Suggestion: Improved Mining With One Simple Change

[Captain Hooch]

Mining in Elite is a very fun and engaging activity that sits somewhere between combat and trading. However when it comes to profit per hour its basically dwarfed by almost every other profession save for piracy and exploration making it more of a thing you do because you like it and not because it pays well. So below is one simple change that I think would make mining a far more popular profession and bring it closer in line to trading.

Refined Ores: Change the name and credit value of mined/refined ores. For example.

When you mine enough ore of a material lets say Palladium for the sake of argument here instead of getting a standard one ton canister of palladium that is bought by the station no differently than if it were a ton of palladium purchased at another station and brought to this one have it show up as Palladium(Refined) and increase its credit value.

Basically make mined ores & minerals worth more than purchased ores & minerals.

For balance since some ores & minerals can't be found in stations for purchase like Low Temperature Diamonds and Panite those prices won't need to change.

Also a buff across the board for most of the things mined from icy rings would help a lot since ice mining is basically a waste of time unless you get a mining mission with a decent payout.

 

[YinYin]

However when it comes to profit per hour its basically dwarfed by almost every other profession save for piracy and exploration making it more of a thing you do because you like it and not because it pays well.

mining 30 - 60 million an hour

edit: also did you know that exploration is now one of the best paying professions with the profit increase and dedicated missions?
and did you know that you can pirate NPCs filled with diamonds?

 

[Captain Hooch]

I have heard these things, I have yet to test them out. Also what wizardry is netting you 30-60 million an hour while mining? I can spend an hour in the rings mining in a cutter and only come back with around 5-10 million which is nothing considering I can smuggle slaves or run cargo for 4-5 million every 10 minutes

edit: just noticed thats a link, it relies heavily on having friends and how in the heck do you reliably find the same rocks again and again. Sure you can powergame things, but I'm talking in general, and besides what I'm suggesting wouldn't change panite values at all since its a non purchasable ore/mineral

 

[YinYin]

Wizardry that has always been in the game: revisiting the good asteroids. You cut out all the search time by exploring a little once.

Also mining within the highest extraction site intensity, because it has the most value and drops the most fragments per asteroid. Chad there even advises to yield to the NPC pirates (giving them what they want) as it seems the tribute is negligible compared to what you can pull in (or the time wasted on taking them out).

 

[Captain Hooch]

Really? Anytime I've tried mining in an RES its seemed to be no different than mining in some random spot on the ring.

 

[YinYin]

The bonuses only apply within a 20 km radius.

 

[Captain Hooch]

does the bonus go up as the danger of the RES goes up?

 

[YinYin]

The fragment bonus doesn't, but the high value asteroids are more plentiful (quality and quantity).

 

[Captain Hooch]

I'll have to test this out sometime because my experience with it has netted no discernible differences.

 

[Lazerus Artificial]

Mining in Elite is a very fun and engaging activity that sits somewhere between combat and trading. However when it comes to profit per hour its basically dwarfed by almost every other profession save for piracy and exploration making it more of a thing you do because you like it and not because it pays well. So below is one simple change that I think would make mining a far more popular profession and bring it closer in line to trading.

Refined Ores: Change the name and credit value of mined/refined ores. For example.

When you mine enough ore of a material lets say Palladium for the sake of argument here instead of getting a standard one ton canister of palladium that is bought by the station no differently than if it were a ton of palladium purchased at another station and brought to this one have it show up as Palladium(Refined) and increase its credit value.

Basically make mined ores & minerals worth more than purchased ores & minerals.

For balance since some ores & minerals can't be found in stations for purchase like Low Temperature Diamonds and Panite those prices won't need to change.

Also a buff across the board for most of the things mined from icy rings would help a lot since ice mining is basically a waste of time unless you get a mining mission with a decent payout.

thats pretty much how mining was described in the Design Topics. Materials that cant be bought from the Material market with their own section

mining 30 - 60 million an hour

edit: also did you know that exploration is now one of the best paying professions with the profit increase and dedicated missions?
and did you know that you can pirate NPCs filled with diamonds?

Dump anything other than painite

thats not really a fun and good mechanic isnt it? why isnt it affecting the mineral market for example? you are basically wasting tons of perfectly good materials just because they are not "worth that much". Why is every single belt the same anyway? Every metallic belt has the same minerals in it...while the planets have a mixed table with different types of uncommons, commons and rares.

 

[YinYin]

thats not really a fun and good mechanic isnt it?

I think it's one of the most fun approaches. Highly involving. Although I gotta admit I rarely grind credits like that myself. Chasing profit/hour is never really my idea of fun. In an academic/competitive one off way it's interesting, but nothing more.

why isnt it affecting the mineral market for example?

