Replace the Prospector Limpet Controller with a Laser Scanner
- Thread starter Phayreon
- Start date
I like them, but they are useless unless you can carry very many of them. No good for smaller tonnage. It has motivated me to find a ship with more cargo space than the 64 tons in my Asp Miner.
I would like to see them stay on the rock so you can retarget them and use them as markers. There have been times where I have fired them off in different locations to sample rocks around me while waiting from my collectors to do their thing. But as only the info from the last one is accessible, it is easy to forget what was where especially if the earlier rock had the best samples and you got turned around.
If they stayed for a while and you could simply retarget one you placed earlier it can show the contents or whether it has been mined, etc. Maybe have a life span on them so they expire after a certain amount of time or something.
That's what I call surveying, enter a field and start firing them at all the roids around you and then go picking, then move on.
Its one of those things that is advantages to the bigger ships and motivates you to invest in a bigger ship.
I would like to see them stay on the rock so you can retarget them and use them as markers. There have been times where I have fired them off in different locations to sample rocks around me while waiting from my collectors to do their thing. But as only the info from the last one is accessible, it is easy to forget what was where especially if the earlier rock had the best samples and you got turned around.
If they stayed for a while and you could simply retarget one you placed earlier it can show the contents or whether it has been mined, etc. Maybe have a life span on them so they expire after a certain amount of time or something.
That's what I call surveying, enter a field and start firing them at all the roids around you and then go picking, then move on.
Its one of those things that is advantages to the bigger ships and motivates you to invest in a bigger ship.
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I had a thought about this. A new type of scanner, that overlays on your view. It would give you a colour coded "map" of sorts (probably limited field of view depending on module class or something) that indicates the minerals/metals available. Probably dynamic colours with a legend would be best IMO
I think this is grounded in RL, too. Every element/compound has a specific response to stimuli, and by scanning an area with a laser at a few different wavelenghts, you should be able to determine the composition.
I think this is grounded in RL, too. Every element/compound has a specific response to stimuli, and by scanning an area with a laser at a few different wavelenghts, you should be able to determine the composition.
I have to disagree. I use a Clipper with ~200 cargo capacity for mining (because I hate the Asp). I spent about 5 hours mining last night and completely stopped using the prospector controller after slightly less than an hour. If it's used as (I think) it's intended (i.e. filtering the minerals you're mining before you actually mine them) it becomes self-defeating very quickly. To fill your cargo hold with precious resources while using limpets as a filter, you'd need ~5x your cargo capacity in limpet drones (gross estimation; it would probably take more). That's just ridiculous.
What is most ridiculous is the idea that in 3300 CE we still need to have a probe make physical contact with an asteroid to determine it's make-up. Seriously? So, our Detailed Surface Scanner can tell us the make-up of PLANETS, but we have no smaller-scale scanner to determine the make-up of asteroids? Just... no.
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....And we have a winner!
Eh... yes and no. Currently the problem with this idea is that asteroids don't appear in the contacts list (nor should they, it would be a nightmare...). So a system wherein you can scan an un-target-able object is required, which is (I think) how they landed on the prospector limpet; however it is blatantly flawed (see my previous posts). If they added an additional function to the DSS so that, while in normal space, it could extend a laser-scanner with the same range as a mining laser... that would be awesome. That might overextend the usefulness of the DSS though, so an additional scanner for the utility-points (where all the other scanners are) makes more sense to me.
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Can't a DSS scan the makeup of a ring from supercruise? Or better, what if it could scan the asteroids within an #km around the RES?
Could it then just color asteroids with a tint once you drop in?
Possibly, but with what color(s)? There are more than 20 different things you can get out of mining between the minerals and the metals, often multiple types in a single rock, and the possible result would be a visual cacophony that no one could make sense of. I understand why they went with the limpets (I think): to let you see the minerals in a specific asteroid without making the game cluttered. The result is something that isn't really worth using. Best solution is a scanning laser; infinitely reusable and only affects one asteroid at a time.
It's pretty stupid, yes; it takes as much time as just knocking off a chunk of rock and targetting it.
It might make sense if the prospector limpet somehow prospected all the nearby rocks and reported back on several at a time.
Gold for >5k/T, Red for <1k/T, blue for everything between?
Not a bad way to do it, but personally I wouldn't like this kind of a change; it would make asteroid fields even more busy than they currently are and would be based on a price which changes constantly, both because of time and location. Not only that, I would still prefer to know exactly which minerals/metals are in the rock i'm currently looking at.
Every ship has a scanner that can tell you all the mods on another ship within a couple seconds; the DSS is advertised as a scanner that can report the make-up of a planet; there is NO REASON, other than CHOICE, that we would be limited to something as broken as prospector limpets.
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I was thinking dynamic colour assignment. Are there ever more than 10 different minerals in a group of 3-5 rocks? I haven't mined honestly, so i'm just philosophizing right now.
Are asteroid fields that busy these days? if it's all NPCs they can certainly tune that down if CMDRs are coming in, but I thought they already did that automagically..?
You are certainly right, the scanners are just a hodgepodge right now. Honestly, discovery would be far more interesting with a scientifically accurate scanning method.
...Hmm, I'm going to post about that right now!!
Exactly that. Without such a feature they're not worth the equipment slot.
This is the best option I think. Only make it scan within a radius around the player's ship.
Right now the entire point of prospector limpets is that they essentially make asteroids both targetable and show up in the contacts menu (well technically the limpet itself, acting as a surrogate for the asteroid).
They could add in asteroid scanners with various range based on rating. 1/2/3/4 km, whatever is most balanced both for usefulness and so that your screen isn't absolutely filled up with targets. Then, just as you do now with a higher class prospector controller with multiple limpets, you either manually target (or better yet use contacts menu) and that gives you composition as well as location and distance.
The scan could wear off over time in the same way that limpets expire. Or better yet wear off the next time you scan.