I just got 13 tons from a mother load and no abrasion blaster so are you saying I would have got 18 before?
Frontier why is the motherlode now and egg cup full?
- Thread starter Kenneth McGrew
- Start date
I just got 13 tons from a mother load and no abrasion blaster so are you saying I would have got 18 before?
Tools for finding different rocks? At the moment we have a single tool for find stuff and which is "find me a rock with the shiny new gameplay on", irrespective of if that means finding shiny new deposits I'm not interested in, over and over and over and over again.
The mechanics and balance is out of wack. It needs a good kick. [IMHO]
Once the Opal injection gets removed, and assuming another similar contrived distraction isn't added in its place, it'll be interested to see how mining is then viewed. ie: When mining tries to become something other than motherlode->motherlode->motherlode for the masses.
Last edited:
Gotta say, overall I find the PWA rather baffling.
Sure, it always (?) paints the deep-core 'roids super-bright but, beyond that, it also seems to paint a whole heap of unremarkable 'roids almost as bright too.
Ideally, it might be nice if there were a whole range of possible 'roid types and the PWA used a spectrum of colours to depict the different aspects of each 'roid and use brightness to depict the quantity of each component.
So, for example, a roid that was glowing blue and yellow might have surface deposits and subsurface deposits.
If it was glowing bright blue and dull yellow it'd mean there were a lot of surface deposits and not many subsurface deposits.
A deep-core 'roid could be depicted with, say, red fissures and it'd be up to a player to correctly spot those characteristics.
Sure, it always (?) paints the deep-core 'roids super-bright but, beyond that, it also seems to paint a whole heap of unremarkable 'roids almost as bright too.
Ideally, it might be nice if there were a whole range of possible 'roid types and the PWA used a spectrum of colours to depict the different aspects of each 'roid and use brightness to depict the quantity of each component.
So, for example, a roid that was glowing blue and yellow might have surface deposits and subsurface deposits.
If it was glowing bright blue and dull yellow it'd mean there were a lot of surface deposits and not many subsurface deposits.
A deep-core 'roid could be depicted with, say, red fissures and it'd be up to a player to correctly spot those characteristics.
bah. imho best would have been if it would be simple the same as the WAVE scanner we have on our SRVs.
why would anyone create something completely different in the first place - for basically the same thing.
out of the 3 different scanner we have, the pulse wave scanner makes the least sense and has the least sense.
- Waveform scanner works like a radar, with audible and visual feedback, easy to learn and follow
- Field Spectrum Scanner works similar - you ping once and then you can pinpoint all the echos and fly to your PoI for the next step.
- Pulse Wave scanner - you have to ping MANUALLY like every few seconds, and it gives you a questionable visual result with minimal utility -> yet it consumes one utility slot
I think they should have just chosen different colors... bright red = core mining, bright green = subsurface, bright blue = surface. No glow = regular asteroid. Keeping it simple sometimes is the most effective strategy.
Currently I'm not a fan of the PWA color scheme. My aging eyes strain sometimes to see the difference on a bright yellow vs a slight less as bright yellow asteriod, not to mention all those people out there that might have some level of color blindness
Currently I'm not a fan of the PWA color scheme. My aging eyes strain sometimes to see the difference on a bright yellow vs a slight less as bright yellow asteriod, not to mention all those people out there that might have some level of color blindness
Fair comment.
I'd be fine with that too.
Point is, it seems like the PWA is designed to guide players toward deep-core 'roids and provide a bunch of false-positives too.
That's kind of like if the SRV wave-scanner did it's thing and could lead you to an outcrop/meteorite/whatever but might also just lead you to a big rock as well.
It doesn't though.
It provides a whole variety of distinct signals which can be accurately interpreted so you can make a fair guess at exactly what you're heading for.
And it doesn't provide any false-positives either.
The PWA, whatever form it takes, should work in a similar way IMO.
Gotta say, I do rather like the way you have to ping with the PWA to get a reading and I do like the way it paints the 'roids although it's a bit "in your face".
Does seem like, realistically, the technology used in the SRV and in the PWA should be fairly similar in nature though.
Last edited:
I never doubled up on a-blasters and average between 14-19 tonnes per core.. I see no difference.
So you see the glow of 15 asteroids with surface deposits... and? Prospect them all? Only to find 2 are of real interest?
Might it not be a more beneficial mechanic to turn the scanner on its head and for it to give you an indication of contents instead, irrespective of format?
So you can spend more time actually mining instead of, prospect, DOH, prospect, DOH, prospect, DOH
Last edited:
I only prospect the brightest pulse wave glowing asteroids, and on my first mining attempt, I found 5 void opal cores in less than an hour in a hotspot. I noted the brightness, shape, etc. Took screenshots so I could refer back to them. I made about 60mcr and I thought, "Wow! This is gonna finally be fun." Silly me.
Next run, I went through 120 prospector limpets over almost 3 hours, hitting asteroids that matched the profiles of the 5 that yielded cores in the prior run, and not a single core. NOT ONE. I was in several void opal hotspots in the ring, a different pristine system that few have been in according to INARA (not close to any stations with good market prices by several hundred LY)
I'm going to try another system tomorrow, but if I go through 120 limpets without at least 5 cores, I think I might be finished with mining for good.
Next run, I went through 120 prospector limpets over almost 3 hours, hitting asteroids that matched the profiles of the 5 that yielded cores in the prior run, and not a single core. NOT ONE. I was in several void opal hotspots in the ring, a different pristine system that few have been in according to INARA (not close to any stations with good market prices by several hundred LY)
I'm going to try another system tomorrow, but if I go through 120 limpets without at least 5 cores, I think I might be finished with mining for good.
Don't forget we have some sort of reserves mechanic at play where the mining resources diminish with mining. I don't believe we know the true workings yet.
