Mining should be based more on the players personal ability, like combat is, not on licenses or equipment. The person should get better at mining, not the 'character' gaining numeric 'skills'.

Personal ability is a big factor in combat, and a big difference of V-O then other games. The importance of personal ability should be extended to mining too. (And as many other things as possible; the trading deal goes to experience and shrewdness rather then '+10% for UIT'...)

Group interaction works much better with personal abilities too. People have to talk more, and have training sessions, etc... rather then just saying 'you can get Xithricite in Verasi'.

Here's some ideas:
1.Make asteroid appearance tied to the mineral mix, so players can learn to evaluate asteroid content by sight. We kinda have this, but its to simplistic and not accurate enough. It should be something that you can't quite explain, you just need to practice judging asteroids. (Procedural texture creation?)

2.Target mining beams like combat weapons, and get different results based on where you hit the asteroid. Maybe you get more Apicine by targeting the thin tip of an asteroid.

3.Make it possible to mine with bots in the same system (say 5000 away) so its dangerous and you have to learn to judge 'should I stay, or should I go now?'

4.Allow a system to be emptied of bots, so it can be the big chance to mine in that location. Maybe the bots stay away for an hour after killing enough of them, so Guilds could clear an area to mine.

5.Change the asteroid location or mineral mix on a regular basis, so you have to hunt rather then just going to the same old places. This would help make a little 'easter egg' type game of mining, and make it possible to be surprised, and have a secret asteroid.

6.Rotate the asteroids more and make the whole field move a lot, so flying/hovering finesse is important, and you don't just park and mine. (This would be best when combined with storms. :-)

3 is possible already.
4 is in the planning and debugging stages (see Hiro/Kourier)
6 is cool but it hits a problem with bandwidth. 100ish asteroids all with their own trajectories that need to be calculated over and over... it takes a lot of bandwidth.

5 is illogical. Why would you change the mineral mix.

I like the overall concept, jah.

1 is quite the excellent idea and makes perfect sense.

2 would need something that allowed you to target specific parts of objects, probably using the same kind of programming that would allow you to target specific parts of ships - which is, unfortunately, not available yet.

Moldy is correct - 3 is doable now. 4 apparently is being planned? 6 would be neat but, as he says, too much to do, apparently.

Without 6, 5 would be impossible, but I like the idea of #5. Make the entire asteroid field move. But then you would need to have some kind of homing beacon or whatnot to find your 'roid again. And homing beacons are a whole 'nother ball of wax.

I just want my "Edit the asteroid message" tool. That would be fun.

6 could be a problem. If you move an asteroid, it will (or should!) keep moving in the direction of motion. After some first law of motion treatment, you'll have empty sectors. Or better, sector with roids infinitely apart from each other.

but not in the cases of roid rings. the roids from one sector could then show up in an adjoining sector in the ring: thus allowing the movement of the roid-field in a controlled manner.

I agree with the gist of the idea, mining should be more of a skill-based challenge.

Mining should definately not be "skill based". I'm willing to bet that there are some people in VO who mine as an alternative to combat, because they lack the "skill" to do very well in twitch based fighting.

Rather, it should be judgement based like playing a card game. Chance is always present, and every card has it's ups and downs, but by preparing for a certain hand and taking a small risk you can maximize your odds of scoring big. Mining is about managing your time effectively, tackling the objectives that are profitable, and ignoring the prospects that are not so much. Number 1, I think, is a solid suggestion.

My post on this issue from previous thread.

http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/15417?page=2#195826

This has been discussed quite a bit actually in other threads.

http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/15539
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/15417

And here Incarnate wades in..

http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/15417?page=2#194945

Syylk, assuming that the different systems represent in fact solar systems, we could simply define all the asteroids as orbital objects.

And we could even have trabants, asetroids that move from system to system over time, thus opening up entirely new possibilities.

if you hook a wiimote to the computer, you should have to make a shovelling motion with it while you're mining, the faster you make that motion, the faster you get ore. that's mining acording to player ability.

now that i'm done making fun of your title.... look, mining is the only boring (he he, boring>mining, nvm.) part of this game. you sit there and wait. that's it's purpose. i say dont make it harder, dont make it stupid. cause less poeple will do it than they do now.