I've had a hankerin' to try mining lately, so last night I did just that. I bought and outfitted a Type-6, found a pristine metallic ring close to home, and bumbled my way through my first batch of limpets. Everything was going well enough until my second trip when I dropped into the ring within radar range of a wing of three pirates.

The system I was in has zero population, and no stations of any kind. The only reason to even be in that system is to mine, so I'm not disputing the fact that if you were to come across another ship it would most likely be in one of the rings. However, I ran a little test, and every time I left the ring and reentered somewhere else I was within radar range of another ship. Every time. I sat back in my chair in disbelief. I chose this particular spot to mine because the odds of seeing another ship should be incredibly low, and yet I was seeing those odds forced to 100% because vidya games!

So, fellow miners, how do you deal with this? Where can I find some peace and quiet?

I've kinda done the opposite, just mined stuff in relatively close proximity to space stations where I can sell the stuff for some quick money, even if it's not the best deal I can get.

Have you looked at the system's government type? They aren't explicit about it in Elite: Dangerous, but in previous Elite games different governments had different risks of encountering pirates or being subject to law enforcement, as well as which goods were illegal. Dictatorship and Anarchy systems had the highest risk of pirate activity, whereas Democracy, Cooperative and Corporate systems had the least risk, with Communism, Theocracy and the others being somewhere in the middle.

I have, and it's Anarchy. I think all systems with zero population are Anarchy by default only because there's no one there to run a government, not necessarily because it's dangerous.

Edit: it's None, as are all zero population systems that I looked at. I was totally wrong about that!

At the time I found it very disheartening that Frontier chose to create contrived situations over letting the background simulation handle it with math. They've done it before with the random npc that used to spawn near the star and come after you whenever you entered any system. They changed that mechanic a long time ago because I assume either Frontier themselves and/or the players thought it felt too artificial, which it did.

Now I'm not sure what to think. I made three trips to the same ring last night and didn't see a single ship, which is how it should be. Is the background sim working and I was just unlucky? Does the background sim have nothing to do with it because it's completely random? I don't know.

I'm going to keep at it though. Mining can be pretty relaxing when there's no one else around. There's enough interaction with the ship to feel like you're still playing the game, but not so much that you can't watch a video or something at the same time.

@bane: That's very odd.

I know in regards to exploration the further out you are the less likely you are to see other NPCs. And if you're really deep I don't think there's a chance in hell you'd see another ship.

That's why a lot of explorers go out there weaponless. Better to have a larger jump range than to carry around a few lasers you'll likely never need.