YAMT - Yet Another Mining Thread.

shadragon

shadragon
I did my first mining session last night in an Asp with 96T cargo full of limpets. I was told mining was peaceful and calming, but I came back with a headache. I returned with 96T of processed metal, but only after a lot of frustrations.

Some observations:

- I'd like the ability (through a list of check boxes) to say what minerals / metals I wanted and anything not selected should be auto-vented. Manually putting Indite into a refinery slot for the tenth time or having to repeatedly reject a 4% chunk gets a little old. If I have a 7-slot refinery I should be able to designate up to seven minerals / metals I want with the rest being auto vented.

- The cargo scoop, once open, remains open. I kept getting audio based cargo scoop errors and prospector failure alarms even though all was well and things were working fine. Lots of noise pollution, unnecessary alerts and alarms to the point where I missed an "under attack" prompt from a nearby pirate Sidey until I actually saw him fly past my canopy with lasers blasting. Please add code that looks to see the cargo scoop state. If open, carry on without drama. If closed, tell the pilot to open it.

- The pilot should be focused on flying the ship and using the lasers/limpets. Anything that pulls their attention from this to the right hand panel is in need of redesign. What took me an hour and a half last night could be done in 30 minutes with just a few simple tweaks. I kept having to stop flying, go to the right hand panel, tell the refinery what to do, then go back to flying only to have to repeat myself seconds later. Wasteful.

On the upside, I did enjoy this new aspect to the game on a certain level. The prospector / collection limpets worked a treat and made things a lot easier.
 

Dommarraa

Dommarraa
Yes, you and every other miner. There are hardly any. I wonder why ?

That and allowing the limpets to dock while you are travelling at a reasonably safe speed without grinding themselves against your hull would be very nice indeed
 

zombieapocalypse

zombieapocalypse
That stuff doesn't bother me too much, though I agree about the unnecessary cargo scoop warnings. But then again I only really indulge in mining because I find it relaxing and immersive, and a welcome diversion from pew-pewing in my Vulture.

What I would like to be able to do is jettison excess limpets without my active limpets picking them up and trying to shove them back into my cargo hold.
 
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Sevanje

Sevanje
Agreed to the most of OP points. I mined for approximately 10M credits, and it gets to a point when you star to ask yourself why is my 700k worth refinery not automated. You do not hear warnings from a life support system that there is low oxygen concentration, why is there no such a thing I wonder.
 

GluttonyFang

GluttonyFang
shadragon said:
I did my first mining session last night in an Asp with 96T cargo full of limpets. I was told mining was peaceful and calming, but I came back with a headache. I returned with 96T of processed metal, but only after a lot of frustrations.

Some observations:

- I'd like the ability (through a list of check boxes) to say what minerals / metals I wanted and anything not selected should be auto-vented. Manually putting Indite into a refinery slot for the tenth time or having to repeatedly reject a 4% chunk gets a little old. If I have a 7-slot refinery I should be able to designate up to seven minerals / metals I want with the rest being auto vented.

- The cargo scoop, once open, remains open. I kept getting audio based cargo scoop errors and prospector failure alarms even though all was well and things were working fine. Lots of noise pollution, unnecessary alerts and alarms to the point where I missed an "under attack" prompt from a nearby pirate Sidey until I actually saw him fly past my canopy with lasers blasting. Please add code that looks to see the cargo scoop state. If open, carry on without drama. If closed, tell the pilot to open it.

- The pilot should be focused on flying the ship and using the lasers/limpets. Anything that pulls their attention from this to the right hand panel is in need of redesign. What took me an hour and a half last night could be done in 30 minutes with just a few simple tweaks. I kept having to stop flying, go to the right hand panel, tell the refinery what to do, then go back to flying only to have to repeat myself seconds later. Wasteful.

On the upside, I did enjoy this new aspect to the game on a certain level. The prospector / collection limpets worked a treat and made things a lot easier.
Click to expand...

I'm glad a minority profession is stepping up and voicing its opinion. (And also that mining is my second favorite profession after piracy, yes mining is my guilty pleasure you heard it)

For your first point, it's probably best if FD provides a separate menu for the refinery, setting and allocating bins, checking and un-checking minerals of one's preference.

Second point, hm... I have my cargo hatch powered even with hardpoints deployed, I didn't experience any noise pollution issues.

Third point reflects the first.

Prospector feels like a waste of drone to me, I feel that if it worked with the length of time (say the length of a collector limpet) and go to the asteroid you shoot at would be better.

Ex. open fire for one second (not enough to produce fragments) on an asteroid, the prospector drone attaches to that asteroid and scan. Once the asteroid empties or the pilot shoots a different asteroid, or gets away from the prospector drone for more than 1km (adjustable) the limpet will reset itself and continue with the new task/following the pilot. Rinse and repeat for however long the prospector lasts.
 
