The Mining discussion thread.
Anyone taking up mining would be hoping to make it rich. But not many will or should succeed. That is the true nature of prospecting so I think Frontier are on the right track, given that some further tweaking is required, no argument there. It's the quest for that mother lode that is the attractive part of prospecting for some. But mining should not be an easy or guaranteed profit just for the sake of it. Even now you can easily earn enough to cover costs - just not necessarily a better return on the time investment. Doesn't mean that it should match the return of other methods though, not at all.
Here is opinion on how I'd like mining to work.
1)Jump to a system or buy another players scan of said system, Buying from others players would promote explorers to scan asteroid fields and sell said scan to stations so other players can buy the scans.
2)Upon jumping to said system you 1.1)Scan for asteroid fields
1.2)Use the purchased data to locate asteroid fields
3)Once at the asteroid field start scanning and tagging asteroids and once you find what your looking for start mining.
4)Tools for the job at hand (mining lasers, grapple drill, deployable drill/refinery)
Mining lasers- heat the asteroid to the point of rupture giving best yields due to heat burning away most of the rock but you have to scoop the debris.
Grapple drill- fires from a hardpoint (medium) hits the asteroid and latches on then starts drilling sending the ore back through the grapple line to the hold less yields and longer mining times but no fuss mining.
Deployable drill/refinery- Launched like a missile hitting the asteroid and latching its self to it then starts drilling and sending out rock chunks for you to scoop or the more expensive drill/refinery that sends out canisters or ore but at a slow rate, once finished it un-latches and floats until scooped.
5)Once you have what you need sell to a station or have a friend pick it up as you continue.
This is my own thoughts on how I'd like mining to work.
1)Jump to a system or buy another players scan of said system, Buying from others players would promote explorers to scan asteroid fields and sell said scan to stations so other players can buy the scans.
2)Upon jumping to said system you 1.1)Scan for asteroid fields
1.2)Use the purchased data to locate asteroid fields
3)Once at the asteroid field start scanning and tagging asteroids and once you find what your looking for start mining.
4)Tools for the job at hand (mining lasers, grapple drill, deployable drill/refinery)
Mining lasers- heat the asteroid to the point of rupture giving best yields due to heat burning away most of the rock but you have to scoop the debris.
Grapple drill- fires from a hardpoint (medium) hits the asteroid and latches on then starts drilling sending the ore back through the grapple line to the hold less yields and longer mining times but no fuss mining.
Deployable drill/refinery- Launched like a missile hitting the asteroid and latching its self to it then starts drilling and sending out rock chunks for you to scoop or the more expensive drill/refinery that sends out canisters or ore but at a slow rate, once finished it un-latches and floats until scooped.
5)Once you have what you need sell to a station or have a friend pick it up as you continue.
This is my own thoughts on how I'd like mining to work.
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The reason everyone's so obsessed with making money is that they feel they have more fun in the bigger, better ships with better equipment. This is fair, but I think it points squarely at the balance of progression being off. My feeling is that when you start off in the game, it should be possible to have a whole lot of fun in any type of career. You should be able to do short-hop courier or haulage missions which aren't lucrative, but also don't take a huge amount of time to complete. You should be able to hunt small bounties or pirate weak traders for a less-than-lucrative results. You should be able to go mining, but expect initial yields to be low. To keep the player interested, there should always be a goal.
In the first instance, equipment progression should allow you to take on bigger or more lucrative jobs, so the goal should be to get that next bit of equipment. Dual mining lasers will double your ore generation rate, and better refinement units will increase the yield. Toughen up your shields and weapons and you can take on bigger bounties or pirate more heavily armed traders. Increase your cargo hold size and jump drive and you can take on haulage jobs that yield better profits. Eventually you'll need a better ship, which is the next goal. We're clearly still missing some equipment to make mining progressive (e.g. scanners and drones).
On top of this equipment and ship progression, there needs to be reputation balance. Variety of missions (for all careers) is what will keep the game fresh and engaging. Even if the mining mechanic were more engaging, there's only so far you can take that. Supply and demand type missions should be more lucrative than simple market transactions, and opening up more lucrative missions for higher reputation (which in turn could lead to the ability to purchase better equipment) is one way this could be used. If you want to be able to take military missions, your goal should be to gain reputation with the appropriate faction(s). Mission types -- e.g. spy/photography, assassination -- should only become available when reputation is appropriate, so a goal would would be to unlock those mission types.