It does. The Painite price can tank quite heavily. As low as 20k instead of the 80k peak. If it didn't, Chad wouldn't advise you to search for a market, but give you a list.

you are basically wasting tons of perfectly good materials just because they are not "worth that much".

That's the idea if you are going for maximum efficiency, yes.

It's the same as only hunting high bounties and ignoring the small targets.

Or not scanning every dust ball in large systems and only going for earth likes and terraformables.

Or trading the commodities with the highest profit margins instead of what the systems have the highest demand for.

Why is every single belt the same anyway? Every metallic belt has the same minerals in it...while the planets have a mixed table with different types of uncommons, commons and rares.

First of all they are not all the same. They have loot tables for micro materials just like planets.

Beyond that you are essentially asking why every water planet has water on it.

Oh, and belts are not the same as rings. They only have individual clusters, which are also not all the same.

 

[Crimson Kaim]

I am against this suggestion as it's unrealistic (like mining missions) but I am supporting higher credit payouts for miners.


Maybe like this:

Increase material content from fragments by 10. Meaning that a once you have spotted a palladium or bromilite rock you gonna get 10 times more out of fragments instead of just 14%-50% per fragment. So a single fragment easily could give you 5 tonnes of ore!
This also reduces the amount of time you need to spend mining in small ships plus you don't need to scan 100+ asteorids for that few RNG generated ones that give you an acceptable amount of high value fragments.
Once you have spotted a 70% palladium rock it's payday!

Won't happen as developement progression has currently a 90% speed debuff that lasts for a while.

 

[YinYin]

This also reduces the amount of time you need to spend mining in small ships

A small ship currently fills up on 1/2 asteroids.

You are suggesting it to fill up on a couple of fragments, wasting the rest of the targeted asteroids content for 2 hours. You will end up spending more time travelling back to the station than actually mining. That will sure make everything better.

plus you don't need to scan 100+ asteorids for that few RNG generated ones that give you an acceptable amount of high value fragments.
Once you have spotted a 70% palladium rock it's payday!

I don't think you've noticed that yet, but you never have to scan 100+ asteroids. They are procedurally generated and high value ones are plentiful within extraction sites.

Once you've spotted a 70% palladium rock it's payday every two hours from it. You'll never have to search for it again.

 

[Captain Hooch]

Actually I'd wager it isn't unrealistic since you're doing all the refining on board your ship.

Consider ores you purchase at market from a station. They were likely mined in bulk and refined somewhere else in bulk at a plant.

By delivering fresh ores that you refined on board your ship you're cutting out the middle man (the refining plant) and the profit saved by not having to refine the raw ore you bring to the station is passed on to the commander for a lower price than what it would cost them to refine the raw ore themselves.

 

[YinYin]

You'd think the bulk process is cheaper though. Not to mention traders who brought it to that market will also want their cut.

 

[TheNut]

IMO, I see mining adjustments in 2 steps.

Step 1
Increase the yields of each asteroid substantially. You have this massive rock that should be mineral/metal rich at its core, and yet you scrape off anywhere between 0 to 3 tonnes of goods before moving on to the next rock. Most of my time mining is spent moving from one rock to the next, which gets annoying after awhile. I'd rather spend my time to find the right rock, then be able to strip mine it for its actual yield. In this way, a miner will make frequent trips back to the station and be rewarded per time invested to that of other occupations.

Example:
Minerals like Galite and Indite are common with yields to fill between 50 - 100T from a single rock. They don't pay as much as rarer minerals/metals, but bulk selling them puts them on-par with rares and other occupation payouts. If you do happen to come across a rare rock of, let's say palladium, then you'll be able to extract between 5 - 20T worth for your lucky find. Right, it's a bonus! Now miners no longer have to feel like they spend their time gold digging. You still can and the payout will be there, but if you're just interested in mining then bulk selling the common minerals/metals is still worthwhile and on-par with other occupational payouts. A python that fills up his cargo with 250T of Galite from mining 2 to 3 rocks (approx 5 - 10 minutes) will earn a payout of about 500K, which isn't bad.

Step 2
FDev really needs to upgrade the BGS. The universe is so static and uninteresting. If miners could actually see their hard work helping to advance the economy of a sector in real-time, then that would be a secondary reward for your time investment. As it stands now, the whole turn-based BGS is just silly and off-putting. If I dump 200T of raw metals into an industry, I want to see those number take effect immediately. I want to see that industry starting to make new machinery and visibly see numbers starting to change on the commodities board. I'd like to get an end of day report that shows just how much of a difference I helped to make in that sector. We all play ED to feel connected and immersed in its universe, but it's nigh impossible to do that when everything is stagnant for several days.

