Mining - why aren't we using machines to mine for us?

stocko1111

S
Surely by now, way in the future, nobody at all would be sitting in their ship, shooting at rocks. Wouldn't we have big pre-fab mining machines and bases (like the ones we're finding on some planets) that we could launch from our ship at a large asteroid and have them mine for us?

These could then be scattered across several rings throughout the galaxy which the player could then leave behind and return to at a later date to pick up what's been mined.

While the player's away, if someone else happens to come across them though, they could also be either attacked or looted by another player. Unlikely, given the size of the galaxy, but maybe one could show up as some kind of blip on the radar if one's nearby, thus encouraging players to seek out perfect mining spots.

This, for me anyway, is how I'd see mining in the future, after all Elon Musk is already thinking of sending a machine up to mine an asteroid and we're only in the year 2016!
 

Lestat

Banned
Lestat
The game should not play it self like Eve. IF they add something like Automatic mining. Then they should rase the risk in area where player Mine like random Ships that come in and steal ore or attack you.
 

Parmo

Parmo
Because we're tough ol' space-miners with calloused hands and big hairy behinds!
And we're not lazy! We're not afraid to get our hands mucky too!
 

Yaffle

Volunteer Moderator
Yaffle
The problem, as I understand it, would be around instancing and remembering where your machine is.

You set a machine going, and leave the instance to trade or whatever. At the moment if you do that with a cargo pod if there is no other player about the instance vaporises, and the game forgets the pod existed. So somewhere a server has to remember your machine.

Next, your machine is in an instance with a few other players, all of whom ignore it but can see it. They have reached the instance limit, so another one is formed as a new player arrives. (S)he steals your machine. What should the other players see?
 

stocko1111

S
Yaffle said:
The problem, as I understand it, would be around instancing and remembering where your machine is.

You set a machine going, and leave the instance to trade or whatever. At the moment if you do that with a cargo pod if there is no other player about the instance vaporises, and the game forgets the pod existed. So somewhere a server has to remember your machine.

Next, your machine is in an instance with a few other players, all of whom ignore it but can see it. They have reached the instance limit, so another one is formed as a new player arrives. (S)he steals your machine. What should the other players see?
Click to expand...

Thank you for the sensible and logical answer, much appreciated. Sometimes it's easy to forget the limitations of instancing but could there be a way around that in the future, for instance by having certain asteroids that are actually permanently there but just really difficult to find?
 

Lianachan

Lianachan
Mining machines are one of the many things we had in Frontier that we really should have had, day one, in Elite Dangerous. They wouldn't even need to be a replacement for the manual method, for those who enjoy that.
 

Nexxio

Nexxio
Limoncello Lizard said:
Please don't suggest taking away one of the more enjoyable professions in SD.
Click to expand...
Machines are planetary nobody is saying about replacing one with another.

Im not an IT expert but maybe there could be a walkaround. When you are in the instance machine exists, once you're gone it's gone it disappears from game reality. It exists only virtually and cant be interacted (destroyed, hacked or whatever) which would be very unfortunate but... instancing.
Those machines could be mostly 'for fun' element and shouldn't be designed to bring millions.

Edit: My English is far from perfect so im sorry.
 
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