I find it very hard to get worked up about the removal of a massive outlier of a moneymaker that I was able to afford a carrier without resorting to using, sorry.
I only tried out the mining map the day before the nerf hit to see just how lucrative it was, and hooh. It was leagues ahead of doing it the normal way.
And why was it so far ahead? Because it completely cut out an entire section of the gameplay loop, namely prospecting.
The same thing was true of people slapping up the triple-hotspots. Instead of going out, prospecting, finding a hotspot and getting some shinies out of it, now you had someone saying "EVERYONE, FORGET PROSPECTING, GO HERE AND ONLY HERE" and you could cut the entire "finding the good spots" part out of your game.
The thing is, mining was still a fantastic way to make money without doing it the meta way. And you know what? Your average, casual, "fly out to some rings, hit up a hotspot and grab what's there" method is still good. Or at least, would be if they fixed the PWA but that's another matter entirely.
Personally if I were fdev I'd incorporate some sort of date stamp into the seed for generating asteroids and kill these "everyone mine this one spot in this one system on this exact route forever and don't bother deviating from the already solved problem" maps. Sorry, everyone mined those asteroids already, they're depleted now.
Even the weekly tick would do it - it'd give enough time for gold rushes to pop up if someone finds something like the egg partway through the week and everyone piles in to get in on it before it vanishes again.
Prime Example...
Completely Ignoring the Topic.
Pretending that the Complaint is about Mining being Nerfed despite me Repeatedly saying that Mining needed a Nerf and that the Complaint is about them not Fixing the other Stuff First or at the Same Time with the Mining Nerf so People have an actual Reason to now go Test other Activities....
Also. As a Sidenote. This hasnt Changed at all.
You still go for the Overlapping Hotspots. Why would you go for something else ?
A Metallic Painite Double Hotspot is still worth more than other Materials.
Even if you now Mine other Stuff inside that Hotspot when it runs over you coincidently. Its still going to be. You Mine here and Only here.
If they wanted to Change that the Simplest Solution would be to make it somewhat Realistic and have Rings actually be moving things in Orbit. Hence each Tick the Hotspots would be Reset. As the Asteroids would have been mixed around inside the Ring thus Existing Hotspots moving and potentially Dispersin as well as New Hotspots Potentially Forming.
As well as Hotspots getting more or less Dense in the actual Buff they give towards Finding Materials etc.
But that would be a Proper Rework and Fix of the System.
Which isnt the Target of this. The Target was Solely to End the Painite Gold Rush..... And that they Did by Nerfing the Prices for Painite.
If there were some way to destroy asteroids and have them disappear forever without needing ridiculous amounts of data to save it all, I'd be all for that, it'd be pretty cool to see how much exactly players have mined thus far, and there's more than enough rings out there to last forever even with single-use asteroids.
But I think that would probably use an exorbitant amount of information, so it probably wouldn't be worth the bother.
Actually. There would be an Easy Way for that.
Just have the System Count the amount of Asteroids Mined and after each Server Tick.
If the Number Drops far enough. The Ring will be Reduced by a Density Level to Represent the Fact that Tens of Thousands of Asteroids have been Mined.
Could use Weighted Numbers for it.
An Asteroid where only Surface Deposits got Removed would be 0.1 Asteroid Points removed.
An Asteroid whose Crust got Mined would be 0.3 Asteroid Points removed.
An Asteroid whose Subsurface Depots got Mined would be 0.6 Asteroid Points removed.
Pls note these 3 Stack. So if you do all to an Asteroid you removed 1 Asteroid Point from the Ring.
If a Core is Mined its always 2 Full Asteroid Points removed. Regardless of wether that Asteroids other Deposits got Mined beforehand or not.
That way if a certain Ring is Exploited Massively. It will become ever less Dense till at some point will be Single Asteroids Flying about.
There could be a Slight Regeneration of course. As the Gas Giants might catch new Asteroids with their Gravity Well.
So if a Ring is left alone for long enough he might Refill itself over Time.
Then again. If you just used the System I described above. And thus made Hotspots etc Wandering around in Rings.
You would likely not have that Problem in the First Place. As you would rarely have one Ring being Mined for more than a few Days before the Hotspot Disperses and thus People have to look for a new One.
Albeit Again.
All of this is not really on the Topic.
Because the Topic is Supposed to be them Implementing this Update WITHOUT also Fixing the other Activities Economy...