Veltecite Minerals/new

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The Veltecite Minerals contract is a PvE focused point defense contract. Your assignment is to collect crystals that spawn all over the map in varying sizes and defend them during a short drilling period. Veltecite Minerals is one of the best known contracts in The Cycle since it is always available in Solo and Duo mode and prominently featured in the Tutorial.

Description
The contract has three steps: Interact with a mineral vein to call down a drill, defend the drill from spawning enemies and collect the drilled minerals once the drill is finished.

The minerals come in different sizes between meager (100) and Epic (1000). The larger the crystal, the longer it takes to drill it and the more enemy waves spawn.

The contract sums up the amount of crystals you collect and awards points whenever certain thresholds are met.

When the drill is finished it plays a short sound and emits a purple beacon light that can be seen from afar. This can alert other Prospectors to your location and possibly encourage them to try and steal the drilled minerals.

The mineral contract is liked because it is a certain way to get points and money since monster killing is part of the process. A team that manges to collect an epic crystal early in a match usually gets enough money from it to have a solid advantage over the other teams.

Contract Elements
With pictures!

Meager crystals
Gives 100 points, one wave of enemies. Mostly Squatters, Spitters and Hurlers.

Small crystals
Gives 200 points, two waves of enemies. Mostly Squatters, Spitters and Hurlers.

Hard crystals
Gives 400 points, 4 waves of enemies. Mostly Squatters, Spitters, Hurlers and Skulkers.

Very Hard crystals
Gives 600 points, many waves. All biological enemies exept ticks can spawn.

Epic Mineral Vein
Gives 1000 points. Many waves, including Howlers, Brutes and Wardens. Only spawns at the beginning of a match and is visible on the whole map.

Contract Tiers
Some nice comparative charts?

Some number crunching concerning the Mineral veins and their health etc.? Uplink, Zeal.. could have timing calculations here.

Lore

 * The monsters near a drill are aggravated by the noise and vibrations the drill makes, that's why they attack it.
 * With the Lost Prospectors manual an altered form of Veltecite can be mined. It is strongly geometric, the single pieces attract each other like a magnet and it hums. The mining process involves a Korolev standard mineral drill modified with Osiris beam tech.
 * Korolev believes that Red Zeal samples can help understand the origin of the Veltecite veins.
 * The Zeal crystals are Veltecite vein cores that got exposed to something.
 * Veltecite ore is used by Korolev as a high density energy source for their foundries.