Development Notice: Mining Update

[Karst]

I think a lot of people have been excited about this for quite some time. Looks very promising.
Some things I'm noticing: Xeno artifacts are balanced at around 690 credits/s (normal ores are around 640).
Iridium is balanced like other ores, with a standard price at Dortmund, 90% at the sair and cast shipyards and 70% at the other unlawful/Junker buyers.
I'm not sure how Azurite is balanced but it's definitely using a longer mining constant time than the standard 480 seconds which makes sense when you consider the mining rate is supposed to be "very slow".

One question: Iridium is "Mined by AI, Core, Order and Zoners at 3x bonus" and Azurite is "Mined by Core, Order and IRG at 3x bonus."
Does this mean that IRG get a bonus on Azurite but regular Zoners do not? Do IRG get a bonus on Iridium?
It's unprecedented that an official faction gets an ore indies cannot mine and I hope that's not what's going on here.

Finally, regarding the ships: The Clydesdale and Rhino are already balanced as Quad-turret mining freighters giving Core and Order a big advantage. The X-Shuttle/Voyager is useless for mining as it has only one forward turret.
The Dromedary and Correo only have two parallel turrets so Zoner and Corsairs should consider requesting another freighter (maybe the Sunburst).

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