mining is super boring -> how to improve it

[zzzornbringer]

after a couple of traderuns i decided to do something else. have tried mining in the past but didn't like it and did something else. wanted to take a closer look today but i didn't change my mind. it is actually really boring.

what i like is that you get occasionally scanned by pirates. i also like that there is police potentially helping poor miners. and i like that there are other miners doing their business.

but everything else is really bad implemented.

depending on your cargo hold, you really have to scoop a lot of asteroid chunks. not only does this take a lot of time but the chunks disappear relatively quickly. when you miss scooping chunks, it gets even more frustrating.

what can be improved:

-> some sort of tractor beam would be really helpful with this. chunks shouldn't disappear that quickly.

-> fewer chunks to fill the cargo hold

when you were able to scoop a chunk, you have to go to your side menu and allocate the materials. plz correct me if i'm wrong but when you scoop a chunk with a different material composition, you have to go to the side menu to allocate materials again. this is really bad for the flow of mining.

what it should look like:

mining laser -> scoop all chunks (preferably with a tractor beam) -> allocate materials



these are my suggestions to make mining a bit less boring. but as it stands now i can guarantee you that i will never ever go mining again if it stays in it's current state.

 

[SpionKop]

oh no!!! ....... he said it..... he said "Tractor Beam".

RUN FOR YOUR LIVES THE FLAMERS ARE COMING!!!

 

[zzzornbringer]

oh no!!! ....... he said it..... he said "Tractor Beam".

RUN FOR YOUR LIVES THE FLAMERS ARE COMING!!!

yea, i don't know. just came to my mind. something, anything that makes scooping lot's of asteroid chunks a bit easier. or just let us scoop less chunks and give more outcome.

 

[AtheosisX]

I don't see a problem with a tractor beam. The way mining works presently is really hard to believe given all the technology people have. As long as it requires manually targeting and triggering the tractor beam instead of being automated like in Eve, I don't see it being in conflict with the spirit of the game. Whether or not it would take a weapon hardpoint is an interesting question.

 

[InMemoriamSirocco]

And yet another feature that was in Frontier: First Encounters.

Just as the autopilot that "nobody" wants and that the dev's aren't even planning on implementing at some point.

Just as the automatic mining drone you could deploy in FFE... but yeah, that would be "dumbing down" of the game, right?

Let's face it: This is not the game for fans who love to see some continuity.

 

[AtheosisX]

And yet another feature that was in Frontier: First Encounters.

Just as the autopilot that "nobody" wants and that the dev's aren't even planning on implementing at some point.

Just as the automatic mining drone you could deploy in FFE... but yeah, that would be "dumbing down" of the game, right?

Let's face it: This is not the game for fans who love to see some continuity.

Being a space sim fan rather than a fan of a series that is ancient by gaming standards, I don't care one way or the other. I just want the game to be as good as possible and the mining is far from that at the moment.

 

[InMemoriamSirocco]

Ancient by gaming standards, but still superior to ED as far as features go.

 

[Voodoo Fire]

One of the reasons I was excited to give this game a try was mining. I tried it for the first and last time the other day. I purchased an Adder, mining laser, 2 bin refinery,dropped discovery scanner replacing it with cargo rack, up graded existing cargo racks and went off to mine all excited. I spent 1 hour of frustration in an extraction site. I did not even get enough cargo for all the pirates that were scanning me to bother shooting me. (which would have been a blessing) I flew the ship back to base, parked it and will never fly it again! ship cost around 250k(with up grades), lost the 200k bounties I would have gotten in that hour, and got 1250 credits for the mining that I did. Back to bounty hunting. Mining sucks beach balls.

 

[JonnyC0mbat]

I'm not trying to be annoying with this, but mining in real life isn't the most exciting profession either. Not sure about the whole beam to scoop stuff up, that's pretty 70% the job of a miner.

 

[Dweezil_Moon]

meh .. not one of THOSE threads again please.

