Some words on Mining. (The Forgotten Career)

[Sim Maker]

Hello Players.
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I’d like to discuss the mining side of the game.
I will be showing my years here. But there is an 80s film called Space Hunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone (In 3D….yes kids, we had that crap even back then….lol)……..
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The film starts with our hero, Wolf, chilling out in his space ship with his sex and utility droid, Charmers…..They are floating around in an asteroid field, picking up space junk which he then later plans to sell to pay of his debts…………I always thought that was a great scene, and when I heard of Elite coming out, I spoke to some of the people I work with about my hopes for the game, and mentioned that the one thing I really wanted to do, was mine for a day…….park up the ship, be safe, and come back to it now and then during the day to see how things are going, just like the film…………….he then got a radio call, and went to FIND adventure……….it didn’t come kicking his door down every 3 minutes while he was floating around collecting junk…….
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You would think, that of all people, I would love the mining side of ED. The asteroid belts look fantastic for a start……I can mine AND pick up “Space Junk”…….I am married so don’t need the Sex R2-D2…………….and so, I did have a good go (so I thought), spent a good few hours mining over some weekend…I kind of got in to a good rhythm…….tedious, but relaxing fun………..even upgraded a ship for it………
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Then after about hour 4 in my new mining sled….., I got hit by an NPC, paniced, blown up lost the work….so have not returned to mining…but have been haunting the same RES since, in a Viper…….but that’s another story…….meh....
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I was looking at my stats last night…..

Current Balance: 8 Million
Outfitting 15 Million
…..
Combat Profit from Bounties 5,015,112
Smuggling Profit 403,585
Trading Profit 13,384,828
Mining 16,854……….SAY WHAT?????......yep, for me, who bought the game in a big part, to go mining, this was a whoa moment……….16 grand?
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The reason I don’t mine now, is because it just takes too long and is fiddly an annoying after a short time. And then, with NPCs going Loco all over the galaxy, chances are that a days mining will be lost…….so, whats the point? Exactly………16,854…sigh…..and Pirates think THEIR “career” is broken…….
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Suggestions:
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The Blast and scoop thing is just nuts. Each refinery should come with a tractor beam of some kind, everything you blast off the rock should be hoovered up automatically and refined…….
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The Basic refinery, should have 3-4 Bins……..because many noobs, myself included will “try” mining in their first week, and be put off by the mind numbing tedium of shooting, scanning for, scooping, then sorting ONE Type of ore……probably never to give mining another go.
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Make mining scaleable: If I want a quiet days mining, how about giving us rings, with No NPCs…..but, the refining there is of lower quality ore, or needs much more blasting and tractor beam scooping…..make the rings with gold and platinum the ones where the real risk is……give us a bit of choice and “gray” inbetween……
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As things stand, for me, there is no choice……mining is out.........it is more fun and far far far more profitable to protect NPC miners at RES locations. Than to actually do the mining…….Res Hunting? 5 Million……Res Mining? not enough to buy a new Ford Fiesta………..16 grand…..
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Any other players hav suggestions on how to better include this career in the game? Anyone made a regular career/success out of mining? How?.......
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Cheers

 

[testmate]

Sadly, mining income doesnt scale with large ships, too.

I made only 0,86% of my assets doing some mining. It is tedious, but also very relaxing! Mixed with all the other possibilitys to earn credits it can be very fun.

But if you finally own a larger ship there is no point in mining. Trading, BH .. all better cr/h!
I would like to do some mining in my phyton and earn some cash worth of a medium trade run

what the game needs to improve mining:
- drones and/or kind of "beam" to collect chunks (should be very expensive, take some cargo hold and/or internal compartement --> big ship needed)
- asteroid mining scanner to improve results
- better refinery as mentioned by OP

should work to bring back some rich guys in their shiny big ships just to relax, watch the beautiful asteroids and make some money ...

