Mining rework thread

[Aury]

Figure out how to fix mining. I don't mine, because it's boring. This isn't my territory.

Figure out how to:
1) Make mining balanced
AND
2) Make shooting at rocks fun

Have at it.

[PM]

Add a device that causes ore-bearing asteroids to light up (glow or have crosshairs appear) anytime the player flies within a short distance (say 10 to 20 ls) of it. Device needs to be low level and cheap. I mine only in the early game. Mining after St. K's is out of the question thanks to Ferian interference.

P.S. If the player knows exactly which rocks to shoot, he might be able to shoot just that one rock without hitting Ferians. It is when the player needs to shoot the entire asteroid belt to find ore that hitting Ferians becomes inevitable.

[Bobby]

Take a look at these devices. They do exactly what you suggest, but aren't particularly cheap (the time savings is easily worth it). Despite being new on xelerus they are actually rather old.

There is also this, which I haven't tried.

As for your P.S., it's absolutely true. Since using the scanners I have never killed too many, if any, ferians while mining, though I have scratched more than a few.

I generally mine only in the late game, and only volcanic asteroid belts.

[Prophet]

1) Make mining balanced
Most importantly, mining should be equally viable for all player ships. The freighter will be better because of it's cargospace but the wolfen and sapphire currently cannot carry enough to turn a decent profit.

• Adding lightweight, high value 'bonus' items that are dropped is an easy solution. The existing ore numbers can be reduced or be limited to mostly low value ores.
  
  There is also the option of having an auton or NPC service that will come and collect the ore from you, paying you the value, minus a fee, when the ore is successfully deposited at a station or gates out.
  
  The mining equipment needs to be completely redesigned. The cargohold and a dedicated mining weapon take 2 slots that are sorely needed for survival in the mid-late game. 1 slot is acceptable.

2) Make shooting at rocks fun
This is more difficult (believe it!)
Should mining be completely changed or simply tweaked?
We can add new mechanics like the ore must be caught or the asteroid must be shot from a certain angle. Allow certain damage types to mine ore without specifically having the mining attribute. Asteroids could have random events, like exploding and causing damage, emp burst to disable you, or a single pteravore that is disturbed by you and attacks.

OR

Mining can be completely redesigned.
Perhaps the ore bearing asteroids are dockable and you must complete a minigame in the dockscreen. placing charges on the asteroid to extract the ore, incorrect placement of the charges may make the ore worthless or causes a random event (like above). This option would have to be accompanied by a total rewrite of the mining equipment.

Mining could be contracted out, where the player would hire some NPCs or maybe even buy an auton, that does the actual labour while the player must defend the mining ship(s) from attackers. This favours the combat player and you could also have the choice to have the auton or npc scan the asteroids for the freighter to harvest and collect. Having both would making mining a simple babysitting job, perhaps with more and more attackers showing up over time or according to the amount of ore remaining in the system?

There are plenty of tools and toys that already exist as bobby pointed out and there are even more options that can be made (like a crate that salvagers won't loot) so let's hear what EXISTING mining mods people have used and hear some thoughts on those as well. How can they be improved and/or combined.

[PM]

For all of the problems mining currently has, it does have one advantage: it is one of the uncommon ways of raising money that does not involve combat (aside from random encounters). I may mine early because my ship is too weak to defend freighters in escort missions. Please do not turn mining into yet another combat exercise.

[Atarlost]

If you don't want combat you really should be playing a different game.

And if you can afford a miners hold and mining laser you can afford to make your ship combat capable enough for korolov escort missions. Or get into the various trade routes.

[PM]

I never said I did not want combat, in fact I want it! But, if combat is all this game has to offer, when the game implies to offer more than combat alone, then it is shallow. That may be fine, but if that is the case, it might as well have been Asteroids or some other arcade shmup for all I care. Just remove the middleman and give me the powerful guns then send me hordes of enemies and be done with it. Even Star Control 2 has some (but not much) non-combat stuff; and it needs some so players can build up RUs to prepare for eventual combat.

I do not trust my starting equipment for escorting. I may get lucky and encounter a Corsair or two. Or, I may get mobbed by Vikings, or blocked by a frigate with escorts that I cannot defend against. I do not like to leave things to chance if there is another less risky way to do things. Mining is profitable, simple, but tedious. For those who either feel too weak or do not want to fight too much, mining provides a relatively safe way to earn credits.

2200 credits is not enough to buy everything I want before I feel confident enough to escort ships without too great a risk of failure. For weapons, I will want a dual laser minimum, but I prefer a level III or higher weapon. I may be able to loot a freebie turbolaser from a wreck, so that helps. I would like a NAMI too, and that alone costs 1100 minimum. Wolfen gets a break on the weapons. I doubt the Raisu station will give enough KM500 missiles to last more than a few missions, so I may need to buy more (until I loot some frigates). I would like to upgrade my shield to level III at least because level I and II shields collapse as soon as most ships sneeze on them, and fleeing from battle during an escort mission will almost certainly result in mission failure. After all of that, I may need a 25MW reactor to support my equipment, and that costs 3000. EI500 gets a break here.

Also, who says I need to spend money on a mining laser? Enemy Borers are common past Eridani, and I can loot a laser from their wrecks sometimes. It does not happen in every game prior to Charon, of course. As for miner's hold, due to my looting behavior, I usually get one if I am not playing the EI500. For the EI500, I only get it when I am ready to mine immediately after purchase.