Short recap for the previous 3 bazillions threads about "mining being boring and please could I get a one button-do-it-all gameplay":
* Is mining perfect : no. Many "rocks" don't give off something valuable (ice doesn't give anything valuable at all), meaning people only mine in Metallic rings and belts, which is weirdly sad.
* Is it bad or boring: not more than trading, bounty hunting or exploring. Different People Different Tastes. Lots of people actually do like mining (incl. me). I find Mining to be a very nice chillout activity. Listening to music and dancing between the rocks is very relaxing.
* Scooping sucks: no.. you do. There are a couple of very informative videos about effective mining, incl. aligning the chunks so that grabbing 10 chunks takes no more than 20 secs
* We need Tractor beams : no you don't. Just learn to scoop correctly
* We need drones : there is talk that drones might come one day, when mining gets some love.
* Refineries are stupid! Pure Click-fest! : no .. 1 bin refineries are stupid. 2 bins are okaaaayish borderline stupid. Anything with more than 2 bins is great. Mining with only one bin is like bounty hunting with a single G-1 rated pulse laser ... It's doable, but I wouldn't do it.
* The profit sucks : Find a Metallic Pristine ring or belt (or at least metallic major-reserve one). Platinum (~19K/T), Palladium (~13K/T), Gold (~9K/T) and Silver (~4.5K/T) are great moneymaker. If you can't find any then get some bertrandite, Gallite or Indite (~2K/T) to pay for the trip or fly out and back in and search again.

You're welcome

 

[Tryst]

* Scooping sucks: no.. you do. There are a couple of very informative videos about effective mining, incl. aligning the chunks so that grabbing 10 chunks takes no more than 20 secs
* We need Tractor beams : no you don't. Just learn to scoop correctly

Here we are decades after Jameson went out to explore the galaxy and they've forgotten how to build tractor beams. The bins, I don't care about, the drones, I don't care about, the autopilot, I don't care about. What I dislike most is being bashed by a huge lump of rock that's constantly spinning because I wanted to scoop that little tiny chunk I just chipped off it. Better still, aligning my ship to scoop it only to have that big spinning rock bash it and send it flying off into the distance.

Tractor beams would be helpful for mining. They could be as expensive as hell, take a weapon slot, (although I'd prefer another alternative for the utility slots most people don't seem to use) and have only a 1Km range. It could even incorporate a mini game such as that used by the interdiction, (only not quite as difficult), you just have to move the mouse/joystick/controller to keep the tractor beam on the target as it drifts around a bit. The more central you keep it, the faster it gets sucked in but if you let it drift too far from centre, it doesn't drag it at all.

You see, it doesn't have to be a mindless single button press to operate the tractor beam and drag it in, there can also be an element of skill involved if it's done right.

 

[Defacto]

I'm not trying to be annoying with this, but mining in real life isn't the most exciting profession either. Not sure about the whole beam to scoop stuff up, that's pretty 70% the job of a miner.

Well, I think they could start with implementing all the features that actually were planned for mining. As it is now, mining is basically just an empty shell of what was promised (though this can be said about a lot of game features right now).

 

[Dweezil_Moon]

Here we are decades after Jameson went out to explore the galaxy and they've forgotten how to build tractor beams.

This kind of argument gets thrown around a lot. Yeah .. tractor beams kind of exist even today. You know what also exists today? self-flying spaceships and autonomous robots exploring planets. We should have those in game too.
Let's face it : having humans fly spaceships the way depicted in E: D (or even SC) would be completely contra productive and pointless, as autonomous ships are 1) more reliable and 2) cheaper. Except that with autonomous ships you just don't have a game anymore. Tractor beams suffer from the same problem : they are definitely easy to implement, and yes .. they would make sense in a realism-sense. They just don't make sense in a game-sense .. or at least not as much sense as the cargo scooping mechanism (imo of course).

