You may have seen me going on about the persistence of belt asteroids recently ( mapped all belts around colonia on eddb and started prospecting their asteroids yielded useful info for engineering ).While that in itself makes a huge difference for anyone in need of elements and mining resources (thanks to TLC as they informed me about it), that's not the topic here ;pRES (and potentially all rings) are persistent as well, but there's a twist (which I presume is the reason many currently assume they are not).Only the asteroid locations and resource values/quantities are persistent. The asteroid models(or at least not always ...?).That means, when you drop into a RES you've been in before, the asteroidslook different, but you will still find the exact same resources and quantities in the exact same locations.I'll walk you through how I arrived there.I've encountered three funny network/instancing bugs while leading Osmium mining fleets for the construction of Colonia Hub.The first one is, that sometimes a prospector displays the wrong values while wing mining. That means entirely different resources from the ones that are actually popping out of the rock. The prospector also only shows the first few percent of depletion and then the content remaining % stops moving. You can deplete the whole thing, the prospector will remain at that percent and stubbornly show wrong resources. One time I've noticed that such a prospector was actually showing the values of a nearby rock. One we had neither touched nor prospected before. I suppose some rare positional desync can cause this. It had me intrigued on the fact that asteroid values are in fact predetermined (and not a roll on when you first interact with them - even though this bugged prospector could also be considered an interaction).Either way, the second bug is getting different asteroid models than a wing member. You can see and interact with each other, shoot at the same rock it seems, but somehow your wingmates lasers hit nothing in front of the rock or are creating fragmentsthe rock. Not to mention their prospector is rotating around the asteroid at a wrong height (inside or far above the asteroids surface). Turns out one of both ships can actually fly in and out of the asteroid the other one sees (one sees a big one - the other a small one). You are mining the same asteroid with the same rotation, same prospector values - but they have an entirely different shape. And it's like that forasteroid around. Lethal for collectors, whenever this happened I jumped out and back in to fix it.The third one is a variation of this. Occasionally a few pilots in the fleet would not be able to get into the same instance. So I would gather those into my wing and guide them via wing signals only. As the leading scout I could still find and mark asteroids for them via my position. They would confirm to get the exact same content on them despite being in a parallel instance.Now none of these things confirm persistence (or happened near a RES, let alone in a ring with a RES) and my first thought actually was: this could be great to have perfectly mirrored conditions for mining competitions (if we could force these parallel instances).##insert belt mapping, prospecting and mining escapades here - I thought those were ground breaking, haha##So, a post on reddit questioned the persistence of rings recently. And I answered that I have never managed to observe any persistence in them. Minutes later, bounty hunting in a rocky RES to lift Colonias lockdown, I drift past the RES marker, with a small asteroid floating very close to it. There aren't many wanted ships coming around and I'm still rigged for prospecting belts, so I am chock full of prospectors. I tag it, take a screenshot and jump out and back in. Might get more pirates after all. To my surprise the asteroids around the marker still look exactly the same. That's new to me (I had ctrl+B up, my instance was empty so nobody could've held it open and the NPCs had certainly reset). I tag it again and take a screenshot. Exact same values. Fine, maybe the server generously held it open for me. I close the application and restart it. I load into a private group (was in open before). The rock is still there, still with the exact same content (third screenshot). I've been impatient here, maybe it's been held open during my relaunch? I exit the RES and get a fellow colonial to check it out (sending the 3 screenshots). Negative, cannot locate the same rock. Fragment samples in the vicinity also don't yield the same resource combinations. I'm not giving up though. I reenter the RES and promptly relocate the asteroid, no sign of the other commander though. We wing up, but cannot get into the same instance (I jump out and back in a few times). So instead I hug the asteroid and request a sample of whatever is floating on my position. Positive, the same resource combination. But there were no prospectors involved to confirm the exact same quantities.A day later, checking the same rock in solo. It's still the same, even looks the same. I wonder what causes the shape to shift (probably not intended). I chip a single fragment to test something I meant to test on belt asteroids (screw those for now - I still love them though, they are easier to map - would like to see them in a database like eddb bodies at some point). I jump out and drop back into normal space so that the RES is now orbiting away from me. I drop back in, 10 minutes later, the same asteroid is now depleted (I only chipped one fragment). I jump out and back in several more times. The rock replenished some time between 2 and 2.5 hours.For anyone at Jaques to confirm these things I loaded up on more active prospectors and prospected 4 asteroids in relation to each other inside the inner RES (near the station, not the hub). Their relation to each other should make it easy to relocate them even if they appear in different shapes. I got all confirmed by another commander.If you ever go out to do prospecting work of this kind, I suggest some variation of this As many active and long ranged prospectors as you can fit and deploy as well as long range sensors (pay attention to the respective controllers maximum range).That way you can mark all asteroids in view at the same time and make screenshots of each ones content without moving your view > easier relocating them.However that process is too slow imo, we need a way to map any random rock in the ring.Obviously the closer asteroids are to the RES marker, the easier it is to relocate them. Their shape shifting (when it happens) makes things hard, especially with distance as the only reference points we have are the RES itself, the planet (which is too far away for an accurate reading) and potentially other nearby RES (which are too far away as well for an accurate reading). We cannot trilaterate locations properly. All we can do is record distance to the RES, rough depth within the ring (center/top/bottom - will require stable reference points, i.e. constellations/nebula to get a direction), an angle in relation to the RES-planet line as well as the asteroid configuration around the one in question. This gives RES a whole lot more meaning for mining. You already have a fragment boost inside them, now you also have the opportunity to revisit good resources and eliminate your search intervals. Worth the hassle with pirates I would say. Ideally one would map a route of high value asteroids that takes 2 hours to go around (or just as long as you like to go mining) and has minimal travel time. Mining profit rates should sky rocket.And here is my hunch on why I think the entire rest of rings is persistent as well. I have occasionally dropped out of and back into rings while mining, much like bounty hunting (boost away, charge and drift turn, boost towards the ring for instant redrop). The ring may move a bit below you during that redrop. On a fast moving ring that means you will drop several 100 km away. On slow ones you pretty much reenter where you came from. Sometimes I have also left the ring because of a disconnect and reentered it. When this happened during wing mining I often reconnected into the same instance again, which suggests you log back into the exact same location. But as mentioned before I have never managed to recognise anything again while doing this solo (the asteroid model types are recurring everywhere, but the configurations don't seem to - could just be the difficulty of recognising anything in a ring again). What I have encountered is large batches of already depleted asteroids. Who depleted them out nowhere in solo mode? Assuming persistence and considering the ring asteroids potential shape shifting properties, I did (by just chipping them once, as that's how I search for resources). More tests on these things pending.Thanks to all the commanders who winged with me or assisted me here.