7 Ideas for Excellent Mining System Overhaul

1) First of all, make it rare, but sometimes possible to find asteroids with grand percentage chunks of hi value ores. It's hard enough to find the platinum and painite, let it be an exhilarating experience (sometimes) when we do.


2) Do away with Prospecter limpets. Instead, make available in Outfitting a Mining Scanner module. Activating it projects a holographic, vertical wedge (cross section cone) off the nose of your ship which you could carefully move across an asteroid and then get a reading. The potential for fantastic graphical effects here is readily apparent.


3) If you don't do away with Prospecters, use the MFD between your legs in the cockpit to show a FLIR-like image from a camera in the limpet. Use a toggle button to de-couple the flight control from the ship and switch it to limpet control; then fly the limpet to the asteroid using the MFD view. Allow the limpet to be disengaged from the asteroid for further use.


4) Make both Prospecter (if kept in game) and Collector limpets way more durable and re-usable to vastly cut down on cargo space clutter. Important for smaller cargo bay mining ships. Perhaps allow for degradation over time and make them repairable... if you, yes You, FDev, feel the need for a credit sink somewhere in the mix. We all know how you love your credit sinks. :D


5) Collector limpets should only collect targeted chunks/canisters. The pilot should have control of what the limpet collects, and not have to worry about it collecting unwanted chunks and jettisoned cargo canisters.


6) Allow Prospecter limpets (if kept in game) to be flown back to the ship (via the MFD control/view) and into the cargo scoop for re-use. (How fantastic would it be seeing your own ship in the MFD, sitting there amid the backdrop of space, it's cargo scoop open and waiting for you to fly the limpet into it. How many of you would spend long, lazy moments just flying around your ship gazing lovingly at it? C'mon, admit it.)


7) Make for the ability to set Collector limpets to Dormant Mode, so that they don't 'stick' on your six, and the pilot can then cargo scoop them back into the cargo bay for re-use.


8) Put a Class 4 Plasma Accelarator on each Collector limpet, so that they can divert and quickly kill off any pirates silly enough to impose upon you... oh wait, I said only 7 ideas. Okay, we'll scratch this one.


How can anybody possibly disagree with this??? :D
 
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Hell, we already got interdicters... same principal. Shouldn't be to difficult for ED universe to R&D a bit and develop something for mining.
 
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Please add a blank line between each point, it's a miniature wall-o-text.

Also, I completely disagree on every point. That would make large-scale mining extremely, unbelievably annoying. The point is to automate the process of collection, and collect as much ore as fast as possible.

-If rare metals would be even more rare, they'd need a price boost of at least 4.5x.
-If drones were target-only, collection would be so slow as to destroy anything above a Cobra's money-making potential, and mining is still underpaid IMO.
-Your scanning idea takes far too long. Prospectors are great, toss 'em at a rock and get results.

As for reusable limpets, it's not worth enough to pull the dev's attention from sorely needed updates. I think the piracy profession should come into existence sooner or later.
 
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I thought FD imposed this no space thing back when they overhauled the forum. I've hated it from the getgo. Is there some setting that needs to be set to get spaces?
 
Please add a blank line between each point, it's a miniature wall-o-text.

Also, I completely disagree on every point. That would make large-scale mining extremely, unbelievably annoying. The point is to automate the process of collection, and collect as much ore as fast as possible.

-If rare metals would be even more rare, they'd need a price boost of at least 4.5x.
-If drones were target-only, collection would be so slow as to destroy anything above a Cobra's money-making potential, and mining is still underpaid IMO.
-Your scanning idea takes far too long. Prospectors are great, toss 'em at a rock and get results.

As for reusable limpets, it's not worth enough to pull the dev's attention from sorely needed updates. I think the piracy profession should come into existence sooner or later.
I disagree. The point is to make functionality and interaction with the controls on your ship interesting and fun. I want something to do when I mine, not sit around and mindlessly watch and manage the refinery. What would take so long to activate a mining scanner, and then yaw your ship across an asteroid to get a reading?
And I think there's a strong interest in mining for many players, and I think many of them feel an overhaul to the current system would be well worth FDev's effort.
And you really don't like the MFD idea? Man, I though that sounded so cool :D
 
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Hi there,
for all miners, who have problems with pirates.... you recognized that you can drop out of supercruise everywhere... right?

For all miners, who find it hard to find high priced materials like gold, palladium, etc. ...., you know the difference between rocky, metal rich and metallic... right?

best regards
 
Hi there,
for all miners, who have problems with pirates.... you recognized that you can drop out of supercruise everywhere... right?

For all miners, who find it hard to find high priced materials like gold, palladium, etc. ...., you know the difference between rocky, metal rich and metallic... right?

best regards
I hear you, sir, but the point of this thread was about offering ideas for overhauling the functionality of the mining system, not so much about pirate incursions worries and where to find ores. The first idea in my post was added not to make mining an easy road to riches far beyond any other endeavor in ED, but so that sometimes, a miner can experience a burst of excitement when he finds his prospecting efforts have unexpectedly paid off with a really nice find. It's the kind of thing that sustains a miner's interest in mining, IMO.
 
