Proposed mining changes

[DeathStroke]

Today I took my mining python out to 2 different pristine ice rings. Mined for a bit, when I got back to station, I relized I had made more money by killing the pathetic pirates that wanted my 'tasty cargo' than from mining, 4 times as much in fact. Proof: http://imgur.com/a/AsvTP

So here are my proposed changes to bring mining up to bounty hunting level money wise.

1. Pristine rings have all 'high' content rocks. Major have 50% 'high' 50% 'medium'. Common have all 'medium'. Low have 50% 'low' 50% medium. Depleted have all 'low'. High, medium, and low should refer to how much commodity items the rock has, instead of the current system of how many engineer materials the rock has.
2. Pristine rings have higher painite and LTD ~10%-15%.
3. Prospecting laser turret. Used in conjunction with prospecting limpet. Tells you what is in the rock, but not how much.
4. Prospecting Discovery scanner. Based off of exploration discovery scanner. Used in belt. 10km-15km range. Lists all ore present within 10km-15km sphere around ship. Does not tell how much.
5. Pirates no longer want your cargo unless you have at least 100k cr worth.
6. Pirates no longer attack ships that far outclass them. I.E. adders won't attack pythons, anaconda, etc. Adder will attack DBX and below. Python will attack type 9 and below.
7. Add new commodities, Iridium, Alexandrite, and maybe metallic hydrogen. All of which can only be mined, and only outside the bubble. Set the buy price at around a million cr per ton. Right now, there is no reason to mine outside the bubble.

 

[Wyldwiisel]

Well I have to agree I've tried mining a couple of times I still don't have enough to unlock Selene gene it's probably the most boring and unprofitable thing in the game unless a player economy is introduced I can't see it being any part of any long term players game plan

 

[DeathStroke]

Mining is better than exploration at least, when you get tired of mining, you can switch to combat fairly quickly, no so with exploration. That and exploration pay is garbage, 16k ly round trip got me 4 mil... waste of time.

 

[Konnivar]

Mining is better than exploration at least, when you get tired of mining, you can switch to combat fairly quickly, no so with exploration. That and exploration pay is garbage, 16k ly round trip got me 4 mil... waste of time.

Exploration shouldn't do that anymore; a single ELW nets 600k and Terraformables (there's lots) get something like 200k. I've gotten 2M from one page just from honking around the bubble.


I agree that mining needs to be boosted in some way; I really like the idea of the prospector laser that doesn't mine but gives a contents reading. That way I don't have to spend time waiting for my prospector to launch then wait for it to contact as I outpace it to the asteroid. Currently there's no real reason to mine in anything other than a Pristine Metallic ring; the ores available in all other ring types simply don't have enough value/use to justify mining there.

Icy rings are especially bad because not only do they have materials with lower value than Pristine Metallic, but the % content of asteroids in Pristine Icy is less than that of a Pristine Metallic. Sure LTD are worth 60-70k per ton, but good luck finding any and in any quantity worth mining.

I tend to avoid mining in RES sites so points 5 and 6 don't apply much to the way I mine.

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

I think you have the wrong idea about the "content" : high/medium/low. This is for materials not ores. Most players don't want high material roids when they mine. I agree they should be more prolific, but not the way you are suggesting.

Have a read of testing of mining for materials. It explains how material content of roids works with the different ring types.

 

[DeathStroke]

I think you have the wrong idea about the "content" : high/medium/low. This is for materials not ores. Most players don't want high material roids when they mine. I agree they should be more prolific, but not the way you are suggesting.

Have a read of testing of mining for materials. It explains how material content of roids works with the different ring types.

*facepalm*... Frontier... all this time I was thinking that was how much commodities were in the rocks..... and it turns out to be engineer mats.... going to reword op shortly.

 

[space voyager]

He he he, I was under the same delusion. So, each asteroid has the same ammount of metals in it? Is it in any way connected to the size? Or is it RNG...

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

He he he, I was under the same delusion. So, each asteroid has the same ammount of metals in it? Is it in any way connected to the size? Or is it RNG...

Asteroids are procedurally generated. If you could find the same roid a second time, it has the same composition of ores. This has been proven with roids in RES, but applies to everywhere in the ring anywhere in the galaxy.