The bins, I don't care about, the drones, I don't care about, the autopilot, I don't care about. What I dislike most is being bashed by a huge lump of rock that's constantly spinning because I wanted to scoop that little tiny chunk I just chipped off it. Better still, aligning my ship to scoop it only to have that big spinning rock bash it and send it flying off into the distance.

That's one of the major bits that makes mining tense. Yes, it does take skill and the correct ship to mine a big rotating and sadly platinum wielding asteroid. That's actually GOOD! Can you imagine how boring it would be if every difficulty was removed from the game and you never found yourself in a sweat inducing situation? Of course mining is a way to make money, but money is just the end ... as pretty much everything else in E: D, the way is much more important than the end.

Tractor beams would be helpful for mining. They could be as expensive as hell, take a weapon slot, (although I'd prefer another alternative for the utility slots most people don't seem to use) and have only a 1Km range. It could even incorporate a mini game such as that used by the interdiction, (only not quite as difficult), you just have to move the mouse/joystick/controller to keep the tractor beam on the target as it drifts around a bit. The more central you keep it, the faster it gets sucked in but if you let it drift too far from centre, it doesn't drag it at all.You see, it doesn't have to be a mindless single button press to operate the tractor beam and drag it in, there can also be an element of skill involved if it's done right.

I am not sure what you mean right now. I never found Interdictions to be particularly difficult (on neither ends), but what you describe sounds like it would get boring much faster than scooping and like it would also take more time.

 

[Aquamonkey]

People to go extraction sites to mine? That sounds like an awful idea. I just go to a random spot along the rings so I don't have to deal with the mess at the extraction site.

 

[zzzornbringer]

I am not sure what you mean right now. I never found Interdictions to be particularly difficult (on neither ends), but what you describe sounds like it would get boring much faster than scooping and like it would also take more time.

i think what he means resembles the scooping minigame but it is more forgiving and instead of having to move towards your target, the target gets moved towards you. so, once you have the target in your crosshair and it starts to move towards you, you can stop your ship and the chunk gets moved in your cargo hold.

so, you would still have to aim at the chunks you want to collect but you're not getting punished as hard as you would when you missed it through scooping.

you can also just make the tractor beam assist the scooping process. so, you still have to scoop the chunks the traditional way but they move passively towards the cargo scoop which just makes scooping a bit easier. considering that you have to scoop a lot of chunks to fill your cargo hold, i think anything that makes the process a bit easier and more convenient would be nice.

People to go extraction sites to mine? That sounds like an awful idea. I just go to a random spot along the rings so I don't have to deal with the mess at the extraction site.

this doesn't work anymore. npc ships spawn at any location. only thing you miss are player ships. but this topic is not about extraction sites. it's about mining in general.

 

[Dekkameron]

Just bring back mining machines

 

[Dweezil_Moon]

you can also just make the tractor beam assist the scooping process. so, you still have to scoop the chunks the traditional way but they move passively towards the cargo scoop which just makes scooping a bit easier. considering that you have to scoop a lot of chunks to fill your cargo hold, i think anything that makes the process a bit easier and more convenient would be nice.

I think it already works that way. The chunks get more or less sucked in once they pass the cargo scoop. Oh well .. if Frontier increases the sucking range a bit, why not?

this doesn't work anymore. npc ships spawn at any location. only thing you miss are player ships. but this topic is not about extraction sites. it's about mining in general.

I mine mostly in asteroid belts which are inherently smaller than rings so it might be different, but I had a couple of player encounters while mining. NPC ships do spawn sometimes (most of the time really), but you can still be lucky and be left alone.

 

[zzzornbringer]

I think it already works that way. The chunks get more or less sucked in once they pass the cargo scoop. Oh well .. if Frontier increases the sucking range a bit, why not?

if this would be the case, it's not noticeable to me. scooping chunks feels exactly like any other scooping operation. a passive "suck in" at a specific range would be nice. optimally at the price of an equipment slot for a tractor beam.