Why does Frontier have to make everything either frustrating or mind numbing? (Mining for Fissures)

[Iskariot]

It's not worth it when you are looking for deep core asteroids for a few hours. And made almost no money. That is not worth it at all,

It really sounds like you are doing something wrong.
That is the only way to explain your failure to find the right asteroids.

Please watch a few Youtube tutorials. There are also a few with tips and tricks.
I promise you will get better at it, and before you know it you will not even be able to remember what you complained about.

 

[B1rdy]

But a quick look around these boards makes it pretty clear that a lot of people are doing just fine with mining, and making as much money as they want to.

Yes, but why is that? Is it possible that the prospect of really high payout is the main reason for it?

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

I rather have learning curve with dividends at the end than one-clicky skinner box. The only thing I struggle with is ED's over-reliance on RNG. But that's billions of stars for you. Like a needle in haystack it often feels.

 

[JesusRocks1988]

A change certainly does need making. Whenever I've done mining, I really enjoy all the new mechanics, but the problem for me is that more often than not I find I'm ignoring subsurface mining altogether. If I can go around easily finding breakable asteroids with those juicy void opals (and I can), then I won't even bother touching the asteroids that only have surface and subsurface deposits.

In my opinion, the tweak that needs making is for some of the core deposits to be subsurface in nature after cracking. At the moment you crack the asteroid, and they're all sitting on the newly uncovered surfaces ready for the abrasion blaster to knock off. If some of them were still subsurface after being cracked, then we would need to use all the tools at our disposal.

Either that, or make it so that the "gold rush" mechanic (which has been on Void Opals for a suspiciously long time... seriously, I thought this was supposed to change with the BGS?) can change over to the stuff found subsurface, to make it more worthwhile doing.

 

[Aashenfox]

There's a fine line between artificial difficulty (aka timegating) and frustrating your players. FD falls on both sides of this line on various aspects. Core mining is one that has a technique that can be learned, after that it's not too frustrating, my main complaint is high end manufactured materials. Way on the wrong side of that line.

 

[Slowfiddler]

... I find I'm ignoring subsurface mining altogether.

Me too, never tried it. Pretty much for the reason you give and I agree with your fix suggestion. Maybe anything between zero and half of the minerals at random need subsurface technique to extract after cracking?

Is subsurface mining worth the effort? Anyone got an opinion on this?

 

[Brrokk]

Me too, never tried it. Pretty much for the reason you give and I agree with your fix suggestion. Maybe anything between zero and half of the minerals at random need subsurface technique to extract after cracking?

Is subsurface mining worth the effort? Anyone got an opinion on this?

It's worth it if you're completionist and you want to leave a trail of looted husks of asteroids behind you. Valuable subsurface deposits are rare though, and the subsurface launcher uses up a hardpoint and gets only occasional use.

 

[NeilF]

Seriously:

Everything in this game has to be so complicated and unnecessarily either boring or just plain frustrating. Why is it that with ALL this ship tech, when you do a Pulse Wave Scan, it just highlights Fissure asteroids, green or purple or something. Hunting for these gets tedious and I wasted an hour in a hot spot trying to get ONE. It makes mining NOT worth it.

Not only that,l you have to carry a RIDICULOUS amount of stuff now when you mine, and fire groups are ridiculous.

Why can't you guys do ONE Quality of Life, and make the pulse wave scanner actually pick up Fissure asteroids, instead of me having to get super close to the asteroid to see it. Why with all this RIDICULOUS ship tech, a pulse wave can't do that?

There is only one type of Asteroid I can tell that is guaranteed not a fissure, everything else is a crap shoot.

WHY CAN'T THIS ONE QUALITY of LIFE be implemented. Why because people want to be super hard core? No, this is just a QOL that MAKES SENSE.

Yes I am whining, but seriously, why can't this be done?

Mining 2.0 IMHO was a very worrying release - FD had a pretty clean slate to go away and design some new mining mechanics, with a caveat being to put in alongside/with the existing mechanic(s).

What they did in some areas was good, but the worrying thing is the number of things they seemed to needlessly just get cockeyed or half-bake. From balancing, to modules, to gameplay to the market, there's issues across all of it, and all down to seemingly Designers just not designing well!

It truly makes me concerned about what will the outcome be with the same people, with the same ethos now working on their biggest update for end of 2020? Why will be be more joined up?

 

[IndigoWyrd]

It's the British Way.

 

[milligna]

Still don't understand how you would make mining in ANY game interesting.

