The Mining discussion thread.
Ok I just spent an hour mining , to give it a go see what it like, well my thoughts are, its very time consuming, shooting an asteroid detach a piece scoop it up allocate it to a bin for 3-10% , I collected enough cobalt and utranite for 1 tonne of each, in an hour, by the time id got that I went to the station had to pay 300 in fuel and 700 in repairs and sold the cargo for 1800 so an hours work effectively yielded 800 credits, Im not against mining it was different having to dodge weave and snatch up the ore, but the time vs reward is way out of sync.
Yes I probably picked the wrong mats to mine, but I had a choice of cobal coltan bauxite utranite and rutile, not really sure there would be much diference, and if u keep hoping to find a more expensive material you could waste more time hoping and not finding,,
the extracted ore needs to have a higher % or yield more tonnage per bin fill to make it worth the average persons worth while.
just to recap im not against the effort of doing the tasks for mining , im not against the time it takes, but I am against the limited gain for the time and effort as it will make ppl not bother with a feature that has huge potential
Enty
Yes I probably picked the wrong mats to mine, but I had a choice of cobal coltan bauxite utranite and rutile, not really sure there would be much diference, and if u keep hoping to find a more expensive material you could waste more time hoping and not finding,,
the extracted ore needs to have a higher % or yield more tonnage per bin fill to make it worth the average persons worth while.
just to recap im not against the effort of doing the tasks for mining , im not against the time it takes, but I am against the limited gain for the time and effort as it will make ppl not bother with a feature that has huge potential
Enty
It is definitely a new take on mining that I found pretty fun at first. After spending a couple hours shooting asteroids and chasing down the fragments I found my cargo hold with like 4 peices of completed metal/minerals. It is an extremely tedious and slow way to produce credits. I'm going to try it with a friend here in the next couple days to have one person mining and one person picking chasing it down to see if that makes it halfway lucrative.
It feels awful archaic to chase these things down with a cargo scoop when we have the technology to jump across the galaxy.
It feels awful archaic to chase these things down with a cargo scoop when we have the technology to jump across the galaxy.
Maybe rather than complaining, maybe suggest a gameplay mechanic that would be better? Otherwise it just comes off as entitled whinging. Not managed to touch those roids yet but from what iv seen, its more brain activity than they could have made it.... oh and yet, roid mining in other space games.... people dont mind
You're right, but I've already made a few suggestions and debated mining mechanics in the past so I'm not going to go over it all again every time I feel like sharing my content or disapointement. There are countless gameplay mechanic propositions in the forums and I'm sure there'll be even more now that mining is in the game, I think a lot of people were waiting for something different.
I think what irritates me the most is that I'm not sure the "first iteration" argument is valid, I really hope it is and that they'll add a ton more features, content and depth to everything in the game and that the game is still an empty house waiting to be filled. Mining, bounty hunting, exploration, it all feels so shallow that I think I'm just scared they'll never get the time & money to make them what they or we want it to be. It's always hard to translate emotions in writing but I'm not angry at all, just a bit sad, just enough to wait & see instead of launch & play.
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I'm sure mining would look different in some Power-Rangers Universe. But, it's just one of those SF futuristic games where working is boring like... a work?
On our current ecological level we do not mind if we blow a whole asteroid up, destroying some valuable ore by mighty lasers and losing some more as debris. Just get that gold fast! But... Maybe Ecology and Public safety Laws of 34th century would say mining must be done with no ore losses and no boulders flying all around. I mean, what did we know about space ecology 1300 years ago?
Besides credits making, I see mining as another good chance for player interaction. Miners should attract pirates and those should attract pirate hunters, that would attract assassins. I suppose rich systems will be well populated and that's what MMO games are about.
Ofc, having motherload sensors is mandatory for a game like this. Digging blindly all over the asteroid doesn't sound like 34th century mining either. Having better/expensive scanner should show more colors of ore density, providing a miner better yield.
On our current ecological level we do not mind if we blow a whole asteroid up, destroying some valuable ore by mighty lasers and losing some more as debris. Just get that gold fast! But... Maybe Ecology and Public safety Laws of 34th century would say mining must be done with no ore losses and no boulders flying all around. I mean, what did we know about space ecology 1300 years ago?
Besides credits making, I see mining as another good chance for player interaction. Miners should attract pirates and those should attract pirate hunters, that would attract assassins. I suppose rich systems will be well populated and that's what MMO games are about.
Ofc, having motherload sensors is mandatory for a game like this. Digging blindly all over the asteroid doesn't sound like 34th century mining either. Having better/expensive scanner should show more colors of ore density, providing a miner better yield.
Well, at least there's a button to uninstall the game. That should be easy enough for the OP.
Yes but you may have to restart as well, think of the work involved
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So I've been mining constantly since B3 was released, it has literally been the only thing I've done since release yesterday. My thoughts:
1. Credits per hour - Compared to running trades or bounty hunting in a well equipped ship, the credits per hour for mining seem pretty abysmal. And I've done nothing but mine since Beta 3 came out because I was seriously looking forward to it. My profits compared to trading in a Cobra or sitting at the Morgor Nav point killing bounties were just awful.
2. Randomness - The fact that you can "reroll" your ore by leaving a site then coming back makes the whole idea of "finding a sweet secret spot" pretty pointless.
