Look, I agree, limpets are just dumb machines. Remember in the ED galaxy there is no AI, so our little helpers are very basic indeed. No doubt about that. But that doesn't mean that a smart Commander can't get the best out of his minions. When I go mining (either core or surface) in my Krait I take 100 limpets (128T cargo capacity). I do that simply because I tend to waste too many using them as Prospectors. At the end of the session I have probably jettisoned a minimum of 10, maximum of around 20 on a normal run. The only time I use them all is when core mining and there are lots of targets that end up not being what I am after (hence wasting a limpet as a prospector on them).
Mining Tractor Beam
- Thread starter Bryan
- Start date
Look, I agree, limpets are just dumb machines. Remember in the ED galaxy there is no AI, so our little helpers are very basic indeed. No doubt about that. But that doesn't mean that a smart Commander can't get the best out of his minions. When I go mining (either core or surface) in my Krait I take 100 limpets (128T cargo capacity). I do that simply because I tend to waste too many using them as Prospectors. At the end of the session I have probably jettisoned a minimum of 10, maximum of around 20 on a normal run. The only time I use them all is when core mining and there are lots of targets that end up not being what I am after (hence wasting a limpet as a prospector on them).
Tractor beams were never discovered in the Elite Dangerous lore because they never designed artificial gravity. Elite Dangerous science and lore is based upon the physics of what we know today, but accelerated to the year 3000. Tractor beams are hand waving science and not really based in anything other than Star Wars and Star Trek that have space magic.
Actually I just saw a tractor beam for cargo in the wiki for elite.
wiki.alioth.net
Miscellaneous Equipment - Elite Wiki
Actually I just saw a tractor beam for cargo in the wiki for elite.
Miscellaneous Equipment - Elite Wiki
Yeah I wouldn't take anything on that site as factual. Well you could but since anyone can add anything, with no clarification or proof of authenticity quoting from the site is problematic at best.
Previous incarnations of Elite are not exactly part of ED canon
I find an incredible disparity between the ideology of player skill being a huge factor in the reason why we don't add feature "x" compared with the current state of the game. Clearly there are elements that offer a balance between convenience and effectiveness: you can have different types of guns that trade off aiming assists for DPS, you can have docking and supercruise assists that take up valuable slots.
I think it's wrong to just say "no we can't do it because it makes the game easy", you can just create a new balance. How about a "limpet navigation computer" module that improves limpet performance. Now you've got a tradeoff between more cargo capacity and blowing through more limpets, or more efficient limpet usage and less storage. Easy.
Tractor beam might be a useful alternative to limpets for extremely remote mining operations. It would probably be slower and weaker, or perhaps consume fuel to operate. It would be nice to have a graceful alternative to the cargo scoop.
I think suggestions like this would help improve the gameplay which is much needed right now, the balance is already messed up, trying to handwave any potential improvements because of that is asinine. I'll be honest, I only started playing again recently after taking a break for several years. I was happy to see some things improved, but at a much slower pace than I expected for a game that feels so polished on the surface. I quit before due to not being able to switch ships while I had valuable cargo onboard, and was disappointed to see that bizarre gameplay issue still present. It's weird how this game chooses to do some specific things more immersively/better than EVE, then other things it is light-years behind in that could be fixed quite easily. I'm so tired of seeing games fail to hold onto their players over time because they let latent issues sit for years while they continue to push towards unnecessary additions.
I think it's wrong to just say "no we can't do it because it makes the game easy", you can just create a new balance. How about a "limpet navigation computer" module that improves limpet performance. Now you've got a tradeoff between more cargo capacity and blowing through more limpets, or more efficient limpet usage and less storage. Easy.
Tractor beam might be a useful alternative to limpets for extremely remote mining operations. It would probably be slower and weaker, or perhaps consume fuel to operate. It would be nice to have a graceful alternative to the cargo scoop.
I think suggestions like this would help improve the gameplay which is much needed right now, the balance is already messed up, trying to handwave any potential improvements because of that is asinine. I'll be honest, I only started playing again recently after taking a break for several years. I was happy to see some things improved, but at a much slower pace than I expected for a game that feels so polished on the surface. I quit before due to not being able to switch ships while I had valuable cargo onboard, and was disappointed to see that bizarre gameplay issue still present. It's weird how this game chooses to do some specific things more immersively/better than EVE, then other things it is light-years behind in that could be fixed quite easily. I'm so tired of seeing games fail to hold onto their players over time because they let latent issues sit for years while they continue to push towards unnecessary additions.
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Probably never happen, but ye never know.
Take away collector limpits and go back to scooping would cool your jets in a heart beat.
Take away collector limpits and go back to scooping would cool your jets in a heart beat.
People should be happy that unnecessary/boring/tedious features are being optimized further and/or that new features are implemented to improve the overall gameplay experience, provide more depth/complexity and/or introduce more alternatives to existing strategies, further adding diversity and more degrees of freedom when it comes to decision making.
But for some reason, the vast majority hates such changes.
Furthermore, it seems many fail to understand how important balancing is and why it is essential to take all parameters into consideration when suggesting something. Any change shouldn't just benefit one particular playstyle or improve a certain aspect of the game while it makes other gameplay experiences worse.
I guess, being less ego-centric and trying to see the big picture isn't really popular either.
But for some reason, the vast majority hates such changes.
Furthermore, it seems many fail to understand how important balancing is and why it is essential to take all parameters into consideration when suggesting something. Any change shouldn't just benefit one particular playstyle or improve a certain aspect of the game while it makes other gameplay experiences worse.
I guess, being less ego-centric and trying to see the big picture isn't really popular either.
