Mining Early Game is Expensive

[Kourtious]

I tried multiple games starting as miner. I did all the Eridani missions, got a mining pod, and mining equipment. Remember! Mining is more expensive now, as George tweaked mining to give pods incentive. This means a few hundred credits out the drain. Very expensive early game.

Okay! I started mining with the mining laser. I curse in frustration. No ores. I use my pods. Hundreds of credits out the drain. Rage!
*tries again*
Woah! I found ore. Damn -.- titanium.
*tries again at later systems*
Sigh. Not enough profit worth my troubles.

Got the point? The problem is that it is simply way too expensive to mine with the new pods. The pods are a way to make mining faster, but they don't pay off. I would rather mine traditionally and spend boring hours mining(bad/boring idea). My idea of a fix is to add "secret" miner missions. These miner missions can give shortcuts to ore lodes or effective mining equipment.

For example at a Miner Station main screen: Recent evidence of an explosion can be seen. Medical tents and metal scraps liter the rusted floor.

You send medical supplies and food(other things in other scenarios), you get a mission. That mission might ask you to be the station courier to carry supplies(Frankly I think this was unnecessary, because people should be rewarded for their generosity). The reward could be anything from location of secret ores to modified mining equipment(illegal?).

[PM]

I agree. Pods are not worth the expense. If I want to mine, I will mine the old-fashioned way, that is grind every last rock in the early systems (while equipped with solar items for unlimited fuel). The only significant change introduced is escalating damage threshold curve makes it too hard or almost impossible to mine in high level systems. In level 10 systems, player needs 11 damage to mine one ton of ore out of a rock, which is not feasible with the current mining weapons or even pods. (Thermo pods may extract four or so tons out of dozens out of a single rock.)

[Song]

It's still a WIP and changes are likely to be made. But I do agree, the threshold is too high right now.


(Also relevant is the ticket on integrating rumors and the mining system, so you can get hints of where deposits might be, which is scheduled for a future release)

[snafu]

IIRC the major problem with grinding (and/or mining in general) is that you can't tell which rock has been tapped out or has 0 yield (of any ore). Some of the new equipment may make a difference here, but (again IIRC) they're time-limited & in a dense 'roid field it's difficult to tell or remember whether you've done that section of rocks or not..

How about a rock-penetrating 'radar' device that would at least allow you to tag rocks that you have found to be empty or already mined out (so as not to detract from the scanning pods)? This would be persistent for the time you're in that system: once you leave the system, even if only for a moment, all your tags are lost

Ofc, this device would be utterly useless in combat, making it a specialist miner's piece of equipment only, & it'll take up a precious device slot while installed..

[Kourtious]

IIRC the major problem with grinding (and/or mining in general) is that you can't tell which rock has been tapped out or has 0 yield (of any ore). Some of the new equipment may make a difference here, but (again IIRC) they're time-limited & in a dense 'roid field it's difficult to tell or remember whether you've done that section of rocks or not..

How about a rock-penetrating 'radar' device that would at least allow you to tag rocks that you have found to be empty or already mined out (so as not to detract from the scanning pods)? This would be persistent for the time you're in that system: once you leave the system, even if only for a moment, all your tags are lost

Ofc, this device would be utterly useless in combat, making it a specialist miner's piece of equipment only, & it'll take up a precious device slot while installed..

I don't see the benefits of this "device" early game, because it would be way too costly when used along with other mining equipments(that you must need).

Oh and btw. I am going change my idea, it appears to be lackluster.

[PM]

The problem with adding devices is the player already needs to dedicate two devices for mining, a mining weapon (weapon slot) and miner's cargo hold (non-device slot). Devices slots are at a premium for ships, especially for the majority with limited weapon or non-weapon slots.

I almost made the ore scanner in one of my mods a device, until I remembered the above, plus that mining is no better before (it is worse, I think, thanks to damage threshold curve), and decided to leave my scanner as a ROM.