Ok... I have not actually tested this, but from what i've experienced, you cannot destroy asteroids.

This may be a neat idea to implement, especially once bigger ships start getting released or if mining is ever implemented directly.

Also, i'm not again sure, but I believe missles that run into asteroids don't explode, just kinda stop and go around... is this the case?

Back in the day, we had long discussions on how this was impossible. But what with the new universe and the devs' Instant Content Generating Engine(TM), I'm starting to think it could be doable.

Except when the 'Asteriod smashing society' comes along and destroys all the roids they can find...

how u guna regrow them and stay within the story?

...maybe have the sector-generation scripts drop an "asteroid seed point" instead of roids in initial creation.... then every time a sector "wakes up" as a player jumps in, have it place a randomly-shaped asteroid over each seed point. then destroy all roids if the sector becomes empty again...

this would probably introduce some server overhead on each sector "wake-up", though.... maybe just reset destroyed roids after a set time period.... maybe with randomized "asteroid seed point" placement??

Maybe have asteroid storms?

haha nice...

Kind of like my original ionstorm idea way back in the day... but this has a bunch of roids that fly through the sector killing anything they hit.

Deformable terrain is a really neat feature for a single player game. In a multiplayer persistant game, its not really all that great. First, you have to handle the fact that either the changes are persistant (in which case eventually ALL the roids are going to be knocked to powder), or else regenerate the rocks at some rate. Neither is fully acceptable. But an even bigger problem is that every time you deform a rock, or split a rock into several peices, every single person in the sector has to be informed about it. This produces alot of lag.

What we need is one sector where you can split asteroids in half, you are restricted to phyics-mode flight, the music sounds kinda like the Jaws theme, and there are occasionally bots that shoot at you... (sound familiar? ;)

hmm... you could do something like
destroy enough asteroids, a little while later an ion storm hits which causes the fragments to come together. You could throw some bit about gravitational anomalties which causes roids to form again.

That and some of the asteroids look like planetary fragments for some reason..... you'd expect that rocks that have been smashing together for some time would be a bit less.... sharp and flat.

Then again, i'd say for most roids, you'd need a huge cannon to be able to actually destroy them. Blasting them a bit and leaving some scorch marks is a different story.

Have you read the In Progress update for today yet? It describes a future in which mining makes changes to asteroid appearance and would be preserved across sector restarts.

It also discusses asteroid depletion and the "Exploration addon" to solve such problems.

Take a look: http://www.vendetta-online.com/h/work.html

No, I haven't.

Ok, well, by the time I'm writing this I have.

I don't agree with the utility of depleting/deforming ores/'roids. It will tend to penalize newbies more harshly than long time players. Also, I don't think the lag it generates is worth the realism. The short term depletion ('over heating') that they describe seems sufficient to me to deter too much camping at a few sweet spots.

But I also note that this is very long term design.

Lol, i read all that mining stuff. They basically want to impliment the same idea that jumpgate had. Asteroids heat up, gotta wait for them to cool down, different faction mining beams with different efficiencies.

There are only about two ways to implement mining that are practical - either you have a mining beam, or else you have a mining drone. Once you choose one, just about everything else false out as the natural design.

And its worth noting that with capital ships, they are using the 'other' way to implement mining. So, once there system is fully implemented it will remind everyone of something.

But, just in case everyone is locked in an uncreative rut, I'd love to hear anyone else's suggestion on how to implement mining that is completely different from the proposal.

Well.. the tech level of this game is slightly different than err.. for instance jumpgate. There are already nanites for repair, how about mining nanites?... you could basically fill up a missile with them, fire them at the roid and just scoop up the ore they extract. You'd have to have a computer capable of controlling the nanites, probably some skill involved in changing with the dynamic enviornment and maintain a certain distance to be able to control them (in lets say an aggressive enviornment).

The whole idea of heating up a roid is kinda.. questionable. While drilling, probably especially with a energy weapon/drill, you'd generate heat in the roid itself. That's a given. However, it would just seem to me that the roid would have more of a chance to collapse rather than get too hot to extract the ore. It would be more likely that a roid made out of stone would collapse and a roid made out of water would vaporize... different effects for different roids. Metal ones would simply be very impure and thus take much longer to extract the materials out of. Of course there's always the need to put the mode valuable ores out in the fringes of space that somehow are devoid of all life except for stuff that's hostile to you.. which is kinda wierd but understandable for a game.

