the missiles could be charged up, so I was just stuffing every hole with low charge explosives and I was absolutely obliterating everything inside the rocks... Every other video I watched failed to detail exactly how this mechanic is supposed to work. A side note: using turreted hardpoints only seems to work if you have a human multicrew onboard... and who the hell does that?! So just do yourself a favor, save a few credits and get the fixed ones, also for the Abrasion blasters, I find it's generally much easier to have a pair of them spaced out on the ship to maximize your odds of hitting the targets, especially when you're first getting the hang of things.

To keep eddb up to date is highly recommended to use ED Market Connector. It has some other nice features too. Would be great a video from you showing and explaining the use of it. Cheers.

Did has you explained step by step and I just got my first couple low temp diamonds and some other (blue letters) core stuff. Thanks!!!

Always with good hints! Thank you!!

GADDAMN I'm having a blast with Elite lately. After not playing it for years I dusted off my Saitek X52 Pro and started the R2R... I'm far away from beeing good but it's so much fun to learn all the stuff and new techniques which ED has to offer ❤️♥️

One extra thing worth mentioning: all deep core asteroids look exactly the same, I always look for a popcorn shape. Oh and also you can see the fissures using your shiplights, no need to waste prospectors.

Thanks for the video, I am brand new to Elite and I am yet to explore the mining option, but this is a great intro

Ahhhh i get it now! Low Strength doesnt mean that you need 1/3 charge, or Avg 2/3rd of a charge... So in fact it means that a Low Strength one can be blown up by a fully charged Seismic charge in order to create a larger impact on the graph... I didn't know that... Ty!

Having a lot of fun mining in my python. It’s a really nice change of pace from the passenger missions I’ve been doing for a while now. I love the calming music that plays intermittently while cruising around in the asteroid fields.

Mined 300 opals today in 1 go.. did not feel safe traveling back from way out of the bubble, found a pristine ring without pirates... buddy escorted me back in wing formation.

I found a stunning system not far from the bubble but far enough from other players exploiting it. It has two planets with rings and on these rings it has concentrated areas with a selection of pretty much all of valuable minerals. So far I make 500 million every 3 hours. That was two sessions. Love the new mining mechanics, spot on

You can also find Grandidierite (sp?) nearby, or in the same hotspots. This is worth collecting as it is pretty valuable - similar to Alexandrite

Didn't know about laying multiple charges at once to bring the damage graph up to the right level. This will save me so much hassle thanks very much!

I have been doing this for the past few days and have net myself a whopping total of 45 million credits and I’m now on 61.3 million and going to buy a Krait mk 2!!!

Thanks for this. Appreciated.

Obsidian ant has the best videos and information !

This is legit! I've been mining for about a week now, started in a Keelback, and now I'm rocking an A rated Anaconda. Beats the hell out of the ~70 Mill I ground out the hard way from missions/events over the last 2 years.

The frost cloud created by deep core blasting can allow one to run silent for the duration of cleanup. Handy for escaping detection by roving pirates. Just don't forget to drop silence before engaging supercruise. Awkward times all around. :3

Just came back to game after half a year hiatus, and being mailny pve combat player (and it's shit for money) I wanted to try something new to get money. Did 3 hours of deep core mining today and gotta thank you man - made 270mil. Plus, it was actually quite fun!

Very informative as usual! Never mine the sub surface, right? Maybe just for some mission..

I've only just learned that deep core mining is a thing! Excited to give this a try in my python!

well done as always..thanks man

It seems like patch 3.3.03 ruined it, they fixed a crash that occurred while mining, but it looks like they "fixed" something else too. Before the patch if you held down the pulse wave non stop and an asteroid had large dark spots on it, it was a jackpot 100%. Now many have dark spots and no core. Also sometimes the pulse wave lights up a few asteroids for a moment, then they quickly stop glowing and a few other asteroids light up that didnt before. This glow switch is almost like a traffic light. Not to mention ring reserves seem to be completely irrelevant. Ive found way more deep core asteroids in low reserves rings than in pristine rings.

Great video!

Thank you ant, very cool!

@obsidianAnt , thank you for the guide! I am a beginner at the game and wondering if this won't break the game economy and balance of activities? If it is so easy to do, soon everybody will only do this and no other game activities?

A dev on the forums stated that the rate at which the "motherloads" respawn in a hotspot/ring is so high that it is impossible to outmine them. So far i can confirme this, since the update dropped iam farming the same hotspot in the same ring in the same system in the bubble and iam always finding enough void opals that my krait is full in around 2 hours what gives me regular 300-400 million (depends if i also farm other things then opals) I always see exploded asteroids in the spot what is an indicator that other people are also mining in this hotspot. Thats the most money i was ever making in elite, not even passanger/board flipping made so much money for me. Maybe they listened that people wanted somethign to make more money on without grinding your life of.

Made it to 2 billion in a few days. Good to go. Thanks.

Don't know if it's related or not but another tip would be to look for little to no fog in the hot spot I've noticed that there seems to be more deep core astroids in hot spots with little to no fog

Didn't know the tip about not going to the center of the hotspots. Glad i learned something

I've been watching your content for a while and enjoy the vast majority of it and this tutorial seems very comprehensive, just wanted to let you know, but I only recently got back to ED after only doing the tutorial + a couple of hours on Ps4 when it released a couple of years ago. Now on to the question: is this still a thing?

