I will probably be spending time blowing up asteroids just because, not even for mining purposes

kspn wrote:I will probably be spending time blowing up asteroids just because, not even for mining purposes

If Josh decides to make asteroids destructible, he doesn't seem completely sold on the idea.

Edit: So I find an old devblog update about mining http://limittheory.blogspot.com/2012/09 ... apons.html

My two cents here about mining (at least large scale stuff or possibilities for non-mining emphasized ship types):

Rather than just complete mining by shooting a beam at the planetary body and removing ore or minerals from it, perhaps you could incorporate dropping a mobile autonomous (or later in the game a populated, more efficient, innovative and grander scale) self-sustaining mining facility onto the planet/moon/asteroids from your ship. Obviously it would require a larger ship to transport the facility and especially so for the later, larger populated unit (which would require a yet-larger ship). You could run back and collect ore from these sites, or perhaps a perk of the populated one, the site would transport the fruits of its own labor off site (or planet) to whatever buyer you choose. Could snowball into something out of control complex if too many intricacies are tacked onto the idea, but I think it could be something to think about...

The Savagery wrote:My two cents here about mining (at least large scale stuff or possibilities for non-mining emphasized ship types):

Rather than just complete mining by shooting a beam at the planetary body and removing ore or minerals from it, perhaps you could incorporate dropping a mobile autonomous (or later in the game a populated, more efficient, innovative and grander scale) self-sustaining mining facility onto the planet/moon/asteroids from your ship. Obviously it would require a larger ship to transport the facility and especially so for the later, larger populated unit (which would require a yet-larger ship). You could run back and collect ore from these sites, or perhaps a perk of the populated one, the site would transport the fruits of its own labor off site (or planet) to whatever buyer you choose. Could snowball into something out of control complex if too many intricacies are tacked onto the idea, but I think it could be something to think about...

Player owned structures on planets is a planned feature, and if we hit the 133k stretch goal we get to own whole planets, so I would imagine you could own a mining operation on a planet, and if he decides to do moons the same as planets moons too. Player owned space stations are also confirmed so you could build a small-ish space station in an asteroid field and then hire NPCs to do you mining for you.

I posted a more detailed version of my ideas on the KS comments.. but an abstract form would be as such:

At the start of the game.. mining should be ALMOST annoying.. not purposefully annoying.. just hard and slow and not really that profitable. It should be worthwhile enough to consider doing to build up some finances and resources, over time, for those of us who want to be miners and traders and not really interested in the combat side of things (at least in the outset of the game). So the technique and tools used should be very limited and so on. It should take a similar amount of effort that it would take to achieve the same level of "richness" as it would for something doing combat early on in the game to achieve.

Once the player has moved on with things.. acrrued a bit more finances and resources etc.. then items in terms of new tools as well as upgrades to existing tool should make the act of mining more and more efficient. Even the ability to convert more ore into materials, which are not directly tied into the onboard ship systems. At the pinnacle of the player's game, they should basically be able to have large-scale mining operations underway that are completely and utterly automated.. and all the player needs to do is manage it from a high level, such as deciding which materials they want and how much. However that would be much, much later in the game.

Here's what I posted on the KS comments:

Early game: You have a mining laser and a separate tractor beam or scoop system.

This just represents where you start from. After you've gotten on with the gameplay more, got more money and resources at your command.. you move on to what I call "mid-game".. which is neither the start nor the final end-game content.

Mid-game Idea 1: You have a mining laser that is encapsulated with a tractor beam, so as the bits break off, they are caught up in the tractor beam and sucked in.

Mid-game Idea 2: You have mining probes/droids that have mining lasers, you just need to collect the bits that break off.

Mid-game Idea 3: You have mining probes/droids that are full automated and collect the bits as they are broken off, when their cargo is full, they come back and drop it off (like in EVE Online).

Mid-game Idea 4: You can hire NPCs to mine for you, either while you are there (similar to probes/droids but with bigger capacities) or when you are not.

So these were just some initial, spontaneous, thoughts on the subject at the time.. but of course owning mining stations.. or owning a factory or refinery on a space station (without owning the whole station) that you could upgrade as well, could make the whole thing multi-faceted in terms of increasing the overall efficiency of mining.

@light487 Yes, yes, yes. This is precisely what I would like to see, +1 to that good sir. Just like in real life, mining shouldn't be something that is greatly profitable right away. If anything, it should be downright hard, just like any aspect of life. Going into a new field of work, or learning a new skill is never easy right away, but with the right know-how, or the right tools, you can start to get better. You begin to actually have the ability and the equipment to make it profitable. I love this idea.

Hi all,

I'm not sure if this has been discussed at some point either here or on KS comments, but with regard to mining I thought it would be cool to have a deployable mining rig that sits on a planet/asteroid/other and saves the player the grind of floating above a rock zapping bits off it.

