I used one in EF II. It did work but the amount of minerals mine was low and not of the high value I hoped for. I can't remember what minerals I got. The other thing was you had to go out into unmanned/habited space and dump it on planet then leave it. You then went off and done other things for a day or two before going back to collect the machine. It was reuseable but after using it once I decided it was to much effort for too small a return and sold the miner.
Drones coming for powerplay
- Thread starter Space Ranger
- Start date
I used one in EF II. It did work but the amount of minerals mine was low and not of the high value I hoped for. I can't remember what minerals I got. The other thing was you had to go out into unmanned/habited space and dump it on planet then leave it. You then went off and done other things for a day or two before going back to collect the machine. It was reuseable but after using it once I decided it was to much effort for too small a return and sold the miner.
Yah you are right, I remember now, long time ago. The yield was always low and I was hoping for gold but never got any from it, if I remember right they were buggy too were it would disappear from where you left it. Well, that's what I experienced anyway.
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So one thing I'm wondering, just in the "nip potential abuse in the bud" sense:
Say there's a guy at a RES, mining away, System Authority running around shooting pirates and scanning passers-by. He's carving off chunks of rock, and he's got his cargo drone set to area-collect. Now if I happen by, feeling in a mischievous mood, and drop off, say, a container of biowaste next to his drone...
Would the drone scoop it up along with everything else in the area, causing him to inadvertently load up stolen goods and get branded a smuggler by the next passing cop, allowing me to blow him up and claim a bounty for it?
I totally wouldn't do that (well, maybe to an NPC), but I'm wondering what would happen.
Say there's a guy at a RES, mining away, System Authority running around shooting pirates and scanning passers-by. He's carving off chunks of rock, and he's got his cargo drone set to area-collect. Now if I happen by, feeling in a mischievous mood, and drop off, say, a container of biowaste next to his drone...
Would the drone scoop it up along with everything else in the area, causing him to inadvertently load up stolen goods and get branded a smuggler by the next passing cop, allowing me to blow him up and claim a bounty for it?
I totally wouldn't do that (well, maybe to an NPC), but I'm wondering what would happen.
I'd assume there'd be an option to select if the drone should pick up illicit cargo, which would be off by default.
he would get a fine not a bounty but I like where your head is at.
most miners i've seen (my friend is one of them) end up wanting something like EVE... automated mining where they can sit back and grab a snack, and the danger is in the time waiting or getting there. drones will add this automation and the new resource zones they mentioned will add the danger.. so MINERS should enjoy it, you should qut forming opinions on what other people might consider fun
and yes, id think its boring to but tell that to my friend who pays for an eve subscription (not anymore thanks to me) just to do its mining and make tones of money (something else hopefiull fized with this update).
It's not that mining is currently boring, it's that it's boring, tedius, and unprofitable. Three strikes you're out.
Drones will make it far less tedius, and thus more fun. It'll also be more enjoyable to mine while watching netflix, like trading is. It won't be unprofitable anymore (hopefully.. thats the aim anyway) so that negative is gone, and with the prospector drone in addition to the collection drones, the majority of the tedium is removed. Now the focus can be on finding good rocks, blowing them apart, collecting and moving on. Instead of awkwardly trying to grab useless worthless fragments.
Much better imo.. and that's not even getting into the dynamics that High Dangerous RES' will bring
The prospector drone just seems like a waste of a cargo slot to me. Just blow off a chunk and see what gives. If the prospector is consumed then in my opinion it's useless..
It's far from useless if it allows you to blow off ten to fifteen chunks and scoop them in one process instead of having to scoop each one by one. That's everyone's big complaint of how mining is boring, so why is it useless?
Im talking about the prospector drone not the collection drone or have I missed something here?
as far as I know the prospector drone just scans an asteroid and tells you what's in it.
There's also this argument: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=133777
I see the prospector drone's utility being: as I'm mining a roid, I can send off two or three drones to scan other roids around me so when I'm done, I can go right to the most valuable one. I think it sounds terribly useful.
Hopefully they can be sent off to scan several asteroids in the area rather than 1 roid per drone
So whilst you are mining one, the Prospecting drone is off scanning and you can have the next target to chose from when done
I hope so I'd rather use the space for a cargo drone rather than a bunch of prospector drones if it doesn't work like that. Guess we won't know until they stop teasing us.
As I understand it all Drones are the Limpets and how they are used depends on the Control module you are using.
So you would have the Cargo Drone Controller, Prospector Drone Controller, and then generic Limpet Drones
Michael Brookes
Game Director
This is correct. For us the drones don't just aid with efficiency, they also allow mining to scale with the larger ships more effectively.
Michael
What will be different for the various sizes and classes of drone controller modules?
how exactly does the prospector drone work? Is it single use?
The one shot use thing needs to go though. It is absurd to think they couldn't re-attach somehow and that corporations in deep space would make "anything" disposable like that where situations could be life or death and NEED to be reusable.