Forums » Suggestions
Mining suggestions
Currently I don't mine much because it's:
a) Boring
b) Has little internal progression
c) Gives little profit in terms of cash or useful license levels (or am I missing something?)
With apologies if any of this is in the pipeline already or has been suggested 50 times before, can I suggest:
- The ores you can extract should depend heavily on mining license level.
- Higher level (and more valuable) ores should be in unguarded space, and the highest (and most valuable) in unmonitored space.
- Make the value of the ores scale with the difficulty of the bots in the given roid field (i.e. pure, excellent, superlative, finest, independently of their mining level).
- Highest level ores can only be mined with 2 or even 3 ships beaming at the same time.
- Ores you can't extract are shown in red when you scan the roid. Ores you'll be able to extract next level are shown in orange.
- Make the mineral scanner a triggered, targeted radar-range slow refresh device to give you something to do while waiting for ore to extract.
- Automatically record roids you and groupmates have scanned in your current sector, and show their ores without re-scanning next time you target them.
- Double the mining extraction speed and heat efficiency of small "mineral extractor" ships, and treble it if they have mining beams in all ports. Give them 50% larger holds but make them "ore only" holds.
(Gives these ships a use and makes it notably more efficient to fit 1 large and 1 small mining beams and find a groupmate to guard while you mine, without forcing people to do so)
- Make small port mining beams gradually damage your ship during use.
(Soloers will dock at intervals anyway so won't care but mining groups will want repair ability in group, which again gives the trader something to do.)
- Increase the distance you can mine at to 200m to encourage miners to jettison ore for a groupmate in a cargo ship to pick up, haul off and sell.
(100m is a bit close for this besides making mining as visually exciting as putting your nose to a wall and staring at the bricks.)
- Let the group leader designate group members as non-miners. When selling ores, if any members are designated non-miners, automatically split the proceeds (a) pro rata with all non-mining group members and (b) between miners in proportion to the efficiency of their mining beams.
e.g. If you had 1 non-miner guarding, 1 non-miner hauling ore in a cargo ship, and 2 miners one of whom can mine twice as fast as the other: Each non-miner gets 25% of the proceeds, the fast miner gets 33% and the slow one 17%.
- Add a large port "Smelting" unit usable by level 4+ traders which can reduce 28 units of player-mined ore in their cargo hold to 14 units of "compressed" ore, 7 units of "highly compressed" ore, 4 units of "super compressed" ore or 2 units of "hyper compressed" ore, successive compression levels being made available for each extra 3 license levels. Compressed sells for 10% more than twice the price of normal, highly compressed for 20% more than 4 times the price, super for 35% more than 7 times the price and hyper for 50% more than 14 times the price.
(i.e. a good trader greatly increases efficiency of hauling and somewhat boosts profit for the group, but makes a stunningly attractive pirate target if unguarded...or the trader could smelt enough ore for everyone to fill their holds then fly back in convoy to sell.)
- Locate different ore in different systems, and scale the sell prices of player-mined ore significantly in proportion to the number of jumps away the nearest deposit is located.
(Encourages traders to group with miners, or miners to store their ore to smelt and and haul to a different system to sell.)
- Scale the financial rewards for all this so group mining at higher levels is as profitable as a good trading run.
- Add news items giving peak demands for ore from different systems, where it can be found and so on as for trading at present.
I appreciate much of this may be unworkable or nonsense for reasons I've stupidly missed, so feel free to bash it anyone ...
Tibbs
a) Boring
b) Has little internal progression
c) Gives little profit in terms of cash or useful license levels (or am I missing something?)
With apologies if any of this is in the pipeline already or has been suggested 50 times before, can I suggest:
- The ores you can extract should depend heavily on mining license level.
- Higher level (and more valuable) ores should be in unguarded space, and the highest (and most valuable) in unmonitored space.
- Make the value of the ores scale with the difficulty of the bots in the given roid field (i.e. pure, excellent, superlative, finest, independently of their mining level).
- Highest level ores can only be mined with 2 or even 3 ships beaming at the same time.
- Ores you can't extract are shown in red when you scan the roid. Ores you'll be able to extract next level are shown in orange.
