I think we need uglier and weaker mining ships

[Hokran]

This is a discussion that appeared in a Elite: Dangerous Facebook (PT-BR) group just a few hours ago.

Today, the mining "meta" uses spaceships like Python or Cutter. I think that these are beautiful ships. And that's exactly the problem.

Just look at this:

Don't it feel misplaced? It looks like you are mining with a luxury car. Mining equipment should be heavy, dirty, ugly, brick-shaped.

I know, we have spaceships like the Type-9. It's a flying brick that fits this demand. BUT I believe that this kind of ship should be the only viable option for mining. Let me explain with an example:

In 2009 I used to play a game named "Taikodom". I had a huge mining ship with almost no defense (That is what I meant by "weaker". By the way, my Taikodom ship had even worst defenses than a type-9 fully equipped for mining). But that ship was the only effective way to mine asteroids. Yes you could use even a fighter, but it was not worthy it. What was the solution? I always had a group of players with me, using fighters and other types of combat ships. Here is a picture of how these operations were:

The cool thing is that players that enjoyed combat got their combat. And I was able to mine in peace while my friends were there to keep the pirates (other players) away. That is exactly what I miss the most!
Cutter and Python are wonderful spaceships, but they are just too good in a task that they shouldn't be this good at. They have a big cargo hold, agility, combat capability. I think that spaceships dedicated to mining should be better at it than multipurpose ships.

This is how Ibelieve that a mining ship should look like:

(Artist: KevinMassey)

But I would be happy to see type-9 ships dominating the mining meta with Fer-de-Lances escorting them.

If you've read until here, thanks for your time!

(Please note that I am not a native English speaker and this is my first post here. I would happily accept suggestions to improve future collaborations. o7)

 

[shreddog]

Well, if people want to use their Ferrari in the quarry, who are we to stop them?

 

[Hokran]

Well, if people want to use their Ferrari in the quarry, who are we to stop them?

Well, you can try. But your Ferrari shouldn't be as efficient at mining as one of these:

 

[Teh Smoo]

Escort. Missions. Suck.

You seem to have forgotten this basic fact.

A combat ship has a few options to turn time and ammo into money. They don't NEED to escort something.

But say they do decide to escort a miner. How do you split the profit?

• If the escort money is good enough to draw escorts, it turns from escorting a miner, to using an alt account that happens to be in a mining ship to spawn targets. Because if the money is good, and continuous, why would you want it to end just because the miner happened to finish?
• If the escort money is not viable, very few people will bother to escort miners. The miner gets shot up by pirates.
• If the escort money is not viable, and the pirates are too easy or avoidable, the miners will figure this out and stop wasting time/money getting/paying escorts.

 

[Hokran]

Escort. Missions. Suck.

You seem to have forgotten this basic fact.

I have not. Because they don't.

A combat ship has a few options to turn time and ammo into money. They don't NEED to escort something.

The point is that mining should be the best way to get money and resources to build/upgrade modules. The idea is to create a cycle:


-> Resources are needed to upgrade modules -> Creates a demand for resources -> Miners try to fulfill this demand -> Piracy becomes an easy way to steal resources without wasting time mining them -> Creates a demand for escorting -> Escorting ships need good modules -> (start again)

Make PVP great again

But say they do decide to escort a miner. How do you split the profit?

• If the escort money is good enough to draw escorts, it turns from escorting a miner, to using an alt account that happens to be in a mining ship to spawn targets. Because if the money is good, and continuous, why would you want it to end just because the miner happened to finish?
• If the escort money is not viable, very few people will bother to escort miners. The miner gets shot up by pirates.
• If the escort money is not viable, and the pirates are too easy or avoidable, the miners will figure this out and stop wasting time/money getting/paying escorts.

You seem to be thinking about npc pirates. That is not the point. If you use an exploit to make "pirates spawn", you will receive a few credits but not as much as you would receive from a real miner.

How to decide the payment for the escort? Law of supply and demand.

 

[Darkeyed]

Don't it feel misplaced? It looks like you are mining with a luxury car. Mining equipment should be heavy,

why? on earth mining equipment is heavy because to lift a 1 ton you need the strength to do so in gravity. elite dangerous takes place in space your not fighting against gravity when mining a belt.

brick-shaped.

again this has more to do with earth gravity and strength.
the more angles you have on a shape the more materials it will require to make the shape strong. whichs makes the machine heavy as hell.its impractical to try and make a dump truck out of a sphere that can drive around on the ground, but in space its easy to have spherical shaped ships.
"Sharp edges/corners cause so called stress concentrations. This means that structural stresses are very high around these features and thus become susceptible to failure. It can be easily noticed if you perform Finite Element Analysis of L-bracket bending. Highest stresses will be predicted around the sharp corner (so called notch). You can even observe stress singularity in this case - increasing mesh density will increase stresses infinitely and you will never reach mesh convergence. However if you introduce a fillet (round off the corner) you will notice that stresses are lower thanks to the fact that they are distributed over larger area."
so really round pretty ships well actually be stronger than blockly ugly ones.

 

[Shinji Ikari]

Well, if people want to use their Ferrari in the quarry, who are we to stop them?

The dirt?

 

[Rubbernuke]

Waves magic wand:

 

[Craith]

This is a discussion that appeared in a Elite: Dangerous Facebook (PT-BR) group just a few hours ago.

Today, the mining "meta" uses spaceships like Python or Cutter. I think that these are beautiful ships. And that's exactly the problem.

Just look at this:

View attachment 175554

snip

Waves magic wand:

the second ship is definitey a beauty, but the first ugly lump with the green lasers fits right into mining. If I had one I'd use it for that job, not much else it is good for.
(different people, different tastes ...)

 

[Ezren]

Could always mine in any of the T-series ships, and if you want to get really ugly, anything manufactured by the Imperials.

 

[Bigmaec]

That's what the raider kits are for.

 

[Leper Messiah]

so solo miners would be smegged?

also this is a mining ship :

 

[Old Duck]

I built this "git r done" ice miner, and it's definitely ugly.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

You seem to be thinking about npc pirates. That is not the point.

The galaxy is huge, the number of players in it is by comparision small, the chance of another player even being online in the same system as you is pretty low for almost all systems. Any gameplay is going to be PvE 99%+ of the time. If miners only need to worry about easily manageable NPC pirates, then they won't hire escorts at all and they'll write off the rare times a player pirate finds them as just extreme bad luck. (Safer than risking hiring an escort who turns out to be deliberately selling them out to pirates for a cut)

 

[Nadreck]

My laser-miner is a T10, that has a somewhat "industrial" look. Five mining lances on the small and medium hardpoints, four turreted long-range lasers on the large hardpoints.

I sometimes get interdicted by NPC pirates while carrying a full hold of LTD's. They die, no escort required.