My feeling is that this balance won't get struck until after the game has released. I don't think there's enough time now, and we're clearly still missing some of the fundamental aspects that will allow the balance to be struck. My fear is that it'll be too easy to grind up to the best ships and equipment, which would compromise the longevity of the game. The balance that the game needs is to keep the attainable progression rate limited, and balance that limit so as not to be so slow that it'll turn players off from the game and not so fast as to exhaust a player's capacity to progress.
I did about 2 hours in a 'off piste' area, yields are about the same, ~1 ton per asteroid (total)
many rookie mistakes to be one of the first to try it!...
...
...Not bad, considering this was in a well known system that is probably mined out
First mistake was saying you were first to mine.. NPC's probably mined it out as you were also saying in your ending sentences.
No, it's supposed to be deterministic, not random. So while nothing 'exists' until you get there, the process to decide what's there should generate the same result every time.
I think the foundation for mining is quite good. Suggestions:
- make mining possible with every asteroid, rock in the galaxy.
- add a scanner upgrade so people can scan asteroids before mining. Now players mine a lot of useless stuff because they don't know the composition.
- add a tractor beam upgrade to auto-scoop the little rocks when you're nearby. Manually scooping gets too tedious.
- the mining effects should be more persistent until after say 10 minutes or when you leave the instance.
- add options to hire a NPC or a player to help you with mining. For example one does the mining, the other scoops valuable resources.
- make mining possible with every asteroid, rock in the galaxy.
- add a scanner upgrade so people can scan asteroids before mining. Now players mine a lot of useless stuff because they don't know the composition.
- add a tractor beam upgrade to auto-scoop the little rocks when you're nearby. Manually scooping gets too tedious.
- the mining effects should be more persistent until after say 10 minutes or when you leave the instance.
- add options to hire a NPC or a player to help you with mining. For example one does the mining, the other scoops valuable resources.
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Also, to add to my point about mining progression, scanners and drones are perfect examples of how equipment can be used as a goal and to facilitate progression. Without a scanner, finding a resource site that yields high returns of rare resources should be hard. Without drones to do it for you, scooping ore is time-consuming. If either of these bits of equipment were available, it would give the player a goal (other than simply making money) which should reduce the tedium. If you know that with a few more trips you could afford a basic drone to help with collection, it keeps you going.
For missions where you have to find particular resources, the scanner would be almost necessary. The goal of owning this scanner (so that you can unlock more reputation-based missions) will again make the tedium less pervasive.
For missions where you have to find particular resources, the scanner would be almost necessary. The goal of owning this scanner (so that you can unlock more reputation-based missions) will again make the tedium less pervasive.
Which is contrary to the point of exploring and finding that mother lode. In one video DB said that finding that lode would trigger a gold rush from NPC factions leading up to conflicts where you could pick a side or try and mine while they are fighting. That isn't going to happen if the lode disappears as soon as you SC away.
Please don't tell me and others what to do. I'm really happy for you that you like mining the way it is, but allow us to express our opinions. In the end all aspects of the game should be fun and a number of people, myself included, don't think mining currently is and are suggesting ways to improve the experience for us.
Perhaps you could contributing a suggestion that would preserve what you feel is really good about mining right now, but could make it more fun for others. If you don't think auto-collection is a good idea, perhaps increased yields, as someone else suggested? Something that would keep the sense of danger you appreciate, while removing those aspects others consider a mind-numbing grind?
If you mine away at a planetary ring system or asteroid belt in a single ED ship, you should not be able to ever make a dent.
The question is more, if there are/would be sweet spots in the sense that a certain resource extraction site in a certain system yields high profit due to asteroid composition, whats the gameplay mechanism to balance it when that sweet spot is not "secret" anymore (once more players mine at the same spot). Given what information is persistent and what not, I guess the easiest is way is demand of resources and respectively selling price at close-by stations balancing that without need for extra mechanics.
The question is more, if there are/would be sweet spots in the sense that a certain resource extraction site in a certain system yields high profit due to asteroid composition, whats the gameplay mechanism to balance it when that sweet spot is not "secret" anymore (once more players mine at the same spot). Given what information is persistent and what not, I guess the easiest is way is demand of resources and respectively selling price at close-by stations balancing that without need for extra mechanics.
