Mining Laser

The mining laser cuts chunks of asteroid off at a rate determined by the amount of mining laser power applied to the asteroid. Thus more mining lasers will result in more chunks in the same period of time. Once cut off the chunks can be scooped. A refinery module is required to process asteroid chunks into saleable commodities.

— In-Game Description

The Mining Laser is used to cut mineral and metal fragments off of asteroids. These fragments can be collected via the cargo scoop or via drones. A refinery module is required to process the fragments and cargo space is required to store the material in saleable form.

As of 1.5/2.0 there are only Class 1 and Class 2 mining lasers. Turreted mining lasers were added in The Commanders v2.3 update.^{^[1]}

Despite being able to cut into asteroids, mining lasers are very ineffective in combat, suffering from very short maximum range and extremely low damage and armour penetration. It is thus advised to have either strong shields and thrusters to be able to outrun an attacker or to have some other weapon mounted to (an) additional hardpoint(s).

The Class II Mining Laser mines at a faster rate than a Class 1 mining laser but also uses weapon energy at a faster rate.