I would think that planet side mining would involve some sort of core drilling and possible open pit mining once you assay the core from the drill site. This could possibly involve robotic mining drones of some sort to do the digging and ships to transport the ore to your on site factories for processing. Though I'm not sure CR would be willing to develop such a realistic mining operation as the coding would be a nightmare I'm sure. But with CR the sky is the limit in this fantastic game world he is building for us.
Most all my ships are combat ops though I'm in trade and industry, I kinda figured at the launch securing out territory will be more important than mining and commerce until we are settled in and have a 0 sec area secured.