Your Mining system is TERRIBLE!

[GerminVermin]

Actually yeah it is. Watch that video of advanced mining in this thread. The guys good at scooping and knows where to go to get the best chunks. He makes approx 170 k after mining 45 mins factor in travel time ... time you have to run/fight the pirates that show up.

Now in my type 6 I can make about 800k an hour trading on easy runs that aren't even the best. Now the real kicker is that as I progress and get bigger ships I now make 4 millions credits an hour doing the same runs. While the miner is stuck with no way to really progress. You get a bigger ship for mining your still stuck at the scoop/bin mini game.

It equate it adding a forklift mini game for traders. Lets say when you ordered your cargo you have to drive a little forklift on the station and manually load each ton.

I like the idea of drones and scanners for the bigger ships. That would go a long way to making it look like your progressing.


Auger

I'm the one that posted the video. Derp.

Mining has its place. There needs to be more things to do with the products of mining, though, like more missions that allow players to mine materials and turn them in. I'm sure that, when players can eventually own stations, mining raw materials to build said station will be very important. Mining isn't intended to be a money maker. I'd bet money that mining is what will be necessary for space station builds and expansion, thus making mining a tool of power and not directly of wealth.

If your goal is to make money quickly and you've chosen mining as the means to that end, then you've chosen ... poorly (and that doesn't mean that there's something wrong with mining, that means there's something wrong with your decision making skills).

You also have to consider risk vs reward. Right now, if you fly out to a ringed planet and fly to any location in those rings OTHER than a resource extraction site, you won't be bothered by pirates or players. That's zero risk, not counting poor flying skills that result in you smashing into roids.

Zero risk for hundreds of thousands of credits per hour sounds over powered, to me.

 

[raok]

Mining activity is ok. Maybe they could invent better, faster, easier scoops.


Nugget size should be bigger when mining cheaper materials. Sizes should be bigger in general too -> less to scoop.


When comparing trading profits vs any other activity in ED, trading has the biggest profits. Trading has ~zero risk. Supply/Demand values are never ending. Trading is an endless grind between two stations.
When they fix trading, mining becomes far more interesting option.

 

[scoda]

Just like you can find people who enjoy shoving screwdrivers down where screwdrivers *really* don't belong, if you know where to look. Wouldn't be nice if you actually tried to contribute something new in this subforum except of trying to systematically oppose every suggestion with the same rebuttal? The game is still in its infancy, it's in no way perfect, and believe it or not, I'm sure even FD designers know very well that many parts of the gameplay are lacking. I never suggested mining should be easier or more profitable, my question is all about expanding and improving the gameplay, so please refrain from using cheap strawman rhetorics.

+1

Well said...

 

[Corrin Avatan]

I have to agree that mining in E is super-boring. Even more boring than Eve.

On top of that, because the rewards don't scale, I see no reason to do it. Honestly, it makes more sense to make money trading, than it does to do anything else, ever.

Quite literally, I'm going to trade for 100 some-odd hours to get my Anaconda and maybe a tricked out Viper, and do what I want to actually do in the game, because it will take me significantly less time to do so. Mining is at the other side of the profit /time axis, and simply not worth it. In my type 6, I can make 1 million in an hour... I've never seen anybody share that they could do the same mining, bounty hunting, or as a mercenary. And when I work to my Type-9, that's going to increase to 4 million an hour.

 

[GerminVermin]

Trading has ~zero risk

Clearly, you have never lost a Type 7 with maxed out cargo slots (read: no SHIELD) to an interdiction by a player or an NPC. You don't get your cargo money back. That hurts when it's slaves or platinum that cost 15k or 20k each and you have several hundred of them.

I've lost millions on one single haul because I lost a Lakon to an interdiction when I was configured for no shield.

No risk? Pffff, more people pontificating when they have no idea what they're talking about.

 

[Nom Anor]

Quite literally, I'm going to trade for 100 some-odd hours to get my Anaconda and maybe a tricked out Viper, and do what I want to actually do in the game, because it will take me significantly less time to do so. Mining is at the other side of the profit /time axis, and simply not worth it. In my type 6, I can make 1 million in an hour... I've never seen anybody share that they could do the same mining, bounty hunting, or as a mercenary. And when I work to my Type-9, that's going to increase to 4 million an hour.

It feels like the three "passive" money-making acts are balanced for a purpose.

- Exploring : To get you up to Cobra with minimal outlay, and make you explore about a bit to get some trade routes memorized.. You just need a few scanners.
- Mining : Once you find some rings / 'roids exploring, gets you up to Asp / Lakon.. Takes time and some cash for refineries etc, but faster than exploring.
- Trading : Once you have a bigger ship, forget the first two, and just trade.

 

[HawkMan]

One solution that avoids the whole tractor beam thing would be to have a drone bad that takes a fairly large module size bay. and if you have this you can launch one or multiple drones that will fly out and gather fragments and bring them back to your hold.