So maybe the hotspot was under this effect?
The fact this information is not given to CMDRs is an issue imho. A hotspots depletion state should be shown to players.
ps: As regards spotting motherlodes, don't forget we only have ONE model per ring type. So every motherlode you spot in a hotspot will be identical in appearance!
Last edited:
You shouldn't even be firing a limpet unless you see that glowing fissure. Night mode is your friend. You need to fly by the asteroids and learn to identify crackable ones quickly. I know that feeling, and it's because you're spending way too much time firing prospector limpets rather than using your eyes (takes practice).
Blast-happy me has gotten nine.
I'm *shocked* to see Frontier acting like this. We have *never* seen things like this before.
Hmmmm. The pulse wave bright yellow doesn't actually mean anything regarding cores? Great.
I've been using the night mode, but I can't see anything glowing other than the pulse wave yellow. Time to go squint at my screen for a while...
If it's glowing under the scanner it might be crackable. People have all sorts of theories about what the glowing patterns/colors with the scanner mean but I haven't noticed a correlation myself. Then again, I play in VR and it's not always easy to make out the patterns. It's been more reliable for me to just fly by the rocks that glow under the scanner and look for the fissures as I go by. The fissures don't glow super bright, it's not a strong effect like the scanner, but they do glow slightly and "pop" a bit under night vision. They also have a distinctive spider-web pattern unlike the longer straight fissures on non-crackable rocks. Next time you find a crackable asteroid, spend some time flying around trying to spot the fissures from a bit of a distance and try and remember what they look like.
Last edited:
Deleted member 38366
D
IMHO the combination of "unexpected price developments by Faction States", combined with "unexpectedly high profitability" is what ultimately forced their hands.
12-18t of a 1.7MCr/ton Commodity per Motherlode (Abrasion Laser Bug/Exploit put aside) seemed totally out-of-whack when compared to pretty much anything else.
Nice idea but its unintended consequences had some type of fixes obviously nerfing it having to be expected.
You now... Frontier and "Balancing". The old little issue.
PS.
Prices I see for all types of the new ores still look very profitable to me.
12-18t of a 1.7MCr/ton Commodity per Motherlode (Abrasion Laser Bug/Exploit put aside) seemed totally out-of-whack when compared to pretty much anything else.
Nice idea but its unintended consequences had some type of fixes obviously nerfing it having to be expected.
You now... Frontier and "Balancing". The old little issue.
PS.
Prices I see for all types of the new ores still look very profitable to me.
Last edited by a moderator:
I found a few more demo videos of what to look for and I have to say, it works. I went back into the ring system I had zero luck in, and within 2 minutes found a void opal core. Another three minutes and I found another. Ten minutes, knowing what to look for and I had 25 tons of void opals. The black spiderweb and really dark spots on a bright asteroid are easy to see, but I had never seen them before. My problem was I was using the pulse scanner incorrectly. Instead of a sonar-like constant ping and multiple pings per asteroid, I would only hit it once per boost. So I was missing all the black lines that only show up on the multiple scans as you close in on a target. So I never saw any web patterns or black lines until now.
As usual, I was just doing it wrong (and how frontier had described how to do it in their demo videos...)
Now as for the lodes being too small now, I only started after they removed the multiple-rock-glitch, so I don't know any different. Seems to pay pretty good still, especially compared to the previous mining experience.
I just finished two void opal runs, my first after the last patch. Before the patch I was filling 128 tons in my Krait Phantom in 2 hours, give or take 15 minutes.
After the patch my first run was 2.5 hours. This was probably the worst run I've ever had, literally more Bromolite cores than Opals and extremely suicidal limpets. It was a hot spot in my home system, so I stuck with it just because I liked the idea of mining there.
The second run I had was my best so far. It only took 1.25 hours to fill the hold. It was a really small hot spot in a different system.
I haven't been bothering to check whether the rings I drop into are pristine or not, and my home system has more traffic than the second system I used so that may play a part. I use 2 abrasion blasters for speed reasons, double shots means I can be quicker and sloppier with the aiming and still have a good chance of knocking the pieces off. Although two runs isn't a very good indicator, I'm still surprised at the tonnage I was able to get after some of the posts I've read about the 'nerf'.
I honestly still think it's OP simply due to the lack of real risk if you're doing single runs. Sure, if you take a break to the menu and then restart you'll have pirates appear but if you just jump in and then wait for the first pirate spawn to leave, the only danger you face is smashing into asteroids or being interdicted on the way back to the station to sell the goods. All they'd need to do is have pirates randomly drop in while you're mining and it would add risk and excitement.
After the patch my first run was 2.5 hours. This was probably the worst run I've ever had, literally more Bromolite cores than Opals and extremely suicidal limpets. It was a hot spot in my home system, so I stuck with it just because I liked the idea of mining there.
The second run I had was my best so far. It only took 1.25 hours to fill the hold. It was a really small hot spot in a different system.
I haven't been bothering to check whether the rings I drop into are pristine or not, and my home system has more traffic than the second system I used so that may play a part. I use 2 abrasion blasters for speed reasons, double shots means I can be quicker and sloppier with the aiming and still have a good chance of knocking the pieces off. Although two runs isn't a very good indicator, I'm still surprised at the tonnage I was able to get after some of the posts I've read about the 'nerf'.
I honestly still think it's OP simply due to the lack of real risk if you're doing single runs. Sure, if you take a break to the menu and then restart you'll have pirates appear but if you just jump in and then wait for the first pirate spawn to leave, the only danger you face is smashing into asteroids or being interdicted on the way back to the station to sell the goods. All they'd need to do is have pirates randomly drop in while you're mining and it would add risk and excitement.
Except it wasn't nerfed. Still getting 15t per motherlode on average.