Mining Pack released! (collab with TransGeek)

Post about your finished mods here.
Latheos
Miner
Miner
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Amariithynar wrote:
Thu Apr 27, 2017 5:24 pm
Have you tinkered with the JAMCorp scanner/all-in-one smelter thing, so they no longer get upgrade options from the mining colonies like they're supposed to, PM? The options aren't there when I have them equipped?
Mining colonies will sell the upgrade ROMs for the smelter/scanner, but they're subject to RNG like everything else. Plus, the upgrades won't be available at mining colonies until you've leveled a bit. I'd wondered about that as well, but found that to be the case.
PM
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I know. There was no RNG when I uploaded the update. I will see what I can do to bypass the RNG when I can.
Download and Play in 1.9 beta 1...
Drake Technologies (Alpha): More hardware for combat in parts 1 and 2!
Star Castle Arcade: Play a classic arcade game adventure, with or without more features (like powerups)!
Playership Drones: Buy or restore exotic ships to command!

Other playable mods from 1.8 and 1.7, waiting to be updated...
Godmode v3 (WIP): Dev/cheat tool compatible with D&O parts 1 or 2.
Amariithynar
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Latheos wrote:
Thu Apr 27, 2017 10:57 pm
Amariithynar wrote:
Thu Apr 27, 2017 5:24 pm
Have you tinkered with the JAMCorp scanner/all-in-one smelter thing, so they no longer get upgrade options from the mining colonies like they're supposed to, PM? The options aren't there when I have them equipped?
Mining colonies will sell the upgrade ROMs for the smelter/scanner, but they're subject to RNG like everything else. Plus, the upgrades won't be available at mining colonies until you've leveled a bit. I'd wondered about that as well, but found that to be the case.
Weird, it was supposed to be a dialogue upgrade tree- I remember that from when I tested and was playing it afterwards. In fact, from the readme, it states, "The basic R.M.P. can process materials of levels 1-3. By upgrading it at the Commonwealth mining colony, this can be extended to levels 1-5 and then to levels 1-10. Visit the "Install mining equipment" dockscreen of the colony to install and upgrade your R.M.P." so I'm pretty sure I'm remembering correctly, as well. Maybe a change to the base game's handling of dockscreens has invalidated that part?
PM wrote:
Thu Apr 27, 2017 11:12 pm
I know. There was no RNG when I uploaded the update. I will see what I can do to bypass the RNG when I can.
Thanks PM!
Latheos
Miner
Miner
Posts: 34
Joined: Mon Feb 13, 2017 1:37 am

I was puzzled by the reference to a dialog tree in the readme, as that doesn't seem to exist any longer. But the ROMs that you can purchase from the commodities market work just fine without any special dockscreen interface.

The RNG that I mentioned previously is just me referencing the Random Number Generation aspect of finding the items you are seeking. I think there may be a disconnect between that and what PM's reading (as in, there may be a specific thing called RNG that is different from random chance).

I'm old. My shorthand and yours may be different things. ;)
PM
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It was easier for me to rewrite parts of the mod rather than try to fix some of the old code.

I meant random number generator when I wrote RNG. For a time, shops that had a given criteria simply sold one of everything, and I exploited that. Today, that is no longer the case, but I have not updated the mining pack to account for that.
Download and Play in 1.9 beta 1...
Drake Technologies (Alpha): More hardware for combat in parts 1 and 2!
Star Castle Arcade: Play a classic arcade game adventure, with or without more features (like powerups)!
Playership Drones: Buy or restore exotic ships to command!

Other playable mods from 1.8 and 1.7, waiting to be updated...
Godmode v3 (WIP): Dev/cheat tool compatible with D&O parts 1 or 2.
Amariithynar
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Posts: 255
Joined: Sat Apr 30, 2011 9:58 pm

Yeah, the asteroid scanner and smelter were balanced around being able to upgrade at mining stations, so that you could reliably keep mining and processing minerals you get in later zones; the scanner especially was useful immediately, because the radius increase for passive scanning was pretty much required for any reasonable mining. The ROMs were, IIRC, rare drops (because they came from miner mobs, or were rarely buyable; not because they were a super rare rarity classification), that would allow you to upgrade if you were away from a mining station; just using the upgrade service was more efficient, though.