 

[dxm55]

Seriously:

Everything in this game has to be so complicated and unnecessarily either boring or just plain frustrating. Why is it that with ALL this ship tech, when you do a Pulse Wave Scan, it just highlights Fissure asteroids, green or purple or something. Hunting for these gets tedious and I wasted an hour in a hot spot trying to get ONE. It makes mining NOT worth it.

Not only that,l you have to carry a RIDICULOUS amount of stuff now when you mine, and fire groups are ridiculous.

Why can't you guys do ONE Quality of Life, and make the pulse wave scanner actually pick up Fissure asteroids, instead of me having to get super close to the asteroid to see it. Why with all this RIDICULOUS ship tech, a pulse wave can't do that?

There is only one type of Asteroid I can tell that is guaranteed not a fissure, everything else is a crap shoot.

WHY CAN'T THIS ONE QUALITY of LIFE be implemented. Why because people want to be super hard core? No, this is just a QOL that MAKES SENSE.

Yes I am whining, but seriously, why can't this be done?

I'll be honest with you. I core mine, and have learnt how to identify the correct yellow ones from a distance by their general shape, and whether or not it would be even worth to approach one and/or spend a prospector limpet on it.

But you have a point in which FDev loves to obfuscate and make things difficult for players. Yes, it is a game. And games are supposed to not allow you a straight line to the objective, but make you go through obstacles.

But sometimes I too feel that excessive obstacles are put in place as a time sink, just to keep players occupied and prevent them from completing a task too quickly.

That said... the high value of VOs makes up for this. So I can't complain much. It takes a bit of effort, but sifting thru a VO hotspot and finding a core asteroid every 5 to 10 mins, and blowing them up for 10 to 15t of VOs, nets you 16 to 24m at the high end of the market. In an hour you could get anywhere from 80m to 200m worth of VOs. I feel that justifies this.

However, if FD decides to reduce the occurrence rate, or the price of VOs, just because too many people are getting rich, then this complain becomes well and truly valid.


The only complaint I have is that for VO hotspots.... the term "hotspot" sometimes means st ... because you get so few yellow rocks. And of those yellow rocks, so many of them are non-fissure (false pings), or other kind of useless crap.... like Bromellite.

Come on.... HOTSPOT. At least make sure that the majority of core/fissure rocks are of the right type/content. Not some stray, other-stuff, ones.

 

[NorthernDevo]

I'm relatively new to the VO mining, but it's easily paid my way in the galaxy (and my Elite Trade rank) with plenty to spare - a couple billion is enough for now.


I think it's one of those things that appeals to some; not to others. For myself, I'm very much of a proceduralist and enjoy the relaxing calm of carefully hunting through an ice ring; pulsing, discarding most 'pings' on sight; selecting one 'cauliflower' that looks promising...closing, pinging...seeing the subsurface fracturing...
Closing to eyeball range; looking for the fissures and only then, when everything looks right, firing a probe.

There's a tremendous sense of satisfaction at seeing 'Void Opals' on the scanner. Then in planting your charges and getting everything in the blue...

I do think there's a 'knack' you develop; it's not something that can be put into a tutorial. I went from firing a bellyful of limpets at anything yellow to probing any Cauliflower to my current more precise approach.

It's certainly not for everyone; nor is flying for bloody ever to get to the highest-paying location with your haul - but it's so satisfying if it is.
My only advice to the OP is to stick with it - keep trying. One of these days you will get a killer haul. You'll get it - and you'll be hooked.

Cheers!

 

[Patrick_68000]

Because, like most things in life, succees in a video game usually requires a bit of effort.

And the satisfaction of having succeeded is much greater.

 

[NeilF]

I'm relatively new to the VO mining, but it's easily paid my way in the galaxy (and my Elite Trade rank) with plenty to spare - a couple billion is enough for now.


I think it's one of those things that appeals to some; not to others. For myself, I'm very much of a proceduralist and enjoy the relaxing calm of carefully hunting through an ice ring; pulsing, discarding most 'pings' on sight; selecting one 'cauliflower' that looks promising...closing, pinging...seeing the subsurface fracturing...
Closing to eyeball range; looking for the fissures and only then, when everything looks right, firing a probe.

There's a tremendous sense of satisfaction at seeing 'Void Opals' on the scanner. Then in planting your charges and getting everything in the blue...

I do think there's a 'knack' you develop; it's not something that can be put into a tutorial. I went from firing a bellyful of limpets at anything yellow to probing any Cauliflower to my current more precise approach.

It's certainly not for everyone; nor is flying for bloody ever to get to the highest-paying location with your haul - but it's so satisfying if it is.
My only advice to the OP is to stick with it - keep trying. One of these days you will get a killer haul. You'll get it - and you'll be hooked.

