Mining Changes

[Prophet]

I don't really like the idea of giving every weapon some mining ability but I do still plan on spawning some ore when the asteroids are destroyed, so it's not essential to have a mining weapon installed. Besides, trying to mine gold is incredibly difficult with a rifle, and even worse with a tank.

I do like the idea of having mining weapons that are not intended for combat but I believe there should be some choices that are at least somewhat useful. These weapons would be very large, expensive and use alot of energy. Short range and possibly use capacitors or ammo. These are the FFHs and Katanas of the mining world. Obtaining them and using them properly would be as difficult as getting their respective counterparts, the trade-offs being that while the weapon is installed and active, basecracking or cap-ship battles are near suicide and the player must rely on mining for income.
Most mining tools, by definition should be nearly useless in combat. Like trying to use a welding torch or a jackhammer in a gunfight. They can be used in combat but they were never intended to be. Mainly this is for self-defense.

[Atarlost]

You don't mine gold with a tank, but lasers are lasers. Any laser that can't cut titanium ore isn't going to be able to cut titanium plate either.

I would do this instead of asteroid destruction. To show up on the map I think asteroids have to be big. Anything that can completely destroy one is also something that would cause mass extinctions if applied to a planet. I don't want to have to add a new crime of genocide for accidentally hitting a habitable planet.

[Aury]

too many easy to get hit with one-step-out-of-line crimes as it is IMO...

[Aeonic]

Lasers aren't all the same. You don't do eye surgery with lasers designed for cutting metal. I'd like to imagine that the game's incarnation of the mining laser is much more simplistic than it would have to be in order to do what its doing. Just use your imagination and assume that the mining laser is a complex tool that, while capable of cutting through rock, does this with surgical precision and precise timing. If mining were rendered in this game realistically, it would be so boring that no one would do it, so its simplified dramatically as a fairly useless weapon.

The bottom line that Prophet was trying to make is that while a lot of tools (emphasis, mining weapons are TOOLS, not weapons) are perfectly capable of hurting people if used improperly, they are better used as tools which they are designed as, while proper weapons are better used for hurting people. Yes, you can kill someone with a hammer. But a hammer is much better used for building things. If someone with a hammer faced off against someone with a sword or a gun, the wielder of the proper weapon would win. Just because the hammer can be used as a weapon in a pinch doesn't mean it will be effective at it. However, in turn, you cannot build anything with a sword or a gun.

It may be true that some tools make more effective weapons than others. I'd run if someone were after me with a nail gun, but its still not a proper weapon. There may be hybrid tools which are designed for miners who need to defend themselves with their tools and so these tools are designed to be somewhat effective in both mining and self defense, but they'll either cost more than a standard tool or weapon, or they'll be less effective.

[schilcote]

You'd be surprised what can be turned into a deadly weapon.

The mining laser is actually completely different from every laser in the game. It fires five beams at the same time with no spread, which as far as I am aware no other weapon does. That makes sense for a device designed for mining, as it might somehow provide more jostling and provide repeated shocks as opposed to a combat type laser.

I'd actually like to see some sort of special effect for the mining laser, like it might loosen your armor or take big chunks out of it or something.

EDIT:

I know. The mining laser would do a good bit less damage than most lasers, but it would have a chance (25%?) of doing a very large amount of damage (the assumption being that it "mined" the opponent's armor, knocking a big chunk out of it).

[Atarlost]

A mining laser is no different from other lasers except in aesthetics. It's a beam of light, probably UV. It's pulsed, but any laser but an x-ray is really going to be pulsed to handle armor. It's pulsed slowly, but that just means it's suboptimal against armor and other lasers are suboptimal against rock. It doesn't mean other lasers aren'y going to vaporise rock and drill through it if held on target long enough. Not even that long for a fast-fire. If you can mine with a laser any laser able to penetrate armor will be able to mine even if it's not optimal. Rock is not tougher than armor. If it were it would be what they made armor out of.

[Aeonic]

I think you just ignored everything I said, so I'll just point you to my last post and you can enjoy the ever-repeating loop of argument.

[Atarlost]

I didn't ignore it, it just happens to be wrong.

http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3x1.html#laser

Your drilling speed is going to depend on the pulse rate of your laser and the material, but you're still going to drill even if using a suboptimal pulse rate. I didn't say all lasers should have the mining3 of the specialized mining laser. I said they should have mining1.

[schilcote]

I'm just wondering if the 5-beam configuration of the mining laser is to dislodge the rock. Sure, a normal laser will drill through rock, but will it dislodge bits of it that contain ore?

