Little bit too easy?

[Fossaman]

So, it turns out you can make about 80,000 credits out of a thoroughly mined standard asteroid belt.

I only mined about 2/3s of mine, and ended up with over 120K coming out of St. K's. Now, this is probably about reasonable for the price of items of high level. But it makes the last few early game systems dead easy.

I'd like to suggest making the early game more challenging, or at least adding optional, more difficult elements. Even some sort of optional higher difficulty start would be nice. My typical biggest concern with the early game is having enough cargo space to carry my loot to somewhere I can sell it.

[Betelgeuse]

hmm how long did it take to mine the belt?
There are better and easier ways of exploiting the game to get tons of credits like corp cruisers and armor enchantment.

[Fossaman]

The thing is, it's not really an exploit. I spent maybe an hour or two doing it (and it's still more fun than runescape, how weird is that?), which isn't really that excessive.

Anyway, I wouldn't mind seeing amount of ore scaled to the level of the system. Or perhaps a greater range of mining tools, with higher grades of ore inaccessible to the cheaper, less sophisticated mining equipment.

But that's not really the point. Even without the mining, I'd still have had around 70K after St. K's. That's enough to do anything you blessed well want to in any system before St. K's, with the possible exception of one with a fortress or black market station. I'd like to see either something to do with all that ready cash, or a seperate currency (think: nonregulated area that has no use for fancy electronic currency), or at least some sort of plot.

[Betelgeuse]

ah you want more cash sinks
hmm lets brainstorm

timed limited mercs (you pay them to help for so long)
upgradeable auton (pay for it to become more powerful)
changing ships
investment into a group maybe to give there stations better items later in the game (like invest in the commonwealth and later station have better items or better ships for shipping)
equipping a fleet of ships for a mission

any other ideas?

[Periculi]

You could invest in a new station building enterprise.

[Fossaman]

Some sort of station building enterprise could be interesting; spending money in the early game to affect the number of friendly stations in the late game, perhaps? Various schemes of the sort of Domina, the Corporate hierarchy, and maybe some sort of colonization firm would be pretty cool.

Changing ships would be nice, also.

Some sort of totally alternate plot-line could also be interesting. Just pop in another line of stargates independent of the main line, and have a less combat oriented playthrough, maybe. Less cash if there's less combat.

[F50]

How about making the earlier systems about twice as hard (remove the fireadj values?) and then adding the need for hired escort. Of course, in the first three systems, you can escort freighters, but after that, you'll be the one needing an escort! When I have time, (around christmas) I'll make a hard mod (removes fire adj, increases AI accuracy, adds a few weapons to enemy ships...)

[Ttech]

The thing is, it's not really an exploit. I spent maybe an hour or two doing it (and it's still more fun than runescape, how weird is that?), which isn't really that excessive.

Anyway, I wouldn't mind seeing amount of ore scaled to the level of the system. Or perhaps a greater range of mining tools, with higher grades of ore inaccessible to the cheaper, less sofisticated mining equipment.

But that's not really the point. Even without the mining, I'd still have had around 70K after St. K's. That's enough to do anything you blessed well want to in any system before St. K's, with the possible exception of one with a fortress or black market station. I'd like to see either something to do with all that ready cash, or a seperate currency (think: nonregulated area that has no use for fancy electronic currency), or at least some sort of plot.

It would be much easiser if there was a bulk miner.
But I dont' think you can do a multi-omni directional weapon.

[Ttech]

Wow, thats going to be crazy.

[OddBob]

It would be much easiser if there was a bulk miner. Smile
But I dont' think you can do a multi-omni directional weapon. Sad

An area attack weapon with mining works, I had mining mies which mined everything onscreen once.

[Ttech]

It would be much easiser if there was a bulk miner. Smile
But I dont' think you can do a multi-omni directional weapon. Sad

An area attack weapon with mining works, I had mining mies which mined everything onscreen once.

area attack weapon? How do you do that? I"m using a modified Iocyrm Repeller to mine. It works good, but its slow.

[OddBob]

It's "radius" missile type - Check out high flux MAGs for an example. Here is a quick mock up of what I had (don't have the file anymore and this has not been tested - indeed it is not even a complete weapon - no guarantees anywhere)

Code: Select all

		<Weapon
						type=			"missile"
						
						damage=			"blast:2d12; WMD2"
						missileSpeed=	"10"
						accelerationFactor="60"
						lifetime=		"500"
						
						failSafe=		"10"
						
						sound=			"&snMissileLauncher;"
						>
						
					<Image imageID="&rsMissiles6;" imageX="0" imageY="0" imageWidth="24" imageHeight="24" imageFrameCount="12" imageTicksPerFrame="5"/>
					
					<Fragment 
							count=			"1"
							type=			"radius"
							canhitSource = 		"true"

							damage=			"blast:1d24; WMD5"
							minRadius=		"10"
							maxRadius=		"50"
							missileSpeed=	"0"
							lifetime=		"8"
							>

						<Effect>
							<Flare
									style=				"fadingBlast"
									radius=				"50"
									primaryColor=		"0xff, 0xff, 0xf0"
								/>
						</Effect>
					</Fragment>

		</Weapon>"8"

Basically you're just taking advantage of the fact the fraq weapons explode at the end of their lifetime. It's just a mine with a short lifetime - negative acceleration slows the bomb to a stop and lifetime = 500 gives you time to get out of the way (and makes you wait a little - mining has to be a little work; this also prevents you from using the rather good damage against ships effectively). Then the charge goes off and mining ensues. I forgot to actually add the mining damage above.

I had it in a launcher, it used "mining charges". Good early game freighter weapon. A shockewave (a la micronukes) would work equally well.

[Frits]

You could invest in a new station building enterprise.

Thís idea i like. Your cash is taken by some corporate entreprise and the station they will build takes 10 minutes or so to complete, the cash is needed as working capital. There could be a host of companies to choose from asking certain amounts of cash. They will decide what type of station... and they won't tell you upfront. They pay you a dividend which doesn't make you wealthy but it's nice early on.

Then what happens if the station is destroyed later on?

[Periculi]

I have a mod for placing beacons I got off xelerus- it makes a navigation beacon appear. Because the game treats a nav beacon as a station, I bet it could be set to place a 'under construction' station easily. So carrying in and dropping off the initial station element would be easy.

So, you could create a station that sold you one of the station builder items, cruise to a spot you wanted a station to be and plop it down. The new station could have some 'help us get going' missions perhaps, where you brought them various components (perhaps only the freightor is large enough to carry these?) and eventually get a big bonus at the end of the job and a return of your investment to some extent.

[Betelgeuse]

I don't think cash rewards would be good. This it supposed to be a cash sink, IE takes alot of money away from the game while adding as little as possible while still getting the player to put cash into it.
Its hard to make a good cash sink due to the fact its too easy to make it just part of the normal game by adding more than it takes away.