EDIT: I forgot to mention the legendary mining-machine (cant remember the name) you can put on an asteroid and pick up later, full of ore

 

[Scoob]

Found a Pristine Metallic Ring last night - mined for an hour or so, not being overly fussy on what I scooped up. Sold 80 tonnes of stuff and made just over 400k cr. Not too bad. If I'd spent a little more time and been pickier on what I collected I could doubtless have improved on that no end.

I do tend to go and mine for a bit every so often, now I can afford and fit a 7 Hopper Refinery it's a much nicer experience. I do look forward to there being more options around actually collecting the chunks though...such as little drone that collect them for you. It doesn't have to be faster that a good pilot scooping, just a little less manual. I tend to mine as a bit of a chill out from boring trade grind (less boring now with the increased interdictions) long Rares circuits or somewhat exhausting combat.

I first tried mining in a Metallic Asteroid belt - did ok, but picked up loads of low-value stuff - yields never more than about 10% for a given mineral. Next I tried a Metallic Planetary Ring and saw marginally higher yields on average with more valuable fragments extracted - I saw as high as ~30% yields, but not very often. The Pristine has bumped this up even more - I've seen some 50-70% yields, though not common, however, 30%+ more common. Still saw the odd very low yield, circa 5%, but I just ignore those.

I do hope one day we get a Utility item for analysing asteroids prior to mining - would have a lot of time.

Scoob.

 

[wenkman]

I think mining is cool. with mining i made my way from viper to cobra.

You can have the "no npc" version, just mine in rings but not in ressource sites. fly very close to the ring at any point and slow. you'll drop out without damage and can mine in peace. mining isn't fun with big ships though (it was not in my asp, and i don't want to imagine doing it in an t6/7/9)

mining drones (to placed on asteroids) were in some kind of communication. i think they'll be around at some point in the future. (ninja'd)

 

[Hadron-Higgs-Boson]

I think FD have already said that there isnt anything planned for Mining, I think the best you can hope for it actually becomes the 'content' and reason for landing on planets, throw in some fairly limp and obtuse reasons why you can only land on some god forsaken rock in the rear end of nowhere and I think we are onto a winner

It's not that mining is bad now that troubles me, its the lack of a planned solution to the fact thats its bad now. It feels less like there is much of a plan for anything or at least that those willing to share snips of information are not part of said plan or allowed to share it! I guess behind trading and combat, mining is always going to come off poorly, especially considering the version that they decided to implement in the launch, would they have been better off not ticking the box and releasing mining later?

 

[Brakespear]

I got back from a trip to the Pleiades Nebula recently, and made about 500k from exploring with a basic discovery, no surface scanner budget exploration loadout in my Freagle.

I bought a Cobra, kitted it out, and tried some mining for a change (found a station in a close orbit around metallic rings, with high demand for metal).

After a whole lot of mining, and a whole lot of risk (that pirates spawn *on you*, regardless of supercruise traffic or proximity to extraction sites)... I barely made 10k.


Given the sheer effort of mining and the significant risk involved, the reward should be much higher. Alternatively, there should be a *cheap* module that causes ore chunks to drift towards your cargo scoop. Otherwise, the ratios are just way off, and the gameplay just isn't even remotely balanced.

Incidentally, after selling my mining laser and refinery, I hopped through a few systems doing some scanning... made 184k in under 20 jumps, with nothing but a basic scanner.

 

[Grumfutock]

Been saying that mining needs a tractor beam for a while now. Sadly without it you have to go chasing down chunks and it becomes boring really fast.

 

[Jackie Silver]

But there is an 80s film called Space Hunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone

That sounds to be a truly terrible film. Must get hold of a copy.

 

[Galafrey]

Mining makes no sense as the economics of this game means that in order to buy shiny ships and guns etc, these need to be made from refined materials. Therefore if mining is so unrewarding why would anyone do it, and why are the prices of goods and equipment not higher to reflect that no one can be bothered to supply the raw material.

In short mining should be one of the most tedious, however profitable professions....