Roids depend on the system resources. Pristine > Major > Common > Depleted. Also on the ring type - Metallic > Metal Rich > Rocky > Icy, with different ore types in each.
Materials are Metal Rich > Rocky > Metallic > Icy, whether a ring is pristine or depleted doesn't make any difference.
As you can see, Icy rings get the short straw both ways.

 

[space voyager]

Thank you! I'd add a rep but it seems as though I've been throwing those at you too much already.

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

Have one back instead

 

[Maymo]

I've done a fair bit of mining recently and agree that it really needs a second look. The time/reward ratio is well off...

I estimated that FD would basically have to triple the value of all the metals and materials for it to even come close to other professions. Even in an Anaconda with 9 collectors working for me I was disappointed with the result, I can make more credits by bolting a couple of cheap scanners to an eagle and hunting down earth/water worlds around the bubble.

As well as increasing the value of mining commodities i also think they should create a market for materials (sulphur/chemical processors etc).

I know this sounds radical but think for a second how much this would improve the game.

Salvaging would become a more interesting profession, one could drop in at signal sources for guaranteed income and even bounty hunting would be improved as you scoop up valuable materials from ship wreckages. Exploration would be improved as you hunt through systems for planets with high mercury and arsenic content then head out in the SRV to mine them. Piracy would be improved because cargo ships carrying precious metals would now be worth the time hunting down. And last but not least, creating a huge mining vessel and heading out to rings would be the awesome career it was meant to be...

 

[space voyager]

Salvaging would be pretty cool, agree.

 

[Konnivar]

I've done a fair bit of mining recently and agree that it really needs a second look. The time/reward ratio is well off...

I estimated that FD would basically have to triple the value of all the metals and materials for it to even come close to other professions. Even in an Anaconda with 9 collectors working for me I was disappointed with the result, I can make more credits by bolting a couple of cheap scanners to an eagle and hunting down earth/water worlds around the bubble.

As well as increasing the value of mining commodities i also think they should create a market for materials (sulphur/chemical processors etc).

I know this sounds radical but think for a second how much this would improve the game.

Salvaging would become a more interesting profession, one could drop in at signal sources for guaranteed income and even bounty hunting would be improved as you scoop up valuable materials from ship wreckages. Exploration would be improved as you hunt through systems for planets with high mercury and arsenic content then head out in the SRV to mine them. Piracy would be improved because cargo ships carrying precious metals would now be worth the time hunting down. And last but not least, creating a huge mining vessel and heading out to rings would be the awesome career it was meant to be...

Tripling the value of all metals doesn't sound unreasonable, especially the ones that can only be obtained from mining. Spending 2 hours to get 224T of metals that I can sell for ~2.5M when in that same span of 2hrs I could have completed three passenger missions totaling 20M, or bounty hunting for ~8M makes the pay seem a bit off compared to other methods. Bulk goods trading falls into that category as well, and there isn't a whole lot of incentive other than money to mine or trade.

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

I think a lot of the professions could do with a balance pass. Exploration got a buff recently, so hopefully mining will get some attention.

 

[vampireuk]

I had all the intention of doing purely mining but as pointed out the payout is incredibly low for the time invested. I ran a type 9 with 400+ tonnes of space. It would take a couple of hours to fill the hold with high value cargo from a belt and maybe make 4-6 million out of it. Compare this to cargo missions and running cargo to the same systems you have missions in to fill the hold up.

Instead I run my type 9 with 464 tonnes of rack space and only mine when I need materials. It is a shame because I do like how slow paced and relaxed mining is but it doesn't pay off.

 

[Maymo]

I think a lot of the professions could do with a balance pass. Exploration got a buff recently, so hopefully mining will get some attention.

This is certainly why I have hope for mining in future updates. I happened to be restarting the game when they increased the value of exploration data, I headed out into the black in my Sidewinder with the tiny fuel scoop and came back rich, made an exploration eagle with the profits and had a real blast in that thing....earned me ranger rank and a stock Python.

 

[Maymo]

Tripling the value of all metals doesn't sound unreasonable, especially the ones that can only be obtained from mining. Spending 2 hours to get 224T of metals that I can sell for ~2.5M when in that same span of 2hrs I could have completed three passenger missions totaling 20M, or bounty hunting for ~8M makes the pay seem a bit off compared to other methods. Bulk goods trading falls into that category as well, and there isn't a whole lot of incentive other than money to mine or trade.