Heck to make it a proper sacrifice you could say that you could only use them on 16 or 32 size bays, and they can't be regular bays, so instead of a special drone module you have drone cargo bays. Each bay comes with it's own drone so you lose 5 or 10 cargo in every bay as opposed to having a plain cargo bay, and the drones can only deliver to their own bays, so the bays that aren't drone bays, you have to scoop to.


Maybe also make use of the extra pilot seat in ships and either require a drone control module(like the docking computer) or you need a second commander in the co-pilot seat that will remote control the drones. This will of course require them the introduce co-pilots into the game first, at the same time they could also make turrets controllable by the co-pilot/gunner.

 

[Seboss]

Now in my type 6 I can make about 800k an hour trading on easy runs that aren't even the best. Now the real kicker is that as I progress and get bigger ships I now make 4 millions credits an hour doing the same runs. While the miner is stuck with no way to really progress. You get a bigger ship for mining your still stuck at the scoop/bin mini game.

Exactly, the problem with mining is not the profit output per se, but that it doesn't scale for bigger ships or just players with more money to burn on equipment. Juicier mining gameplay for the wealthy miners is lacking.

Mining has its place. There needs to be more things to do with the products of mining, though, like more missions that allow players to mine materials and turn them in. I'm sure that, when players can eventually own stations, mining raw materials to build said station will be very important. Mining isn't intended to be a money maker. I'd bet money that mining is what will be necessary for space station builds and expansion, thus making mining a tool of power and not directly of wealth.

Well, we're in agreement here. Mining is sort of pointless at the moment, and making it useful for some sort of crafting system, or anything that actually has some impact on the economy or the game world in general would make mining more desirable. But with ore being so plentiful everywhere (we're talking about millions of tons even in the teeniest extraction stations), and the current mining gameplay being so slowish (and kinda boring in my own opinion), will players care or will they just let the AI/background simulation do all the work?
Besides, ore delivery missions (either the ore is mined or just bought by the player) do have an tiny effect on a system, but one have to make hundreds of those to make any dent in the system economy or factions standings.

I'm not very confident FD will be able to change any of that to make mining more attractive than it is today, but hey, I'd love to be surprised.

 

[ATrifleMiffed]

I agree with OP`s basic point, but I`d like to elaborate a bit; mining simply doesn`t offer enough options. Want to just do it with a beam and a scoop? Fine you can do that. But that is only practical in a small ship, and it is slow. A drone bay that requires a module slot and cargo space for the drones, as well as a scanner for asteroids would not only make mining more involved and less tedious, but it would also open it up to scaling into the late game by giving medium and large ships the option to wade into an asteroid field and mine without having to waste time trying to scoop up tiny chunks of rock in a ship that couldn`t turn to save its life.

 

[Magic Man]

Mining is mining. Deal with what you are required to do or do something else. I get enough of "can a have a button that does this..." in work, keep it out of my games...

 

[Gunny Red]

Some way to scan and mark asteroids for prospecting would be nice too.

^^^this part of your statement would be the best step in the right direction, IMO. right now, there's no way to know which 'roids you've mined. countless times, i've found myself unknowingly bouncing back and forth between the same several astroids because i get turned around and lose track of where i've been.

 

[Tettric]

I'm sorry but you never have chunks flying off from the opposite side of the asteroid. Mining is how I got where I am today. I should know!

 

[sekullbe]

I'm going to try some of the advanced mining video tricks, as I haven't gotten too deeply into it in ED yet to be honest. But I miss Jumpgate mining, and think it has some ideas to offer ED. The basic points there were:

* Asteroids came in several basic types which determined which resources you could refine from them. That's not much different from ED as is, but you could immediately tell the type by eye.
* They would visibly heat up as they were mined, cooling down slowly; a hot 'roid would give less ore per unit time. Once a rock gets too glowy, you move on to the next.
* Mining beams fit in weapon slots and vacuumed ore directly to the hold (you'd refine ore to resources at stations, but that's not critical)
* Moving your ship made a huge difference in the mining rate, to the point where sitting and pointing would be near useless. The standard technique was to orbit by first thrusting perpendicular to the rock, then facing it, firing lasers, and thrusting normal to your flight path. That puts you in a circularish orbit around the rock. This was easier in JG because you had a 3d velocity vector arrow in your HUD.
* JG players may also remember 'pure' asteroids but I don't think they fit the ED world well; they're a bit too 'gamey'.

IMHO the skill in keeping a good mining orbit and judging when to move on to a new 'roid is a more interesting skill than chasing down fragments.

I like the ideas of having a mineral scanner or drone; one idea would be for a drone to be launched into an asteroid field and scan the asteroids, then land on the best one it finds in its (short) lifetime. That would provide a 'claim', and maybe something to fight about.

