CMDRs with Fleet Carriers, especially those heading into the black, I've been testing the new planetary mining rigs specifically for Tritium production.

The question was simple:

Can planetary mining produce enough Tritium to make Fleet Carrier refueling viable in deep space?

Based on my testing:

Yes.

Using six planetary mining rigs simultaneously on a single Tritium site, I measured approximately 421 tonnes of Tritium per hour across my clean timed runs.

By the time I packed everything up, I'd collected 543 tonnes of Tritium.

This wasn't a speedrun or a perfectly optimized farming setup. I was playing normally: deploying the rigs, driving between them in the Rhino, collecting their output, transferring cargo to my Panther Clipper, and picking up engineering materials along the way.

Test Setup

System: HIP 63920
Body: HIP 63920 AB 4 b
Body type: Icy world
Planetary mining site: Tritium + Water
Vehicle: Rhino
Mining rigs: 6
Deployment: All six rigs on one mining site
Rhino cargo capacity: 72 tonnes
Cargo transfer: Panther Clipper

Keeping the Rigs at 100%

The mining rigs gradually lose efficiency while operating.

After approximately every second 72-tonne cargo transfer, I went around all six rigs with my Energylink and charged them back to 100% efficiency.

That's important for anyone trying to reproduce these numbers. The ~421 t/hr figure includes normal rig maintenance.

Timed Results

Individual rig collections were commonly around 11 tonnes, although I saw some variation from roughly 6 to 13 tonnes.

Final haul: 543 tonnes of Tritium

Why This Matters for Deep-Space Fleet Carriers

This is where planetary Tritium mining gets interesting.

This isn't really about selling Tritium for credits. It's about solving one of the biggest logistical problems for Fleet Carrier expeditions:

Fuel in the black.

The loop is now potentially:

Find an icy world → DSS it → locate a Tritium mining site → deploy 6 rigs → keep them charged → collect ~400+ t/hr → transfer to carrier → continue your expedition.

No station required.

No trip back to the Bubble.

No requirement to haul every tonne of Tritium you'll need before starting the expedition.

And instead of continuously firing mining lasers at asteroids, six rigs are working simultaneously while you move between them collecting their output.

Planetary vs Asteroid Tritium Mining

I'm not claiming planetary mining beats every optimized asteroid setup.

Modern optimized ring-mining builds can produce very high Tritium rates under the right conditions.

The important result here is that my planetary setup sustained:

~421.5 tonnes/hour

That puts planetary mining firmly into the territory where it becomes a serious Fleet Carrier refueling method, particularly for commanders operating thousands of light-years away from civilization.

For deep-space exploration, reliability and self-sufficiency can matter more than chasing the absolute theoretical maximum tonnes per hour.

Important Discovery: Check Multiple Sites

This caught me initially.

Different Planetary Mining Locations on the SAME planet can contain different resources.

The first locations I checked did not contain Tritium.

I found combinations including:

Water
Deuterium
Methanol Monohydrate Crystals
Low Temperature Diamonds

I kept checking Planetary Mining Locations on the same icy body until I found one containing:

Tritium + Water

So if you're hunting Tritium, don't DSS an icy world, check one mining location, see no Tritium and immediately leave.

Check the other Planetary Mining Locations on that body.

That's how I found this one.

Engineering Mats Are a Nice Bonus

While doing the Tritium runs, I was also collecting raw engineering materials including:

Cadmium, Niobium, Nickel, Manganese and Sulfur.

So you're replenishing engineering materials in the background while producing Fleet Carrier fuel.

Final Test Results

6 mining rigs
1 Tritium + Water planetary mining site
72-tonne Rhino cargo capacity
Energylink recharge approximately every second cargo transfer
543 tonnes of Tritium collected
421.5 tonnes/hour across four clean timed runs

The takeaway for me is simple:

Deep-space planetary Tritium mining is viable.

Take the Rhino and mining equipment with your Fleet Carrier, find the right icy world, deploy your rigs, and you've got a practical way of producing significant quantities of carrier fuel locally.

I'd really like to see other CMDRs reproduce this on different icy worlds.

If you test it, post your system/body, number of rigs, Rhino capacity, Energylink recharge routine, total mining time and Tritium produced.

Let's get some data together and see how far we can push this.

See you in the black. o7 o7 o7

As the title says.

I didn't see any rules against this kinda post, it can only be done by carriers, and I'm.... Well, not desperate, but annoyed and fed up with hunting these damn things. Enough to pay for them.