FDev - how to solve tritium mining issue

[jacozilla]

Posted as reply in another thread but though worth making as independent suggestion.

How to solve mining for tritium without unbalancing other mineral types like LTD, painite, etc -->

Make tritium similar to how engineering mats are multiplied per 1 fragment picked up. Doesn't need to be the same 3 for every 1 ratio like mats. Could be any reasonable multiplier to make tritium mining decent speed of yield but not super instant.

Fdev has already shown they can do this on a class type basis - e.g. 1 fragment = 3 for engineer mat class of objects, but 1:1 for other objects.

Without changing how many fragments are put out by an asteroid for all types of minerals, which could boost top paying minerals more than desired, just change tritium to a mat-type class in the coding so that every 1 pickup = X

This way, doesn't boost or upset economy balance of any other mineral like LTDs, painite, etc - yet allows for any X% increase to tritium yields. The 3 for every 1 I used was just example from engineering mats, it can be any other number. 2, 5, 10, whatever balance that allows for decent tritium mining.

This would -
a) restore exploration viability so self mine refueling of FCs in deep space

b) restore / restablish a player to player market economy for tritrium from those willing to mine in the bubble and sell to willing buy orders on FCs.

Given all the coding is in place to multiple engineering mat fragments, I don't see how this can't be a quick hotfix to tritium by using similar method.

 

[CMDR Zadian Lichtfrost]

Before doing anything FDev needs to fix the mining bugs introduced with the patch.

• fix the Abrasion blaster not working on core deposits
• fix the Tritium Hotspot not being Tritium Hotspots

Then they can start adjusting the overall drop rate of Tritium and think about how much they want players to find Tritium per hour.
I don't think some tricks like they do with materials are needed. Maybe increase the number of Tritium hotspots and adjust the amount of Tritium available in a hotspot a bit.

Trying to come up with solutions while the whole mining system is bugged is not that helpful.

 

[jacozilla]

Before doing anything FDev needs to fix the mining bugs introduced with the patch.

• fix the Abrasion blaster not working on core deposits
• fix the Tritium Hotspot not being Tritium Hotspots

Then they can start adjusting the overall drop rate of Tritium and think about how much they want players to find Tritium per hour.
I don't think some tricks like they do with materials are needed. Maybe increase the number of Tritium hotspots and adjust the amount of Tritium available in a hotspot a bit.

Trying to come up with solutions while the whole mining system is bugged is not that helpful.

that's what the suggestion is - a fast way to fix the current issue for tritium mining being no longer viable as means to refuel FCs, particularly in deep space exploration.

I concede there are only so many concurrent things that can be worked on at once, but it is also equally not helpful to suggest you need to solve the whole mining system or not at all when portions of it can be independently resolved.

How would reusing existing code that already laid the groundwork for making objects a different class (engineering mats vs mining minerals) , and then applying that same class type solution to tritium be worse off than stubbornly saying no, must fix it all at once or none at all?

Sure, ideally I would like abrasion blaster fixed same time as tritium, but both are discrete, independent problems. Mandating problem A can't be resolved because problem B must be bundled is both foolish and short sighted. I'll take whatever can be delivered.

The main point of this suggestion was the primary benefit that it solves for has no impact to other mining valuables - because if tritium is tied to general mining yields, then any boost to tritium could buff LTDs or painite more than FDev would like. If tritrium were made a separate class, like engineering mats were after the 2.0 buff to turned them from 1:1 to 1:3 pickup, then no impact to any other mineral economy would happen.

As can be seen by Fdev yanking and jerking constant buffs/nerfs to overreactions and under, I don't see why you would resist an idea that by definition has no ability to impact other mining balance issues. One reason we got to this mess was they tried to solve for the entire general mining balance as one system, rather than make some parts independent as suggested here.

 

[CMDR Zadian Lichtfrost]

that's what the suggestion is - a fast way to fix the current issue for tritium mining being no longer viable as means to refuel FCs, particularly in deep space exploration.
…

As can be seen by Fdev yanking and jerking constant buffs/nerfs to overreactions and under, I don't see why you would resist an idea that by definition has no ability to impact other mining balance issues. …

I would love a quick fix that allows players to refuel their deep space FCs without having to mine for days or weeks.

