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Re: [Suggestion] More Involved Mining

#241
Hey ioxon. For future reference, all mining ideas pretty much go in this thread, so I recommend the mods merge the two threads. As for your suggestion, I'm afraid that step 3 (physically getting out of one's ship) is probably not feasible as it would involve the development of an avatar system, which Josh has ruled out as per the FAQ:
The following are items that will not be in the game;
Player avatars (you can not get out of your ship and walk around)
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Re: [Suggestion] More Involved Mining

#242
this process could be one of the processes, maybe for the medium sized bodies according to katorones scale.

so on smaller scale you use the mining beam.
on medium scales you use the drone-based process.
(maybe an intermediate step with mobile mining bases, attaching to asteroids and mining them dry)
on large scales you build fixed mining installations.
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Re: [Suggestion] More Involved Mining

#243
Cornflakes_91 wrote:this process could be one of the processes, maybe for the medium sized bodies according to katorones scale.

so on smaller scale you use the mining beam.
on medium scales you use the drone-based process.
(maybe an intermediate step with mobile mining bases, attaching to asteroids and mining them dry)
on large scales you build fixed mining installations.
I was told that according to the FAQ, the building of fixed mining stations wouldn't be possible (at least if they required you getting out and walking around to install them) with the current plans for the game since you won't be able to get out of your ship...

I am new to the details of this game and plan to brush up on the FAQ to make sure I'm not requesting or suggesting things outside of the intended direction he's developing the game.
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Re: [Suggestion] More Involved Mining

#244
ioxon wrote:I was told that according to the FAQ, the building of fixed mining stations wouldn't be possible (at least if they required you getting out and walking around to install them) with the current plans for the game since you won't be able to get out of your ship...
No, construction is very much a planned thing, and it's done using drones. I think that mining beams should be applicable at all levels, but you should need to upgrade your beams to harvest from larger asteroids in realistic timescales. I'm totally on-board with the use of drones and mining facilities, though.
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Re: Mining Gameplay Ideas Refined

#246
Industry in general
The key to a viable industry side of any game is that each time you take a material and apply a refine, process, or build job it should reduce the mass and increase the value of the materials that were used in that step. That is generally speaking before taking market pressure in to account.

