We've pushed an update tonight to address community concerns you've had about the most recent prospecting changes.

We have substantially decreased the time it takes to prospect ores when mining at your sweet spot or below. This change will allow you to prospect up to 50% faster than the previous rate. Additionally, this change will directly increase the amount of prospecting experience you can earn each minute.

We have made a slight reduction in the amount of energy it takes to prospect each ore. Your reactor energy may appear to deplete faster after this patch, but this is a result of your ability to mine asteroids more quickly.

You may wish to experiment with equipping different items to maximize your prospecting capabilities and minimize your reactor expenditures.

One of our biggest challenges has been to increase the amount of solo prospecting experience a player can earn without unbalancing the experience earned by groups. After careful consideration, we decided to change the group prospecting experience bonuses. The prospecting experience bonuses for groups of 2-6 players are now 40%, 60%, 80%, 90% and 100%. With these changes, small groups will still earn the same bonus as they did previously. This gives prospectors the opportunity to group with other professions while continuing to mine. Large groups will still receive enough experience to make grouping worthwhile and maintain experience rates comparable to other types of groups. This adjustment to group bonuses only applies to prospecting experience and does not affect combat, trade or other ways of acquiring exploration experience.

Overall, these changes will decrease the time it takes to prospect, increase experience gains, and allow prospectors both solo and in groups to acquire experience at a comparable rate to other activities.

-Niobe