Sadly the bugs affecting mining are making your solution pointless. In the last double Tritium hotspot I tested the majority of the asteroids had no - zero - Tritium and the few asteroids that had Tritium had around 10% or lower. The few surface deposits I found resulted in 8(!) tons of Tritium within around 30 minutes of searching.
Now double the result of this numbers, or tripple it or multiply it with 10 - it would still be not enough, not even close to enough.


I'm not against a quick fix. It's just that the bug related to Tritium is so severe that a quick fix like the one you suggested won't have the desired effect.

 

[Dragsham]

Introduce fuel scooping for carriers. But!!!
Only a particular kind of star. not any of the kgbfoam types, perhaps white dwarfs and neutron stars? Or some other rare.
This way routes are planned inclusive of these kind of stars.
And this is key.......
Only 25% fuel capacity is scoopable as it's a synthetic tritium fuel and long term use buggers the engines injectors up. Some sort of instrumentation on board to indicate increasing potential damage using synthetic tritium and how much is on-board.
Also the synth fuel from these rare stars is stored in a separate tank.
Just a thought

 

[jacozilla]

I would love a quick fix that allows players to refuel their deep space FCs without having to mine for days or weeks.

Sadly the bugs affecting mining are making your solution pointless. In the last double Tritium hotspot I tested the majority of the asteroids had no - zero - Tritium and the few asteroids that had Tritium had around 10% or lower. The few surface deposits I found resulted in 8(!) tons of Tritium within around 30 minutes of searching.
Now double the result of this numbers, or tripple it or multiply it with 10 - it would still be not enough, not even close to enough.


I'm not against a quick fix. It's just that the bug related to Tritium is so severe that a quick fix like the one you suggested won't have the desired effect.

hmm, maybe I'm super lucky then - TLDR - i got 46 tons of tritium just by accident while mining for painite. If this was multiplied by 3 (or 5, 10 etc) as suggested, it would have made my haul 138 tons of tritium. Still low imo which is why I said play around with whatever multiplier that seems best, 3 was just engineering mat example.

I went painite mining after patch nerf, in single and double p-hotspots GCRV 1568, wasn't intending to look for tritium but my cutter is geared for dual laser/SSD mining - and intended to just pure laser mine yesterday.

While painite laser mining, came across some tritium SSDs by accident now and then - just bought FC and still only have original half tank fuel so figured worth my time to SSD mine these accidental nodes.

long story short, in 3 hours of painite mining I got my usual ~300 tons of painite (70-80mil/hour earning rate so not staggering by old LTD terms which I hadn't done as away from game almost all of 2018 to recent but good enough for my long term purposes) and 46 tons of tritium.

46 trit in 3 hours sucks bad - i totally get this and why understand expeditions in deep space like DSSA are effectively stranded or nearly so. It's why I suggested use some other multiplier, whatever makes reasonable sense. 10x would make my modest 46 into 460, 20x nearly a full tank for FC in ~3 hours. Not really trying to suggest a what a good hourly rate would be, simply an engineering mat multiplier system for tritium would a) allow fast fix and b) allow even faster tweaks to the multiplier if set too low or too high initially

 

[Susanna]

Introduce fuel scooping for carriers. But!!!
Only a particular kind of star. not any of the kgbfoam types, perhaps white dwarfs and neutron stars? Or some other rare.
This way routes are planned inclusive of these kind of stars.
And this is key.......
Only 25% fuel capacity is scoopable as it's a synthetic tritium fuel and long term use buggers the engines injectors up. Some sort of instrumentation on board to indicate increasing potential damage using synthetic tritium and how much is on-board.
Also the synth fuel from these rare stars is stored in a separate tank.
Just a thought

You are obviously not a scientist and certainly not a chemist...
Specific star types giving tritium?
Synthetic Tritium causing drive damage? Would you care to explain that one to me please?... And don't waste my time with isotope decay or whatever other nonsense please.

