A couple of improvements?
Whoever placed the hotspots manually (and they have to be manually, because they're in the exact same spots in each playthrough) could at very least ensure that the damn things are placed inside the playable area of the map and don't overlap with other zones (there's a pair of zones in Kadara that are a huge pain because they overlap), because otherwise you end up with the mining gauge interface giving inconsistent readings.
Another improvement I'd appreciate is an overlay on the ground surface while the mining interface is active that delineates the extents of the mineable area, so I'm not spontaneously driving outside it and then having to deal with SAM telling me the area can be mined five seconds later when I drive back in.
There could even be an upgrade for the Mako that paints highlights on the ground surface while the mining interface is active showing where concentrations are, as you detect them, so that you can be far more efficient about choosing where to mine.
Another idea, more of a bugfix than anything: allow strategic mining, and what I mean by that is if you detect a concentration of one mineral and a concentration of another close by, and put yourself halfway between and mine there, since you're excluding a pretty sizable chunk of the map to be mined, you should get the full benefit of both concentrations, instead of whatever the concentrations are directly under the Nomad. Especially since if you detect a concentration focused mostly outside the area that gets mined, drop down a probe on another concentration close by and then drive back, it no longer shows up, if you were rewarded even just a bit for a sliver of it from the previous probe.
Yet another idea (because I keep thinking of these after I hit Submit): Since mining is presumably still going on with the probe still active long after you've gotten the minerals, why not tie the mining rewards to the AVP system and have periodic rewards of those amounts awarded so that you don't absolutely have to do the mining more than a few times for each mineral type.
Mining is fun the first 4-5 times ... then it becomes a pain, I stopped mining all together, by that I mean I passed a zone and brought up the mining UI and just placed a drone if there was anything. I didn´t bother to go left or right searching for better spots.
After EOS I dont even bother about mining, resources obtained are insignificant and in most cases I never get the good stuff. Too much effort too little rewards. I am also not someone that needs to develop every weapon in the game, just my primary secondary, armor n melee, so I always end up with a ton of resources. Planet scanning's worst. So much effort with little reward. At least in ME2 I get surprised sometimes when there's some poor pirate minding his own business and a bored human spectre came along.