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zombieapocalypse

zombieapocalypse
GluttonyFang said:
I'm glad a minority profession is stepping up and voicing its opinion. (And also that mining is my second favorite profession after piracy, yes mining is my guilty pleasure you heard it)

For your first point, it's probably best if FD provides a separate menu for the refinery, setting and allocating bins, checking and un-checking minerals of one's preference.

Second point, hm... I have my cargo hatch powered even with hardpoints deployed, I didn't experience any noise pollution issues.

Third point reflects the first.

Prospector feels like a waste of drone to me, I feel that if it worked with the length of time (say the length of a collector limpet) and go to the asteroid you shoot at would be better.

Ex. open fire for one second (not enough to produce fragments) on an asteroid, the prospector drone attaches to that asteroid and scan. Once the asteroid empties or the pilot shoots a different asteroid, or gets away from the prospector drone for more than 1km (adjustable) the limpet will reset itself and continue with the new task/following the pilot. Rinse and repeat for however long the prospector lasts.
Click to expand...

The prospector does feel like a waste of time (and a module slot) in it's current implementation - not really any faster than just shooting a rock and seeing what the first one or two fragments is composed off.

Personally, I would like them to work on a timer, like the collectors, but to analyse and label all asteroids with a small range. It could work quietly in the back ground while you get on with drilling a rock. When it expires, you fire off another.
 
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GluttonyFang

GluttonyFang
zombieapocalypse said:
The prospector does feel like a waste of time in it's current implementation - not really any faster than just shooting a rock and seeing what the first one or two fragments is composed off.

Personally, I would like them to work on a timer, like the collectors, but to analyse and label all asteroids with a small range. It could work quietly in the back ground while you get on with drilling a rock. When it expires, you fire off another.
Click to expand...

Hm this actually inspired me to think of an idea:

If we make prospector limpet drone a scanner, that hovers above/around your ship and detect/scan all asteroids and their composition within a small range (500m? 1km?). While the prospector limpet drone is functioning, if you point at an asteroid with your crosshair, it will display a holographic analysis of the asteroid's content, that way it will be easier to use and don't have to make the pilot play with their panels.
 
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vanrael

V
Ideas... They are thousands of great ideas hanging at suggestion subforum... Even DDA mining was looking s awesome on paper... But looks like FD won't reimplement mining anytime soon.. Yeah.. Re. Whole system atm is to simple, to boring, to immersion breaking. Maybe in year in two our problems will be noticed...
 

GluttonyFang

GluttonyFang
vanrael said:
Ideas... They are thousands of great ideas hanging at suggestion subforum... Even DDA mining was looking s awesome on paper... But looks like FD won't reimplement mining anytime soon.. Yeah.. Re. Whole system atm is to simple, to boring, to immersion breaking. Maybe in year in two our problems will be noticed...
Click to expand...

Oh you mean when SC arrives...
 

Huros

Huros
IMO; Mined commodities should have a average galactic price of 3 to 5 times their current amount. This would do a number of things. It would make mining more profitable -Duh! and there for more popular. Also the mining risk would increase with PC pirates being a bit keener to get in some action. this would mean more in the way of bounties for the Hunters out there.

Increase the value of the primary producer/herbivore to increase the numbers of the predators/meat eaters. Minimal effect to the Trader types as the profit margin for mined commodities can remain the dame or be reduced accordingly for balance.

But the mechanics of mining still needs tweaking too.
 

Elgered

Elgered
shadragon said:
I did my first mining session last night in an Asp with 96T cargo full of limpets. I was told mining was peaceful and calming, but I came back with a headache. I returned with 96T of processed metal, but only after a lot of frustrations.

Some observations:

- I'd like the ability (through a list of check boxes) to say what minerals / metals I wanted and anything not selected should be auto-vented. Manually putting Indite into a refinery slot for the tenth time or having to repeatedly reject a 4% chunk gets a little old. If I have a 7-slot refinery I should be able to designate up to seven minerals / metals I want with the rest being auto vented.
Click to expand...
Yes, that would be cool. Or a checkbox for the limpet controller, what to pick up, and what not.
- The cargo scoop, once open, remains open. I kept getting audio based cargo scoop errors and prospector failure alarms even though all was well and things were working fine. Lots of noise pollution, unnecessary alerts and alarms to the point where I missed an "under attack" prompt from a nearby pirate Sidey until I actually saw him fly past my canopy with lasers blasting. Please add code that looks to see the cargo scoop state. If open, carry on without drama. If closed, tell the pilot to open it.
Click to expand...
Hmm... I already got used to that. But yes, when a lipet is programmed, it also could be released at the right moment.
- The pilot should be focused on flying the ship and using the lasers/limpets. Anything that pulls their attention from this to the right hand panel is in need of redesign. What took me an hour and a half last night could be done in 30 minutes with just a few simple tweaks. I kept having to stop flying, go to the right hand panel, tell the refinery what to do, then go back to flying only to have to repeat myself seconds later. Wasteful.
Click to expand...
Yes some automation for existent ores (moving the cargo and refilling) would be nice.
On the upside, I did enjoy this new aspect to the game on a certain level. The prospector / collection limpets worked a treat and made things a lot easier.
Click to expand...