 

[Captain Hooch]

oh yeah you're also saving them on transportation costs from the refinery since you're both the trucker and the refinery

 

[Kinky Jalepeno]

IMO, I see mining adjustments in 2 steps.

Step 1
Increase the yields of each asteroid substantially. You have this massive rock that should be mineral/metal rich at its core, and yet you scrape off anywhere between 0 to 3 tonnes of goods before moving on to the next rock. Most of my time mining is spent moving from one rock to the next, which gets annoying after awhile. I'd rather spend my time to find the right rock, then be able to strip mine it for its actual yield. In this way, a miner will make frequent trips back to the station and be rewarded per time invested to that of other occupations.

Example:
Minerals like Galite and Indite are common with yields to fill between 50 - 100T from a single rock. They don't pay as much as rarer minerals/metals, but bulk selling them puts them on-par with rares and other occupation payouts. If you do happen to come across a rare rock of, let's say palladium, then you'll be able to extract between 5 - 20T worth for your lucky find. Right, it's a bonus! Now miners no longer have to feel like they spend their time gold digging. You still can and the payout will be there, but if you're just interested in mining then bulk selling the common minerals/metals is still worthwhile and on-par with other occupational payouts. A python that fills up his cargo with 250T of Galite from mining 2 to 3 rocks (approx 5 - 10 minutes) will earn a payout of about 500K, which isn't bad.

Step 2
FDev really needs to upgrade the BGS. The universe is so static and uninteresting. If miners could actually see their hard work helping to advance the economy of a sector in real-time, then that would be a secondary reward for your time investment. As it stands now, the whole turn-based BGS is just silly and off-putting. If I dump 200T of raw metals into an industry, I want to see those number take effect immediately. I want to see that industry starting to make new machinery and visibly see numbers starting to change on the commodities board. I'd like to get an end of day report that shows just how much of a difference I helped to make in that sector. We all play ED to feel connected and immersed in its universe, but it's nigh impossible to do that when everything is stagnant for several days.

I love this - Have some rep o7

 

[Captain Hooch]

IMO, I see mining adjustments in 2 steps.

Step 1
Increase the yields of each asteroid substantially. You have this massive rock that should be mineral/metal rich at its core, and yet you scrape off anywhere between 0 to 3 tonnes of goods before moving on to the next rock. Most of my time mining is spent moving from one rock to the next, which gets annoying after awhile. I'd rather spend my time to find the right rock, then be able to strip mine it for its actual yield. In this way, a miner will make frequent trips back to the station and be rewarded per time invested to that of other occupations.

Example:
Minerals like Galite and Indite are common with yields to fill between 50 - 100T from a single rock. They don't pay as much as rarer minerals/metals, but bulk selling them puts them on-par with rares and other occupation payouts. If you do happen to come across a rare rock of, let's say palladium, then you'll be able to extract between 5 - 20T worth for your lucky find. Right, it's a bonus! Now miners no longer have to feel like they spend their time gold digging. You still can and the payout will be there, but if you're just interested in mining then bulk selling the common minerals/metals is still worthwhile and on-par with other occupational payouts. A python that fills up his cargo with 250T of Galite from mining 2 to 3 rocks (approx 5 - 10 minutes) will earn a payout of about 500K, which isn't bad.

Step 2
FDev really needs to upgrade the BGS. The universe is so static and uninteresting. If miners could actually see their hard work helping to advance the economy of a sector in real-time, then that would be a secondary reward for your time investment. As it stands now, the whole turn-based BGS is just silly and off-putting. If I dump 200T of raw metals into an industry, I want to see those number take effect immediately. I want to see that industry starting to make new machinery and visibly see numbers starting to change on the commodities board. I'd like to get an end of day report that shows just how much of a difference I helped to make in that sector. We all play ED to feel connected and immersed in its universe, but it's nigh impossible to do that when everything is stagnant for several days.

Increasing yield per rock across the board and based upon rock size would actually be a great idea as well.

 

[Crimson Kaim]

A small ship currently fills up on 1/2 asteroids.

You are suggesting it to fill up on a couple of fragments, wasting the rest of the targeted asteroids content for 2 hours. You will end up spending more time travelling back to the station than actually mining. That will sure make everything better.



I don't think you've noticed that yet, but you never have to scan 100+ asteroids. They are procedurally generated and high value ones are plentiful within extraction sites.

Once you've spotted a 70% palladium rock it's payday every two hours from it. You'll never have to search for it again.

Then I must have missed something from the patchnotes. I haven't been mining since 2.1 for bromellite and I remembered it was a pain as it was never enough content in these 1000 tonnes rocks dropping 10 tonnes of ore. Apologies.