- Make the mineral scanner a triggered, targeted radar-range slow refresh device to give you something to do while waiting for ore to extract.
- Automatically record roids you and groupmates have scanned in your current sector, and show their ores without re-scanning next time you target them.
- Double the mining extraction speed and heat efficiency of small "mineral extractor" ships, and treble it if they have mining beams in all ports. Give them 50% larger holds but make them "ore only" holds.
(Gives these ships a use and makes it notably more efficient to fit 1 large and 1 small mining beams and find a groupmate to guard while you mine, without forcing people to do so)
- Make small port mining beams gradually damage your ship during use.
(Soloers will dock at intervals anyway so won't care but mining groups will want repair ability in group, which again gives the trader something to do.)
- Increase the distance you can mine at to 200m to encourage miners to jettison ore for a groupmate in a cargo ship to pick up, haul off and sell.
(100m is a bit close for this besides making mining as visually exciting as putting your nose to a wall and staring at the bricks.)
- Let the group leader designate group members as non-miners. When selling ores, if any members are designated non-miners, automatically split the proceeds (a) pro rata with all non-mining group members and (b) between miners in proportion to the efficiency of their mining beams.
e.g. If you had 1 non-miner guarding, 1 non-miner hauling ore in a cargo ship, and 2 miners one of whom can mine twice as fast as the other: Each non-miner gets 25% of the proceeds, the fast miner gets 33% and the slow one 17%.
- Add a large port "Smelting" unit usable by level 4+ traders which can reduce 28 units of player-mined ore in their cargo hold to 14 units of "compressed" ore, 7 units of "highly compressed" ore, 4 units of "super compressed" ore or 2 units of "hyper compressed" ore, successive compression levels being made available for each extra 3 license levels. Compressed sells for 10% more than twice the price of normal, highly compressed for 20% more than 4 times the price, super for 35% more than 7 times the price and hyper for 50% more than 14 times the price.
(i.e. a good trader greatly increases efficiency of hauling and somewhat boosts profit for the group, but makes a stunningly attractive pirate target if unguarded...or the trader could smelt enough ore for everyone to fill their holds then fly back in convoy to sell.)
- Locate different ore in different systems, and scale the sell prices of player-mined ore significantly in proportion to the number of jumps away the nearest deposit is located.
(Encourages traders to group with miners, or miners to store their ore to smelt and and haul to a different system to sell.)
- Scale the financial rewards for all this so group mining at higher levels is as profitable as a good trading run.
- Add news items giving peak demands for ore from different systems, where it can be found and so on as for trading at present.
I appreciate much of this may be unworkable or nonsense for reasons I've stupidly missed, so feel free to bash it anyone ...
Tibbs
Good suggestion Tibbles, well thought out, i've often wanted to touch on the issue of mining myself but never had the time.
I pretty much agree with all of the things above, however making certain ores require a group to mine is not working for me, Perhaps give a bonus to groups instead, like heat reduction and an increased mining distance.
I pretty much agree with all of the things above, however making certain ores require a group to mine is not working for me, Perhaps give a bonus to groups instead, like heat reduction and an increased mining distance.
I disagree on soo many of your listed suggestions I'm not going to bother with lineitem replys.
Your obviouly not mining right because you can make a ton of money mining. Sure it's not the most interesting thing to do in game at the moment but once the new economy system is implemented and they start to bring crafting into the picture it will become a lot more interesting. Ore exctaction is fine as it is now and the way the equipment is set up you DO gain access to better ores at higher level due to the special mining beams (%'s of certain ores). What it seems like you want is what every other mmo has which is a special resource that is only accessable at certain levels with most people in vendetta feel is the wrong direction to go. Just like weapons everything should be accessable as soon as possible so that it's more skill based, and there IS skill involvevd in mining.
I do agree with you that the small mining beam is bad in it's current state. The heat on it is rediculous compaired to what it hauls in, but, most people move onto the large beams after finishing the mining tutorial and with the port setups on most ships your not going to really use the small mining beam anyway, unless your minig in a rag, but that's one of the worst ships to mine in anyway due to small cargo holds. Wraith would be the second worst one, and why not equip some weapons to defend yourself instead of a small beam?
