Mining Helper

The Mining Helper is a standalone holo overlay for surface mining from the Rhino. It draws a live map of the planet under your feet: your position and heading, the SRV's 2 km scan ring, every mining location you've mapped, the scan areas you've driven over, and every commodity deposit you've marked - colour-coded by how good the deposit is.

It also keeps score: per-deposit harvest counts, and live RHINO and SHIP hold gauges so you don't overflow at the transfer.

How to open it

• The Helper button in the main window's planet table (it only appears when the selected body has mining locations),
• The ALT+M hotkey (hotkeys are configurable in the Configuration Manager),
• The system tray's Toggle Surface Mining Overlay,
• From the Galaxy Browser MINING tab - the OPEN SURFACE MAP button there opens the overlay in browse mode for that body, wherever you happen to be,
• Or turn on "Use Surface Mining Helper Overlay" in Configuration and it appears by itself whenever the Rhino is deployed.

Making a map

Mining locations are the numbered signals Elite shows you; a map is your record of one.

1. Hit Create New Map and pick an unmapped LOC # from the prompts.
2. Drive to the location's centre and press Set Centre.
3. Drive out to the edge of the signal circle and press Mark Edge - that sets the radius.

The status line walks you through it ("Deploy Rhino → Set Centre, then Mark Edge at the boundary"), and the buttons tell you why they're refusing if they won't start ("Fly to a planet surface first", "Scan the planet (FSS/DSS) to reveal mining location numbers", and so on).

Once a map exists, the MAPS combo lists them ("LOC 2 - 15 spots"). Deploy the Rhino within 2 km of a saved centre and the right map loads itself.

The map view

• You are the yellow arrow; the dashed circle is the SRV's 2 km scan range. The grid across the map is a distance ruler in km.
• Scan areas you've driven over are captured automatically and drawn as soft blobs - drive the pattern, see the gaps.
• Deposits you've marked appear as labelled dots.
• DIA / AREA report the mapped location's diameter and area.
• The SPOT SIZE / AMOUNT / DENSITY / WORKABILITY / RIGS dropdowns filter which deposits are shown - e.g. show only Large rigs worth the trip.
• NAV TO picks a target (the location centre or any deposit by material name) and draws an animated dashed line to it; the status line gives distance, bearing and whether you're inside the signal ring.

Marking deposits

Drive over a mining deposit and use Mark Commodity Mining Spot to record it. Fill in the spot's attributes as you read them off the game - size, amount, density, workability, rig count. Rows and map dots are then colour-coded the Elite way:

The Mining Spot Location Estimator

Spotted a deposit with the ship's panel but don't fancy driving over rough terrain to find it?

1. Point the Rhino at the contact.
2. Press Mining Spot Location Estimator and enter the distance the panel reports.

The overlay drops a magenta EST marker that distance away along your current heading, with a dashed ring, and sets NAV to it:

"Board ship and fly." Clear Estimate gets rid of it. Estimates are approximations by nature - your heading and the panel distance both have slop in them.

Harvest tracking

Every unit you refine feeds straight in from the game's journal: the overlay credits 1 t to the nearest matching deposit within 150 m. Deposits grow a "- N t mined" suffix in the NAV TO list, and the Info Browser's legend explains the mined/squeezed-dry counts.

Hold gauges

The RHINO and SHIP gauges top-right show carried / capacity - the Rhino's refinery holds 72 t. A gold ghost bar shows where the level will land after a transfer, the frame flashes red on overflow, and a green +N t counts what you've refined this session. Warnings fire before you're stuck: "TRANSFER WILL OVERFLOW THE HOLD", "Hold nearly full", "Rhino refinery full". There's an optional system-tray notification for overflow in Configuration's Alerts tab.

Mining Info Browser

The Mining Info button swaps the map for a data view of the body - handy from the Galaxy Browser without flying anywhere:

One row per commodity ("Water - 10 deposits across 1 location"), a filter box, and click-through to the deposit list:

The drill-down lists every deposit best-first - coordinates, location, and all five attributes, colour-coded by quality, with rig counts. Show Map goes back.

Tips & gotchas

• The map survives planet-table clicks while you're stood on the ground - it won't change the view behind your feet. Switch bodies from the MAPS combo or by leaving the planet.
• Auto-match: deploying near a saved centre loads that map; if it says "LOC N already exists", pick it from the dropdown instead of creating a duplicate.
• Scan areas save themselves every 60 s while you drive.
• The overlay is frameless - drag the title area to move it; geometry is remembered.