 

[Vulture2k]

i agree, the big problem of mining is it doesnt scale.. while trading rewards get bigger with bigger ships and at least to some point bounty hunting gets easier and more rewarding too with bigger ships it isnt much difference if you mine with a anaconda or a adder..

but i read a quote somewhere that the devs are not happy with this state either and that they want to expand on most features.. so we can hope for more.. but imho it should be fully automated later on.. it should always incorporate some player action

 

[GerminVermin]

i agree, the big problem of mining is it doesnt scale.. while trading rewards get bigger with bigger ships and at least to some point bounty hunting gets easier and more rewarding too with bigger ships it isnt much difference if you mine with a anaconda or a adder..

but i read a quote somewhere that the devs are not happy with this state either and that they want to expand on most features.. so we can hope for more.. but imho it should be fully automated later on.. it should always incorporate some player action

It doesn't scale with bigger ships that have bigger cargo meaning you don't have to waste as much time going back to the station to sell? How is that not scaling?

 

[Ixnatifual]

I didn't really mind the scooping so much, but the refinery menu to got old real fast.

 

[raok]

Clearly, you have never lost a Type 7 with maxed out cargo slots (read: no SHIELD) to an interdiction by a player or an NPC. You don't get your cargo money back. That hurts when it's slaves or platinum that cost 15k or 20k each and you have several hundred of them.

I've lost millions on one single haul because I lost a Lakon to an interdiction when I was configured for no shield.

No risk? Pffff, more people pontificating when they have no idea what they're talking about.

You could have logged off or played in solo mode -> Zero risk.

 

[Seboss]

It doesn't scale with bigger ships that have bigger cargo meaning you don't have to waste as much time going back to the station to sell? How is that not scaling?

The time required to acquire a ton of ore/metal is constant regardless of the ship size. Bigger ships usually mean lesser speed and maneuverability, but this is counter-balanced by more mining laser slots and so faster extraction. Which means the time required to fill the hold more or less grows linearly with the size of the hold. Proper scaling would mean keeping the time to fill the ship constant regardless of the hold size, or close, using additional mining methods or equipment (explosives?), larger chunks, drones etc.

I think this is what some players are asking for. I won't argue about the balance of that, I already know how this discussion is going to unfold.

 

[Autonomous Android]

Hi,

There is nothing wrong with the scoop system, but its a shame you cannot add something to the activity to give you something more to do...
I mean if you were to introduce drones to mine whilst you also could* use your laser and or scoop that could be cool.

In any proffession its nice to have things to improve and progress into, whether you like mining or not it would be nice to have things and gadgets
to progress with... and mining is no different.

I think most people have a problem making the whole thing too automated, which is fair enough, but with scores of droids to command that could
perhaps just move the rocks to close proximity to the ship would mean you still have to do something.
#
More gadgets!
#
AA

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

The time required to acquire a ton of ore/metal is constant regardless of the ship size. Bigger ships usually mean lesser speed and maneuverability, but this is counter-balanced by more mining laser slots and so faster extraction. Which means the time required to fill the hold more or less grows linearly with the size of the hold. Proper scaling would mean keeping the time to fill the a ship constant regardless of the hold size, or close, using additional mining methods or equipment (explosives?), larger chunks, drones etc.

I think this is what some players are asking for. I won't argue about the balance of that, I already know how this discussion is going to unfold.

*SNAP* on all fronts!

AA

 

[GerminVermin]

You could have logged off or played in solo mode -> Zero risk.

Why? Don't take my post as a complaint. I'm not whining about what happened, just explaining what happened in an effort to illustrate the point that there are many people who've lost more than the original poster and still don't care because, in the end, IT'S A GAME and it's POSSIBLE TO FAIL and that failure doesn't equate to something wrong with the game or something wrong with someone else. Kinda like "Sh** happens, stop whining."

Risk vs reward is fun. Playing in solo mode to avoid getting blown up is for cowards. I LIKE that what I'm doing to have fun is providing a potential venue for fun for someone else. If I get caught and I escape, then that's even MORE fun for me and probably more fun for the person who at least attempted to take me down.

This is a game. It's about having fun. If your idea of having fun is strapping pillows all over your body just in case you fall over and then very carefully sitting down to play in solo mode only so you can't get blown up by players, then that's fine with me. I like the risk and the reward of playing the game as it was intended to be played.

After all, the name of the game is Elite DANGEROUS.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

The time required to acquire a ton of ore/metal is constant regardless of the ship size. Bigger ships usually mean lesser speed and maneuverability, but this is counter-balanced by more mining laser slots and so faster extraction. Which means the time required to fill the hold more or less grows linearly with the size of the hold. Proper scaling would mean keeping the time to fill the ship constant regardless of the hold size, or close, using additional mining methods or equipment (explosives?), larger chunks, drones etc.

I think this is what some players are asking for. I won't argue about the balance of that, I already know how this discussion is going to unfold.

Well that's one person's interpretation of "scaling" and "linear" but it's complete garbage, to me.

Slow or not, you're talking just a few seconds as opposed to the several minutes wasted just getting to the station, not to mention docking and getting back out to the asteroid field and not to mention searching for an asteroid that will give you want you want anyway.