Mining Tools

[Aeonic]

I'm just looking for brainstorms on new tools that might be a nice contribution to the mining trade. A good tool should make mining easier or more profitable, but not be overdone.

Tools of the Mining Trade:

Mining Laser
damage: laser 1d4 (x5), mining3
range: 1200
power: 4 MW
cost: 550
mass: 2 tons
- This powerful laser is generally used for asteroid mining.

Plasma Torch
damage: plasma 22, mining5, WMD2
range: 1200
power: 30 MW
cost: 18000
mass: 4 tons
- Plasma torches are used for large-scale asteroid mining.

Miner's Cargo Hold
cost: 1500
mass: 1.3 tons
- Required to bring ore onboard effectively.


Conceptual Tools:

Mining Mine
- Leave it in the midst of several asteroids, get out of the way and wait for it to detonate. Blasting for ores! (OddBob's idea.)

Mining MAG
- Works like the mine only with a smaller radius and, instead of leaving and waiting for it to detonate, you launch it and it explodes on impact. This might be part of a specific launcher for explosives designed for mining.

Sonic Wave Caster
- A short range weapon with a wide arc which sends out sonic waves to break up asteroids. The principle here being that they're easier to work with than the laser or torch which are difficult to aim.

Rapid Mining Laser
- A short range, rapid-fire version of the mining laser. Instead of each shot firing five shots, this laser simply fires continuously until you stop holding down the button. It really isn't that different from the mining laser except in the way you use it. It has a shorter range and probably less damage to handicap its usefulness as a weapon.


I know that mining autons also exist, but in my experience they were somewhat buggy, so until they work better I'm just going to leave them out. Although it may be nice to include some mule alternatives just for help in the mining department.

[Prophet]

If we could get overlays to work on stations we could have a geology scan place a visual marker over asteroids that have ore in them.

I'm not sure if you can set the player's target with (shpOrderGoto ... or something similar) and point them to the nearest asteroid with ore? I will look into this...

I look forward to seeing what you come up with, I myself am a miner. Great cash for the first few systems.

[Sponge]

I think it would be interesting if the game could be played with "specializations" in mind. Nothing fixed, but being able to specialize in things other than straight combat/loot would greatly improve gameplay, in my opinion. I've noticed this aspect has gotten a lot better lately with things like the improved Korolev and mining. I'm in favor of anything that might help to flesh out some of these alternate playstyles.

Also, sound waves don't propagate in a vacuum. Just nitpicking.

[Atarlost]

Sound cues for things like taking shield hits are much more friendly than things like screen flashing for armor hits though.

[edit] oops, only read the last post and thought it was about the interface. We apologize for the non sequitour.[/edit]

[Aury]

Also, sound waves don't propagate in a vacuum. Just nitpicking.

Well, if it were a blast-type weapon, it would produce a shockwave from its own gases from the explosion...

[Aeonic]

I don't care what its called. What's a believable name for a device that works like the Ion Flame Cannon but for mining?

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Some other possible alternatives to the standard mining laser:

Deep Core Mining Laser - Uses the "passthrough" function to allow the beam to penetrate deeper into asteroids, but has a shorter beam travel distance to prevent this from hitting things on the other side.

Particle Mining Beam - A particle based mining tool, perhaps better than the laser but worse than the torch.

Gauss Excavation Cannon - Mine through use of explosive shells fired into the asteroid. Perhaps this could have fragmentation that could affect nearby asteroids as well.

Excavation Pulse Laser - Uses a large single shot blast for mining instead of multiples like typical mining lasers.

Dual Mining Laser - Just what it sounds like. Why blast it twice when you can blast it once with two beams?

Drilling Beam - Works like a mining laser, only this one fires at a high rate rather than a repeating blast. That means it only shoots as much as you want it to.

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Can someone explain to me exactly what the difference between mining2, mining3, and so forth is? I can't seem to find this information on the forum. What exactly do the different values affect other than being "better"?

[Aeonic]

I think it would be interesting if the game could be played with "specializations" in mind. Nothing fixed, but being able to specialize in things other than straight combat/loot would greatly improve gameplay, in my opinion. I've noticed this aspect has gotten a lot better lately with things like the improved Korolev and mining. I'm in favor of anything that might help to flesh out some of these alternate playstyles.