I'm also guessing you've never mined extremely rare ores and then hauled them half way across the verse to sell, otherwise you would know that a LOT of money can be made with little effort.
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All that aside, miniing is also a great way to work on your trade and faction building when doing the trade guild mineral missions. Sure most of the time your only mining standard ores (aquean/silicate/ferric/carbonic) but the last few in the mission trees pay out quite well (helio/apecein/pent/pyro) as do the faction increases.
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The biggest area of mining that needs revamping, if any, is the badge for prospecting, which requires you to do the missions in EVERY system in the game, though this is not feasable for most players due to BP'ing, CtC and needing low faction with one of the primaries. I would suggest a Prospecting badge for each of the nation spaces as well as the grey systems. Perhaps a 4 part badge.
Your obviouly not mining right because you can make a ton of money mining. Sure it's not the most interesting thing to do in game at the moment but once the new economy system is implemented and they start to bring crafting into the picture it will become a lot more interesting. Ore exctaction is fine as it is now and the way the equipment is set up you DO gain access to better ores at higher level due to the special mining beams (%'s of certain ores). What it seems like you want is what every other mmo has which is a special resource that is only accessable at certain levels with most people in vendetta feel is the wrong direction to go. Just like weapons everything should be accessable as soon as possible so that it's more skill based, and there IS skill involvevd in mining.
I do agree with you that the small mining beam is bad in it's current state. The heat on it is rediculous compaired to what it hauls in, but, most people move onto the large beams after finishing the mining tutorial and with the port setups on most ships your not going to really use the small mining beam anyway, unless your minig in a rag, but that's one of the worst ships to mine in anyway due to small cargo holds. Wraith would be the second worst one, and why not equip some weapons to defend yourself instead of a small beam?
I'm also guessing you've never mined extremely rare ores and then hauled them half way across the verse to sell, otherwise you would know that a LOT of money can be made with little effort.
------
All that aside, miniing is also a great way to work on your trade and faction building when doing the trade guild mineral missions. Sure most of the time your only mining standard ores (aquean/silicate/ferric/carbonic) but the last few in the mission trees pay out quite well (helio/apecein/pent/pyro) as do the faction increases.
------
The biggest area of mining that needs revamping, if any, is the badge for prospecting, which requires you to do the missions in EVERY system in the game, though this is not feasable for most players due to BP'ing, CtC and needing low faction with one of the primaries. I would suggest a Prospecting badge for each of the nation spaces as well as the grey systems. Perhaps a 4 part badge.
Thanks Chikira, on reflection needing a group to extract high end ores maybe isn't the coolest idea.
Johnhaw, I actually agree with some of your generic observations on the game but I'm not a particularly eager flame warrior so I won't comment other than to say the spot you've chosen to make your heroic stand on is actually a hole in the ground ...
Johnhaw, I actually agree with some of your generic observations on the game but I'm not a particularly eager flame warrior so I won't comment other than to say the spot you've chosen to make your heroic stand on is actually a hole in the ground ...
*ahem* Hole in a roid. And helio mining is very lucrative. You just need to do your research and find many many roids. I can get about 15 million a week from roid farming and all i do is sit back and relax (and,uh, haul the ore to the appropriate station when my hold is full)
i realy don't know how you roid farmers can stand to mine for that long. personaly i finde it takes just enough concentration to be annoying. not to mention the time involved in finding and remembering good roids.
anyway, i'm not certain where i stand on this issue. i'd rather the type of ore you can extract not be directly related to level. i'd prefer if the extraction limits were based on equipment. so you can't mine helio at level 2 because the beams available at level 2 can't mine helio.
as for your other sugestions i am similarly conflicted
anyway, i'm not certain where i stand on this issue. i'd rather the type of ore you can extract not be directly related to level. i'd prefer if the extraction limits were based on equipment. so you can't mine helio at level 2 because the beams available at level 2 can't mine helio.
as for your other sugestions i am similarly conflicted
Good one Moldy.
- The ores you can extract should depend heavily on mining license level.
As was said before, this is a bad idea. Rare ores are rare enough, we don't need a few people to control the entire universe's supply of helio.
- Higher level (and more valuable) ores should be in unguarded space, and the highest (and most valuable) in unmonitored space.
