I find the new deep core mining is pretty fun and also fairly profitable. Anyone else giving it a try? The other new mining mechanics I did not find fun or profitable so I do not even carry equipment for anything except core mining.
All hinges on finding the deep core rocks, some people seem to have no trouble and some can not seem to find any no matter what they try. I have not had any trouble finding rocks to blast apart. Longest I have had to look is 13 minutes, 5 minutes is more nominal. I do not prospect in hotspots, just randomly drop in near outer edge of a ring and constantly work toward the planet.
If you do not have a place to start use HIP 21991 for metallic and Didiomanja for icy. Sell at HIP 21991 Charlois City, low temperature diamonds were selling for 466K each there yesterday and are the most abundant core material found in icy rings. However, I find icy ring are also the most difficult to mine, might find the same number of core rocks to mine but a lot contain worthless core materials in icy rings.
Deep core rocks will glow much brighter than anything else on the pulse wave scanner and always be the same size and shape. They will also have visible fissures but depending on the lighting and rock colors these might be difficult to see. When you find the first one (by prospecting with limpets) take special note of those two things and it will get much easier from there. Each ring type does have a unique model though, one for icy, one for metallic, one for rocky, etc so need to figure each one out individually.
I started in a Cobra, very viable ship for this, was making 7M-8M credits per run and it only takes cracking two or thee rocks to fill up the Cobra (32T cargo + 6T refinery). But about any ship with a class 2 hardpoint will work, bonus points if it is mounted on the centerline of the ship as the seismic charges are dumbfire.