Tritium - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Yes, I'm a chemist. A formulation scientist actually.

You are obviously in favour of random handwavium to make the game whatever it might be, and damn any semblance to the galaxy being a representation of the real galaxy....

 

[dognosh]

You are obviously not a scientist and certainly not a chemist...
Specific star types giving tritium?
Synthetic Tritium causing drive damage? Would you care to explain that one to me please?... And don't waste my time with isotope decay or whatever other nonsense please.

Tritium - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Yes, I'm a chemist. A formulation scientist actually.

You are obviously in favour of random handwavium to make the game whatever it might be, and damn any semblance to the galaxy being a representation of the real galaxy....

Reality in gaming, really ?

We can carry tons of raw/manufactured items on ourselves
We travel at multiple speeds of sound in SC
Tonnes of cargo gets loaded/unloaded in milliseconds(and ships restocked/refueled/repaired in no time)
Our 'world' has open/pg/solo dimensions
We have a magic wall not allowing us near any atmospheric planets, or into stars
telepresence, really?
Anaconda has a magical mystical super light hull and no other ship has been made like it !!! Not even by the same company.
Neutron supercharging,wait what ???
The list goes on.....

Sorry Susanna, but your post sounds very berating & petty
It is a game and for the sake of gameplay and 'fun' we take shortcuts or introduce impossibilities

 

[Lord Maniac]

Hm...
Collecting 1 Tritium, it get´s multiplied in the cargo hold. Jetison 1 Tritium and recollecting it - multiplied.
There would be a small problem with exploiting this feature.

My Suggestion: Player-Controlled ships could get a special Kind of Fuel Scoop, that could be used to generate Tritium from specific Stars.
A "Converter" could be installed to transform this Materials - like a refinery - to Tritium.

This can only be used on specific Star Classes, so you would have to plot the roues accordingly. And of course it would have to take some time to generate
the Chunks for the Cargo Hold.


Edit: And of course, still be able to Mine for the Stuff. Just adding a different approach.

 

[Sysmon]

Easiest thing to do is to remove fleet carriers again. Admit they were a mistake. Run some scenario testing on them and try again with another more thorough beta test.

Simple.

S

 

[Pristine_Bump]

Or maybe a tritium egg that replenishes it self if you reboot the ship

 

[Dragsham]

I wish it were a sim but it's not. Ed is a blend of science and fantasy. And I love that.
My suggestion was a fix to an issue.
Perhaps mining for 2 weeks out in the black to replenish your tank is a good idea to some.
But I've friends out in the black almost stranded in carriers mining their asses off and fast being put off by the sodding mining that ed seems overly obsessed with

 

[Rock Hunter]

I’m pretty sure handwavium is on Mendeleev’s periodic table these days....or perhaps my school’s science dept wasn’t great.

I don’t mind the idea of using the materials 3/1 drop but I suppose it’s in some way a case of whether FDev want to make Tritium, and by extension Carriers, a special case or keep it as any other mineable deposit and have it’s place within a changeable economy.

One of the issues with the latter is finding a balance between FDev sprinkling enough tritium dust around the galaxy for it to be mined and not instantly turning it into the only economic game in town. I don’t envy them that....but then I’m a photographer and not a coder, I can hide when big numbers (anything over 9) get used.

 

[Rock Hunter]

fast being put off by the sodding mining that ed seems overly obsessed with

One of the biggest problems we’ve had since 3.0 dropped or was it 3.3 (as mentioned in my previous post: numbers not so much) is FDev seemingly being in awe of their own mining creation - everything revolves around it to the point it is detrimental to the game itself.....but that’s a different thread.

 

[Dragsham]

On the up side I do think alot of those who bought one, stocked up to the gunnels with 20+ thousand tons of tritium and headed out to circumnavigate the galaxy, would be now running out of fuel and be left stranded... gulp!
Course thet ain't just gonner sit there they'll jump into their 9 or python etc and go out and prospect.
But some poor buggers may find nothing or at least extremely low yields and are now in their second week of mining it... grrr.
Must be another way.