Generally, this is true. Rare ores are almost never found around stations (with the exception of Heliocene in Azek). They are rather found in uncharted asteroid belts and in certain parts of Geryspace (Xith in Pelatus, Lacanthic in Sedina, Heliocene in Helios, etc).
- Make the value of the ores scale with the difficulty of the bots in the given roid field (i.e. pure, excellent, superlative, finest, independently of their mining level).
I think this is a good idea. I [APPROVE].
- Highest level ores can only be mined with 2 or even 3 ships beaming at the same time.
No. It is already more efficient to mine with buddies, but we don't want to discourage independant miners.
- Ores you can't extract are shown in red when you scan the roid. Ores you'll be able to extract next level are shown in orange.
No, as it relies on your first suggestion
- Make the mineral scanner a triggered, targeted radar-range slow refresh device to give you something to do while waiting for ore to extract.
Not quite sure what you're getting at. Explain please.
- Automatically record roids you and groupmates have scanned in your current sector, and show their ores without re-scanning next time you target them.
This has been suggested many times before.
- Double the mining extraction speed and heat efficiency of small "mineral extractor" ships, and treble it if they have mining beams in all ports. Give them 50% larger holds but make them "ore only" holds.
(Gives these ships a use and makes it notably more efficient to fit 1 large and 1 small mining beams and find a groupmate to guard while you mine, without forcing people to do so)
No. The devs want ships to be flexible, and while there are speciallity ships, they don't want to prohibit players from using it for means not normally intended.
- Make small port mining beams gradually damage your ship during use.
(Soloers will dock at intervals anyway so won't care but mining groups will want repair ability in group, which again gives the trader something to do.)
No. The s-port beams need more use, not the discouragement from it. This idea would be better suited to certain types of L-Port mining beams.
- Increase the distance you can mine at to 200m to encourage miners to jettison ore for a groupmate in a cargo ship to pick up, haul off and sell.
(100m is a bit close for this besides making mining as visually exciting as putting your nose to a wall and staring at the bricks.)
Mining is supposed to be dull--roids are rocks after all. However, being so close does make disengaging a pain, so 150m perhaps?
- Let the group leader designate group members as non-miners. When selling ores, if any members are designated non-miners, automatically split the proceeds (a) pro rata with all non-mining group members and (b) between miners in proportion to the efficiency of their mining beams.
e.g. If you had 1 non-miner guarding, 1 non-miner hauling ore in a cargo ship, and 2 miners one of whom can mine twice as fast as the other: Each non-miner gets 25% of the proceeds, the fast miner gets 33% and the slow one 17%.
Good idea, but it may be too dificult to implement with the current UI. Besides, TGFT splits the proceeds manulally during their mining events and can customize the payment ratios to their liking besides.
- Add a large port "Smelting" unit usable by level 4+ traders which can reduce 28 units of player-mined ore in their cargo hold to 14 units of "compressed" ore, 7 units of "highly compressed" ore, 4 units of "super compressed" ore or 2 units of "hyper compressed" ore, successive compression levels being made available for each extra 3 license levels. Compressed sells for 10% more than twice the price of normal, highly compressed for 20% more than 4 times the price, super for 35% more than 7 times the price and hyper for 50% more than 14 times the price.
(i.e. a good trader greatly increases efficiency of hauling and somewhat boosts profit for the group, but makes a stunningly attractive pirate target if unguarded...or the trader could smelt enough ore for everyone to fill their holds then fly back in convoy to sell.)
[APPROVED], with provisions. Rather than making compressed ore more valuable, make it loose some of its value so that the miner(s) have a trade-off, more value per cu or more volume. This makes compression valuable, but only to a point.
- Locate different ore in different systems, and scale the sell prices of player-mined ore significantly in proportion to the number of jumps away the nearest deposit is located.
(Encourages traders to group with miners, or miners to store their ore to smelt and and haul to a different system to sell.)
Already been implemented. The game has a supply-and-demand driven economy, so rare ores located near stations quickly go down in value--although they do become profitable again if unmined for long enough.
- Scale the financial rewards for all this so group mining at higher levels is as profitable as a good trading run.
How is it not already?
- Add news items giving peak demands for ore from different systems, where it can be found and so on as for trading at present.
