I saw a thread recently where Sandro chipped in to say that prospector drones would be getting a bonus to the amount of fragments a roid would yield (sorry I can't find the source now).
I'm a keen miner and I use prospectors anyway so I won't complain about a buff. However, I feel that a more involved and believable way of buffing prospector drones would be for them to yield exploration data. Basically when a prospector engages on an roid you get a data package that you can sell at Universal Cartographics. My rationale would be that detailed survey information of asteroid fields and rings would be useful to collate even where roids have been depleted as it would be a away of confirming survey scans and to help make future predictions more accurate.
I wouldn't expect it to pay much, perhaps just 500 credits but that would go to your exploration rank. Mining I feel sits somewhere between trading and exploration so it would be nice if there was some contribution to exploration as well. Personally when I go out mining with my clipper I will probably fire off about 80 prospectors. Now that might only net me around 30k when you deduct the cost of the drone but it's better than a poke in the eye.
What I think would be really interesting would be if there was a mechanic where asteroid fields and rings could be marked surveyed or unsurveyed with the implication that explorers could go outside the bubble to find unsurveyed fields and get additional money from selling the data i.e. data from unsurveyed fields pays more. I think this would require a little more thought and effort but could add another dimension to exploration.
Thanks for listening
p.s. can we get a HUD target for prospector drones please
I'm a keen miner and I use prospectors anyway so I won't complain about a buff. However, I feel that a more involved and believable way of buffing prospector drones would be for them to yield exploration data. Basically when a prospector engages on an roid you get a data package that you can sell at Universal Cartographics. My rationale would be that detailed survey information of asteroid fields and rings would be useful to collate even where roids have been depleted as it would be a away of confirming survey scans and to help make future predictions more accurate.
I wouldn't expect it to pay much, perhaps just 500 credits but that would go to your exploration rank. Mining I feel sits somewhere between trading and exploration so it would be nice if there was some contribution to exploration as well. Personally when I go out mining with my clipper I will probably fire off about 80 prospectors. Now that might only net me around 30k when you deduct the cost of the drone but it's better than a poke in the eye.
What I think would be really interesting would be if there was a mechanic where asteroid fields and rings could be marked surveyed or unsurveyed with the implication that explorers could go outside the bubble to find unsurveyed fields and get additional money from selling the data i.e. data from unsurveyed fields pays more. I think this would require a little more thought and effort but could add another dimension to exploration.
Thanks for listening
p.s. can we get a HUD target for prospector drones please