I agree. However, I'm feeling that the alternative play styles really only influence the beginning of the game. Past a certain point, perhaps at the end of the Sung area and the beginning of the Ares area, I find that the game lulls into a routine of blowing up stations over and over, with a few combat missions in between - basically its all combat/loot, as you put it.

[EDIT] Unfortunately, as with my current play through, I find that this is also the point where the game mostly stops being fun.

[Atarlost]

It has to be. The player needs to be prepared to fight the Iocrym at the end. It would be cruel to spring a boss fight on someone at the end on someone who's basically been playing Taipei all game without much fighting.

[Aeonic]

It has to be. The player needs to be prepared to fight the Iocrym at the end. It would be cruel to spring a boss fight on someone at the end on someone who's basically been playing Taipei all game without much fighting.

Unless those alternative play styles earned you uber amounts of cash or access to things that you couldn't acquire just by blowing stuff up, which in turn made it possible for you to get better equipment than a standard combat player couldn't normally get.

At the moment, its easier just to blow up some Ares bases and steal the undamaged archcannons and cash those in at the Ringers or Teraton bases. I went through three 100 ton loads of volcanic mined ore and only made 15k while a single archcannon sells for 20k.

[digdug]

I made some time ago a "mini mining laser", can be self-installed, it's external and slotless, and deals only a "mining2" event.

It's good for occasional mining, but because of the low probability of mining, it's not reliable. Clearly the device is thought for the freighter, that has only 2 weapons slots.

[Prophet]

Clearly the device is thought for the freighter, that has only 2 weapons slots

This is a great idea.
I almost always mine the first few systems with the freighter, that's what the freighter is for afterall, but one weapon plus a mining weapon is not sufficient for combat. Making mining tools not require a device slot is great encouragement to continue mining past Rigel Aurelius (where I usually stop) another possibility is to create mining weapons that are also effective in combat.

Can someone explain to me exactly what the difference between mining2, mining3, and so forth is? I can't seem to find this information on the forum. What exactly do the different values affect other than being "better"?

I believe the integers indicate the mining probability and breaks down like the WMD attribute:

Code: Select all

* WMD/Mining 0 = 0% 
* WMD/Mining 1 = 4% 
* WMD/Mining 2 = 10% 
* WMD/Mining 3 = 20% 
* WMD/Mining 4 = 34% 
* WMD/Mining 5 = 52% 
* WMD/Mining 6 = 74% 
* WMD/Mining 7 = 100%

These values are dropped into this function:

Code: Select all

(leq (random 1 100) (divide (multiply aMineProbability miningDifficulty) 100))

where aMineProbablity = the weapons miningN value
mining difficulty = 20-100 based on the type of asteroid
therefore with a mining1 weapon (aMineProbability) 4% and a volcanic asteroid (difficulty 20) you have a 0% chance to mine.
In this same situation with a mining7 weapon you have a 20% chance to extract ore.
(someone please correct me if any of this is wrong.)

The problem with mining in the mid-late game is that it is time consuming and not very profitable. While the new tools can help with the first problem, making it more profitable is difficult.
There is little demand for past st Ks until you meet the teratons and they are rather selective about the types of ore they want.

Now that ferians are friendly, perhaps they may like you even more if you offered them some nice juicy xenotite ore? Their stations could get a simplistic dockscreen for trading, maybe they could trade your ore for other items that the drones find? I wouldn't mind having a ferian warrior as wingman either.

And for the really intense overhaul:
-we could overwrite the asteroids to produce ore appropriate for their level.
-create a refinery station that would process the raw ore into ingots, fuel rods, extract rare elements and/or gems. Basically convert the otherwise useless ores into +ringerValuable items to get those important rins.
-make a damage control system that will use ores in the ships hold to repair armor damage
-create a taikon research station that can make lvl 10 armor with some rare ore. this should be the only way to get this armor.

In summary, there is no easy way to make mining more profitable but it is possible.