Cheers!

...but the question of course is why isn't the rest of mining implemented in such a way that it is "balanced" with VO mining? Why isn't mining a pyramid of mechanics and gameplay all augmenting and adding to mining, from legacy mining, to surface deposits, to subsurface up to fissures? Why can't the kind of reward (financial and gameplay) you mention be obtained from a myriad of directions?

I literally cannot fathom how a designer sat down at FD and came up with such a set of needlessly botched half-baked mechanics and gameplay, when slicker more meaningful ones were so easily within grasp IMHO

As I've said before, the quality of design demonstrated in Mining 2.0 makes me very worried about "the big release" end of next year...

 

[B1rdy]

As I've said before, the quality of design demonstrated in Mining 2.0 makes me very worried about "the big release" end of next year...

There are several other examples, the pinnacle for me was, when FDev wanted to make ship transfer instantaneous. I realized they have moved a away from the initial vision on purpose, to make the game more appealing, or they didn't realize the consequences.

 

[veryDead]

Seriously:

Everything in this game has to be so complicated and unnecessarily either boring or just plain frustrating. Why is it that with ALL this ship tech, when you do a Pulse Wave Scan, it just highlights Fissure asteroids, green or purple or something. Hunting for these gets tedious and I wasted an hour in a hot spot trying to get ONE. It makes mining NOT worth it.

Not only that,l you have to carry a RIDICULOUS amount of stuff now when you mine, and fire groups are ridiculous.

Why can't you guys do ONE Quality of Life, and make the pulse wave scanner actually pick up Fissure asteroids, instead of me having to get super close to the asteroid to see it. Why with all this RIDICULOUS ship tech, a pulse wave can't do that?

There is only one type of Asteroid I can tell that is guaranteed not a fissure, everything else is a crap shoot.

WHY CAN'T THIS ONE QUALITY of LIFE be implemented. Why because people want to be super hard core? No, this is just a QOL that MAKES SENSE.

Yes I am whining, but seriously, why can't this be done?

If it's really that bad for you, perhaps find another game more suited to you.

Core mining is easy, overlapping hotspot Painite mining is easier. Both methods will earn you a billion credits in about 8 hours of gameplay (and you don't have to do those 8 hours in one session). If you do 2 hours per session, in 4 sessions you have a billion credits.

Watch a video on how to do both mining methods, and you will be embarrassed you posted this.

 

[Rat Catcher]

....

I literally cannot fathom how a designer sat down at FD and came up with such a set of needlessly botched half-baked mechanics and gameplay, when slicker more meaningful ones were so easily within grasp IMHO

As I've said before, the quality of design demonstrated in... makes me very worried about "the big release" end of next year...

Is there any aspect of the game you feel positive about as you do seem to have the same stock comment WRT many game mechanics? Just asking

I earned more out on a trip 2 nights ago in a LTD hotspot stripping LTD's with a mining laser than I did with the number of cores I found.

This was in a Pristine ring (for which I also earned first discovered for the system) with overlapping LTD hotspots. I was in Colonia and fortunately my home system went into expansion this week so prices improved considerably

 

[Brrokk]

Actually, mining is a pyramid of mechanics and gameplay all augmenting and adding to mining, from legacy mining, to surface deposits, to subsurface up to fissures. The knowledge and skill required increase through this sequence and the rewards are commensurate.

(I'll admit that subsurface is the outlier with too-low rewards. Sometimes I don't bother to carry those rockets if I don't have a spare hardpoint).

 

[Rat Catcher]

Subsurface is the one hardpoint I leave out, much better to have an extra for the inevitable pirates...

 

[NeilF]

There are several other examples, the pinnacle for me was, when FDev wanted to make ship transfer instantaneous. I realized they have moved a away from the initial vision on purpose, to make the game more appealing, or they didn't realize the consequences.

Well, in addition to mining making me concerned about FD's design abilities, Multicrew also highlights it perfectly IMHO!
1) For multicrew to be interesting, a considered development plan should have introduced gameplay elements to make areas/aspects of the game involved and rewarding enough so allowing a player to specialising in them so it would be a worthwhile and enjoyable experience - This was not done.
2) Given (1) was not done, Multicrew was still introduced none-the-less, creating a development rod for FD's back forever more! ie: Any/all gameplay elements around the cockpit etc etc, now have to take into account multicrew.

ps: The Thargoid invasion suffers from the same issues. No development/consideration into adding mechanics in before hand to then leverage to make the invasion actually engaging and more involved.