The Mining discussion thread.

[psyron]

If this is a technical limitation (which it is) then this can't change...no matter how much you feel it needs too.

It's not really because of PG though. It's simply because making changes to the structure, possibly breaking the asteroids up into large pieces would require this information to be sent over the network to sync with other players. It would also add a performance hit due to the physics involved that your computer needs to keep track of. This would become a HUGE resource hog for very little practical gain in terms of gameplay.

This was brought up back during the DDF and I don't expect to see it changed.

I do like the indeed of seeing a more detailed scan of an asteroid making it possible to target specific areas of the asteroid. I even think this was mentioned at some point.

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That will kind of be the case. Not because FD servers will keep track of every single asteroid in the galaxy. Something I hope everyone realizes is impossible. They will however track how many players are extracting resources from a particular area and when a threshold is reached they will lower the level of resources there...then repeating this until it's completely mined out.

What about doing it that way:
- mining laser produces bigger and deeper crater (most of the asteroid get's evaporated - not breaken apart)
- only little parts of the asteroid has valuable minerals
- 3d-overlay-scanner to show exactly which parts of the asteroid has valuable minerals -> that would add flying skills to target those specific areas.

I think doing it this way would solve some of the issues i have without creating too big challenges to implement it, what do you think?

Edit:
Or adding even more skillful actions:
- player can cut big junks out of the asteroid and needs to vaporise all the worthless parts of that junk with his mining laser until there remains only a little valuable mineral block

 

[Binky]

The problem may be a sense of scale.
A quite small asteriod 20 metres on a side would have a volume of 8000 cubic metres and, if it was metal-rich, (like the nickel-iron ones in our asteroid belt) it would have a mass in excess of 50000 tonnes.

Or 500 tricked out Lakon-6's full to the gunwales. A small asteroid should take weeks to mine out and big ones a lifetime.
Of course if it's an ice asteroid, thats only 80 lakon-6's. Barely worth worrying about

 

[Vandaahl]

So far I like it. I'm using a Cobra with a 3 hopper refiney and a small hardpoint mining laser. I ended up in a system near LP 48-567 (which was a High Tech system in the past but isn't anymore) with roids containing Paladium, Bertrandite and even traces of Gold. I'm sure, in the right place, you can make a decent living. The yield of the roids is limited indeed, but I'm not sure if it is fixed. Some seemed to be depleted earlier than others. Also, mining seems most suitable for the smaller ships right now. The small hardpoint laser chips of one peace at the time, which is a bottleneck at the moment, but I didn't want to loose a medium hardpoint to a mining laser.

The target/object panel talks about 'rings', but to me it seems like they are more like small fields. I expected the roid fields to be bigger, but right now one field seems to consist out of 10-15 roids. I could be wrong though, maybe it are faint rings you can fly through indefinitely like the planetary rings.

 

[psyron]

The problem may be a sense of scale.
A quite small asteriod 20 metres on a side would have a volume of 8000 cubic metres and, if it was metal-rich, (like the nickel-iron ones in our asteroid belt) it would have a mass in excess of 50000 tonnes.

Or 500 tricked out Lakon-6's full to the gunwales. A small asteroid should take weeks to mine out and big ones a lifetime.
Of course if it's an ice asteroid, thats only 80 lakon-6's. Barely worth worrying about

A solution would be if we assume that most ateroids only have a tiny fragment of valuable minerals like golds. Then we might have a specific laser that evaporate all the worthless minerals and melt the remaining gold to a solid block.

But what i really would like to have is to actually see how that big asteroid gets melted/evaporated or broken apart. At the moment it looks strange to see only little craters on the surface. One might think: So what happens with all the minerals in the inside of that asteroid?!?

 

[Commander Debic]

One minor solution, asteroids in a field near each other should have similar ores, so you don't get a huge variety and have to pick and chose, or at least the other ones should be very small percentages, and it's obvious what the major ore is. But totally agree, processed ores need to be highly valued, otherwise mining will become a rarity. I don't mind the complexity, but I want something out of it in the end too.

Actually they don't. I decided to work right through the night mining to give it a good work out. You can do those silly things when your retired. I was working the Styx rings and in each of the rings I would find 4-5 different ores. Sometimes I would find bertrandite with gold, sometimes with silver sometimes with Gallite, even with indite. I was also getting palladium with others and each roid would be different even though they were in the same ring.
Occasionally you would get two roids in one ring giving the same ores but it was the exception rather than the rule. I made 60,000 credits approximately working for 7 hours. As the mining stands at the moment its not very profitable and it is very cumbersome. It would be important to carry a top rated scanner as you could then choose which roids to mine and hopefully the scanner would show you which ones were empty. As it stands at the moment being unable to mark the roids you have mined to extinction, means you are forever coming across them again as you try to work your way around a ring, so you end up probably only doing half of them before going to another ring as it would be pretty much impossible to remember which ones you have done.
I too like the complexity but it needs some polish to make it attractive.

I would like to see the roid rocks that you cut off from the big roids fly further away from them, as the Newtonian physics of gravity tend to keep the little rocks slowly falling back to the larger roids, which seem to be rotating around as some form of maniacal death trap.

I know its beta and it has only just become available but unless we make suggestions about how we feel it could be improved we could end up with gimped mining which would be no good for the game.