[Darth Saber]

Well, I created an antimatter mining laser for .99c; I guess this might qualify as another way to mine an asteroid. As for new ideas, I would suggest that the University Quarter of New Victoria be modifed something like this:

University Quarter: School of Engineering (Presently, this enhances reactors)

University Quarter: School of Geology - This "school" could give you a course on the various kinds of ore found in Transcendence, and make available a "geology scanner" which would show the ore as glowing yellow portions on the asteroid itself, and as a green dot on your ships SRS / LRS. Limit the range to balance it out, and / or have the scanner be like a patch spider - active as long as it is installed. Perhaps we could even have a software program which shows the ore in asteriods for a limited time.

[speedofsquid]

A tool on a turret would compensate for the freighter's maneuverability to make mining faster and less boring.

[OddBob]

A few scattered ideas on mining:


1. There is much mentioned in game about the outlaw miners, how they are illegally staking claims to asteroids. However the player can simply waltz up to any ol rock and blast off some chunks of it. Perhaps this is because the player is only skimming ore off the surface of the rocks, while the outlaws are digging deep. In either case I think this can be leveraged to provide more gameplay opportunities.

2. Currently I see a few 'problems' with mining:

a. If you take into account the time spent, it usually nets less credits than combat (combat/fighting referring from here on in to busting stations, not fighting spawns) - however there is nothing stopping you from doing both mining AND combat; indeed, this is the 'optimal' way to play from a purely financial perspective, since there is no hurry to advance other than your own patience.

b. Running around shooting every rock in the system hoping for something to pop out feels like a sort of sanctioned farming.

c. There is little risk, only a few costs (fuel, which you're paying anyway, and the one-off cost of a laser/hold) and a basically guaranteed payout. In other words, it's a lot like grinding - if you spend the time, you get the money. It's a low risk, high reward activity, and I think risk and reward should be directly related.

3. I think the best way to spruce up mining is to add different ways to get involved in mining that don't necessarily involve shooting rocks with lasers (even if you have to add in a bit of violence)

a. Let me go off on a tangent here: one of my favorite enemy encounters is the weapons cache you sometimes find hidden in early systems.

I see it as sort of the perfect "mini-mission" in three ways:

It tells a little story without actually having to do anything (3 ronins guarding a couple boxes of weapons, who are they, what are they doing?). This means it's more interesting than "enemies spawn and attack you" but also not repetitive during new playthroughs.

It is risky, but rewarding: The ronins are strong for the level you find them in, but the loot is good. There are also non-fatal failure modes: if you attack head on the boxes can get destroyed in the firefight.

It doesn't require a commitment or story trigger to get the full benefit: you don't have to go and accept this mission anywhere (although there is nothing wrong with that, I'll talk about this in a sec), you can just stumble upon it, and you know what is happening and what to do.

b: So I think a perfect way to enhance mining is with similar types of encounters. This brings me back to my first point (and finally to the topic at hand)

An example:
What if there were certain asteroids, not appearing on the main map, and not confined to asteroid belts, which were more valuable than the others. These asteroids would produce a little bit of ore when mined conventionally, but their true worth would lie in the ore inside them.

So what if you had to jump through some hoops to get at this ore - when you find one you'd have to contact some local mining authority and stake a claim (or skip that and risk legal action, likely confiscation of your payload). This costs money of course (introducing the first risk, since you can't start drilling until you pay the fee), and now you've just broadcasted your position and the fact you are sitting on several hundred tons of valuable ore to every pirate and outlaw miner in the system.

Then, either
a. Hire someone to bring in heavy equipment/tow the rock to a processing facility
and wait for them to show up (if you leave the rock you forfeit the claim so you have to defend yourself there)

b. Buy and deploy the equipment yourself (it's automated) and protect it from enemies (a few dozen seconds) while it does it's thing

Even though this is supposed to be the 'peaceful' option, you're still fighting spawns no matter what you do (so you'll be equipped) so I see no problem with having some light, defensive combat - especially if all the enemies want is your claim, they'll likely let you go in peace if you leave. You also have the defensive advantage as no attacks would happen until you actually claimed the rock, so you can set up barricades or mines or bombs or whatever (and seriously we don't get to use all that cool stuff enough as it is).

[Aeonic]

Sounds like a lot of fun. Too bad that's way beyond anything I can do.