Mining suggestions

[MoslyHarmless]

Good afternoon!

This is my first time posting here. I've played Elite Dangerous for around 5 years and in that time I've mostly enjoyed it.

I have a few suggestions for mining, I was unable to find anything on them in the search..

• Mining platform(s) which players can leave to mine autonomously on a planet or asteroid. Not my idea though - this feature existed in Frontier: Elite II that I played in the 90s but I'm not sure why FDev didn't include it in Elite Dangerous.
• More precious minerals like we have on Earth ie. Sapphires, Rubies, Emeralds.. Just whatever is commonly found out there besides Void Opals and LTDs?

Thanks,

Chris

 

[aRJay]

Good afternoon!

This is my first time posting here. I've played Elite Dangerous for around 5 years and in that time I've mostly enjoyed it.

I have a few suggestions for mining, I was unable to find anything on them in the search..

• Mining platform(s) which players can leave to mine autonomously on a planet or asteroid. Not my idea though - this feature existed in Frontier: Elite II that I played in the 90s but I'm not sure why FDev didn't include it in Elite Dangerous.

Mostly because they don’t seem to want us to earn money etc while not playing the game.

• More precious minerals like we have on Earth ie. Sapphires, Rubies, Emeralds.. Just whatever is commonly found out there besides Void Opals and LTDs?

Thanks,

Chris

 

[Koma Pahu]

More precious minerals like we have on Earth ie. Sapphires, Rubies, Emeralds.. Just whatever is commonly found out there besides Void Opals and LTDs?

Maybe they’re not considered precious anymore. Or they are still rare and you don’t find them in significant quantities to fill a 1 tonne canister.

 

[SergMx]

Mostly because they don’t seem to want us to earn money etc while not playing the game.

So it's okay to fly without playing the game? Its normal?
I'm writing about the FC jumps.

If they are really afraid to make autonomous miners, they could make them with a small hold. He filled the hold, sent you a message and sits waiting. You flew in, reloaded the ore, refueled the miner and flew out again ... to beat up the enemy.

 

[Ameeleean2]

I'm missing mining platforms too but with colonization incoming there might be a chance for that.
I would like to have an option to setup mining outpost on asteroid or planet surface after prospecting both to find suitable spot- even if it would be limited to materials used in engineering.

I think the simplest solution would be to use mining limpets. Just imagine launching one which would then land on asteroid or planet surface, do it's job (extract, unload) then get back and once no resources are left or limpet is out of fuel it would be discarded.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Mostly because they don’t seem to want us to earn money etc while not playing the game.

An MB4-style mining machine wouldn't be that, though, if it worked anything like the FE2 ones.

- you have to fly to the planet to place it
- you have to find a good spot on the planet (which might take a while if you don't want 30t of Uraninite at the end of it)
- you have to come back later to pick up the cargo once it's done
- you have to take that cargo somewhere to sell it to get the money
- you probably only get a few repeats of it before the site is mined out and you have to find another one

It's not really any different in terms of the credit-earning loop to trading with an Infrastructure Failure extraction economy
- you have to seek out the market to start with
- you get the actual Silver/Gold/Platinum virtually free compared with the sale price
- you have to travel to sell the goods
- the quantities available are tiny, so you have to do something else (which can be log out) while you wait for the market to refresh
- the state will end soon and you'll need to move on

 

[Markov Chaney]

More precious minerals like we have on Earth ie. Sapphires, Rubies, Emeralds.. Just whatever is commonly found out there besides Void Opals and LTDs?

Opal isn't technically even a mineral, because it's such a low-grade formation process; it's formed when water containing a lot of silica dries out. So an icy ring in vacuum is a pretty good place to find it.

You have a point on emerald, ruby, and sapphire, though...

Maybe they’re not considered precious anymore. Or they are still rare and you don’t find them in significant quantities to fill a 1 tonne canister.

... on Earth grandiderite is rarer than any of those - and sapphire has plenty of industrial applications. Quite likely the canopy and the HUD depend on sapphire.

Could even have a "facet-quality finds for assay" or something in a separate bucket where you will occasionally get a bonus kg or two when mining one of the silicate minerals, rather than have a whole list of the gemstone names.

 

[aRJay]

An MB4-style mining machine wouldn't be that, though, if it worked anything like the FE2 ones.

- you have to fly to the planet to place it
- you have to find a good spot on the planet (which might take a while if you don't want 30t of Uraninite at the end of it)
- you have to come back later to pick up the cargo once it's done
- you have to take that cargo somewhere to sell it to get the money
- you probably only get a few repeats of it before the site is mined out and you have to find another one

It's not really any different in terms of the credit-earning loop to trading with an Infrastructure Failure extraction economy
- you have to seek out the market to start with
- you get the actual Silver/Gold/Platinum virtually free compared with the sale price
- you have to travel to sell the goods
- the quantities available are tiny, so you have to do something else (which can be log out) while you wait for the market to refresh
- the state will end soon and you'll need to move on

Thank you for that.

I have no recollection of the MB4 and how it worked.

Would it be multimode like an FC and therefore potentially a target for theft? That might get it an annex in the hotel complex.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

I have no recollection of the MB4 and how it worked.

Pretty badly in practice.
- to use it at all, you needed at least 30t of free space after your normal equipment, and a ship with a decent jump range, which meant you were well out of the early game
- you flew out of the bubble (and generally needed to go a fair distance beyond it) and put it down on a planet
- repeat until you find a landing spot reporting good materials
- leave it there, come back a few months later, pick up 30t of mid-grade trade goods
- return to the bubble to sell them

Unfortunately by the time you had the ability to buy a ship capable of using one, you were well beyond the stage where 30t of trade goods (even free ones!) mattered at all, so there was some entertainment value in trying to get it to work in the first place but actually making a profit from it was probably impossible once the costs of servicing your ship were taken into account.

Would it be multimode like an FC and therefore potentially a target for theft?

The original MB4 said that it could be found and stolen by other people. I don't know if this ever happened or if it was just cover for any bugs which might make one disappear unexpectedly.

Obviously in practical terms it's a big galaxy (and you couldn't legally place them in inhabited systems in FE2/FFE) so the only way they're getting stolen from is if you put a bunch of them down in deep space and actively advertise their location as "free Tritium, first come first served" to other players.