Mining Ore distribution... does it actually work as intended?

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wnmnkh
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I must admit I really hate so for entirely lifespan of the game I never bothered mining until now.

I am playing 1.9 b1a and decided to do this.... mining thing. It is far more worse than I imagined, only tolerable because of several mods that allows me to do this in a bit more automatic ways.

But, I noticed I am getting Helium Regolith from... Volcanic rocks. I checked GalaxyCompatibility.xml where all the ore distribution is and that is not supposed to happen.

Also I noticed complete lack of any Duralloy Ore appearing despite I have been mining all related asteroids.

Is something regarding mining changed on 1.9?
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Mining in 1.9b1 is yet another overhaul from the last overhaul in 1.5. Overall, it is an improvement because with mining computer (from hold), you know if the asteroids have been explored or not, and you get feedback soon after you shoot a rock with a mining weapon. Before, you had no such feedback, and asteroids had damage thresholds from 1.5 to 1.9 alphas that made it very hard to mine asteroids even with a plasma torch.

It would be nice to know what is wrong with mining now. So far, my biggest complaint is the rock-paper-scissors mining weapons while ships have too few slots to spare for rock-paper-scissors gameplay. Next is how feeble mining pods are.

All player needs to know about mining weapons (aside from damage tiers) is beams are weak on volcanic, missiles (from Corporate Command or mods) are weak on metallic, and flamethrowers are weak on primordial. Shockwaves are irrelevant since charges are lame. As long as the weapon does not shoot something it is weak at, you're good. Unfortunately, plasma torch is the only late-game option in the basic game, and player is kind of screwed mining primordial late in the game. (Players with Corporate Command get omni ion drill.)

As for distribution, I have not noticed. I am glad that mining is a bit easier overall. I no longer need to hold fire, press autopilot, and wait half a minute to mine a single rock in Heretic, then dock more than a dozen times to pick up lots of 1 to 2 ton ores from the last mining overhaul in 1.5.
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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DigaRW
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wnmnkh wrote:
Wed Jul 22, 2020 5:19 am
I must admit I really hate so for entirely lifespan of the game I never bothered mining until now.

I am playing 1.9 b1a and decided to do this.... mining thing. It is far more worse than I imagined, only tolerable because of several mods that allows me to do this in a bit more automatic ways.

But, I noticed I am getting Helium Regolith from... Volcanic rocks. I checked GalaxyCompatibility.xml where all the ore distribution is and that is not supposed to happen.

Also I noticed complete lack of any Duralloy Ore appearing despite I have been mining all related asteroids.

Is something regarding mining changed on 1.9?
You can check here about last Mining improvement here. So far, I like current mining mechanics. Before major overhaul on 1.9, it is relatively boring to mining asteroid.

For ore distribution, I think GalaxyCompatibility.xml is an obsolete code (Usually "Compatibility" is an obsolete code). In Ore.xml, ore items has a specific attribute so they will spawn at certain asteroid such as waterComp mostly for icy and primordial asteroid and rockyComp mostly for rock asteroid. Ore also could available on one or two types of asteroid. However, I'm not quite sure though. :(
Last edited by DigaRW on Wed Jul 22, 2020 6:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Similarly, the damage threshold table is still there, but it does not seem to be used as a requirement to mine at all. (A level 10 positron weapon that does 1 damage will still mine something, unlike during 1.5+.)

During the releases with 1.5 mining rules, you needed at least 11 damage (I think) per hit to extract one ton of ore in Heretic or other level 10 system. If the damage was not high enough, you would never mine no matter how many times the asteroid was shot. If you barely cleared the threshold, you would mine one or two tons out of a lode of few or several dozen tons. Result is dozens of ore mined per rock - very annoying to dock every last one (and a reason why I made an ore scooper in Drake Technologies). Furthermore, due to how cloud attacks work, the ship needs to be very close to the asteroid to ensure the whole plasma torch burst hit at once to get enough damage.

Now, as long as weapon damage type is high enough, it will mine no matter how low the damage is. However, mining laser is kind of lame because it only mines level 4 ore or less. At least the game will tell you get a better weapon if you try to mine too high level ore with a laser weapon. Asteroids magically resisting damage before 1.9b1 gave no such information in the game.
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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I actually like the rock-paper-scissors of mining implements. A warship isn't a mining vessel, you have to actually outfit your craft like a mining vessel to mine all ores (which you can do as the wolfen, though naturally you wouldn't want to). If you're super serious about mining, you could swap out your mining implements based on the type of system that you are in.
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