Drones coming for powerplay

Lestat

Banned
These arguments are not new to me but how can pushing a button to fire up a drone be any more entertaining or just more fun, just because it's faster?
Also, how long do you expect this fun factor of the new toy being persistent?
So people can complain that there nothing to do while mining. Then use it to do other things like play on a tablet and such.
 
They're also complaining about the ED forums being awful, which is somewhat rich coming from Reddit

How do you mean, do they also have excessive moderation and no freedom to post anything critical?

btw...awesome change, Ron Paul fans would love it as it is supposed to reduce inflation! Or will the money be used to go to war in the sol system?
 
Reading this post's comments only show how little people know about a miner's job in these kind of games. It's sad not many people had the joy and experience of a large Mining crew sucking entire asteroid belts dry in a few hours just to refine them in a station and earn seriously millions of credits and divide it with the rest of the team.

In EVE, for example, mining is a very much automated and "boring" profession. But while the drones mine and haul the "captain" was doing other tasks. Regulating the industrial works, checking prices in different regions, communicate with the other team members of economical tactics, prepare a skill line-up for the next big ship to fly or hell even just chill and listen to some music once in a while.

If mining, in it's current state, would give me about 1 million per hour I'd say it's cool. But it's not cool because it gives not even 500k an hour especially when you suck at scooping it goes down. So like has been said too many times. Time spent does not net enough Credits compared to other activities...
 

Lestat

Banned
Reading this post's comments only show how little people know about a miner's job in these kind of games. It's sad not many people had the joy and experience of a large Mining crew sucking entire asteroid belts dry in a few hours just to refine them in a station and earn seriously millions of credits and divide it with the rest of the team.

In EVE, for example, mining is a very much automated and "boring" profession. But while the drones mine and haul the "captain" was doing other tasks. Regulating the industrial works, checking prices in different regions, communicate with the other team members of economical tactics, prepare a skill line-up for the next big ship to fly or hell even just chill and listen to some music once in a while.

If mining, in it's current state, would give me about 1 million per hour I'd say it's cool. But it's not cool because it gives not even 500k an hour especially when you suck at scooping it goes down. So like has been said too many times. Time spent does not net enough Credits compared to other activities...
What are you mining?
 
cargo drones being consumable does seem like a strange decision. On the surface of it it is not what I would have chosen, but, we have not seen them in action yet, presumably the devs have so imo the devs are in a far better position to judge.

How do you mean, do they also have excessive moderation and no freedom to post anything critical?

this is completely false! hell half of the posts on this forum are people whining!.

if excessive moderation is stopping people from swearing or spouting racial hate on a family friendly forum, or making personal digs at people, then you know what.... I am ALL for excessive moderation...... but no freedom to post anything critical?? that is a joke.

If I was a moderator on here with all the shizzle they have to put up with, I would have gone insane.... the devs too, but then at least they get money for it, where as the mods do it for the community. (AFAIK)
 
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Michael Brookes

Game Director
Looking at the 1.3 dev update, drones are expected to be added but are effectively consumables to speed collection of canisters/fragments. As it stands, it's basically paying to have cargo collected for you because of them expiring, which also means you have to eventually go back (potentially before you fill your cargo).

I propose that instead, the drone should collect up to a specific amount of canisters/fragments (either number of them such as 5, or max mass such as 5t with fragments being at 50% purity so you can collect 2.5t of refined ore), then sit waiting for you to scoop the drone up and send it out again to collect more. That way, the tedium of scooping many items is reduced (up to 80% if the previously mentioned values are used), but you're still required to be good at scooping to save time, it also leaves the drone open for theft by another ship (maybe they could sell it on the black market too?), and failing to scoop properly (destroying the drone) would be very punishing as you'd need to get a new one. It could also require refuelling, but realistically the amount it would need would likely be negligible unless it was moving absurdly fast because of how light it is (your ship is pretty damn heavy, the drone would likely be 1t plus a potential 5t).

As mentioned in the update there is an area collect mode - release the drone and it will collect what it can within a a given radius for its lifetime.

Michael
 
Michael, is it the same system with drones: 1 drone - 1t of cargo space? If so it not very useful on small ships.
 