Good idea. There is already a "local items in demand" tab for individual stations, I imagine a system-wide report wouldn't be too much more difficult to implement (once the devs have some spare time, anyway)
I appreciate much of this may be unworkable or nonsense for reasons I've stupidly missed, so feel free to bash it anyone ...
My pleasure.
- The ores you can extract should depend heavily on mining license level.
As was said before, this is a bad idea. Rare ores are rare enough, we don't need a few people to control the entire universe's supply of helio.
- Higher level (and more valuable) ores should be in unguarded space, and the highest (and most valuable) in unmonitored space.
Generally, this is true. Rare ores are almost never found around stations (with the exception of Heliocene in Azek). They are rather found in uncharted asteroid belts and in certain parts of Geryspace (Xith in Pelatus, Lacanthic in Sedina, Heliocene in Helios, etc).
- Make the value of the ores scale with the difficulty of the bots in the given roid field (i.e. pure, excellent, superlative, finest, independently of their mining level).
I think this is a good idea. I [APPROVE].
- Highest level ores can only be mined with 2 or even 3 ships beaming at the same time.
No. It is already more efficient to mine with buddies, but we don't want to discourage independant miners.
- Ores you can't extract are shown in red when you scan the roid. Ores you'll be able to extract next level are shown in orange.
No, as it relies on your first suggestion
- Make the mineral scanner a triggered, targeted radar-range slow refresh device to give you something to do while waiting for ore to extract.
Not quite sure what you're getting at. Explain please.
- Automatically record roids you and groupmates have scanned in your current sector, and show their ores without re-scanning next time you target them.
This has been suggested many times before.
- Double the mining extraction speed and heat efficiency of small "mineral extractor" ships, and treble it if they have mining beams in all ports. Give them 50% larger holds but make them "ore only" holds.
(Gives these ships a use and makes it notably more efficient to fit 1 large and 1 small mining beams and find a groupmate to guard while you mine, without forcing people to do so)
No. The devs want ships to be flexible, and while there are speciallity ships, they don't want to prohibit players from using it for means not normally intended.
- Make small port mining beams gradually damage your ship during use.
(Soloers will dock at intervals anyway so won't care but mining groups will want repair ability in group, which again gives the trader something to do.)
No. The s-port beams need more use, not the discouragement from it. This idea would be better suited to certain types of L-Port mining beams.
- Increase the distance you can mine at to 200m to encourage miners to jettison ore for a groupmate in a cargo ship to pick up, haul off and sell.
(100m is a bit close for this besides making mining as visually exciting as putting your nose to a wall and staring at the bricks.)
Mining is supposed to be dull--roids are rocks after all. However, being so close does make disengaging a pain, so 150m perhaps?
- Let the group leader designate group members as non-miners. When selling ores, if any members are designated non-miners, automatically split the proceeds (a) pro rata with all non-mining group members and (b) between miners in proportion to the efficiency of their mining beams.
e.g. If you had 1 non-miner guarding, 1 non-miner hauling ore in a cargo ship, and 2 miners one of whom can mine twice as fast as the other: Each non-miner gets 25% of the proceeds, the fast miner gets 33% and the slow one 17%.
Good idea, but it may be too dificult to implement with the current UI. Besides, TGFT splits the proceeds manulally during their mining events and can customize the payment ratios to their liking besides.
- Add a large port "Smelting" unit usable by level 4+ traders which can reduce 28 units of player-mined ore in their cargo hold to 14 units of "compressed" ore, 7 units of "highly compressed" ore, 4 units of "super compressed" ore or 2 units of "hyper compressed" ore, successive compression levels being made available for each extra 3 license levels. Compressed sells for 10% more than twice the price of normal, highly compressed for 20% more than 4 times the price, super for 35% more than 7 times the price and hyper for 50% more than 14 times the price.
(i.e. a good trader greatly increases efficiency of hauling and somewhat boosts profit for the group, but makes a stunningly attractive pirate target if unguarded...or the trader could smelt enough ore for everyone to fill their holds then fly back in convoy to sell.)
[APPROVED], with provisions. Rather than making compressed ore more valuable, make it loose some of its value so that the miner(s) have a trade-off, more value per cu or more volume. This makes compression valuable, but only to a point.