Funny, don't see much complaint about the FSD, lasers dealing noticeable damage across 2km+ distance, energy shields, CMDRs not blacking out while pitching hard under full boost speeds, or the ability to survive close proximity to stars.
Why do only some hand-waves get a pass?
It doesn't have to be artificial gravity, either. It could be a big electromagnet. Or hooks on reels. Or a net on reels. This suggestion is more about a QOL mechanic than a specific lore-breaking technology.
If we have the ability to travel past light speed in space( at least according to science(fiction)) then why can't that be used as a tractor beams. Real life technology like this would be applicable all over. And some form of jump drive has been present for over 1000 years in the story.
Even in a Science Fictional setting I would like if space magic was used sparingly.
Granted - life is too short and our galaxy too big not to fiction faster than light travel.
But, while laser beams can levitate and cool small things thanks to local electromagnetic fields (probably requires more than a single beam from different angles),
beams will not allow you to move anything having significant mass in reasonable time for a readily available amount of energy TOWARDS the origin of the beam.
Sure you can heat up the surface facing the beam's origin and particles, plasma and other emissions will slowly make the stuff float AWAY like a comet unless you manage to heat it and then turn it with beams.
For practical reasons you could invent altermnatives. Maybe we could have have some kind of micro rocket limpet ammo which is shot at the target and which will attach to it, turn it and move it towards your cargo hatch with their thrusters, potentially slower than a current limpet but many more simultaneously and without requiring control.
To me, the busy, trusty Limpets are a nice and somewhat alive addition in the deep black.
They could also do the actual mining (as in another space game I played) and bring what they collect.
I'd just like not to have to use up so many slots for different limpet controllers and don't understand the requirement of control slots (other than some debatable balancing), given the autonomy similar gadgets already achieve in todays reality.
Granted - life is too short and our galaxy too big not to fiction faster than light travel.
But, while laser beams can levitate and cool small things thanks to local electromagnetic fields (probably requires more than a single beam from different angles),
beams will not allow you to move anything having significant mass in reasonable time for a readily available amount of energy TOWARDS the origin of the beam.
Sure you can heat up the surface facing the beam's origin and particles, plasma and other emissions will slowly make the stuff float AWAY like a comet unless you manage to heat it and then turn it with beams.
For practical reasons you could invent altermnatives. Maybe we could have have some kind of micro rocket limpet ammo which is shot at the target and which will attach to it, turn it and move it towards your cargo hatch with their thrusters, potentially slower than a current limpet but many more simultaneously and without requiring control.
To me, the busy, trusty Limpets are a nice and somewhat alive addition in the deep black.
They could also do the actual mining (as in another space game I played) and bring what they collect.
I'd just like not to have to use up so many slots for different limpet controllers and don't understand the requirement of control slots (other than some debatable balancing), given the autonomy similar gadgets already achieve in todays reality.
Sounds like you might be running more lasers than your limpets an keep up with.
I usually have 10+ collectors active at a given time, and I don’t have much trouble.
I usually have 10+ collectors active at a given time, and I don’t have much trouble.
You don't need to control them if you know their behavior and compensate.
Is it ideal? No. Could their pathing be improved? Yes. Absolutely. 100000% could be better. Does it matter significantly to anyone who's learned to deal with it? Debatable. I have little issues core mining and almost zero issues with surface mining asteroids and it didn't take much practice.
I mean.
CURRENT laser defense systems deal SUBSTANTIAL damage beyond 1.6km in atmosphere. No reason to suspect a thousand years of development hasn't improved that. Plus. Vacuum of space and all that kinda reduces a lot of the power loss in that regard. More coherent lasers shouldn't have an issue getting out farther without atmospheric gases in the way.
But yeah. Picking and choosing what you like isn't really a viable method of arguing for or against space magic.
As for the gravity thing, dude, we still have people who argue and honestly believe that "g-forces don't exist in space" because "there's no gravity well so there's no g in the first place". Dumbs gonna dumb.
I use 5 medium lasers on my cutter and with the right positioning and 12 limpets there's enough time after the asteroid is empty for me to fire the next prospector before they finish. Usually I get the "no valid collection targets" and skedaddle within a few seconds of the asteroid depleting.
I can often exceed 10 tons per minute painite mining rate when I am really putting in effort.
You are mistaken. That is not how real worls technology works. I'm compareing sci fi to real life. In real life anything that could make such a profound technology would easily be usable in such applications. And in more ways than you could ever imagine. Literally, as we never know things that thoroughly. The base things that would be required to make ftl like in this game work, let along the likely power requirements, would be off the charts and make star trek and any other sci fi, short of the most extreme anime, look like childs play if applied in real life.
The death star and other things should be trivial in this game technically. Let alone much worse.
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Cool.
But there's a whole lot of math that shows it possible if X requirement is met which drastically reduces Y power needs.
Easy to just argue that they found this magic bullet.
You got the point I was making, so continuing this further is really just for fun
.True. I was actually a bit behind the times regarding our progress on weaponized lasers.
At the same time, it's hard to overlook the idea that short bursts of exposure (Pulse/Burst) somehow have less penetrating power than sustained beams... And it's even harder to overlook that these weapons somehow inflict more immediate damage on armored ships that typically suffer nothing more than a bit of module overheating when accidentally dropping from SC in close proximity to STARS.
From a gameplay perspective it makes plenty of sense, but from a "reality" perspective I'm left scratching my head. FTL seems to have some wack laws letting us scoop fuel without absorbing too much heat, but dropping into normal space that close should cook CMDRs alive in short order. If our ships are somehow capable of handling that sort of heat, anything their power plants can put out should be relatively small potatoes.
Yikes. Hadn't witnessed THAT, and hoping I don't have to.