Just downloaded the old thing (one linked in my sig) and yeah, I did remember rightly, huzzah for remembering through five years worth of rust! '<MiningUpgrades desc= "You are at the mining equipment upgrade terminal. Choose mining equipment to upgrade. You must have at least 5000 credits to upgrade an item. To upgrade to the omni dual mining laser you must have a basic mining laser, uninstalled, available to modify in your cargo hold.">'

Looking through them both, you really DID cut down on the gas byproducts generation, it wasn't just me thinking that. It used to generate n/x promethium refuse when you refined helium regolith, where x s a random number between 3-5, and n is the amount of helium regolith., since it took so much fuel to refine and process everything, it was actually done deliberately to ensure fuel supplies stayed reasonable without having to spend exorbinant amounts on refilling at dock (if there even was a dock available in-system); with how the game's changed, don't think that's really as relevant anymore. Really disappointed in the naturally low ore returns now, though; means that mining is seriously weakened now, even moreso than it used to be. Ah well. That was also all balanced for the original format and everything.

Since you're now the one maintaining it, PM, any way that you could work in some synergistic functionality to the asteroid scanner and playership drones' "Mine" command? Maybe make it only mine ore-bearing asteroids with the scanner equipped, with some random delay before doing so to simulate waiting for the passive ping, or actively use the active ping if it's upgraded? Additionally, since there's now scaling resistance, any way to make the mining weapons more effective for mining, and less so for killing things? Up the damage and drop the number of shots/fire rate, maybe?
PM
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George changed mining greatly in 1.5. Ore yields are now tied to level progression. Early game systems usually have less than what you used to get, and endgame systems are swimming in high value ores, but... there is a lack of endgame mining weapons that can efficiently mine the asteroids. Mining lasers were recently powered-up to compensate for damage thresholds, but they still will not mine very effectively late in the game. (That was why I rebalanced the Mining Pack weapons, because that could not mine past early systems.) Stock mining charges are a wash. You can light off the biggest one in Heretic, and it might pop out four tons out of a hundred plus per rock.

Without RNG meddling, the stations always stocked the scanner upgrades and you could buy them from their normal shops. As I said, I will need to fix them since they do not do that anymore.

I have no interest in maintaining this mod. I did it one-time due to popular demand (because some were trying to update it too). I wish either TransGeek or WTS came back and reclaim their mod. I will probably maintain it for now, but it is somewhat low priority for me.

As for PSD, I do not know. I know it needs an update too, at least update the sprites and support the new ships in 1.7. The one feature I probably want to try to support for PSD is Human Space library independence and usability in Vault of the Galaxy. I may need to rewrite big chunks of PSD to do that.

Speaking of Vault of the Galaxy. I could try to extrapolate some of the stuff in the Mining Pack for that adventure, we will see.
Download and Play in 1.9 beta 1...
Drake Technologies (Alpha): More hardware for combat in parts 1 and 2!
Star Castle Arcade: Play a classic arcade game adventure, with or without more features (like powerups)!
Playership Drones: Buy or restore exotic ships to command!

Other playable mods from 1.8 and 1.7, waiting to be updated...
Godmode v3 (WIP): Dev/cheat tool compatible with D&O parts 1 or 2.
Amariithynar
Militia Commander
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Posts: 255
Joined: Sat Apr 30, 2011 9:58 pm

Sounds like there's not just a level issue but a damage tier issue as well. Maybe a mid-to-late game blast cannon, something like the Akan but with mining charges (so low damage, WMD values) or maybe a mining charge type MAG for the MAG launcher, that basically fires off a mining charge explosion, but much smaller radius? How doable would that be? A lot of the heavier blast weapons already should completely be capable of alternative use in mining, after all (just need to blast open the asteroid, after all, and haul in the raw ore you cracked apart). I'd give it a shot myself, but I can't for the life of me remember how to get the base TLisp xmls that have all the editable files and whatnot.

