Rock boulders is on the one hand the generic term about cosmic mining objects and at the same time, besides ice chunks and meteorites, a subterm of the same.
This article deals with the mining of the boulders, the so-called mining.
Boulders have 100 to 10000 structure points (state, see below). These can be reduced to 0 by mining ships. Once the structure points are removed, the boulder can be looted (= mining the raw materials and transferring them to the hold of the ship ) (no units are needed for this). One tick after looting the resources, the boulder disintegrates and disappears, before a new one of a random structure size is created elsewhere. The more structure points a boulder has, the longer it takes to mine and the more resources it contains. Only one mining ship can mine a boulder at a time, so the mining time of a single boulder cannot be reduced by adding more mining ships.
On the star map, boulders are represented with their own icon () unless the boulders are in nebulae. However, the representation can be overlaid by the representations of jumpnodes or populated asteroids. If you click on the corresponding (asteroid) field, the boulder will be shown in the sector information, though. Furthermore - analogous to asteroids - deuterium nebula and damage nebula sectors on the star map, which are in reconnaissance range of own and allied ships, can be clicked; a popup will then open if there is a boulder in the clicked sector.
Boulders with a structure of 400 or more are the only source of antarit. Smaller boulders up to a size of 400 or meteorites can be mined well by the mining ship GTVM Digger. For larger boulders, it is advisable to use the GTVM Anteros. When mining 100- to 400-structure rock chunks and 1000- to 10000-structure rock rubble, there is the minimum chance of obtaining Shivan artifacts.
Meteorites, also known as ice boulders or ice chunks, are special boulders that occur exclusively in the Prospect star systems (609, 610, and 611) and star systems 613 to 620. They contain mainly superfestes Gestein (engl. super solid rock), but no antarit or metals. They can be mined like normal boulders by mining ships and also otherwise the same information applies to them as to the boulders (see above).
List of different sizes of boulders[]
There are different sizes of boulders that have different amounts of structure. The higher the structure, the more yield they contain, but the longer it takes to mine them.
100-structure boulders: 70 titanium, 49 uranium, 21 adamatium, 21 platinum, 14 silicon, 7 xentronium
200-structure boulders: 144 titanium, 105 uranium, 46 adamatium, 44 platinum, 28 silicon, 14 xentronium
400-structure rock: 300 titanium, 210 uranium, 100 adamatium, 90 platinum, 60 silicon, 28 xentronium, 10 antarit
400-structure meteorite: 40 super-solid rock, 60 rock-ice, and 400 ore
1000-structure rock rubble: 800 titanium, 560 uranium, 260 adamatium, 230 platinum, 160 silicon, 80 xentronium, 20 antarite
1000-structure rock rubble: 440 rock ice, 100 ore
4000-structure rock chunks: 4000 titanium, 2800 uranium, 1300 adamatium, 1150 platinum, 800 silicon, 400 xentronium, 100 antarit
4000-structure ice rubble: 1200 rock ice, 400 ore
10000-structure rock rubble: 12000 titanium, 8400 uranium, 3900 adamatium, 3450 platinum, 2400 silicon, 1200 xentronium, 300 antarite