Well I don't need and don't use the prospectors, but the collectors are much better than scooping every piece by hand.
 

shadragon

shadragon
Should have shared my Mining Asp build in my original post.

http://edshipyard.com/#/L=70g,0_g01Q0mI3we4wt4wt5QR5QRH7yH7y,2-8S8S7_6Q6u8S8I,0AA08c5Sc4zM0a65uk2UI

The 33 LY empty (30.8 LY Full) jump range means I can hit deep space with ease. Should be able to get out into fringe space on prospecting day trips with this set-up.

I've got my system records from my other accounts exploration trip so finding pristine metal rings to go to should not be a problem. Plus, the exploration data is an added bonus. No room for a detailed surface scanner though.
 

Ceekay

Ceekay
Lots of great idea's here, one of my major issues is how the limpet mechanic limits the ship choice dramatically (I tried a Diamondback-S in the Beta thinking it'd make a great miner (certainly looked like one!) only to find I very quickly ran out of cargo slots).
With the current set up you can just get away with a Cobra fitted with collector drones only, ideally an Asp would work much better but the Sidey's, Hauler's, Adder's etc are going to struggle as viable mining ships because you need to fit several individual modules, how about integrating the limpet controllers with the refinery this module would also store several drones as well freeing valuable cargo space.
As to prospector drones I agree they're currently a bit pointless when you can get most of the info just by shooting the rock, is it possible that a variant of the Detailed surface scanner could be fitted in a utility slot? and ideally this would scan the cluster for your ore of choice (and program the refinery accordingly, bit much to ask I suppose ;))
 

Makya

Makya
shadragon said:
- The pilot should be focused on flying the ship and using the lasers/limpets. Anything that pulls their attention from this to the right hand panel is in need of redesign. What took me an hour and a half last night could be done in 30 minutes with just a few simple tweaks. I kept having to stop flying, go to the right hand panel, tell the refinery what to do, then go back to flying only to have to repeat myself seconds later. Wasteful.
Click to expand...
I totally agree. I think the use of the right panel was the easy button for FD in terms of UI implementation. They should make the info panel multi-tabbed like the comms panel and move the refinery status there and and key-map its controls.
 

IronGremlin

I
zombieapocalypse said:
The prospector does feel like a waste of time (and a module slot) in it's current implementation - not really any faster than just shooting a rock and seeing what the first one or two fragments is composed off.
Click to expand...

Except that you could miss ore because RNG, and because you deal with collectors grabbing unnecessary chunks. It is actually faster, it just feels tedious.

What is pointless is having a class 3 or higher module, because you've no control over which limpet dies when you launch another, which makes it prohibitively difficult to launch more than one without killing the limpets in flight.

Calling them Prospectors con the contacts pane, and giving us an option to manually kill them would fix this - then you could just launch 2-3, pick your roid, kill the others, and relaunch.

Alternatively, make them fly twice as fast, but only give us one at once, and just make the fire button for the limpet select a new roid until the timer runs out. Bigger module classes could give more time and better rating could give faster drones.
 
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shadragon

shadragon
Went out last night on a deep space prospecting mission. First issue I had before leaving was realizing I had no shields. I dropped the DSS and equipped D3 shields.

Losing the DSS proved to be inconvenient. You can't tell the composition of planetary rings without one, but saving grace is asteroid belts do tell you their content. I was able to focus on metallic fields exclusively.

Went out 238 LY and began mining. Took 60 limpets in my 96T of cargo space and came back with 31. I suspect 40 is a better number to take.

I had a seven slot refinery so I focused on palladium, platinum, gold, silver, osmium, beryllium and indium. Grabbed a total of 65T which netted me 544,482 when sold at a high tech world. Could not find any metal delivery missions for what I had in the hold so no bonus. I did have a mission of 1 unit of pannite for 197K, but didn't find any.

I did make 144,222 in exploration data including three heavy metal worlds as first discoveries. So two and a half hours of effort brought me a total income of 688,704 credits. Not great, but not bad and certainly different from the usual. I'll be spending the profits on my Asp build.

I need to re-jig my Asp outfitting and that will need some thought. Fuel scoop, DSS and ADV-scanner are not negotiable in my mind. For mining the refinery is obvious. The only way around it is to lose my 32 bay cargo bay and use that for fuel scooping as the 3A is painfully slow to fill that 32T fuel tank.

Given the above reasoning, this will be my next build:

http://edshipyard.com/#/L=70g,0_g01Q0mI3we4wt4wt5QR5QRH7yH7y,2-8S8S8I6Q6Q8S8I,0AA50U5Sc7Q40aG2UI2jw

Hate to lose the extra cargo space, but this is only a day tripper. With the 64T cargo I can expect a max income of 865,928 credits from mining, assuming all palladium @ average price.
 
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