 

[Keanson]

Introduce fuel scooping for carriers. But!!!
Only a particular kind of star. not any of the kgbfoam types, perhaps white dwarfs and neutron stars? Or some other rare.
This way routes are planned inclusive of these kind of stars.
And this is key.......
Only 25% fuel capacity is scoopable as it's a synthetic tritium fuel and long term use buggers the engines injectors up. Some sort of instrumentation on board to indicate increasing potential damage using synthetic tritium and how much is on-board.
Also the synth fuel from these rare stars is stored in a separate tank.
Just a thought

I still don't know why they chose tritium. As a decaying radioactive element it has a half life of just over twelve years, incredibly short in terms of stellar scales, so we wouldn't be mining any of it at all. Also, there's no evidence of tritium being produced in stars, as producing tritium will generally need free neutrons. Either deuterium will capture one, or a neutron scatters off heavier elements and breaks them down. There's not a lot of free neutrons in stellar cores however. You also have the issue of deuterium itself, which in stars doesn’t last very long at all. The deuterium and protons combine to form helium-3 almost immediately, and the other needed element to make tritium, lithium, is very rare in stellar cores and even then it gets destroyed during the p-p II chain.

The stupid thing is, we're working on mass tritium breeding here on Earth for our fusion reactors, this will be achieved inside the reactors which then fuel them. Now, according to this games own in-game lore all power plants on vessels are already fusion reactors, so why are we "mining" tritium which they should already be producing themselves?

 

[Sysmon]

I still don't know why they chose tritium. As a decaying radioactive element it has a half life of just over twelve years, incredibly short in terms of stellar scales, so we wouldn't be mining any of it at all. Also, there's no evidence of tritium being produced in stars, as producing tritium will generally need free neutrons. Either deuterium will capture one, or a neutron scatters off heavier elements and breaks them down. There's not a lot of free neutrons in stellar cores however. You also have the issue of deuterium itself, which in stars doesn’t last very long at all. The deuterium and protons combine to form helium-3 almost immediately, and the other needed element to make tritium, lithium, is very rare in stellar cores and even then it gets destroyed during the p-p II chain.

The stupid thing is, we're working on mass tritium breeding here on Earth for our fusion reactors, this will be achieved inside the reactors which then fuel them. Now, according to this games own in-game lore all power plants on vessels are already fusion reactors, so why are we "mining" tritium which they should already be producing themselves?

It’s a name. Dilithium was taken.

S

 

[MarkAusten]

Introduce fuel scooping for carriers. But!!!
Only a particular kind of star. not any of the kgbfoam types, perhaps white dwarfs and neutron stars? Or some other rare.
This way routes are planned inclusive of these kind of stars.
And this is key.......
Only 25% fuel capacity is scoopable as it's a synthetic tritium fuel and long term use buggers the engines injectors up. Some sort of instrumentation on board to indicate increasing potential damage using synthetic tritium and how much is on-board.
Also the synth fuel from these rare stars is stored in a separate tank.
Just a thought

Check out the thread below, Rubbernuke has some interesting ideas:

7A Tritium Scoop please FDev

I'm not sure how long it will take to sort out the difference between Mning for Cash and Mining for Fuel, I'm not sure if it ever will resolved. Options Tritium Scoop for scooping from Stars, maybe use one of the L Class to mix things up (Not you can't sell it) Maybe call it TritiumA I dunno...

forums.frontier.co.uk

 

[Keanson]

It’s a name. Dilithium was taken.

S

They should have just "rediscovered" the formula for the exotic Quirium fuel then.

 

[MarkAusten]

You are obviously not a scientist and certainly not a chemist...
Specific star types giving tritium?
Synthetic Tritium causing drive damage? Would you care to explain that one to me please?... And don't waste my time with isotope decay or whatever other nonsense please.

Tritium - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Yes, I'm a chemist. A formulation scientist actually.

You are obviously in favour of random handwavium to make the game whatever it might be, and damn any semblance to the galaxy being a representation of the real galaxy....

The trouble is that a whole heap of Elite is handwavium including the use to H3 as a jump fuel in the first place. So it's not really that far fetched in the game. But I do get your point.