Mining SLF

Tividar

Tividar
Two variant Mining-focused fighters: each packs an Abrasion Blaster as the Primary weapon. For the utility slot, one carries a Sub-Surface Displacement Missile while the other carries a Seismic Charge Launcher. No special AI. Either you fly it yourself or you multi-crew.

One issue that would need to be resolved regarding the multi-crew AI:
The autopilot/NPC Crewman needs to not close an open Cargo Hatch, or alternatively the open/close state of the cargo hatch should be locked in its current state if the module is unpowered.

Quality of Life:
I'd be nice if an NPC would auto-launch collector limpets, but not strictly necessary as you can easily telepresence between the fighter and the ship to keep limpets flowing.
Bonus points if the Autopilot could hold the trigger down on the mothership's Mining Lasers while you're in the SLF. (no special AI here, just have the AI auto-target the closest prospector limpet with any turreted mining lasers).

Park your ship far enough from the 'roid to avoid collision and cut power to the thrusters if you're worried about drifting.
Launch Limpets and open the Cargo Hatch (and possibly cut power to the Cargo Hatch as well).
Launch the Fighter and get to work with Surface and Subsurface Deposits. Once the deposits are harvested, recall and switch SLFs to place Seismic Charges
Once all the SCs are placed, revert back to the Carrier and recall the fighter.

Near as I can tell, this would require little additional special programming, just two new fighter models (or use the existing ones) with some existing weapons.

I'd happily crowd fund this.

Add a new miner fighter - Sept 18, 2018
Mining Shuttle - Sept 15, 2019
Mining "fighter" - Jan 15, 2020
Prospecting Pilots And New SLF - May 11, 2020
With all of this talk about using SLFs for mining glitches, can we have an actual SLF miner? - Jun 30, 2020
Mining SLF - Mar 14, 2021
Mining/utility SLF - Mar 18, 2021
Utility SLF - Jun 19, 2021
Possible Idea: Mining With The Help Of Repurposed Fighters - Feb 16, 2022
A fighter with a cargo scoop mining-fighter - Nov 11, 2022
 
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Planewalker

Planewalker
A mining slf is a good idea. -easy implementation is multicrew with two versions:
1. 2*Mining lasers 2. Abrasion+Subsurface (no depth charge as it is too big (C2)).
Limpets from helm picks up fragments as per usual (AI can already mine).
 

Tividar

Tividar
Planewalker said:
A mining slf is a good idea. -easy implementation is multicrew with two versions:
1. 2*Mining lasers 2. Abrasion+Subsurface (no depth charge as it is too big (C2)).
Limpets from helm picks up fragments as per usual (AI can already mine).
Click to expand...
The AI is a terrible miner (watch one). FDev is positively allergic to passive income generation, so I don't think a competent AI laser miner is in the cards. Regarding the Seismic Charge: existing fighters carry firepower comparable to at least a medium hardpoint, so I don't see the issue with one having a Seismic Charge Launcher. Part of the reason I'd like a mining SLF with non-laser hardpoints is the idea of a large "mother" ship that handles the heavy laser-mining / collection / processing while smaller more agile SLFs deploy to take care of the more detail-oriented deposits and fissures.
 

Edwyndham

E
The largest motherships can already competently handle all mining types at once. Even many of the medium ships can.

Sacrificing a size 5 internal for a fighter bay means you're losing 3 collector limpets. A mining fighter will need to outweigh that to be a good option.

What would be better imo would be a hybrid of sorts - some mining equipment, but also a method of speeding up collection. For core mining, a great SLF imo would be something that has an abrasion blaster but can also pick up and hold a few chunks of ore at once, then when it gets close can shoot them out towards the mothership's cargo hatch. Aiming them at the cargo hatch could be an interesting minigame of its own for whoever was using the SLF. (Or just plop them by the hatch and let limpets finish the job) SLF would get progressively slower the more chunks it picked up, to whatever its maximum was.
 

Tikanderoga

Tikanderoga
One thing I would love is an SLF that can prospect!
Self flown is fine, but the limpets wouldn't last forever. maybe 5 mins or 10 tops, however no ammo required.
 