This was certainly my experience as well. I think a dramatic shift in the market prices for metals and minerals would go a long way to improving the time investment. Or, they could take a second look at Extraction systems to ensure a broad range of mining specific missions are always available on the mission board, it's really irritating when you take a mining vessel to an extraction system and find nothing relevant on the boards. (It's often the same with tourism economies as well)

 

[oflow]

They should bring back PPP missions and change mining back to the way it was. The new system while making painite pay out more is more tedious since they added a bunch of extra useless junk minerals. We really didnt need a ton more useless resources to fill our bins up.

I like the old system where they had painite, palladium and platinum missions in abundance. The new ice mining missions are bleh especially when they usually require high quantities like 30 tons for the turn in. The ice commodities themselves are worthless for the time investment.

And I understand that the change to painite was actually a quality of life improvement for miners since selling painite at 70k/ton is more profitable than doing missions and selling the rest for 30k/ton. But the thing is they threw out the baby with the bathwater when they did this because removing these missions also removed miner's ability to easily level rep with mining missions.


I really enjoy mining in this game and I mostly mined my way from an Adder to a T-9 when I first started playing at launch. I mostly liked it for the the relaxed state of the profession. I'd go mine fill up my hold then fly around and find missions to just turn in for profit. It was a pretty good system for me.

What needed to be fixed more was the actual pirate interactions with trade ships. Hauling PPP automatically drew pirates and interdictions like a plague and the bigger problem was the AI wouldnt accept cargo and just leave you alone. You could dump 50t of platinum which was more than the interdicting ship could even carry and the pirate was still blasting at you screaming, 'Thats not enough!!1!1!' over the comms.


But I agree currently its not profitable compared to other jobs in its current state. Mining could use some love.

One thing I'd like to see is actual massive planetside mining sites and maybe a larger mining SRV with a bigger hold. instead of driving around picking up two tons here and there maybe an actually land based resource extraction site where I can set up some equipment to conveyor mined mats to my ships hold.

Maybe kill a few skimmer and be able to set up a claim site or put a warrant sysyem in for 'claim jumping etc.'

 

[DeathStroke]

Added #7 to op. There's no reason currently to mine outside the bubble, #7 would be the reason, massive profit for those brave enough to travel the void.

 

[Maymo]

They should bring back PPP missions and change mining back to the way it was. The new system while making painite pay out more is more tedious since they added a bunch of extra useless junk minerals. We really didnt need a ton more useless resources to fill our bins up.

I like the old system where they had painite, palladium and platinum missions in abundance. The new ice mining missions are bleh especially when they usually require high quantities like 30 tons for the turn in. The ice commodities themselves are worthless for the time investment.

And I understand that the change to painite was actually a quality of life improvement for miners since selling painite at 70k/ton is more profitable than doing missions and selling the rest for 30k/ton. But the thing is they threw out the baby with the bathwater when they did this because removing these missions also removed miner's ability to easily level rep with mining missions.


I really enjoy mining in this game and I mostly mined my way from an Adder to a T-9 when I first started playing at launch. I mostly liked it for the the relaxed state of the profession. I'd go mine fill up my hold then fly around and find missions to just turn in for profit. It was a pretty good system for me.

What needed to be fixed more was the actual pirate interactions with trade ships. Hauling PPP automatically drew pirates and interdictions like a plague and the bigger problem was the AI wouldnt accept cargo and just leave you alone. You could dump 50t of platinum which was more than the interdicting ship could even carry and the pirate was still blasting at you screaming, 'Thats not enough!!1!1!' over the comms.


But I agree currently its not profitable compared to other jobs in its current state. Mining could use some love.

One thing I'd like to see is actual massive planetside mining sites and maybe a larger mining SRV with a bigger hold. instead of driving around picking up two tons here and there maybe an actually land based resource extraction site where I can set up some equipment to conveyor mined mats to my ships hold.

Maybe kill a few skimmer and be able to set up a claim site or put a warrant sysyem in for 'claim jumping etc.'

Love the idea of a heavy mining SRV! Was watching some guys exploring the Thargoid caves a few days back and was thinking how cool it would be to go mining in the deep caves of a moon somewhere. There's so much FD could do with this game.