List of mining suggestions

[Limoncello Lizard]

I have made some of these suggestions before. I have also borrowed good mining ideas from other players in other threads.

1. Refinery that doesn't lock up
2. Stop displaying the incorrect "Refinery Full" message (it makes the info screen completely useless when mining)
3. Remove the unnecessary delay when deploying a limpet - particularly prospectors
4. Balance pass over collector controllers (is 128 tons for 4 limpets in a class 7 controller reasonable?)
5. Add some engineer upgrades that are actually useful to miners (currently the only useful engineer upgrade is weapon focused distributor, as module weight or integrity are irrelevant to miners).
6. Allow limpets to be synthesized. This would make long range prospecting (see 12) possible. edit - we now have this one. \o/, though I'm not convinced that 7% of used limpets replaced is really QoL.
7. Rethink the mechanic of having pirates spawn every time you drop into a ring - especially in remote systems
8. Display the material percentages of a ring on the system map
9. Add class-5 element materials to rings, also add yttrium now it's class 4. Maybe just in 0.5%-1% amounts
10. Balance pass over the ore yields in the different ring types - particularly icy, which is less than 1/3 the yield per roid compared to metallic
11. Add some rare profitable ores for rocky and metal-rich rings, more gem types would be good
12. Add some reason to mine well away from the bubble, such as extremely rare ores (see 19), radioactive isotopes, rare vacuum life forms (see 14), jackpot roids (see 21)
13. Add LTDs, painite (and the new ores from 11) to ores available in asteroid clusters
14. Add vacuum krill as a minable resource - particularly in Baltha'Sine 4B, and similar small lifeforms for the dangerous ones (see 15) to eat when they can't get miners
15. Add some dangerous vacuum life forms, especially where minable life forms (see 14) are present. They could also be valuable resources.
16. DSS scan displaying areas of the ring with varying ore concentrations, also show points of interest (see 22)
17. Specialised mining ships - mostly multi-purpose, important features are: power distributor, lots class 3 modules, cargo space, specialised modules (see 18)
18. Specialised mining modules for the specialised mining ships (see 17)
19. Gold-rush mechanic for very rare ores in remote locations (see 12) that eventually deplete from players mining them
20. Add some skill based mechanic to the fragment chipping part of mining. - Currently, the only skill mechanics are: directing the fragment stream so that your limpets are more efficient, and how to chip fragments of wildly tumbling roids without losing all your limpets. If there were techniques that maximize the yield of metal per fragment, and others that maximized crystals, or materials. This would make mining much more interactive, immersive and fun.
21. Add rare "Jackpot" roids. Ones that have 100 fragments of 100% platinum, or 100 fragments of class 4 and class 5 elements. These roids shouldn't be persistent.
22. Points of interest within a ring containing unusual stuff (see 12, 14, 15 ,21). They would be unknown unless the CMDR has investigated the same type previously.
23. Tourist missions to take prospectors to unusual mining places (see 22), particularly big game hunters (see 15)
24. Large and Huge mining lasers
25. Balance pass over the distributor drain and heat generation of mining lasers
26. Increase the materials storage. - Coming in Beyond. \o/
27. Mining missions that take you to USS in a ring, e.g. tip a-off for a jackpot roid (see 21)
28. Hotkey to cycle targetting prospector limpets.
29. Ability to create a small area with RES type fragment yield increase by dropping a load of bioreducing lichen. Will need to create a semi-persistent USS.
30. Missions to drop bioreducing lichen into RES (see 29)
31. Prospector limpets that move a tad faster. It's a bit of a joke in the Clipper, Orca or Cutter to sit and wait in front of a roid for your limpet to catch up.
32. Ability to package partial tons of an ore instead of venting it, automatically reloaded into the refinery when a bin has been allocated to this ore.
33. Rings thick enough to get lost in
34. Rings dense enough to be a hazard in a large ship
35. Very sparse rings - so sparse they seem more like how asteroid clusters have been implemented, until you fly a little further
36. Chaotic rings, very recently formed. These will be hazardous places, but possibly good sources of rare ores (see 12)
37. Display the refinery bars on the HUD
38. Display the limpet lifetimes on the HUD
39. Alternative to lasers for mining, maybe projectile and/or explosive based
40. Balance pass over the profitability of mining compared to other professions
41. Mining of volatile gasses that is a very different mechanic than collecting fragments
42. More mining CGs, particularly ones that aren't just a mined commodity tacked onto a trade CG
43. Mining CGs using some of the above suggestions, especially 12. 14, 19, 23 & 29
44. A mining SLF. Could open up lots of cooperative gameplay possibilities

1 & 2 are bugs, though very long standing ones (since 1.4). But there is no point at all in any upgrades to mining while these bugs still exist.
4 is becoming more and more necessary with each new type of limpet controller added to the game. The controllers will also severely limit any future enhancement to mining.
6 is delivered and 26 is coming in Beyond. I have left these in, but struck-through, as the cross-references are becoming a bit complex.

Some are quality of life suggestions, others gameplay. There may even be some that are mutually exclusive. I am aware that some of these suggestions are complex, and would need a fair bit of development. Beyond may well invalidate some of this list, or better yet already include a few.