[Prophet]

Well, we could all argue about how theoretical laser weapons differ from theoretical laser tools in the game but it comes down to fun, period.
I will only discuss reality and current technology is it does not hinder the game.
Basically, I just don't want to overwrite all the weapons, or even just the lasers.
It would cause far too many complications and would be incompatible with any other modded weapons.
Atarlost, I see your point on destroying asteroids though so I will propose a compromise: the <OnDamage> event in the asteroid can eject a few tons of low quality ore rather than destroying the asteroid.


Moving on.
When the asteroids are hit, they shoot virtual weapons. The bullets are the ore and to collect them you must fly your ship into them. This is all handled by the weapon's <OnDamageArmor> event. However, the code will only execute if damage is done (obviously). At first, I felt this was a problem that needed to be solved but have since decided it could be used as a balance factor.
As it stands now, each asteroid type will contain a gas, or a common ore and a special ore. It will never produce gas AND ore though and you can only mine the common ore OR the special ore.
Since each of these resource items are weapons that inflict damage, I thought it might be a good way to make mining more specialized.

For example:
Collecting titanium ore is fairly easy. It's non reactive and stable. It's just a big dense rock. It will cause 1 point of kinetic damage to your armor and has momentum1 so you get jostled a little. You can buy armor that protects against kinetic to eliminate this very easily.
Now shoot the same stone asteroid with a better mining weapon and you can extract some uranium ore, however, it is mildly radioactive and unless you take precautions, your ship may be irradiated.
Later in the game perhaps you try mining some volcanic ore with your plasma torch and get a chunk of Ithalium ore. You've just finished cutting it from the asteroid and it's retained alot of that energy so it does 5 blast damage to your armor when you collect it.

This could be a good way to force any serious miners into choosing armor that will protect against the specific damage types of the ores they plan on collecting OR armor that protects against the enemies in that region of space. It is almost irrational to try and lug around a spare set of armor to throw on when you might feel like mining, and then lug around your combat armor while doing so.

The ores will also damage any NPC ships or stations that may get by them so the damage shouldn't be close to what a weapon would but could help a miner if they were in trouble.

[Atarlost]

I suppose not overriding everything is a good reason at least for what's ultimately a proof of concept.

I should go suggest it to digdug for WE instead.

I don't think the armor thing is going to be a big deal though. Regen nanos on the front plate will do the job and they're sought after anyhow, at least by me. That's not to say it's a bad idea, but mostly as an added cost rather than an equipment incentive.

[schilcote]

The ores will also damage any NPC ships or stations that may get by them so the damage shouldn't be close to what a weapon would but could help a miner if they were in trouble.

This reminds me of a neat little thing that happens when firing the Stephinian Archcannon in an asteroid field. Ejecta (George's name for debris moving at lethal velocity) would spew out of the asteroids hit by the weapon, hitting other asteroids and causing even more ejecta, similar to an atomic chain reaction. The "asteroid nuke" effect ended up doing more damage than the weapon itself. Perhaps there could be a weapon designed to exploit this?

[Aeonic]

If you're going to turn mining into a pain in the butt to do, just make sure its worthwhile to do it.

[Aury]

If you're going to turn mining into a pain in the butt to do, just make sure its worthwhile to do it.

:p its already a pain in the butt, and thats why i dont do it.

...

what if mining equipment of any consequence was so bulky it couldnt be mounted on anything but a specialized mining barge; this would first of all remove direct mining from the game for the player, unless the player had a mining barge, or if the player wanted to use the low end equipment to simply scratch the surface, thus preventing mining from becoming a necessity; low end player mining could produce more, cheaper, ore with less sitting around and shooting rocks. basically, make it (low end mining) easy but more of just money on the side. but back to high end mining; that would open up opportunities to have mining related missions, like helping with carrying ore for the freighter, or escorting the barge and its auxiliary ore freighters. i guess if it had minimal cargo space, it would be more appropriate to call it a mining rig than a barge, which would imply lots of cargo space. tx2 has a proposed freighter/ship/rig/thing like this...

anyways, just some random idea that popped into my mind while waiting for the dentist...

[Aury]

some more thoughts that i had;
1- if the old mining system is kept, which i strongly think needs to be changed, mining should not be doable by just any weapon; some are too powerful and vaporize the ore; others will do too little damage. even with a system such as mine, ore should not be minable by just any weapon; once again, only select weapons should. not only does this have a realism backing, but it would be far more balanced than every weapon being made mining capable.
2- with my idea, perhaps the ore created by the barges would be in massive, say twenty ton, chunks, which would prevent the player from running off and selling it for any real amount of money as those huge chunks are both unrefined and in bulk.
... i think i might draft a few of those rigs/barges this weekend...