copied from my comment on the current dev update thread:
In terms of features to help miners, I had an idea for an item: I found one of the hardest things about mining was how disorienting a large asteriod field can be. I often found myself prospecting rocks I'd already mined out, wasting lots of time covering the same ground repeatedly. Yes, you can get around this by using stars as fixed reference points, but it's not easy. I actually took to lasering a big X on rocks I'd finished with, which kinda helped so long as NPCs weren't in the same area and overwriting my marks.
The bit of kit I found myself wishing for (apart from a new scanner that would track and identify rocks) is some sort of launcher that would let me put a tag on a rock. I envisage it being a weapon hardpoint item, with a consumable ammo supply (a fairly large supply, maybe 50-100 or so, maybe more). No combat value at all, slow rate of fire, single shot. A shot would launch a small 'dart' type projectile which would attach to a rock then activate a battery powered transponder. The transponder would then show up on the scanner as a white contact (or even better a different colour), perhaps only for the player that launched it so as not to spam other players' scanners (easily explainable via transponder frequencies). The lifespan of the transponder should be fairly long, maybe 30-60 minutes before it goes dark (and can then be removed from play by the game engine).
Miners could use this in a few ways, I'd mostly use it to keep track of where I'd already been in a field, I could see it also being useful if I was prospecting through a belt just test-drilling to find the good stuff. Mark the rocks I care about then make a pass back doing the actual bulk mining operation.
I hope someone at FD will seriously consider this suggestion, I don't think I'm asking for anything that isn't already supported by existing code and mechanics. The only thing I'm calling for that doesn't already exist is the darts sticking to rocks instead of bouncing off like everything else does. The rest of the framework for this is already in place, weapons, ammo, white contacts, limited lifespan in space, I'm just combining them in a slightly new way. I confess my coding ability is firmly in the novice/student bracket, but this seems like it wouldn't be terribly hard to implement.
In terms of features to help miners, I had an idea for an item: I found one of the hardest things about mining was how disorienting a large asteriod field can be. I often found myself prospecting rocks I'd already mined out, wasting lots of time covering the same ground repeatedly. Yes, you can get around this by using stars as fixed reference points, but it's not easy. I actually took to lasering a big X on rocks I'd finished with, which kinda helped so long as NPCs weren't in the same area and overwriting my marks.
The bit of kit I found myself wishing for (apart from a new scanner that would track and identify rocks) is some sort of launcher that would let me put a tag on a rock. I envisage it being a weapon hardpoint item, with a consumable ammo supply (a fairly large supply, maybe 50-100 or so, maybe more). No combat value at all, slow rate of fire, single shot. A shot would launch a small 'dart' type projectile which would attach to a rock then activate a battery powered transponder. The transponder would then show up on the scanner as a white contact (or even better a different colour), perhaps only for the player that launched it so as not to spam other players' scanners (easily explainable via transponder frequencies). The lifespan of the transponder should be fairly long, maybe 30-60 minutes before it goes dark (and can then be removed from play by the game engine).
Miners could use this in a few ways, I'd mostly use it to keep track of where I'd already been in a field, I could see it also being useful if I was prospecting through a belt just test-drilling to find the good stuff. Mark the rocks I care about then make a pass back doing the actual bulk mining operation.
I hope someone at FD will seriously consider this suggestion, I don't think I'm asking for anything that isn't already supported by existing code and mechanics. The only thing I'm calling for that doesn't already exist is the darts sticking to rocks instead of bouncing off like everything else does. The rest of the framework for this is already in place, weapons, ammo, white contacts, limited lifespan in space, I'm just combining them in a slightly new way. I confess my coding ability is firmly in the novice/student bracket, but this seems like it wouldn't be terribly hard to implement.