Planning - Not sure why you couldn't do both.
  • Wing it if you are just hunting for easy credits.
  • Plan if you have a longer term production\profit goal.
  • Would be nice if you can tweak a market widget for the HUD to monitor specific market information about things like raw materials that are sold in nearby docking ports.
  • Also, if you could create a plan that you can turn in to a self-made mission with objectives that you can display on the HUD.
  • A production plan could display raw materials as objectives. When a raw material level has been reached it could be replaced with the refined material.
Prospecting
Why not have many options?
  • A reasonably expensive consumable rover that drops and roams the surface looking for deposits with a limited scan range that takes time to locate all deposits and their best accessible locations. (best used for large asteroids)
  • A quick and cheap consumable that covers a average size area instantly. (Best used for small asteroids)
  • Maybe a cheap-ish reusable drone that uses fuel or some ammunition to preform a orbital scan of the asteroid, by command, without touching down, that can be returned to the ship. (cheaper given fuel/ammo usage then expendable probes but requires research and is good for pilots not willing to throw credits out of the window)
  • A more expensive reusable drone that is more of the same but has autonomous features to it that will scan asteroids automatically in range of the mining ship.
Extraction
  • Your idea sounds like a mini game mechanic while you are extracting ore... I am not sure how or why you would implement that.
  • I liked the idea that extraction was fast. It was the time spent scanning and probing that was the time sink.
Hauling
  • I think all ships should be able to be scanned, boarded, or be pirated in some way without requiring their total destruction.
  • Shooting of the ship's hull and comm threats could force the target to eject cargo or eject escape pods full of crew leaving the ship intact.
  • Disabling shields and engines could allow a pirate ship to dock and remove cargo.
  • Destruction of a ship should allow the looting of a percentage of the original cargo. How the ship was destroyed could affect the loot drop chances.
  • As far as cargo slowing down a ship... It should make the ship feel sluggish but not affect top speed, this is space after all.
Trading - That leads me to a question about personal inventory.
  • If you mine in an area can you stockpile your ore there and then sell it when the time is right or is selling it the only way to clear your ship's inventory?
  • Will their be market orders? It seems like their will be something similar to an auction based market where you can place items on the market with minimum/maximum buy/sell prices.
  • Variations of prices from location to location would probably firstly fall under supply and demand of that location first and secondarily some variable cost of transportation added to a nearby location where the supply or demand could prevent a collapse or an unrealistic spike of a certain commodity.
Refining
  • If it is a simple task to mine 3-4 different asteroids that can then be used to directly build everything in the game it wouldn't make for a very engaging simulator.
  • It should take dozens of different refined\complex materials to make products, way more then you would want to designate different ore and gas types to. Refining could be the path to increase the number of refined materials used to produce items in the game.
  • Each asteroid or gas type could have some ratio of different refined materials. A common commodity list will need to be defined before you could define what refining would yield.
  • The value of each unrefined asteroid or unit of gas could be calculated by the value of it's refined materials.
  • You could also have a second level of refining ( processing ) that would mix the refined materials in to more complex materials to further increase the number of building materials needed to manufacture in the game.
  • Items that used large ratio of more complex material would be harder to produce and cost more on the market.
Manufacturing
  • Blueprints should be forever and not be limited to a set of uses. Realistically, blueprints would be digital and not subject to use limits.
  • It is likely blueprints become obsolete through research eventually.
  • Blueprints should minimally display the name and basic attributes of the item it makes.
  • Blueprints could give you the option to customize the name of the item being produced.
Distribution
  • The item is sold at a location the order was created and could enter the inventory of the NPC\player at the sold location.
  • I don't see a reason to restrict the ability to make remote market purchases.
  • Players and NPCs could create contracts to have purchased items moved to a station they are located at.
Research
  • Research could improve the performance of every mod in the game to some limited degree.
  • It could be used to create blueprints.
  • It could be used to unlock abilities to use equipment.
  • See mining probes\drones
Contracts
  • Taking mining contracts could be advantageous if the value in the contract is above current market value.
  • Placing contracts for ore & gas could speed up production time for projects and increase profits over time.
  • Ships could be made of subsystems that are built with commodities that are in turn made from ore & gas. You could place or fulfill orders for a ship that would spur NPC contracts for subsystems, than commodities, than ore & gas.
Factions
  • NPC controlled mining only factions? I doubt it. Mining, trade, research, and combat are some sources of income with more planned I assume. Why would a faction limit themselves. If they worked in hostile space they would naturally have combat ships. If they worked near a major trade hub ,then they would take advantage of return trips to engage in trade. Research would be a required thing I guess to build better ships.
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Re: Mining Gameplay Ideas Refined

#247
mos7wan7ed wrote:[...]
*twitch*

I really badly want this to have proper list formatting. Like it bothers me to read it without that. I've been refreshing the page hoping you'll change it - can you just wrap every contiguous set of points in list tags? Actually I'll do it.

Edit: cheers :thumbup:
Your idea sounds like a mini game mechanic while you are extracting ore... I am not sure how or why you would implement that.
What are you referencing?
I liked the idea that extraction was fast. It was the time spent scanning and probing that was the time sink.
I think extraction rate should vary from slow to fast based on the type of asteroid being mined, the quality and quantity of mining equipment, the cargohold capacity, among other factors.
I think all ships should be able to be scanned, boarded, or be pirated in some way without requiring their total destruction.
I agree with you.
As far as cargo slowing down a ship... It should make the ship feel sluggish but not affect top speed, this is space after all.
This argument isn't valid since limiting ship velocity to a top speed (less than c) is unrealistic anyway. Besides, it really depends on what drive system you're using.
Also, if you could create a plan that you can turn in to a self-made mission with objectives that you can display on the HUD.
I really, really love this idea, and I'd like to see it used for more general applications than just mining.
Last edited by ThymineC on Sat Apr 05, 2014 5:07 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: Mining Gameplay Ideas Refined

