Actually, that’s not quite right and edit timed out.
Maximum value is determined by the quality of the rocks, with Pristine being the best. The other scale determines how often you’ll see them.
For what it’s worth, the aside here doesn’t seem to be right: planets seem to be Metal Rich > High Metal Content > Rocky/Icy. Several “Metal Rich” planets I’ve found scan as 100% metal, and I’ve never seen a higher value (i.e. a planet described as “metallic”) in 1500+ systems.
I’m pretty sure you’re right about rings, though: metallic > metal rich, given that metallic rings are pretty rare – roughly the same frequency as water worlds.
Yeah, I couldn’t remember exactly. 
Metal Rich planets have metallic cores, though.
How do you mine planets? Can you fly right up to them?
I’ve been wondering what happens if I try to land on one 
You can’t mine planets in the game at the moment, just asteroid belts (not worth it, since they deplete so quickly and you have to fly between them) and planetary rings (they still deplete quickly, but there’s basically an infinite number of them close together). The planets themselves are theoretically being mined by NPCs using more conventional methods; explorers are just finding them (same with terraformables and life-bearing worlds of various kinds – there’s no in game way to exploit them explicitly, you’re just getting paid to tell the universe of their existence).
If you fly at a planet, it’ll jerk you out of supercruise as an emergency stop (i.e., maybe some hull damage) if you do it to fast. Continue to fly into one in normal space and you’ll just crash; there’s no way to land (but it takes a while – planets are farther away than they seem, and normal-space flight is slow).
However, slowing down then “crashing” into planetary rings will just exit you from supercruise in the rings themselves, which you can use to mine if there aren’t any (or you don’t want to use) “resource extraction sites” already present in that ring.
Thanks for the advice, how do resource extraction sites work? Like a shop?
Their main purpose is to spawn pirates and are great places for hunting. They mainly won’t bother miners if they think the miners are better armed than them.
The one metallic ring I’ve been in had no extraction sites and I encountered no pirates. The occasional flight of security vessels stopped by, though.
Well, I went to a nav point, joined in a fight against a much bigger ship. The NPC ships had it very weeakened, so I scanned it for bounties and killed it. I felt like I was ‘kill stealing’ though lol.
I got about 100k from that. Nice little payday. I outfitted my Adder with mining equipment. Went to a ring system around a gas giant. Didn’t find a thing, so went to an asteroid belt and found a bit.
I’m not finding the hopper system very intuitive. I have 2 hoppers with my refinery. There doesn’t seem to be any way to move the refined metals out of the hopper to make room for other mineral types. Also haven’t found a place to sell what I have, so so far mining has been a bust.
This is automatic once the hoppers hit 100% for any given material. Anything under 100%, you need to Eject that hopper’s content into space.
I’m about a third of the way from LHS 3447 to the Statue of Liberty Nebula. Plenty of unexplored systems around here.
Have you visited Sol yet? I haven’t played for a while, but it’s one of my goals.
Worst part of being deep into uninhabited space is the long trip back for repairs after too many close encounters with stars.
Sure have! Mother Gaia operates some pretty stations, was running missions for them prior to mining Painite.
I had to escape a white dwarf during a cargo run. Lost all my cargo when I over heated. heh.
Finally discovered an Earth-Like world. Now to find a black hole…
I went weeks without finding one, then discovered three in about four hours. Still no neutron stars or black holes, and only a couple of ammonia worlds. But if they ever get the terraforming equipment out to the terraform candidates I’ve found, half the galaxy’s going to be named after me.
I’ve an idea where to look for a black hole. Problem is getting that far out.
Docked my Asp and bought a Diamondback Explorer then outfitted for such a trip.
Isn’t an Asp a better ship than a DB Explorer in basically every way? This seems like a downgrade unless you think there’s a good chance of losing the ship.
Depends on the configuration. I’ve outfitted the DB specifically for exploration, maximum jump range is something like 30 light years. I’ve added an A4 class repair drone so there’s no need to head back for repairs any time soon.
I have the Asp outfitted as a multipurpose vessel skewed toward combat and can mine in a pinch. Maximum range is a bit less than 18 light years.
Couple thousand LY out from inhabited space, spotted something interesting on the map about 700 from my current location. Could be a black hole? Going to check it out…
Nope. It’s a Wolf-Rayet/L Dwarf pair.