Mining currently only works the mining laser against an asteroid. No other combinations.

Just to show mining working under Alpha 28 (actually the nightly but it also worked under base 28).

Just had a party on the asteroid, then left without cleaning up <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_e_biggrin.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':D' />

PS: The Hydrogen you can see i didn't mine. It was jettisoned to make room for the water i was collecting.

Nice! Now... either there needs to be more asteroids/comets generated in star systems or the cannon needs to work on moons! Ideally both... water just isn't THAT rare in the universe <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//wink3.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=';)' />

And with traffic being much more common... I wonder about space junk cleanup with a cargo scoop...

How about missions to collect X number of Y? rubbish from around inhabited planets, water for remote outposts...

Spawn a random collection of cargo pods in various orbits every time you get close enough to a celestial body... "mining" without a cannon <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_e_smile.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':)' />

Actually, how do I even find asteroids?

More generally, what types of bodies can be mined from and how do I find them?

Even more generally, is there some encomapssing mining tutorial? Or would I have to go through the changelogs or something?

The only asteroids are those small bodies that you'll see in fixed orbits. Phobos and Diemos count, although you'll get in trouble for shooting them up.

There is no tutorial. Full-on mining is a future feature.

Right. Yeah I noticed some of the bodies I took to be moons or planets actually count as asteroids.

So, mining isnt fully implemented yet...

But I could just start shooting at an asteroid with a mining laser and bits will chip off which can be scooped up and sold, in alpha29, is that correct?