Tividar

Tividar
Edwyndham said:
The largest motherships can already competently handle all mining types at once. Even many of the medium ships can.

Sacrificing a size 5 internal for a fighter bay means you're losing 3 collector limpets. A mining fighter will need to outweigh that to be a good option.

What would be better imo would be a hybrid of sorts - some mining equipment, but also a method of speeding up collection. For core mining, a great SLF imo would be something that has an abrasion blaster but can also pick up and hold a few chunks of ore at once, then when it gets close can shoot them out towards the mothership's cargo hatch. Aiming them at the cargo hatch could be an interesting minigame of its own for whoever was using the SLF. (Or just plop them by the hatch and let limpets finish the job) SLF would get progressively slower the more chunks it picked up, to whatever its maximum was.
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On my Cutter, I'd probably downgrade the 5A prospector to a 3A (sacrificing a 3A collector). Loss of collectors is a fair criticism, but I think on net I'd save time using the more agile fighter to harvest Deposits and Cores.
 

DemiserofD

D
Frankly, the most useful a fighter could be would be if it could fly around and collect fragments like an oversized limpet with no maximum lifespan. Actually mining would be mostly secondary, since most ships that can practically mine have more than enough hardpoints to carry more mining lasers than are practical AND any other mining gear you could need.

I suppose you COULD put an abrasion blaster or SSD launcher on it if you wanted to do multicrew mining, but those would be entirely secondary to its primary purpose.
 

Tividar

Tividar
DemiserofD said:
Frankly, the most useful a fighter could be would be if it could fly around and collect fragments like an oversized limpet with no maximum lifespan. Actually mining would be mostly secondary, since most ships that can practically mine have more than enough hardpoints to carry more mining lasers than are practical AND any other mining gear you could need.

I suppose you COULD put an abrasion blaster or SSD launcher on it if you wanted to do multicrew mining, but those would be entirely secondary to its primary purpose.
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A cutter sports 7 hardpoints. 4 are devoted to mining lasers, leaving one each for an Abrasion Blaster, Subsurface Missile Launcher and Seismic Charge.
A python sports 5 hardpoints. 2 are devoted to mining lasers, leaving one each for an Abrasion Blaster, Subsurface Missile Launcher and Seismic Charge.

Being able to free up three slots for defensive weapons would be a material improvement (and bring us back to the hardpoint requirements that existed pre-mining update). While I can Surface/SS/Core mine with the Cutter I would enjoy it more in an SLF. I find that proper ship placement can mitigate/eliminate issues with limpet controllers, and they continue to collect while you pilot an SLF so [for me at least] turning an SLF into a glorified mega-limpet would be substantially less useful than using an SLF for the non-laser mining activities.
 

Tividar

Tividar
SergMx said:

Add a new miner fighter.

Add a new fighter equipped with mining lasers and the ability to give commands to the main ship to send drones to the fighter target location.
forums.frontier.co.uk forums.frontier.co.uk
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Added to the link list above. Sorry I missed your original post. IMHO, I don't think mining lasers on a fighter would be all that useful as they'd likely be about at effective as a single 2D Mining laser, and laser mining doesn't play to an SLFs strengths (agility, the ability to reload weapons). Can you clarify the need for the ability to send drones to the fighter location? As it is, drones will auto-target anything within range and you can instruct the main ship to maintain formation (e.g. to bring them into range of the SLF).
 

SergMx

SergMx
Tividar said:
Added to the link list above. Sorry I missed your original post. IMHO, I don't think mining lasers on a fighter would be all that useful as they'd likely be about at effective as a single 2D Mining laser, and laser mining doesn't play to an SLFs strengths (agility, the ability to reload weapons). Can you clarify the need for the ability to send drones to the fighter location? As it is, drones will auto-target anything within range and you can instruct the main ship to maintain formation (e.g. to bring them into range of the SLF).
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I'm sorry, maybe I didn't understand something, because I'm using a translator.
The drones have a limited lifespan, and they crash. That's why I thought to give commands to the big ship to launch a new batch of drones.
As well as launching a scout on the fighter's target.
 
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