Yay, another QoL thread. I like these.
I'll repeat my mining quality of life improvements:
- Refinery that doesn't lock up
- Stop displaying the incorrect "Refinery Full" message (it makes the info screen completely useless when mining)
- Remove the unnecessary delay when deploying a limpet - particularly prospectors
- Balance pass over collector controllers (is 128 tons for 4 limpets in a class 7 controllers reasonable?)
- Add some engineer upgrades that are actually useful to miners (currently the only useful engineer upgrade is weapon focused distributor)
- Allow limpets to be synthesized
- Rethink having pirates spawn every time you drop into a ring - especially in remote systems
- Display the material percentages of a ring on the system map
- Add class-5 element materials to rings, also add yttrium now it's class 4
- Balance pass over the ore yields in the different ring types - particularly icy
- Add some rare profitable ores for rocky and metal-rich rings
- Add some reason to mine well away from the bubble
- Add LTDs, painite (and the new ores from 11) to ores available in asteroid clusters
- Add vacuum krill as a minable resource - particularly in Baltha'Sine 4B
- Add some dangerous vacuum life forms, especially where minable life forms (see 14) are present
- DSS scan displaying areas of the ring with varying ore concentrations
- Specialised mining ships - mostly multi-purpose, important features are: power distributor, lots class 3 modules, cargo space, specialised modules (see 18)
- Specialised mining modules for the specialised mining ships (see 17)
- Gold-rush mechanic for very rare ores in remote locations (see 12) that quickly deplete from players mining them
I love idea 19 the most.
The rest of them would be good if we stuck with the current mining system. I think they need to change it entirely.
Here was an idea I proposed in the past.
First would be the introduction of a couple maybe 3 mining ships. Ships specific to mining that have extra specialized slots for mining gear only.
Second would be a mining skiff. Little more than a tiny bubble that you can remote into and move items. Kind of like SLFs with no guns.
Third would be mining module. ( Its a platform that contains a pre processor and filtering system).
Mining scanner
Limpet Controller. Limpets do not run out and cannot be destroyed however they can be programmed. Limpets are the only thing actually mining.
Here is how I envision this working.
You drop into some rings. You scan just like a ADS and it returns a result. Depending on the quality of the scanner it will return a result and a range.
Your mining module then can be dropped out of the SLFbay/mining skiff bay. It can already be attached to the front of the skiff. The skiff then positions mining module and drops it. Inside the skiff you have the limpet control system. You set filter for the limpets to either mine everything or mine a specific item type.
The limpets go out collect the raw ore and feed it into the mining module. Based on the ratio of waste materials versus the ore you want the module will fill up one of 2 hoppers for the most basic module. One hopper has waste ore and the other has the Primary ore. Or the hoppers could have primary ore secondary ore. What ever configuration you choose. The larger and higher quality modules, the more hoppers you have. Well as the limpets mine the materials the module crushes and separates the ore. When a Bin fills up the skiff then picks up that bin and flys back to the bay of the ship to drop it off.
If you have a large enough ship or purchased the correct module one of 2 things will happen. If you dont have the processor, then you store the raw ore as is. Bins hold 4 tons of ore and Raw ore is 50% the current market price. If you have a Processor on board, then it smelts the ore and increases the payout to 100% market price and it removes 50% of the weight. So you get the same money for 4 tons of ore as you would 2 tons of the smelted element. It would allow you carry more back per run if you had the smelter. It could also be beneficial to do large quick runs without smelting the ore. Larger ships for example might make more economic sense to bring in a lot of ore rather than the processed materials.
The mining ship itself would be very tanky and relatively large even for the smallest of the ships. Lots of turret based weaponry and large power plants for the equipment.
Thats just my idea of mining though.