 

[Vandaahl]

In really it takes mining companies decades to process a small mountain, and you want to evaporate a small mountain with a pew pew laser instantly for the sake of reality?

I agree with Binky, the problem seem to be a sense of scale.

 

[gary.brain]

It would be nice that once a roid is exhausted of its resources it explodes, it would be good to see a large roid break into smaller chunks and like until you can get it into your ship, this would allow larger ships with bigger hold pick up the larger roid.



@tinman "This would become a HUGE resource hog for very little practical gain in terms of gameplay"

I agree, until I look at at asteroid field and see all the moving roids around and knowing that friends are seeing the same thing. A little rock exploding into pieced I don't think would be too much more info.

My only sad thing about this is that you can only mine in the designated areas.

Would it not be possible to enter an asteroid field
Target a floating roid and scan it, at this point the random generator would calculate the content of the roid.
Then mine it until its content is depleted.
Move on to the next roid.

This way only the roid that you scan would be minable and its details sent back to the server and given to any one in the local of it.

 

[Andromalius]

I have seen medium mount mining lasers, didn't get them as I'm fitting the asp for exploration at the moment (only got 12M back so I need a few essentials again) but it is likely they make a difference.

 

[Iskariot]

I'd really like the addition of a mineral scanner to the mining equipment so I can tell in advance what and how much a rock is going to give me.

 

[Commander Jameson's Ghost]

Any info on how mining works? Do you need a specific ship, or just a mining laser perhaps? What are the mechanics? Is it just asteroids or can you collect gases from nebulae?

Would appreciate any info if available.

Thanks!

There is already a (very long!!) video on YouTube which shows mining at around the 3 hour mark (that's right 3 HOUR mark!) for most of the rest of the video-about a further hour.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gq9EBshc1Wo

 

[Reject]

Didnt the DDA specifically say something about collecting drones? Maybe it's in the works...

 

[Xzanron]

Not overly impressed with mining. It's too annoying to really be fun and not worth the effort. Of course, it could just be that I found some exhausted extraction sites, but after 20 min of mining had 1 tonne of 600cr cargo.

Shoot 'roid until a bit pops out a fragment, collect it. repeat ad nauseam. I tried shooting loads and getting lots of fragments to then collect, but it didn't make much difference to my mining speed. I guess if I find a pure gold asteroid it might be worth it, but for now I've sold all my mining gear again.
I did find a 7 slot refinery at Styx, if anyone is looking for a larger one.

I think mining could be improved if it automatically collected the fragments, i.e. a tractor beam or grapple of some kind, but the way it is now, I cannot see myself playing it.

 

[Gh0st]

NO white icons for me. Probably because it was just an asteroid ring ..

Now if i could find a detailed scanner.. styx has only the 250,000 version and I can't see the smaller one for my cobra. I hope I dont need to pay 250k for one.

I bought it, doesn't seem to do anything with the asteroids, just planets, etc.

I didn't check the difference in the System Map though, so I might have some new info that I haven't noticed.

 

[mattensky]

I've just been mining a cluster that has about 6-8 asteroids (as far as I can tell) - I have depleted them all -- which took about 40 mins. All I got from that was 2T Gallite and 1 T of Indite. Annoyingly, I'm sitting on 86% Gold and about 90% Palladium.

Does anyone have any idea how long it takes for the asteroids to reset (so one can mine again) - ? Do they reset with the same resources? Is it randomized? Is it worth saving the location as source of Gold/Palladium? Or should I just move on . . .

I think one thing that would be great would be the ability to tag asteroids that are depleted . . .

 

[Gamersince77]

I think mining could be improved if it automatically collected the fragments, i.e. a tractor beam or grapple of some kind, but the way it is now, I cannot see myself playing it.

Just no... No automated collection is needed, that would dumb it down.

If you find mining slow or boring then simply go do something else, there are plenty of different things you can do in-game than mining.

 

[billeman]

The mechanic of mining is OK to me, but the reward should be much (10 ton per finished product) higher, otherwise it's just 'I feel like doing some mining today even though it won't get me anything'

 

[Mewsse]

We definitelly need a "Mining Scanner".
Even a manual scanner: you need to target the asteroid and scan it to know what it contains.

For now, Mining is just a waste of time

 

[Meritz]

Agree that mining right now is too slow and unprofitable. I don't mind the scooping mechanic, but more features are needed to make this activity interesting and attractive. However, I am not sure if the low yield per fragment is because I tried mining in populated systems. Anyone tried to go really off the beaten path and see if those rocks yield much more when they're in some far away system no one goes to?

 

[mattensky]

The mechanic of mining is OK to me, but the reward should be much (10 ton per finished product) higher, otherwise it's just 'I feel like doing some mining today even though it won't get me anything'

Agreed - even 2T would be a huge improvement.

 

[earnorbust]

Mining and manual ore scooping absolutely no fun

I was really excited about the new mining feature, but now - this major game element has proven very disappointing. By it's own, I feel the "scooping up" procedure is meticulously awkard and frustrating. That procedure was alright for pirating - forcing those players to endure more hardship for their crimal activities. But combined with mining, now making you run after your extracted ore between big astroids (with collision potential) it proves to be way too time consuming and frustrating to pick up your excavated ore, piece for piece. The game should offer a setting option to collect the ore automatically, or by manual pickup (for pickup fetishists). This game feature is a major issue to me and could be an "uninstall game" criteria, if not better resolved!