Mining

Important: The following is how Star Citizen's game designers have described their vision for the mechanic. The information currently does not reflect actual ingame mechanics, and will likely change in the future.

Mining will be one of the primary occupations of the game. Running a successful mining operation will require skill and creative thinking, not repetitive button pressing. Elements of this include paying attention to the commodity marketplace to determine what to mine, and then locating a suitable asteroid field that contains the mineral, and finally selling your cargo after you have mined it.

All of the following specialist positions may be helmed by either a player or an NPC, with more experienced NPCs performing their duties in superior fashion, but usually at the expense of demanding a higher monthly salary.

Pilot
The pilot will be in charge of rotating around the asteroids, finding optimal locations, and keeping the ship safe as you are flying in a challenging area with environmental hazards.

Scanning Operator
The scanning operator will help you figure out which asteroids have the composition of minerals you want to extract, and are most attractive to mine. The scan operator does this using remote material analysis packages (RMAPs), which must be guided into the asteroid precisely to receive intel. The operator must balance the time demands of guidance calculations vs their skill in inserting the RMAP.

Mining Beam Operator
Mining beam operators are the guys directing the mining lasers, injecting the energy into the asteroid to extract the fragments of minerals. They have to monitor the asteroid stability, using tools like an exothermic reaction detector, while watching out for volatile compounds that may explode from the energy injected, or seismic micro-tremors using the Laser Seismometer. The Analytical Materials Processor will give the operator feedback on the materials in the beam path.

Cargo Loading Operator
The Cargo Operator sifts through the blasted off fragments, and maneuvers the desired ones into the ship cargo hold by applying forces to it via repulsor and attractor beams from the cargo hold.

Refinery Operator
Specifically used on ships that have a refinery on board, such as the Orion.

The refinery operator is in charge of the mechanics that allow unrefined ore to be converted into pure materials via multiple processing units. "It's not flip-a-switch and all of a sudden your ore is processed, you're going to have what I call a minigame, you're going to have a lot of mechanics you need to manipulate in the game". Some mechanics require dexterity, some require intelligence, some require a mixture.