#249
The mini game reference is about the OP mention of a need for a mini game to make mining more interactive or improve mining in some way. It seems like you are asking us to scan down a likely target asteroids, fire several 1 time use probes on it, position the ship above a specific location on the asteroid, aim the cursor over the target location on the surface of the asteroid, fire on that location, then... play some mini game on top of it to make the mining yield ever so slightly higher. I don't see the point. Early game, where it isn't possible to fund other ships to help you mine, the cargo of your fighter or frigate isn't going to make much use of the yield gains for the amount of time you will be running back and forth to the station to offload. When you scale up your mining efforts to larger ships, I assume you may have more "transfer units" and eat asteroids faster. Playing the mini game might prove to be a hassle. The AI isn't likely going to be programmed to play the mini game.

Mining is a low entry \ low tech \ low risk \ low income way to earn credits early game. I can not see mining being a task that a player is being directly involved in after they have put 6-8 hours in the game. I may be wrong, but more then likely trade, manufacturing, and PvP will be more profitable and enjoyable for time played. Mining might be delegated to other ships you own.

The actual act of mining shouldn't be a lengthy process. That said, I too think the equipment used should affect the performance when it comes to mining. As you research up or purchase ship hulls and more advanced mining gear the time to fill the hold should stay relatively short.
Last edited by mos7wan7ed on Sat Apr 05, 2014 6:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Mining Gameplay Ideas Refined

#250
mos7wan7ed wrote:The mini game reference is about the OP mention of a need for a mini game to make mining more interactive or improve mining in some way. It seems like you are asking us to scan down a likely target asteroids, fire several 1 time use probes on it, position the ship above a specific location on the asteroid, aim the cursor over the target location on the surface of the asteroid, fire on that location, then... play some mini game on top of it to make the mining yield ever so slightly higher.
Flatfingers' original post didn't mention anything like this. I propose something vaguely fitting this description starting from here, but it's not really a minigame.

Edit: Sorry, misinterpreted OP as "original post" when you probably meant "original poster". Can you just reference exactly what you're referring to using quote tags please? It'll cut down on confusion. :ghost:
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Re: Mining Gameplay Ideas Refined

#251
Extraction: Activate transfer unit, wait until hold is full. Should this be more active gameplay? Should some separation of base ore be possible here to minimize taking up some cargo hold space with trash?
This sounded like a mini game. Using gameplay to increase yield through the filtering of "Trash".
Last edited by mos7wan7ed on Sat Apr 05, 2014 7:10 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Mining Gameplay Ideas Refined

#252
mos7wan7ed wrote:
Extraction: Activate transfer unit, wait until hold is full. Should this be more active gameplay? Should some separation of base ore be possible here to minimize taking up some cargo hold space with trash?
This sounded like a mini game. Using gameplay to increase yield through the filtering of "Trash".
I'm really not sure if Flatfingers was aiming for that to be implemented as a minigame. I'm not sure what his thoughts were on that.
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Re: Mining Gameplay Ideas Refined

#253
The point of that part of the initial post was to highlight how "mining" had been vaguely described (or at least vaguely understood by me) prior to the Update #14 video that actually demonstrated mining.

The intention was to encourage discussion of what kind of mining gameplay would be more fun for more players than simply hoovering up ore with a magical beam. Since then, the suctioning looks like a bit more fun than EVE's sit-and-wait laser mining. But it doesn't hurt to consider other possibilities.

(Also, thanks for the additional formatting. :))
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Re: Mining Gameplay Ideas Refined

#254
Flatfingers wrote:The point of that part of the initial post was to highlight how "mining" had been vaguely described (or at least vaguely understood by me) prior to the Update #14 video that actually demonstrated mining.
Right but, when you mentioned base ore separation, how exactly were you imagining that being implemented, even if just entertaining the thought? Or was it purely something you said to stimulate discussion without actually giving any thought to that?
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Re: Mining Gameplay Ideas Refined

#255
I wouldn't say I gave this no thought, but no, I didn't put a considerable amount of effort into detailing the notion of a basic kind of gameplay to separate the "good stuff" from simple ores as you move it to your cargo hold. This was just a simple example intended to encourage better ideas.

It was already a long post and I was writing it on an iDevice, which isn't exactly conducive to complex creative expression.

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