OP, your list is technical - all fine but without making mining organic in ED universe (part of the food chain meaningfully, serving real demand and providing systematically sought after supplies) it's just again "another way" of doing it.
It's not the technics of mining why it's not a popular role but the lack of integrity and purpose.
 
Seems to me this would have very little impact, to almost pointlessness. Do this, instead of this, because this is different.
 
Although I am not a miner, there could be another way for miners to make money - salvage! Imagine, if you wish, a carcass of a mighty ship floating in USS/WSS/SSS. The miner uses the tools he already has to strip parts off the ship, for resale back at the station. Different elements of the carcass are rated, some high cost, some low. For example, the Power Supply might be worth a lot compared to a standard bulkhead.
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Ideally these could come up as missions: "The Imperial Flagship has been lost with all hands in XX System."
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Just a thought of course .... don't shoot someone from thinking outside of the box lol
 
Mining changes I want to see:

-Prospectors travel faster, much much faster - atm I can literally fly faster than them in my asp.
-Prospectors need to destruct in oldest first order
-Increase the number of active prospector drones I can have out, I should be able to tag every rock in a belt cluster.
-Refineries to be semi automated - be able to flag bin slots to auto refill when resource unit completed, even if this was a feature of a more expensive refinery type.
-Buff the purity of fragments across the board - slight buff to metallic would put it on the level of trading, significantly buff metal rich - you would need to RTB more often but atleast your cr/hr would be comparable to metallic mining as opposed to completely worthless as the current status quo is. (metal rich might actually end up being the realm of large ship miners)
-Add a size 3 mining laser - about the same cutting speed as a size two, but with significantly longer range - useful for the fat pig miners.
 
OP, your list is technical - all fine but without making mining organic in ED universe (part of the food chain meaningfully, serving real demand and providing systematically sought after supplies) it's just again "another way" of doing it.
It's not the technics of mining why it's not a popular role but the lack of integrity and purpose.
Your point is well taken, and I agree with the added diimention you talk about. In fact you're spot on. I would like to see my ideas for gadgety goodness AND Your ideas added into the game.
 
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[Qprobably;2425081]Seems to me this would have very little impact, to almost pointlessness. Do this, instead of this, because this is different.[/QUOTE]

Are you saying that the current implementation of Prospector limpets is satisfacory?
I probable visit at least 30 asteroids in a mining session with my 16ton capacity DBE. That means I could use prospectors on 16 only, if I were to stock up on them, leave no room for collectors, and no room for ore. This really needs to be sorted out.
 
Although I am not a miner, there could be another way for miners to make money - salvage! Imagine, if you wish, a carcass of a mighty ship floating in USS/WSS/SSS. The miner uses the tools he already has to strip parts off the ship, for resale back at the station. Different elements of the carcass are rated, some high cost, some low. For example, the Power Supply might be worth a lot compared to a standard bulkhead.
.
Ideally these could come up as missions: "The Imperial Flagship has been lost with all hands in XX System."
.
Just a thought of course .... don't shoot someone from thinking outside of the box lol

That sounds great, just the kind of thing I'd like to see. I hate the legal restrictions on salvage as they stand now.
 
1, Drop prospect drone full stop
2, add module to scan asteroids
3, add much more ore to asteroids
4, make the class and size on refinery affect ore yield when refined
5, collector drones make them last forever but charge per min they are in use


Mining is now fix! in 5 points not 7 :)
 
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The point is to automate the process of collection, and collect as much ore as fast as possible.

The devs seem to dislike all forms of automation though, so that's even less likely than what the OP imagined.

e: As long as the supply of ore doesn't affect the local industry, mining will always be meaningless.
 
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Mining changes I want to see:

-Prospectors travel faster, much much faster - atm I can literally fly faster than them in my asp.
-Prospectors need to destruct in oldest first order
-Increase the number of active prospector drones I can have out, I should be able to tag every rock in a belt cluster.
-Refineries to be semi automated - be able to flag bin slots to auto refill when resource unit completed, even if this was a feature of a more expensive refinery type.
-Buff the purity of fragments across the board - slight buff to metallic would put it on the level of trading, significantly buff metal rich - you would need to RTB more often but atleast your cr/hr would be comparable to metallic mining as opposed to completely worthless as the current status quo is. (metal rich might actually end up being the realm of large ship miners)
-Add a size 3 mining laser - about the same cutting speed as a size two, but with significantly longer range - useful for the fat pig miners.

This all sounds fine. There's a lot of good ideas out there. I think I'm coming at the issue from a flyboy, DCS-type simmer viewpoint with a desire for more control functionality inside the cockpit.
 
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