Forums » Suggestions

Mining badges should be based on unloaded ore

Apr 18, 2021 womble link
A significant source of mining activity is players mining for sale to other players, for use in manufacturing. However, my understanding of the mining badge series is that ore is only counted when sold or used by the mining player in a mission. This means that ore mined for player-to-player sale doesn't count towards the badge, which I think isn't great. It would be nice to be able to more accurately compare miners, regardless of how their ore gets used.

I understand why the badges aren't just "ore mined" -- that's real easy to game by finding a huge asteroid, turning on autojett, and going afk. However, if the second counter (which is currently "ore sold/used") was instead "ore unloaded", I can't see a way to exploit that. If you've hauled the ore to the station, the "unload" button is right next to the "sell" button.
Apr 19, 2021 Captain Spry link
1. You can compare miners based on mining license, which increases with ore mined
2. The rare ores give you badges just for extraction
3. Only the basic mining badge requires that you sell the ore you mine. What is the benefit of this change?

That's my 2cents but I'm interested in more discussion
Apr 19, 2021 womble link
1. Yes, licences increase with ore *mined*, not ore *used*. Licences are vulnerable to the afk+autojett exploit, hence why the badge is still interesting and useful.
2+3. Yes, it's the "basic" miner badge sequence (which turns into Advanced/Industrial Miner after level four) that I'm referring to.

My interpretation is that the intent of the "Basic Miner" badge sequence is to represent a miner's utility in not just extracting ore, but of getting that ore into use (the in-game description uses the phrase "helping sustain the production levels of the galaxy"). When the badge sequence was created, the primary means of doing so was selling to stations (which we can pretend gets the ore into production uses), and a tiny bit into a few early manufacturing missions that you'd probably mine for yourself.

Since the badge's creation, though, the capship manu mission tree has come to exist, which uses a *lot* of ore. Because not everyone likes to grind the asteroids, much of that ore is mined by specialists and sold to others for use in *their* manufacturing missions, and hence is lost to the badge's accounting, even though that mining activity fulfilled the intent of the badge (IMO) by "helping sustain the production levels of the galaxy". Thus, my suggestion was born.
Apr 19, 2021 Drevent1 link
+1
Apr 20, 2021 Ohm link
+1

@Spry, you honestly cannot see the benefit from the OP?
Apr 20, 2021 Captain Spry link
@Ohm, I am seeking more information and trying to understand the impacts of the change. For example,

1. If I buy ore from someone else, then I sell that ore at a station, does that contribute to my basic mining badge?

2. It doesn't seem to fix the issue it wants to fix. When you sell the ore, it goes back into the economy (even if it's just a shadow economy). When you unload the ore, it could just sit in your station. There's no guarantee that it went into circulation to help support manufacturing.

3. It seems exploitable. Person A mines 10,000 cus of ore, unloads it into a station to get the points for the badge, then "lends" it to Person B, who unload into their inventory to get the mining badge, and then Person B returns the ore back to Person A.
Apr 20, 2021 Luxen link
You would have to track if ore was freshly mined, specifically to make sure it wouldn't progress the badge if someone tried cargo-looping it or something. This would prevent people from buy-sell cycling ores, too. I dunno how annoying that'd be for the devs to code to be part of every individual crate of existing ore, since its a single flag... /shrug

Anyways, I think i'm with spry here, specifically for his reason #2. Besides, ore sold to other players doesn't benefit the NPC factions. Why would they reward you with a badge?
Apr 21, 2021 ScotiaKnight link
perhaps making ore distinct, such as tagging a given stack of ore with its creators UID.. so when its ultimately used/sold the source of the ore gets credit for it having been used.

while afk+autojetting ore may seem attractive, afk mining really isnt all that awesome.. i think youll find overall ore extraction is minimal within very short order and is a complete waste of time. (ie, i can mine more in a couple hours actively moving around than a person can mine on a single rock in twelve hours)

youd have to find the mother of all rocks for it to be useful for even an hour afk. its pretty foolish really.

sure, you can increase your licenses but almost every piece of equipment in the game is unlocked within mining 4 which is attainable in only an hours work on your first day, besides HE beams at level 10.

as for exploitable.. sprys scenario of people mining storing/selling/sharing/reselling ore is already taking place in some form or another and has been taking place for many years now. most of us know that..