Is there likely to be different types of recoverable material (ore, precious metals etc)? If so then maybe having a rig required to extract the more valuable ones would be interesting. Perhaps as an extension there could be a survey probe that is needed to be deposited on an asteroid to find the better ores prior to extraction.

Basically, just thinking that it would be nice to have a bit of depth to mining rather than the usual sit there and shoot chunks off rocks type of sub-game which space based games seem to settle on more often than not.


{Mining threads merged - Gazz}

edit: thanks for the merge Gazz - didn't see the other thread

Sounds good to me! An excuse to model some industrial operations for those who want to make a living from grubbing in the dirt rather than piracy.

Perhaps we could set up our own archipelago of mining rigs, e.g. on an ore-rich planet or asteroid belt, all feeding a central refining/processing base via automated transporters. Thereafter shipped to factories at population centres. If an economy is modelled with supply/demand price fluctuations, then we could get our highs in the boom times and despair when the market drops! Maybe have to turn to piracy then anyway...

There is a lot of discussion about ways to make mining fun for any kind of player here. A number of possibilities have been brought up and dissected for how they would impact various play styles. A lot of information is also in various KS comments.

Blow up asteroids? Amateurs!

I'd like to be able to tow out a full mining rig to an asteroid I've already surveyed, and plant it on the surface. Maybe even land it on the surface of a planet.

That way it can work away while I'm elsewhere, filling up a silo of ore. Then I can return, pick up the ore, and take it to a refinery to sell for a tidy sum. If I'm wealthy, I may even build my own refinery and some automated ships to do the ore pickups from my extensive collection of mining stations. Then it would just be a case of shipping the high-quality resources to a populated planet and the profits would come rolling in.

There may be a range of mining and refining equipment I can buy, from basic up to magnate standard. Similar ideas could work for hydrocarbon or water extraction, or even balloon-based plants in the upper atmospheres of gas giants. Some planets may have small quantities of rare and valuable minerals that can be extracted, if you can find them!

JabbleWok wrote:I'd like to be able to tow out a full mining rig to an asteroid I've already surveyed, and plant it on the surface. Maybe even land it on the surface of a planet.

That's how it worked in Nomad and Frontier.

Except that in Nomad you couldn't just mine but also deploy Ranch-Bots. Yeeee haawww!


Such a mining rig could be built the same way you construct a station!
It's just a non-mobile construction, after all.
You add generators, drills, and processing modules.
Then you latch onto the the whole thing and tow it down to the surface.
You'd need one monster of a ship to be able to tow a huge mining rig but hey - that's the fun part. =)

Gazz wrote: You'd need one monster of a ship to be able to tow a huge mining rig but hey - that's the fun part. =)

One option could be to assemble a rig in situ, so you'd need to bring out a big parts container and a construction team. This would be more appropriate for planet surfaces where you could bring in a number of smaller containers over time before construction starts. A nice touch would be that assembly takes time, maybe depending on how big a team you pay for, and several intermediate stages would be visible prior to completion. Plus, a few moving parts on a working rig would be nice for immersion.

JabbleWok wrote:One option could be to assemble a rig in situ, so you'd need to bring out a big parts container and a construction team. This would be more appropriate for planet surfaces where you could bring in a number of smaller containers over time before construction starts. A nice touch would be that assembly takes time, maybe depending on how big a team you pay for, and several intermediate stages would be visible prior to completion. Plus, a few moving parts on a working rig would be nice for immersion.

I like this idea quite a bit. Not just for rigs, but for building anything. You want to construct an orbital platform of death? Well, better protect it until its defenses are online. This adds quite a bit of strategy in regards to building and placing structures too.

Let me throw in how mining was handled in Galaxy on Fire, for completeness sake.

You basically "docked" with an asteroid (landed on it) and fired up your drill. What followed was a mini game (which I officially abhore) where you tried to keep the drill on-center, and if you managed to get all the way to the end, you got a "core", an extra valuable chunk of the asteroid's main mineral.

While the minigame could easily be omitted, I do like the idea of a mining rig installed into a ship, where you simply set the vessel down and let the drilling rig go to work. Then again, I could also imagine a "space dredger" (anybody remember the reference in the Elite manual?) that tractors in complete asteroids to devour and refine.

Hardenberg wrote:I do like the idea of a mining rig installed into a ship, where you simply set the vessel down and let the drilling rig go to work. Then again, I could also imagine a "space dredger" (anybody remember the reference in the Elite manual?) that tractors in complete asteroids to devour and refine.

I like that idea! Effectively a relocatable extraction platform. It would be less efficient but more flexible than locally assembled extractors. If whole asteroids can be crunched, it may be more efficient to fit an engine to the asteroid and take it to a more centralised processing station. Of course there will be a critical size of asteroid above which it becomes a better idea to take the crunching gear to it!