- Locate different ore in different systems, and scale the sell prices of player-mined ore significantly in proportion to the number of jumps away the nearest deposit is located.
(Encourages traders to group with miners, or miners to store their ore to smelt and and haul to a different system to sell.)
Already been implemented. The game has a supply-and-demand driven economy, so rare ores located near stations quickly go down in value--although they do become profitable again if unmined for long enough.
- Scale the financial rewards for all this so group mining at higher levels is as profitable as a good trading run.
How is it not already?
- Add news items giving peak demands for ore from different systems, where it can be found and so on as for trading at present.
Good idea. There is already a "local items in demand" tab for individual stations, I imagine a system-wide report wouldn't be too much more difficult to implement (once the devs have some spare time, anyway)
I appreciate much of this may be unworkable or nonsense for reasons I've stupidly missed, so feel free to bash it anyone ...
My pleasure.
I liked the suggestion about NPC miners from stations. Then, the rich ores would become naturally heated up and inefficient for mining. They've got the protecting miners mission in the works, so sectors with easy bots are quickly cleared out and heavily mined, while those with hard bots may not have as much mining, so cooler roids.
Wow. Thanks for the in-depth reply VIsitor. I'll try to do justice to the questions you posed:
I appreciate what people are saying about not wanting to make rare ores (or anything else) too directly level-dependent. With weapons and ships though, you need to earn a few levels to do things you just can't in a lvl 1 bus. By comparison mining progression (which mostly means digging a tad faster) is so flat it's near nonexistent. Any suggestions to improve this?
And /agree Lord Q on the boredom factor - I was hoping to relieve this by making it more attractive to group and making people balance a few more factors while mining.
Currently you auto-scan just by getting close to a roid, then sit twiddling your thumbs while you mine. Maybe the scanner should have an additional option to operate at range when "fired" at a targeted roid, and eat a big chunk of battery power? Anything that requires you to juggle 2 or 3 things at once (firing and dodging vs battery, or mining and prospecting vs battery) makes it a little more challenging.
I didn't explain the reasoning behind mining ships but I like the idea of (somehow) having miners make a sharp tradeoff between defenses+hold capacity and mining efficiency. This was to give more encouragement (without forcing them) to group with cargo ships and bot hunters, and make you take a little more risk if you want to mine faster solo.
Thanks again for your responses.
I appreciate what people are saying about not wanting to make rare ores (or anything else) too directly level-dependent. With weapons and ships though, you need to earn a few levels to do things you just can't in a lvl 1 bus. By comparison mining progression (which mostly means digging a tad faster) is so flat it's near nonexistent. Any suggestions to improve this?
And /agree Lord Q on the boredom factor - I was hoping to relieve this by making it more attractive to group and making people balance a few more factors while mining.
Currently you auto-scan just by getting close to a roid, then sit twiddling your thumbs while you mine. Maybe the scanner should have an additional option to operate at range when "fired" at a targeted roid, and eat a big chunk of battery power? Anything that requires you to juggle 2 or 3 things at once (firing and dodging vs battery, or mining and prospecting vs battery) makes it a little more challenging.
I didn't explain the reasoning behind mining ships but I like the idea of (somehow) having miners make a sharp tradeoff between defenses+hold capacity and mining efficiency. This was to give more encouragement (without forcing them) to group with cargo ships and bot hunters, and make you take a little more risk if you want to mine faster solo.
Thanks again for your responses.
Mining is fine. leave it as it is...
all it needs is a little more loving in the 'mission' area - more mining-related missions that can get you grater sums of mining XP, and higher reward for mining in dangerous areas (i.e., ore extracts faster in Ion storms with less heating, or you get higher XP/cashflow somehow for mining bot-ridden sectors)
all it needs is a little more loving in the 'mission' area - more mining-related missions that can get you grater sums of mining XP, and higher reward for mining in dangerous areas (i.e., ore extracts faster in Ion storms with less heating, or you get higher XP/cashflow somehow for mining bot-ridden sectors)
I agree, mining as it is now *can* be enjoyable and challenging (not to mention profitable), leave it as it is. Some new missions would be nice, though.