Realism should not be the goal here, or at least not the major goal. The simple fact is that this is a game and if a certain gameplay isn't sufficiently engaging and/or rewarding, it will be ignored or under-utilized by many of the playerbase. That should not be the case with mining and it should be either:
1. Appropriately balanced with other money making activities or,
2. Offer something truly unique in terms of a commodity; something highly desirable that isn't traded on the open market - truly a chance to "strike it rich" in a BIG way.
I'd chew through a thousand worthless rocks if there was a chance of me finding some kind of "unobtainium" of a sort that is worth a million credits on the market. Give me some incentive to explore for my rocks.
Or 3. Something more fun and unique in terms of a gameplay experience. And by fun, I mean Risk.
1. High yield ore that exists within rocks that are volatile. Give me some risk with my mining; if I don't hit the right points with my laser, rock goes boom and I lose my nice ore and possibly parts of my ship.
2. Hermit type NPCs that live in asteroid fields. Someone who maybe wouldn't want me mining their stuff but wouldn't pose an enormous threat to a lightly armed miner. They just might show up and attempt to shoot me or steal my fragments. Keep me on my toes.
3. Rogue asteroids at Unidentified Signal Sources. A rock or a comet, moving at speed that I have to catch up to and mine quickly. Let it drop chunks of gold or palladium. Let it shed chunks of random junk rock that are a collision hazard, or a radiation hazard, or some other hazard. I want to mine with combat music playing and flight assist off, dodging crystals that could crush my cobra. Let me mine the asteroid from the movie Armageddon!
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I think we should first get the best mining gear and go in the wild to form an opinion. I'm pretty sure I won't find gold in my street with just a shovel.
I plan to try that but I'll need a bit of playtime first because I got 12 millions back "only" after the ship wipe. I should have decent enough gear tonight or tomorrow.
I plan to try that but I'll need a bit of playtime first because I got 12 millions back "only" after the ship wipe. I should have decent enough gear tonight or tomorrow.
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Yep, it's a pretty long process, or at least with standard mining lasers. The cheap refinery processors seem to only have one bin and so can only refine one target material at once, meaning you have to dump(vent) the rest. Maybe class 2 refineries have 2 bins allowing you to collect and refine more than one mineral at the same time (I suspect?).
Asteroids seem to have a finite limit of resource in them before they stop spitting out ores and you have to move on to another one. I found silver at LP-whatever but it took an age to amass it, ferry it back to Freeport and sell it for just under 5k. So, err, quicker ways to make money really. Particularly if you factor in the combat you have to enter into every now and then as pirates come along and try to free you of your booty...!
So, interesting, worth a try. I am guessing there are rare elements out there that you can find, gold/platinum etc, but in all my searching I didn't find any so I am guessing you have to be either very lucky or very willing to waste a lot of time looking...
Factor in the time/reward factor and I'm not convinced myself... but that's fine, I didn't intend to play as a miner anyway.
Asteroids seem to have a finite limit of resource in them before they stop spitting out ores and you have to move on to another one. I found silver at LP-whatever but it took an age to amass it, ferry it back to Freeport and sell it for just under 5k. So, err, quicker ways to make money really. Particularly if you factor in the combat you have to enter into every now and then as pirates come along and try to free you of your booty...!
So, interesting, worth a try. I am guessing there are rare elements out there that you can find, gold/platinum etc, but in all my searching I didn't find any so I am guessing you have to be either very lucky or very willing to waste a lot of time looking...
Factor in the time/reward factor and I'm not convinced myself... but that's fine, I didn't intend to play as a miner anyway.
Mining was certainly interesting.
Got two of the large mining guns on my Cobra, two baby multicannons for protection, an expensive refinery unit and with my shovel and hat headed out to an unknown corner of the Galaxy (Tollan).
It was empty when I arrived at the Resource Zone, then worst than a Walmart parking lot within a minute of being there.
I hit a beautiful planet the systems map said was rich in asteroids and began mining. Within 60 seconds several other miners appeared from nowhere, I assume AI, I got scanned 57 times in 60 minutes, attacked by AI pirates twice, beat them off and went home exhausted with two tons of rock worth 3,000 credits. Upon reaching the refinery, the outpost didn't buy my rock, was not on the commodity buy list,only the two I had were not for purchase, so gave up for the night.
It was tough trying to scoop the rock into the hold with scan warnings going off every time I got within 50 meters of the rock.
As soon as I found more interesting rock, the pirates attacked every time.
