Should void opal and LTD mining be more dangerous?

BlackSpaceCowboy

BlackSpaceCowboy
Something awful happened to me. I mined about 75 mil in void opals and docked at a station preparing to refuel and go sell them. Then I decided to go back in the ice ring to scoop up some more before selling. I ended up getting killed by a pirate who wanted my haul. I didn't know there were any pirates in hot spots. I was sooooooo . That was my biggest haul ever.

But...I also enjoyed it a little. I finally encountered real danger. Now I had to consider outfitting my mining vessel with mines and have some plan for escaping pirates.

We all know that void opal mining is making everyone rich. Some say it's unbalanced. So, why not spice it up with more danger? Make pirate encounters more likely? Make mining for big payouts more dangerous.

What do you think about balancing out lucrative mining with danger?
 

Vandaahl

Vandaahl
Nah, not really. Or at least not when the danger is something like "boost, boost and he's gone".

I really hope someday the market will kick in and voids the opal rush. I bet there is more opals than bio waste at the moment.
 

Feros-da-Grundig

Feros-da-Grundig
I think it's fine. As with many things in the game you can basically select your own level of danger once you know what you're doing.

PvE only can choose to mine in less capable ships, or force themselves to confront pirates rather than run.

True adrenaline junkies can mine in open and sell at the closest high-sell port to shinrarta.
 

Blightedmythos

B
I also thought it would be neat if there was high skill mining where you got constantly attacked. It would promote group play in wings or make players think outside of the box with a more defensive combat mining ship. Maybe when a roid gets cracked open it attracts pirate attention or something. We need fsd disruptors or something so you can't just flee.
 

SushiCW

SushiCW
I'd like to swap the pirates that are always there when you drop into a ring with a random chance (based on population and security level) that cracking open a rock attracts pirates to it after a few minutes.

Even better if cracking open a rock generated a signal source visible to other CMDRs in supercruise, and/or if players could track down NPC-generated cracked rocks likewise and do some PvE piracy that way. :)
 

Leadfoot

Leadfoot
I think it's dangerous enough, personally. Just heading to a base to sell ANYTHING you have already attracts pirates. If other player-pirates in your instance notice you have "stuff", they wants yr stuff.
 

Iron Golem

Iron Golem
BlackSpaceCowboy said:
Something awful happened to me. I mined about 75 mil in void opals and docked at a station preparing to refuel and go sell them. Then I decided to go back in the ice ring to scoop up some more before selling. I ended up getting killed by a pirate who wanted my haul. I didn't know there were any pirates in hot spots. I was sooooooo . That was my biggest haul ever.

But...I also enjoyed it a little. I finally encountered real danger. Now I had to consider outfitting my mining vessel with mines and have some plan for escaping pirates.

We all know that void opal mining is making everyone rich. Some say it's unbalanced. So, why not spice it up with more danger? Make pirate encounters more likely? Make mining for big payouts more dangerous.

What do you think about balancing out lucrative mining with danger?
Click to expand...

My Opal mining ship has no weapons. If I have to I run, but if I'm at a spot where I drop into a ring (Spawns ships everytime) and I boost away till I lose them then start mining. Sometimes those initial ships stay persistent on me and they find me 15-20 mins later as I'm mining and they demand cargo, I just drop them a few opals and they go away. 4 opals out of my haul of 200 is no big deal, and would cost me more money to run or obviously, get destroyed.
 

Feros-da-Grundig

Feros-da-Grundig
I can't interpret the current mechanic as a deliberate effort to make spacebucks reasonably easy to acquire. I doubt they will reverse a considered decision.

I don't think the game really forces players to do anything (unless you count grinding). Why would mining be different?

I guess I do see, they could have "haz hotspots" or something for the PvE'ers. Nothing wrong with that, would probably make some folks happy. Maybe LTDs in the current approach, void opals in the haz hotspots.

There are very easy ways to make mining dangerous in open, and personally I would consider mining in open in the popular asp builds rolling the dice on rebuy screen (sparsity of CMDRs making the odds still good but if you fail the roll you're basically dead). Competent wing, or heavily engineered and escape clad python/krait/conda/vette/challenger are required to mine and survive a competent pirate or ganker (along with the skill to use it).
 
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BlackSpaceCowboy

BlackSpaceCowboy
Blightedmythos said:
I also thought it would be neat if there was high skill mining where you got constantly attacked. It would promote group play in wings or make players think outside of the box with a more defensive combat mining ship. Maybe when a roid gets cracked open it attracts pirate attention or something. We need fsd disruptors or something so you can't just flee.
Click to expand...

That would also be cool. If certain types of mining were so dangerous, you needed others to help cover you as you mine.

The idea is to balance great reward with great risk. And the risk doesn't have to involve combat. It can involve stealth.

It's like in the movie Dune where the spice miners have to abandon their spice because a giant worm is coming...

[video=youtube;dxEBtY6ihEE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxEBtY6ihEE[/video]

They need to spice up mining...get it...spice up.
 

BlackSpaceCowboy

BlackSpaceCowboy
Cloud Breaker said:
My Opal mining ship has no weapons. If I have to I run, but if I'm at a spot where I drop into a ring (Spawns ships everytime) and I boost away till I lose them then start mining. Sometimes those initial ships stay persistent on me and they find me 15-20 mins later as I'm mining and they demand cargo, I just drop them a few opals and they go away. 4 opals out of my haul of 200 is no big deal, and would cost me more money to run or obviously, get destroyed.
Click to expand...

If I knew the pirates were so reasonable, I wouldn't have run. :)

Next time I'll just give them what they ask for.

Also, it would be nice if you could surrender after the pirates attack. Once you realize you're not going to survive you can hail them and surrender.
 

Brian of Ardagh

B
Vandaahl said:
Nah, not really. Or at least not when the danger is something like "boost, boost and he's gone".

I really hope someday the market will kick in and voids the opal rush. I bet there is more opals than bio waste at the moment.
Click to expand...

I think the market has already kicked in, at least I noticed it. I sold enough void opals and other high value minerals at one station to go from cordial to allied, the next day I went back in and the prices had dropped by more than half. This was one of those locations that had zero demand for anything. I found another system that was run by a pirate faction that was still offering high prices. There was even an icy ring right near the outpost. I don't know how long that will last but we will see.
 

Jmanis

Jmanis
BlackSpaceCowboy said:
Random death is not a good gameplay mechanic.
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What's random? It'd be completely avoidable... unless you sit point blank when detonating, which seems like a terrible idea outright..

Alternately, it could have a chance to h happen if you get the charge proportions wrong
 
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Vedmo

Vedmo
I've been brought down to 25-30% hull twice in a Python, and I've been blown up once in an Asp Explorer while deep core mining. It is a very dangerous endeavor when your limpets have gone rogue.
 

Jmanis

Jmanis
BlackSpaceCowboy said:
Ok, but we already have a blast radius. What's the point of the toxic cloud? Is it just a "surprise this asteroid is a dud"?
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How about ones which release a cloud have more materials released? Or maybe ones without release less? It's not like current core mining returns aren't already massive compared to any other activity.
 
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