Surely these things are going to be dirt cheap? If its 1 drone/fragment

You can get a tonne of ore to sell for 800 CR /T it can take ten fragments for a tonne so got to be under 50Cr to make it worthwhile

To collect 10T you could need 100 Drones so you are going to be able to buy A LOT of drones at a time
 

Lestat

Banned
What about having a cargo scoop detecting more than one ore at a time and collecting it? What slow me down right now is targeting new ore and waiting for the sign to say it done scooping.
 
Whatever the details are going to be, i seriously doubt that mining drones are going to be a 3mil cr/hour get-rich-quick-scheme. (although i do think, FD want to make mining more attractive from a cr point of view too)

I expect it to be more of a convenience mechanic, an alternative to scooping, but without making scooping obsolete.

Admitted, crystal ball stuff, just like every other theory currently in fashion. ;)
 
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I hate to speculate but I'm gonna. Is the "new way to interact" going to be planet landings? Or at least walking round on your craft and stations?
 
I personally am very excited about the possibility of finally initiating a bit more profitable piracy. Right now I can barely pay the bills as there's not much time to scoop the cargo before the security shows up. If I could send out drones to scoop it while I make the hauler drop some more or scoop by myself as well, it would make piracy more like a career in the game instead of a roleplaying thing. No, I don't count murderhobos as pirates even if they claim so.
 
I would assume the consumable nature of the drones is to add a decision element to the game. If the drones were not consumed they would become a "no brainer" and become essential rather than a choice.
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I saw an idea earlier that looked quite neat. Essentially rather than being consumable each drone could only hold one "canister" or "rock" and not be consumed. At the moment you can buy a cargo rack with X spaces for canisters. For drones you would replace your cargo rack of less than X with a drone rack of less than X spaces.
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So your Cobra might have space a cargo rack holding 32 canisters, but only a drone rack holding 16 canisters. If you pay big bucks you might get a 24 canisters drone rack.
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If a done is destroyed or wears out (they wear out and can get damaged by fire) you lose that cargo canister space until repaired or replaced, so a damaged drone rack might have 16 slots but only 12 available due to damage.
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Thus the decision is ->
.
standard cargo rack, slower/manual cargo scooping, greater capacity, more damage tolerance, cheaper
OR
drone rack, fast drone scooping, lower capacity, less robust, more expensive.​
 
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I'm just surprised there aren't different sized modules of drones containing more/less of them. You can then simply target an object and send one of your (available) drones off to collect it. The drone return and can then be re-used again and again and again. In effect you simply dedicate some of your internal space to the drones.

I'm not sure why our actual drones are more like disposable razors, but I'm sure it's been thought out so there's logic/reason behind it :)
 
How do you mean, do they also have excessive moderation and no freedom to post anything critical?

Really?

Ok so who's job is it then, ours? I'd think acknowledging and then fixing bugs like microstutters and interdiction exploits would be their job, instead they just ignore those while somehow "posting at every chance they get".
He went full mcscrooge long ago on the cocreator of your beloved childhood memories, is that ok with you,too?
Word of mouth?? They blew all the profits of this on marketing. How do you think they managed to report a loss in the release quarter?
Don't worry, I'm sure they will make it ridiculously easy so people like you can play it, they do want to sell it on consoles after all.
They finally paid me now. 6 weeks after they promised to pay. They must really be desperate for cheap loans.

They sure seem to let you critizise freely... :rolleyes:
 
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i would have much preferred an internal module with reusable drones. Like a drone bay that has more drones the higher the class, and the higher the rating the better the drones. Not really a fan of wasting a bunch of drones for just 1 ton if they only grab 1 chunk at a time, unless they are built with refineries in them, which makes even less sense scrapping after 1 use.

I wish they took their time with things instead of rushing out half baked, already in the game basically, ideas that will no doubt need to be looked at again in the future. "Do it right the first time or not at all" -Both of my grandfathers

One of the modes was collect all items in range, which could be the 12 or so chunks you get from an asteroid whilst mining
To quote you I wish people would take the time to read fully on what they are commenting on.
 
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