Questions so far:
Is there a mineral/metal scanner to find the more valuable rocks to mine?
Is the resource mining place the only place to mine, or are the treasures throughout the same asteroid belt?
Will the system suddenly fill up with AI miners, pirates, and enough cops to float a boat wherever I go mining?
Do I need to be within 300 meters of a massive asteroid to blast shards of rock worth less than a few credits? And likely to get my ship flattened with trying to get in close enough to scoop the morsels?
I'm sure I'm doing everything wrong. Has anyone found the directions on how to mine correctly?
Got two of the large mining guns on my Cobra, two baby multicannons for protection, an expensive refinery unit and with my shovel and hat headed out to an unknown corner of the Galaxy (Tollan).
It was empty when I arrived at the Resource Zone, then worst than a Walmart parking lot within a minute of being there.
I hit a beautiful planet the systems map said was rich in asteroids and began mining. Within 60 seconds several other miners appeared from nowhere, I assume AI, I got scanned 57 times in 60 minutes, attacked by AI pirates twice, beat them off and went home exhausted with two tons of rock worth 3,000 credits. Upon reaching the refinery, the outpost didn't buy my rock, was not on the commodity buy list,only the two I had were not for purchase, so gave up for the night.
It was tough trying to scoop the rock into the hold with scan warnings going off every time I got within 50 meters of the rock.
As soon as I found more interesting rock, the pirates attacked every time.
Questions so far:
Is there a mineral/metal scanner to find the more valuable rocks to mine?
Is the resource mining place the only place to mine, or are the treasures throughout the same asteroid belt?
Will the system suddenly fill up with AI miners, pirates, and enough cops to float a boat wherever I go mining?
Do I need to be within 300 meters of a massive asteroid to blast shards of rock worth less than a few credits? And likely to get my ship flattened with trying to get in close enough to scoop the morsels?
I'm sure I'm doing everything wrong. Has anyone found the directions on how to mine correctly?
No mineral scanner yet.
You can also mine at the asteroid clusters near to stars. NPCs don't seem to show up there at all.
Yes, you need to be close to the asteroid to use your lasers and you will lose some paint on the rotating ones since you often need to fly very close to scoop fragments.
You're doing everything right, there doesn't appear to be any better way to mine at this time, or any upgrades we can purchase to help besides the higher grade refineries to get more ore bins.
Mining suggestion / whinges
I did it for a few hours last night. It's not that fun and it doesn't make sense to me. Here are a few observations with some suggested solutions:
I get that it's only just been released and will be subject to change, here's looking forward to improved mining!
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Also, super-cruising out then in "re-stocks" the asteroids, which seems unlikely in real-life, perhaps larger asteroid fields (think like planetary rings now) that permanently run out of resources so you have to hunt for them, perhaps with an upgraded scanner?
I did it for a few hours last night. It's not that fun and it doesn't make sense to me. Here are a few observations with some suggested solutions:
- Why lasers? Burning rock with lasers and calling it mining never made much sense to me, is there a real theory behind this? I guess when you've already got lasers in the game it's relatively easy to do, but perhaps landing on the asteroid and having a physical drilling rig extend down, or a drilling rig on a tether?
- There is a huge asteroid and you can only mine a few pieces of rock from it before it "runs out" of resources. What about the rest of it? It would be better if I could mine chunks off it and it would get smaller.
- I can't scan the 'roid before beginning mining to find out if it's something I want, I have to mine off a chunk and then scan that. We need mining scanners.
- The rocks that float around in space once mined have a limited life, like canisters. Why? They're rocks. Pretty sure rocks last a while. It means I have to break off from mining regularly. Rocks should not decay in space, and there should be an alternate mechanic for collection, eg. recovery drones. Cargo scooping is tedious.
- I can't tag asteroids. Which one was I mining before I started a collection run? If i get disorientated the only way of telling is to mine off a test chunk again. A scanner would help here too.
- Any reason I can't just store bits of space-rock in my cargo hold before use? Having to jetison unused rocks because they don't fit into my refinery is a pain.
I get that it's only just been released and will be subject to change, here's looking forward to improved mining!
Edit:
Also, super-cruising out then in "re-stocks" the asteroids, which seems unlikely in real-life, perhaps larger asteroid fields (think like planetary rings now) that permanently run out of resources so you have to hunt for them, perhaps with an upgraded scanner?
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