Dunno if it's already been confirmed but just found an asteroid in Metallic Ring which can be Seismic Charged for Painite Core. 100% just got my PS4 'Pain in the asp' Achivement for it! :)

Thank you as always

I really enjoy the python to mine. Really like this ship

Thanks so much for sharing this. Awesome stuff. One thing you forgot to mention that there is only one model of brakable asteroid per ringtype. Meaning that all crackable icy asteroids look exactly the same. Where is your accent from by the way? I dig it

After a 2 year break. I came back and mining is so much better now. Actually fun to do. It’s still very monotonous but it’s a lot more interactive. Now, what else is there to do in Elite Dangerous?

I feel like it takes me forever to find the bright yellow ones. And, Not sure how others quickly find them to make so much money in an hour.

I think the bit about turreted charge launchers is wrong; they turreted version only functions as a turret in multicrew, otherwise it operates as a fixed hardpoint I believe? Pretty sure it says that in outfitting when you purchase it?

I dont know if this has been mentioned but i think resolution is also a factor. I was in 2560x and wasn't getting definitive black lines , dropped it to 1920x and presto, lines a plenty

I remember going to Riedquat in the original Elite back in 1986. Was the first time in Elite I got my ass kicked and died. I had a crappy forward pulse laser.

Hey ObsidianAnt, i struggled with that subject alot, but this was the far best explanation of all. Thanks for that ill leave you a Sub. But i have one question left. I did as you said and looked for the best price on eddb. It said: Whit's Station Reddot 945,135 +599 % I went there but when i arrived it was only 445,000 per unit. What did i do wrong?

The PARAS system the gas giant with the two different rings (can't remember whether it was paras 5 6 or 8) the ice ring is loaded with alexandrite, no need to scan the ring just drop out of supercruise anywhere on the ring and pulse for smaller-medium ice asteroids, they usually have alexandrite or void opal cores.

Try to be about 2 million meter from the center, have the center of the hot spot as your target and fly towards center. This way, as long as you don't enter the ring at the same spot, you will never cross your own path.

Bro thank you!!’ I’m so damn tired of being a space taxi. Federal corvette here I come!!!!!

Question. If you play in solo mode, do the rings get depleted in the same way as playing in open play mode? Are the resources linked in both modes? Also, I prefer farming Benitoite in rocky rings. They're the second most expensive mineral and you don't have the hassle of dealing with your ship freezing if you get too close to the exploded asteroid.

Super helpful, thank you Cmdr o7

Looks like they added all the asteroid stuff to the galaxy commodity search map stuff. It's kinda handy but doesnt seem to have a very far search radius. I'll need to test out the manual search option of systems I look up on INARA site.

The krait II is great for this as it is nimble enough to work an asteroid and Have a wingman watching your six for pirates

Do you use mixer? Also could you please do a opal mining video for beginners and detailed?

Does Saturn not allow probing of its rings? I tried doing some core mining in Saturn's rings, whether it was going to be effective or not, just for the sake of it. But I couldn't probe it for hot spots. The probes just did a 90 degree turn and then hit Saturn.

I love the look of that ship

Thank you. Thank you so much.

Obsidian Ant made a video about it. Bout to get nerfed

I made 68 million from 3 asteroids. Love this. Can anyone suggest the best mid sized ship for this though? Been doing it in my combat Conda (kinda half converted for mining) and getting a bit frustrated at its handling (or lack of) for piloting through the middle of asteroids. I have a Python but it's outfitted for combat, but would be willing to buy a second one or maybe a Krait if that's any good.

How effective is it now in July? Have the hotspots mostly depleted now?

Phantom represent!! Ship of the discerning gentleman.

you can find the price at stations by highlighting minerals then import a blue triangle will appear I am really surprised you missed this

Are you playing this on PC with a controller? If yes please can you tell me what settings you are running to get the controller prompts in screen.

So the one thing that still confuses me is that if I need seismic charges and abrasion blasters to mine then what are the mining lasers and subsurface missiles used for?

I don't quite understand how you knew there were Void Opals in that asteroid, since the Prospector Limpet didn't list it anywhere. It detected Alexandrite in the core. I know the area was identified as a "Void opal hotspot" but does that mean every asteroid in the area will have it?

Currently trying to fill a clipper, about half way now. And yes I'm doing it all in a ring that's says common reserves. Get a asteroid with a core every 5-10 minutes of searching. But Ant you didn't describe the odd colour shift the asteroids make if they have a core.

Thanks for that.

@ObsidianAnt When you describe builds in a video, please either include links to Coriolis builds in the show notes or pin user submitted builds in the comments. Thanks for all the great content!

So if everyone knows to go to the outside of the hotspot because players will have already mined the ones in the center... Won't that mean there will be more core asteroids in the center?

Was looking for Opal Mining Tuts ... Found one and started looking at it ... In the same time looking at the vid, I saw ObsidianAnt and was like "Fuck that, I need hes voice". So here I am

I tried this, scanned like 20 of the yellow/golden ones from the pulse scanner with a prospector limpet in a void opal hotspot and not a single one had anything in them. Gave up and decided to just stick with other methods that gives guaranteed money, was I doing something wrong or is they just that rare? If so this is one boring way to make money

My seismic charger says out of ammo. Do you need to buy that like limpets before you leave the station? An hour of my life I won’t get back.

How did u know there were void opals inside? It just said alexandrite? I’m looking for help since I’ve already spent 40 prospector limpets on searching void opals, I found the hotspot, the very bright yellow asteroid. And then it never says void opals...

So, potentially, Void opals exist on almost any icy ring ? Thanks