My first attempt went quite well and I ave collected opinions and ideas and made a new ore scanner.
Download from Xelerus
This incarnation is attached directly to the miner's cargo hold so once you have that, you have the scanner.
From the "U"se screen, you are taken to the scanner config screen where you can turn the scanner on/off, read some basic mining tips, and configure the scanner to your liking.
The mod also includes some new mining weapons and some subtle changes to the CW mining station.
No changes to the mechanics of mining included in this pack.
Another asteroid scanner
Coming soon: The Syrtian War adventure mod!
A Turret defense genre mod exploring the worst era in Earth's history.
Can you defend the Earth from the Syrtian invaders?
Stay tuned for updates!
A Turret defense genre mod exploring the worst era in Earth's history.
Can you defend the Earth from the Syrtian invaders?
Stay tuned for updates!
-
Retroactive
- Commonwealth Pilot
- Posts: 66
- Joined: Wed Mar 21, 2007 12:45 am
Prophet, I've really enjoyed all of your mining mods. Thus far, my favorite has been the one that increased ore-bearing asteroid frequency and types of resources dropped. The ore scanner is very cool, but right off the bat, within the first couple of systems, I've noticed a couple of issues with this particular mod:
- Levels 1 and 2 on the scanner are effectively useless due to the high incidence of false positives; just standing still in an asteroid field, I see every asteroid near me get tagged and untagged in turn. Since ore-bearing asteroids appear to be extremely rare in this version, the signal-to-noise ratio is way too low.
- All of the scanner levels are very slow to identify mineral-bearing asteroids, even level 4. This is again exacerbated by the rarity of mineral-bearing asteroids.
- The fuel consumption override does not trigger soon enough at level 4. This is a major problem for smaller reactors (100MW or less) since they can get depleted quite deep into the red before the override triggers. Also, you still have to manually deactivate and reactivate the scan to get it working again- the auto-deactivation does not affect the miner's cargo hold dialogue options.
- The water jet cannon has a cool mechanic and appearance, but it's worse than the mining laser and also dangerous to use; the high production of ejecta and extremely short range means that you are constantly getting bombarded with deadly fragments. This is a major problem on the freighter since it has a large area to get hit and is difficult to maneuver into range of asteroids.
- The kinetic drill's passthrough ability looks cool but does not work properly on asteroids. Once the shot has hit one asteroid it cannot hit another asteroid.
- High-level mining weapons like plasma torches and pulse emitters can be bought way before St. Katherine's. This may or may not be a problem since your reactor can't power them anyway until much later in the game.
- Existing mining equipment - the mining laser, plasma torch, and ferian plasma cannon - can feasibly be used as primary weapons and do damage comparable to or better than other weapons in their price and MW ranges. The water jet cannon and kinetic drill do not make good primary weapons due to short range and low rate of fire, respectively, and are not competitive with similar non-mining weapons (Moskva-11, Flenser.)
- The FAQ screens for the miner's cargo hold don't work properly; more than multiple dialogue options are set to the same key (h).
- The FAQ screens describes "some kind of alien bugs" with mining tools. Commonwealth miners are very familiar with Ferians (one of the dialogue possiblities at the mining stations have the station master expressing admiration for their abilities) and Ferians are known to be transhuman or human-created, not alien.
- Minor typos: on the mining station "Puchase Equipment" should read "Purchase equipment". "Kinetic drill" should be "kinetic drill."
Your mining mods are definitely getting there, though. Keep up the good work!
- Levels 1 and 2 on the scanner are effectively useless due to the high incidence of false positives; just standing still in an asteroid field, I see every asteroid near me get tagged and untagged in turn. Since ore-bearing asteroids appear to be extremely rare in this version, the signal-to-noise ratio is way too low.
- All of the scanner levels are very slow to identify mineral-bearing asteroids, even level 4. This is again exacerbated by the rarity of mineral-bearing asteroids.
- The fuel consumption override does not trigger soon enough at level 4. This is a major problem for smaller reactors (100MW or less) since they can get depleted quite deep into the red before the override triggers. Also, you still have to manually deactivate and reactivate the scan to get it working again- the auto-deactivation does not affect the miner's cargo hold dialogue options.
- The water jet cannon has a cool mechanic and appearance, but it's worse than the mining laser and also dangerous to use; the high production of ejecta and extremely short range means that you are constantly getting bombarded with deadly fragments. This is a major problem on the freighter since it has a large area to get hit and is difficult to maneuver into range of asteroids.
- The kinetic drill's passthrough ability looks cool but does not work properly on asteroids. Once the shot has hit one asteroid it cannot hit another asteroid.
- High-level mining weapons like plasma torches and pulse emitters can be bought way before St. Katherine's. This may or may not be a problem since your reactor can't power them anyway until much later in the game.
- Existing mining equipment - the mining laser, plasma torch, and ferian plasma cannon - can feasibly be used as primary weapons and do damage comparable to or better than other weapons in their price and MW ranges. The water jet cannon and kinetic drill do not make good primary weapons due to short range and low rate of fire, respectively, and are not competitive with similar non-mining weapons (Moskva-11, Flenser.)
- The FAQ screens for the miner's cargo hold don't work properly; more than multiple dialogue options are set to the same key (h).
- The FAQ screens describes "some kind of alien bugs" with mining tools. Commonwealth miners are very familiar with Ferians (one of the dialogue possiblities at the mining stations have the station master expressing admiration for their abilities) and Ferians are known to be transhuman or human-created, not alien.
- Minor typos: on the mining station "Puchase Equipment" should read "Purchase equipment". "Kinetic drill" should be "kinetic drill."
Your mining mods are definitely getting there, though. Keep up the good work!
Thanks for the feedback Retroactive, I would like to eventually create a full mining conversion mod but that will take some time.
I have made the following fixes/changes:
-Reduced the frequency of false-positivies
-Reduced the delay of accurate scans
-The safety cutoff triggers at different thresholds depending on the scanner level.
-Doubled the range of the water jet
-reduced the frequency of non-standard equipment being stocked at the mining station
-fixed mining FAQ screens
-minor typos fixed
I have made the following fixes/changes:
-Reduced the frequency of false-positivies
-Reduced the delay of accurate scans
-The safety cutoff triggers at different thresholds depending on the scanner level.
-Doubled the range of the water jet
-reduced the frequency of non-standard equipment being stocked at the mining station
-fixed mining FAQ screens
-minor typos fixed
Coming soon: The Syrtian War adventure mod!
A Turret defense genre mod exploring the worst era in Earth's history.
Can you defend the Earth from the Syrtian invaders?
Stay tuned for updates!
A Turret defense genre mod exploring the worst era in Earth's history.
Can you defend the Earth from the Syrtian invaders?
Stay tuned for updates!