Forums » Suggestions

Marking Flares

Feb 19, 2008 Pyroman_Ace link
I thought of this yesterday while working on some mining operations in Helios.
My mining ship is a Behemoth, but I don't have an L-port scanner, so I use a refitted Centurion fighter to do the scanning for the minerals I want (in this case Heliocene).

Now, the problem is that even once I find the right roid, I have to commit it's location to memory, and in space, thats hard. I think there needs to be a way to mark something you want to return to.

Enter, the Marking Flare.
Just your basic, colored flare that may also emit a ping on the radar (to make it easier to track). It can be fired from a S-port so a Vulture could carry a Scanner and Flare combo for scouting roids.
The flare would have a limited duration, say, 5 minutes, allowing the pilot to pop the flare, return to get their heavy mining ship (in this case, a Moth), and return, quickly finding their roid and commencing mining.
What do you all think?

On the other side, you could make a Behemoth, Mining Variant to counter this problem, and simply add a small-port for a scanner. To restrict the military-usage of this vessel to keep everything balanced, maneuverability could be retracted.
Feb 20, 2008 Shadoen link
Would other pilots be able to see it?
Feb 20, 2008 JJPro link
I can offer you three solutions for your problem without marking flares:
- drop cargo at the roid
- mine the roid a little bit so it has more than 10K temperature, you can then find it again with your moth because the mining beams show the temperature
- use the Mineral Maud instead of the moth
Feb 20, 2008 Dr. Lecter link
RTFM:

http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/7692

I direct your 15W attention bulb to the tiny lil' entry entitled "marking buoys / beacons / waypoints[2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]."

We need some smarter n00bs.
Feb 20, 2008 ArAel link
get targetls with the roid feature
Feb 20, 2008 Pyroman_Ace link
Shadoen: Yes or no, it would really depend. I think that with the current void of space, it really wouldn't matter all that much one way or the other.

As for the ideas about dropping Cargo, mining the roid a bit, etc. I've thought of those too, but it still requires you getting within radar range of the roid so the cargo ping appears.
I'm thinking that a marking bouy that appeared no larger than a cargo ping, but white (like a group member) so that it would be visible at a greater range, and perhaps even visible on the Sensor Log would clear up some of the limitations, esp. in large sectors.
Feb 23, 2008 drazed link
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/9/17440

As ArAel pointed out, targetls is just what you're looking for. It'll let your save good roids to a targetting list, plus it'll let your target the roids from the list when you come back to the sector. And it won't timeout your roid locations ;)
Feb 25, 2008 Hedgehogs4Me link
I believe you can do this permanently with TargetLS, no?

EDIT: oh, sorry, didn't read the last few replies, I guess people have already pointed this out =)
Feb 25, 2008 irrevolute link
although... and perhaps this should be posted in the plugins thread for targetLS... i've noticed that if you go beyond a certain nuber of marked roids in a sector, you can't really recall your saved roids. i find that, in any given sector, i would like to be able to really mark ALL the roids i've scanned, so i know i'm not scanning the same one twice. i know, i know, i could just heat each one up a little bit and jettison the ore, but that's pretty tedious, and does mining really need to be MORE tedious?

just my two cents... and those being american cents, they are losing value steadily... ;)