I was out practicing my SRV skills by searching for arsenic for my engineering when I stumbled across 2 interesting but ultimately pointless things.
The first looked like a broken canister. It was protected by 3 drone things and was in a restricted area denoted by a red box on the scanner. I thought this would be a nice break to the grind so I go into my turret and pew pew'd the drones only to find naff all around the broken canister. I thought there would be at least something to scan or pickup but no. BTW the area did not appear on the navigation list and I don't think so on the contacts list either.
So disappoint in that and in my lack of arsenic I called the small rouge one down again and headed off to another spot on the same planet. Oh and before you ask yes the planet does contain arsenic even if only 2.5%.
I landed beside some mountains this time (last time was at a crater) and low and behold I found my arsenic (3 of them in total so 9 bits and enough for now) but I also discovered another high pitched signal on the scanner so headed off to find a mining operation. Like last time this was in a restricted area denoted by a red box on the scanner and was protected by 2 drones and 2 guns. I thought this one looked a bit more interested so attacked and successfully got myself a few fines and a wanted poster but what bounty did I get. Well a few minerals worth maybe 20k total. In other words a complete waste of time.
OH and I went back to the station but I had no fines to pay in the contacts page? I'll get someone to scan me later to see if I'm wanted but I assume not?
So back to the title of this thread, whats the point? What exactly is the point of these mini games? Yes it is a welcome break to the endless driving and scanning and shooting rocks but surely for those that decide the take on the challange there should be some in game reward be that data to scan or rare materials to collect? I honestly thought the mining operation would of yield a load of materials and not a few items of worthless cargo.