A variation on the mining bean is the "mining missile" (for lack of better term). Weapon type thing that after a number of shots, off pops a cargo (or some other shaped thing) that you have to scoop up.

The net effect on the game is the same, though. Players are now able to produce, rather than simply ferry cargo. The visuals and mechanics are secondary.

Woot for a more dynamic economy!

-> HyperGreatthing: Did you read the In Progress stuff carefully?

"The mining beam causes the asteroids to heat up. As the heat increases, the mining efficiency decreases, to a point where it becomes advantageous to look for a different asteroid."

Nowhere does it say you can't continue to mine the roid. It just gets so inefficient that it's better to look for a cooler roid and come back when all the heat has radiated away. They don't really have to explain how heat affects mining efficiency. It's just a given, with the mining beam technology.

Although it would be pretty neat to have the heat eventually build up so much that you make the roid glow. =)

Maybe there could be some minerals that actually get more efficient to mine at higher temperatures.

As far as a non-beam/non-drone idea? Why not "land" on the roid (get within 10m of the surface and hit activate) and have some attachment on your ship do the mining. If you're attacked, either turbo or strafe to abort and detach from the roid. It would be interesting to "dock" to a rotating roid. =) But the beam thing works for me.

Edit: -> Wubby: I agree completely. With mining and eventually crafting, VO gets the interesting ability to have nothing but roids appear magically (even roids might be added in a credible way). So no ships are built without the right raw materials. Et cetera.

I would have no problem with the server spawning new roids in a sector when needed while nobody was looking. Think about how often you jump through a sector empty of players?

Everyone assumes that the destruction of roids will be rapid, so the respawning of them will be noticeable too. But think how long it would take to mine a whole roid to death? Ages. Days, weeks even. So even if you had a team of 100 players all mining roids as fast as they can in one sector, it would take them a heap of time to make a dent in the sector.

I don't think being able to splinter roids into smaller chards is a good idea. The effect of mining could be to hollow the roid out, or gradually reduce its size.

If you set a couple of rules for the respawning of roids you could make it work: the roid reapawns in a random location, it never spawns when a player is in the sector, if a station or wormhole is present, it will spawn at least 3000m away... etc This way, over time, the roids in busy sectors would slowly be cleared away from the center of the sectors, gradually pushing outwards. Only someone who hasn't played for a long time would notice something happening.

-s-

> Celebrim -->"But, just in case everyone is locked in an uncreative rut, I'd love to hear anyone else's suggestion on how to implement mining that is completely different from the proposal."

other ways of doing it.

Think of harvesting maple sap.

1) require scanning beam attachment to scan for ore composition

2) require special asteroid docking module that allows you to attach your ship to a floating asteroid. This would require good piloting skills.

3) attach ore extraction units to the asteroid which extract the ore into cargo modules which are then ejectable from the unit. Which you then pick up. Units would have varing degrees of extraction rate. Modules would be persistant, and targetable. IE they can be destroyed. Extraction stops when it reaches the units capacity, and doesn't start again until you eject the cargo.

You would have to "stake a claim" to a few roids. If you fail to protect your claim it could be taken over by a less scrupulous miner.

This would add a whole host of issues and game play scenarios. Requiring asteroid protection, ore pickup and delivery. Sale of already setup mining infrastucture.

"They don't really have to explain how heat affects mining efficiency."

The infrared radiation acts as noise for your scanners, and they can't filter it all out; the cheaper ones have a crummier DSP design, so they aren't as efficient at filtering noise. :P

Well, to expand on the 'drone' idea. I think I saw player owned bots. Well, some of them were collectors. Why not hunt, reprogram collectors, and make them mine, and return cargo to homebase. That doesn't need player presence, but... Bot can get, er botted. Either by players (bots could show that they are owned, but not by whom, just nation) or by NPC bots. Of course, guardians could be set to protect them, and the like.

Perhaps that is interesting for the time when there are Player/Guild controlled bases?