Suggestions I have for improvement:
1. I can put credits into a dedicated trading ship to make it highly effective. I can put credits into a dedicated hunting ship to make it highly effective. I can put credits into a mining ship to make it...barely effective. Having at least 4 refining bins seems like a must have to prevent you from having to constantly vent ore, and all mining lasers are the same. Let me put credits into other things for my miner...better mining lasers that either work faster or strip off higher quality ore. Give higher grade refineries a percentage yield bonus. Let me install a bigger cargo scoop that has a wider "cone" for me to scoop ore more efficiently. Let me have a drone that retrieves fragments automatically.
2. Don't "re-roll" asteroids and make them respawn on a timer so you can't just leave and return to make them respawn. This would stop people from farming the same field over and over and would encourage more exploration.
3. For goodness sake make the GUI mark asteroids with their composition once you've scanned or broken a fragment off of one, and mark depleted asteroids as "depleted" or somesuch. This would be a huge quality of life improvement.
Mining was one of my preferred vocations in other space games and I think that Elite has potential to make mining a better and more fun player-driven activity instead of "click to mine" from EVE, for example. It absolutely needs tweaks though to make it a worthwhile way to invest time.
1. Credits per hour - Compared to running trades or bounty hunting in a well equipped ship, the credits per hour for mining seem pretty abysmal. And I've done nothing but mine since Beta 3 came out because I was seriously looking forward to it. My profits compared to trading in a Cobra or sitting at the Morgor Nav point killing bounties were just awful.
2. Randomness - The fact that you can "reroll" your ore by leaving a site then coming back makes the whole idea of "finding a sweet secret spot" pretty pointless.
Suggestions I have for improvement:
1. I can put credits into a dedicated trading ship to make it highly effective. I can put credits into a dedicated hunting ship to make it highly effective. I can put credits into a mining ship to make it...barely effective. Having at least 4 refining bins seems like a must have to prevent you from having to constantly vent ore, and all mining lasers are the same. Let me put credits into other things for my miner...better mining lasers that either work faster or strip off higher quality ore. Give higher grade refineries a percentage yield bonus. Let me install a bigger cargo scoop that has a wider "cone" for me to scoop ore more efficiently. Let me have a drone that retrieves fragments automatically.
2. Don't "re-roll" asteroids and make them respawn on a timer so you can't just leave and return to make them respawn. This would stop people from farming the same field over and over and would encourage more exploration.
3. For goodness sake make the GUI mark asteroids with their composition once you've scanned or broken a fragment off of one, and mark depleted asteroids as "depleted" or somesuch. This would be a huge quality of life improvement.
Mining was one of my preferred vocations in other space games and I think that Elite has potential to make mining a better and more fun player-driven activity instead of "click to mine" from EVE, for example. It absolutely needs tweaks though to make it a worthwhile way to invest time.
I quite like the mining mechanic. I can see how it could become tedious and it currently is a slow way to make profits, but that would be easy to fix just by increasing the number of ore chunks that break off. And I guess it depends on the richness of the ore- it could well be less tedious if you first take the time to find high grade ores rather than just mine any old asteroid. Mind you I haven't yet seen the scanner to do that with yet. I'm quite happy with the scooping idea thanks - no need for drones or tractor beams imo. Mining will not, and should not, be to everyone's taste - but those who persist will have the chance of a big strike if they're lucky. Make it too easy, or automated and everyone will be doing it - and I want those juicy ore rich asteroids to myself thanks.
I agree with all the above ---- seems like none of the above couldn't be done, and would make mining much better
I'd just like to chime in with this: making persistent ore spots (which do not reset when you exit the area) is very likely impossible. Take the scope of the game into account. 400 billion systems, which means trillions of potential mining locations. There is no way they will store that data anywhere, which means it is generated on the fly - procedurally.
And that's fine - the only thing we should be interested in is this - are there persistent generation rules for the ore types and quantities? In other words, if I find a cheapo mining spot with nothing but worthless junk in it, then FSD out and come back to a bunch of rich palladium deposits, then that's a problem. If I come back to garbage every time, and inversely of course, to eldorado once I find such a location, then not so much. After all, space is big, and resources are plentiful beyond imagination. The only thing we need to ask for is consistency, and that, unlike persistence, can be done.
And that's fine - the only thing we should be interested in is this - are there persistent generation rules for the ore types and quantities? In other words, if I find a cheapo mining spot with nothing but worthless junk in it, then FSD out and come back to a bunch of rich palladium deposits, then that's a problem. If I come back to garbage every time, and inversely of course, to eldorado once I find such a location, then not so much. After all, space is big, and resources are plentiful beyond imagination. The only thing we need to ask for is consistency, and that, unlike persistence, can be done.
Exactly. There's no rule that states mining must be more or even equally profitable to other methods of earning money. So what if it's slower returns? That just means only the more dedicated prospector will persevere in the hope of that big strike. Historically very few prospectors ever got rich during the gold rushes and such (as a percentage of the total prospector population) so feels pretty realistic to me. We're really playing a prospector role, not a big corporate mining operation.
everything generated proceduraly ..notin exist until you get there.. and all disappear when you leave that place.. that's point of procedural stuff..
I normally agree with this sentiment, but the only reason someone would take up mining at all is to make money.
However, there is so much listed in the DDF around mining that I have to believe that it will be a valid, lucrative profession... if you invest the time.
Through exploring, you will find mother lodes and rare commodities. They'll be out there.
We are giving input to get the right balance not get rich quick and it needs balance badly, More options and tools to do the same job gives varieties of game play for people (we as a people do not make a single tool for a single job) we have many tools and processes for the same job each giving there own advantage, So we need more tools and scanners