The Colonia CG highlights a problem with the way commodities are produced in the game. If you run out, there's basically nothing you can do to get any more, which can leave players feeling frustrated.
At the same time, mining can feel stagnant, when the only thing worth doing is mining platinum and selling it for 300k each. Not to mention feeling disconnected from the universe. It would be very nice if there were occasionally reasons to mine other minerals.
I don't want a full-blown player economy, because that's way more complex than the game needs, but it would be nice if there were sets of commodities that could be mined to help produce other resources.
For example, using the current CG, say there's a station that produced Performance Enhancers, but it's currently depleted. If you haul one ton of Coltan and one ton of Methanol Monohydrate Crystals to that station, it would consume them, and produce 25 tons of Performance Enhancers. Players could then buy those Performance Enhancers and haul them wherever they need them.
This way, players could use production stations, combined with mining, to manufacture the commodities they need. It wouldn't be as fast as buying from a station that already has them in stock, but it COULD be faster than traveling a significant distance to acquire them.
At the same time, mining can feel stagnant, when the only thing worth doing is mining platinum and selling it for 300k each. Not to mention feeling disconnected from the universe. It would be very nice if there were occasionally reasons to mine other minerals.
I don't want a full-blown player economy, because that's way more complex than the game needs, but it would be nice if there were sets of commodities that could be mined to help produce other resources.
For example, using the current CG, say there's a station that produced Performance Enhancers, but it's currently depleted. If you haul one ton of Coltan and one ton of Methanol Monohydrate Crystals to that station, it would consume them, and produce 25 tons of Performance Enhancers. Players could then buy those Performance Enhancers and haul them wherever they need them.
This way, players could use production stations, combined with mining, to manufacture the commodities they need. It wouldn't be as fast as buying from a station that already has them in stock, but it COULD be faster than traveling a significant distance to acquire them.