(edit) - added a few more to the list, from No 42

 

[Viktor Dracul]

Some great suggestions here. Everything listed would benefit this poor profession and I for one would mine a lot more if they were implemented. FDev please look at this and take it on board

 

[SpaceScania]

Adding my support to this thread. Limoncello Lizard is a respected member of the community who is an expert miner and is always willing to help CMDR’s with their mining questions. I’d love to see voices like his taken into consideration when working on the mining enhancements for the Beyond series. I also love to support specific feature request threads that are well put together rather than threads that just complain.

 

[kofeyh]

Yes please.

 

[Justinian Octavius]

I don't agree with all of them all 100% but largely a big thumbs up from me for the OP. I would also add, off the top of my head, to 5) that an engineering blueprint to speed up the refinery & collection limpets would be amazing. I would also like to see each manufacturer have a mining dedicated ship (17) & it would be cool if via the squadron mechanic you could buy mining platforms/mini-mega-ships to take mining to a whole new scale.

I would also rework the Powerplay Power Senator Torval since she is the game's mining power yet her Exploitation Effects aren't brilliant for miners and the Mining Lance should also speed up the mining process rather than being a fixed weapon, that might be useful.

 

[MK Regular]

I think that all the things you want added to the HUD might crowd the HUD too much to be useful. You wanted limpet lifetimes on the HUD, what if these were displayed in the object name (i.e. COLLECTOR LIMPET 1:37)?

Also, you think waiting for prospector limpets to catch up with you in a clipper is a joke? I can outrun prospectors in a T9.

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

I think that all the things you want added to the HUD might crowd the HUD too much to be useful. You wanted limpet lifetimes on the HUD, what if these were displayed in the object name (i.e. COLLECTOR LIMPET 1:37)?

Also, you think waiting for prospector limpets to catch up with you in a clipper is a joke? I can outrun prospectors in a T9.

That would certainly work with the limpet timers. Anything on the HUD would need to be pretty simple. I often use 14+ active collector limpets plus a couple of prospectors, so I know what you mean.

Being able to outrun anything with a Type-9 is a joke. Shows just how slow the limpets are. Deploying promptly and fast moving prospectors would make ships like the Type-7 much better mining ships, as they could concentrate more on finding the premium roids rather than speed of extraction.

 

[RampantParanoia]

These are pretty damn good suggestions, have some rep OP! This would make mining way more interesting.

Just a comment on 24 (which I strongly agree with): assuming large/huge mining lasers have higher extraction rates, the limpet controllers would HAVE to be reworked to match. Otherwise you’d have to sacrifice cargo space to have enough collectors to keep up, or just throw fragments away when they time out because you’re extraction is outstripping your collectors.

Also, can I suggest some more:

- Improve limpet pathing to reduce constant suicides. If a wholesale pathing improvement isn’t palatable (it is to me!), this could be tied to having a prospector on the ‘roid to provide shape and spin data to the collector limpet controller

- On targeting a deployed prospector limpet, a holo representation of the asteroid’s spin axis is shown when the asteroid is in view (e.g. a line through the asteroid). Alternatively, prospector limpets automatically locate and attach on the spin axis of the asteroid, could perhaps orbit the asteroid once then attach as an “initial scan”?

- Procedurally generated asteroids or at least more pre-baked models, I’m bored of looking at the same asteroid models again and again

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

- Improve limpet pathing to reduce constant suicides. If a wholesale pathing improvement isn’t palatable (it is to me!), this could be tied to having a prospector on the ‘roid to provide shape and spin data to the collector limpet controller

- On targeting a deployed prospector limpet, a holo representation of the asteroid’s spin axis is shown when the asteroid is in view (e.g. a line through the asteroid). Alternatively, prospector limpets automatically locate and attach on the spin axis of the asteroid, could perhaps orbit the asteroid once then attach as an “initial scan”?

- Procedurally generated asteroids or at least more pre-baked models, I’m bored of looking at the same asteroid models again and again

Good suggestions, I'll add them to the list in the OP.

Just a comment on 24 (which I strongly agree with): assuming large/huge mining lasers have higher extraction rates, the limpet controllers would HAVE to be reworked to match. Otherwise you’d have to sacrifice cargo space to have enough collectors to keep up, or just throw fragments away when they time out because you’re extraction is outstripping your collectors.

Number 4 should hopefully solve this problem by having the larger collector modules with a less insane scaling. I started a discussion thread on this issue: Mining changes, rethink limpet controller scaling.

Also, I have a vulture I use occasionally for mining materials. It could work so much better with two large lasers instead of the mediums.

However, no. 25 becomes important for most ships, as it's distributor drain that is the major limitation on most mining ships. Mining lasers also generate too much heat.

 

[Awarkle]

the ability to white list what ores you want the limpets to pick up, so you can just mine for the higher grade ores without getting a hold full of garbage you just got to dump. OR white list the refinery so a smaller refinery can auto junk low value ores over high value without micro management.

 

[Maedhros]

Largely agree with the OP, some good ideas - would certainly add a bit more variety and interest to mining. Please FD have a look at these to give you some ideas what the community would like.