 

[Sim Maker]

That sounds to be a truly terrible film. Must get hold of a copy.

The film is classic 80s Sci-Fi cheese, as such I have only watched it a few 100 times...... ..............but it's a cut above no-mark-no-budget films of the day.....................think of it as the "Soldier" of its time, money spent, big flop, cult gathering in the following years....... Peter Strauss, Molly Ringwold, Ernie Hudson, and Michael Ironsides as OverDog..........Winning.....
...
Some good ideas here on Mining, I do have a Cobra I kitted out for rare runs, sat collecting dust........and I like Hunting at RES...so I might just load up a refinery and mix my passions.......will also try to jump away from current system to find a quiet spot.......will put some rail guns on it first though.......

 

[Nutter]

I was under the impression that FD admitted Mining was currently just enough in the game to pick up a rock and sell it. But that is it....

There are so many loose ends in ED I have literally lost count, nothing has been polished, then another new feature is 'started', then another, then another.

Now I know a person like that, never gets stuff finished, lots of projects started.... it's staring to get pretty messy, maybe they should stop making new stuff and finish something?

People say mining is relaxing, yeah... right up until you mine 1 ton, then for some unknown reason the computer want's to know if you want to process the rock you chased down opened the cargo scoop for then carefully maneuver the rock into the scoop.

Awesome scoop in a type 9 yeee har! - lets grab another..hang on the computer wants to know if I want that rock I just broke my neck for to collect! ? WHAT? WHY? Of course I want it! - Process it! Don't ever ask me again! - I spent millions on 7 bins for a reason!

1 Ton Later ..... You know that rock you scooped.... do you want it?

AAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!! Rage quit - Joystick attempts orbit!

Such a small fix to improve mining and make it relaxing.... but no - too busy nerfing and balancing and starting new features.

As a product manager it really does wind me up. My estimate on the fix for mining would be 1 hour code and 30 mins testing.

Arrgh! - Lets spend 4 days discussing shield cells instead!

 

[Sergio Smegolia]

Drones were supposed to be coming, still hope they are too as it would be nice to blast away a 'roid and send a go-fer to pick the fragment up.

I'm weird, I'd love it the other way round, drones to do all the shoot in a straight line stuff, me to zoom around picking up all the chunks

I was under the impression that FD admitted Mining was currently just enough in the game to pick up a rock and sell it. But that is it....

There are so many loose ends in ED I have literally lost count, nothing has been polished, then another new feature is 'started', then another, then another.

Now I know a person like that, never gets stuff finished, lots of projects started.... it's staring to get pretty messy, maybe they should stop making new stuff and finish something?

People say mining is relaxing, yeah... right up until you mine 1 ton, then for some unknown reason the computer want's to know if you want to process the rock you chased down opened the cargo scoop for then carefully maneuver the rock into the scoop.

Awesome scoop in a type 9 yeee har! - lets grab another..hang on the computer wants to know if I want that rock I just broke my neck for to collect! ? WHAT? WHY? Of course I want it! - Process it! Don't ever ask me again! - I spent millions on 7 bins for a reason!

1 Ton Later ..... You know that rock you scooped.... do you want it?

AAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!! Rage quit - Joystick attempts orbit!

Such a small fix to improve mining and make it relaxing.... but no - too busy nerfing and balancing and starting new features.

As a product manager it really does wind me up. My estimate on the fix for mining would be 1 hour code and 30 mins testing.

Arrgh! - Lets spend 4 days discussing shield cells instead!

Yep, the refinery "forgetting" what it is you are actually mining is incredibly annoying. If I could fix just one feature from mining that would be it. Pwetty please FD?

 

[Derath]

Mining could be immensely improved by 10 minutes work lol, its really a shame they won't just tweak it slightly to make people want to do it - even having resources get processed automatically until you say otherwise would reduce the micromanagement by a good chunk.

they also aren't the only role that would be vastly improved with a different scoop/scoop module/ scoop outfitting / scooping mcscooperton ship