[Atarlost]

I never said I did not want combat, in fact I want it! But, if combat is all this game has to offer, when the game implies to offer more than combat alone, then it is shallow. That may be fine, but if that is the case, it might as well have been Asteroids or some other arcade shmup for all I care. Just remove the middleman and give me the powerful guns then send me hordes of enemies and be done with it.

If the story isn't interesting to you and the combat isn't good enough for you why are you playing the game? It's not the game that's shallow, it's the player. If you don't consider roleplaying worth even thinking about don't be surprised if roleplaying games go over your head.

[Racoon.sf]

Back to topic:

I agree that I wouldn't turn mining into a combat part. The sense is earning money without combat I guess.

I would also not implement a minigame since this does get very boring in the long run (anyone knows FreeDroid?)

I suggest to have some kind of upgrade system. First you have to mine as it is now. In later systems you migth buy a scanner. Then an aumatic collector. Later an auton and so on ...

Maybe it would also help the mining device not to be a weapon at all, at least in late game. This avoids trouble with the ferrians and there is no need to use a weapon slot on the freighter for a non-combat device.

[PM]

Role-play is another word for "Let's pretend!" I do not need a game to role-play. Games have rules, and much of the fun in a computer game is loophole abuse, because I like playing with power. As for the story, it is useful as a developer tool and to give sense and atmosphere to a game world more complex than a board game or shoot-em-up. Story is also useful to capture interest in casual players who are not hardcore enough to win the game at any cost. If I were a game developer, I want to make a game accessible to as many people as I can, at least within a targeted demographic. (For example, no gore or profanity allowed in kids games.)

The reason why I wrote "do not turn mining into yet another combat exercise" is because Transcendence is already overloaded with bounty hunter missions; with payment being money, rise in rank, a gift item or plot coupon, or continued existence of a station that may provide useful services. If the only viable way to raise money in this game is to play space pirate or hired thug, then the game is shallow because the game offers only one true way to get ahead that caters only to bloodthirsty ace players who are into that sort of thing. If all I want to do is combat, I would see moneymaking as grinding and an obstacle to what I really want to do - blast ships. This is not unlike a fighting (or other PvP) game that offers only one to three tournament worthy characters with overpowered moves, and the rest of the cast of twenty are joke characters (compared to those in god tier) who are at a mild to severe disadvatage. Variety of useful options is good.

[PM]

One quick idea to make mining slightly easier is to allow any weapon with WMD mine rocks.

The scanning device need not light up rocks on the main screen. Instead, it can cause blips to appear over ore-bearing asteroids on the radar. There can be multiple levels of scanning devices, similar to missile defense devices. Low level devices detect ore bearing asteroids within a short radius of the playership, while high level devices detect such asteroids within 100 ls of the player.

Or, as an alternative, there can be scanners of various levels that detect every ore-bearing asteroid on the screen if the ores contained are at a level less than or equal to the level of the scanning device. For example, with a level I scanner, the player can pick up asteroids that bear titanium and uranium (because those ores are level I), but not those with higher level ores such as xenotite or pteracnium (level IV and V). If the player wants to detect those, he needs to upgrade to a higher level scanner.

Also, first impressions count. If mining is seen as boring without devices that speed up mining, and those devices cannot be obtained early enough, players (who like faster-paced action) may ignore mining entirely. Mining also needs to be simple. I do not want play a minigame similar to the neurohack mission every time I want to mine a few rocks over and over again. Shooting rocks for ores like it is now is not bad; it worked for Sinistar. There are just so many rocks that anything that can reduce the number of targets would be welcome.

[CFG]

Im one of those people who welcome an extra income by mining. Even if it is 'boring', or better tedious. I think leaving Eridiani with 10k cash is not too bad if youre patient enough.

In my current game I didnt mine at all and Im pretty fine in Charon. As alternative I did a lot Korolov missons with my freighter (fast omni laser + laser collimator).

I like Racoon.sf's idea of an upgrade system. As Bobby mentioned theres already lots of pretty cool stuff on Xerulus. I personally tried the (ultra)mining devices.

For balancing: I think the amount of ore you get could be reduced. Right now you cant even sell all of that titanium you get since most stations dont wont it after buying some hundred tons

A non-weapon device for mining would be essential for the freighter because you just need at least two weapons (of different damage types).
For the other ships, especially the wolfen an additional non-weapon device could cause problems with the ships limited slots.

So I guess an upgradable mining auton would probably the best solution.

However I personally would like individual devices, like a scanner, an automated omni mining laser and an ore collector better

PS: An those freedroid mini games can be quite challenging

[Repulsion]

On the topic of the device that you haven't tried Bobby, it works like a charm. So much more efficient in mining...

[CFG]

How about that:
Create devices that do not a a device slot:

• - maybe three ore scanners with different accuracy and rate of false positives, being Leve ... to ... Scanning should perhaps not finish immediately, but take a few secons ("... scanning ..."). I think it was Bobby who had such a thing up on Xerulus...

• - some external - dont like the auton idea here, but anyways - devices/autons that mines the ore and brings it to the playership or mule auton that has cargo space left. Or a mining device that is external and therefore does not need a device slot. These devices only 'shoot' at asteroids the scanner marks and nothing else. (so you cant use it for combat)

• - Dont like it: But the fully autonomous mining auton on Xerulus would also be an option.

[CFG]

Just read PM's previous post... The idea to be able to mine with any weapon with WND - or maybe just any weapon would also make a quick fix

The mining cargo hold would still makes sense then: Without the player wouldnt get the full profit from mining...

And we need those shootable asteroids on Xerulus - 'caus pointlessly blowing up stuff is always fun