I really liked the old mining format, because it meant that you wouldn't find rare ores early, but could still find a decent amount of other ores early, meaning mining was profitable early when you were weak to combat. It was how you got your start-up as a cargo container class ship captain, for the most part. :/ Why u do dis George?

It being low priority is not a problem, PM.
PM
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Asteroids, and missiles for that matter, do not have traditional resistances and do not care about damage types. All that matters is raw damage. You can have a high level laser that has extremely high damage numbers that do not scratch level-appropriate enemies due to armor resistances, but it can mine asteroids or shoot down missiles more easily than other balanced weapons of the same level with a better damage type but lower damage.
Download and Play in 1.9 beta 1...
Drake Technologies (Alpha): More hardware for combat in parts 1 and 2!
Star Castle Arcade: Play a classic arcade game adventure, with or without more features (like powerups)!
Playership Drones: Buy or restore exotic ships to command!

Other playable mods from 1.8 and 1.7, waiting to be updated...
Godmode v3 (WIP): Dev/cheat tool compatible with D&O parts 1 or 2.
Amariithynar
Militia Commander
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Posts: 255
Joined: Sat Apr 30, 2011 9:58 pm

PM wrote:
Sat Apr 29, 2017 1:07 pm
Asteroids, and missiles for that matter, do not have traditional resistances and do not care about damage types. All that matters is raw damage. You can have a high level laser that has extremely high damage numbers that do not scratch level-appropriate enemies due to armor resistances, but it can mine asteroids or shoot down missiles more easily than other balanced weapons of the same level with a better damage type but lower damage.
In that case, the array and wall could get level ups/rarity ups, and damage ups, no? Ablator as well, since it's basically just a dual x-ray laser that comes to a focal point, and it's meant to be the best mining laser ever.
PM
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The best weapon for mining is a slow-firing, single shot high-damage weapon, because it can overcome damage thresholds the best.

I already rebalanced the weapons. I even changed the wall from five beams to four so that it would not be overpowered for its level.

Also, I do not want to add or change the weapons to be significantly better than standard mining laser and plasma torch. If you can have a low-level laser that can mine better than the plasma torch, then that invalidates the torch.

I do not plan to add more features and the like to the mining pack. Just maintenance to make it work on current version of Transcendence.
Download and Play in 1.9 beta 1...
Drake Technologies (Alpha): More hardware for combat in parts 1 and 2!
Star Castle Arcade: Play a classic arcade game adventure, with or without more features (like powerups)!
Playership Drones: Buy or restore exotic ships to command!

Other playable mods from 1.8 and 1.7, waiting to be updated...
Godmode v3 (WIP): Dev/cheat tool compatible with D&O parts 1 or 2.
Amariithynar
Militia Commander
Militia Commander
Posts: 255
Joined: Sat Apr 30, 2011 9:58 pm

PM wrote:
Sun Apr 30, 2017 2:28 pm
I do not plan to add more features and the like to the mining pack. Just maintenance to make it work on current version of Transcendence.
That's what I'm referencing, though, since Mining level no longer is the important variable on mining weapons, but the damage is, according to what you're saying. They were meant to be strictly better mining tools than the basic mining lasers (giving a tier variety between the laser and the Plasma Torch), and the Ablator better than the Torch but not quite as good as a Ferian Plasma Cannon.
PM
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Mining level matters too. It is that high enough damage is required too. Now mining weapon needs two stats instead of one since 1.5.

The mining pack weapons should still be better than normal mining laser. (Will need to check again someday.)

Ferian Cannon is a terrible mining weapon now. Particles is a terrible damage form for mining. For endgame mining, your best bet is either plasma torch (also bad particles) or a maxed-out mining laser. Even then, it is slow in endgame systems.
Download and Play in 1.9 beta 1...
Drake Technologies (Alpha): More hardware for combat in parts 1 and 2!
Star Castle Arcade: Play a classic arcade game adventure, with or without more features (like powerups)!
Playership Drones: Buy or restore exotic ships to command!

Other playable mods from 1.8 and 1.7, waiting to be updated...
Godmode v3 (WIP): Dev/cheat tool compatible with D&O parts 1 or 2.
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