Mining Changes

[Fossaman]

Given the amount of work and time that's gone into this game, I think it's safe to say that any changes made are not going to be game breaking. It's been five years plus whatever time George spent working on alpha and pre-alpha versions. Any changes made to the way the game works can be easily undone if they're not improvements. Seeing if the idea works isn't going to be the end of the world.

Besides, mining's already unbalanced. Most people just get bored before fully exploiting it.

[Betelgeuse]

people seem to be forgetting that time spent is also a balancing factor. Mining can be much slower than killing stations in making money (plus you don't get a chance for free upgrades)

[Prophet]

One thing that I noticed in your mod is that ore-bearing asteroids will explode, often quite violently. This could probably stand to be toned down to disintegration and made consistent across all asteroids.

Yes, I had a few chain reactions happen. They are using a similar code to the cargo containers and check if the asteroids ore is reactive, will produce a relative explosion so this will be toned down with less ore inside and less frequently. I also plan on making it not explode if it's being damaged by a mining weapon.

I liked the very infequent drops of stuff like uranium nodules.

I would like to include more variation in these, perhaps damaged equipment or something. I'm also considering making some new items such as data roms, monoliths or time capsules. These could contain some obscure messages or information, possibly even hooks into random missions. Throw in any ideas!

Mobile asteroids didn't really seem to add or subtract anything.

I felt this was a big change. This changed a few enemies (Urak, dwarg) as they were able to clear out some of the asteroids that would have made good hiding spots.

I'm not sure if this would be possible within the current limits of the game, but could different ores be assigned different sprites? This would simplify mining enormously.

I will definitely try, I agree this would make mining less tedious.

It sounds like it's been pushed into free easy money territory, which means it would push out all other strategies.

Yes, you're right. I was trying to demonstrate that I can finely control what appears where and how much. Having each asteroid type drop precisely is very important for balance, as you would agree.

... maybe the asteroid ejects missile objects that you have to hit with your ship. Then on the <OnDamage> event, you can collect the ore (if you have the proper equipment, etc.)

I like this idea and will definitely look into what I can do. This could also open up a new market for some more specialized mining equipment.


I'd also like to make some random events like enemies that come attack if their asteroid 'base/home' is disturbed or pteravores pop out. I'm not sure what else could be done but could fun?

Eventually, a station in the mid/late game to keep mining interesting should be added.

[Aeonic]

Would it be possible for you to include an alternative to mining1-7 which allows for extractions of other things such as gas from asteroids? You use a gas extraction tool on an asteroid and you'll be "mining" gas instead of ore, which I presume would be how Ferians get it.

Perhaps some variations in how violent the mining tools are could determine your chances of getting things other than ore. Chances of finding a piece of equipment would be much less if you're blasting asteroids apart with nukes.

[Atarlost]

You should never see anything artificial in an asteroid. They're not dangerous like you see in movies so there aren't going to be wrecks, and anyone inhabiting an asteroid will be in a big one and will have radiators sticking out and docking ports. They'd be identifiable as a station. Caches are already done as crates even in asteroid fields.

[Prophet]

Update:
I have the ore being generated as missiles that the player (or whatever ship) will collect when it collides with them. (assuming they meet the requirements) To balance the HUGE savings in time, I am only generating one ton per missile, and brought the asteroid's total yield down to a max of 4 tons for small, 8 medium, and 12 large. Only 1 in 10 asteroids have anything in them now.

Asteroids will have either ore OR gas, but never both and require weapons with attributes of either "gas" or "ore" as well as the miningN ability to extract anything.

The ore will not be collected, however, if the ship has it's shields activated unless the shield is specifically designed for mining. (I'm not sure if this is overkill or not.)

This creates many new opportunities for specialized mining equipment, increasing the necessary investment and encouraging specialization.

Now the question comes down to what is being collected.
Having hundreds of tons of useless/worthless ore being mined is a waste of time and part of the original problem. However, every asteroid can't drop cerallox or etherium ore, so I've reduced the frequency of drops. There must still be some variety, otherwise even the decent ore would become devalued very quickly. I will keep the rare drops but further decrease their frequency. I would like to keep each asteroid type producing only a small variety of ores / gases.

[Atarlost]

It looks like mining is in severe need of a nerf already just because of the change to shields.

http://www.neurohack.com/transcendence/ ... 8&start=30

Ok, this isn't exactly about the new statistics for armor, but it does have to do with appearance...

I was mining and happened to come across 12 (!) units of orthosteel ore in Eridani. Next system I had a Tinker. Hello 50 credit Orthosteel Armor at level 8 in Groombridge.

Next system (lately I've been getting early systems that have an abundance of armor dealers, 2 to 4 until Rigel) I had a dealer sell me 2 light orthosteel sections. Coupled with some good ceralloy, I have a good armor and my monopole deflector means little.

Case in point - I have level 7 and 8 armor before getting near Rigel... Uhm... w00t?

This is way too much of an advantage for a strategy to have. In 1.0 RC2 a set of orthosteel is better than the Class V, which used to be the poster child for overpowered, and is potentially available in the first system if you get a tinker. In RC3 armor is getting buffed nearly across the board, excepting only worldship plate and possibly the other meteorsteel armors.

Duralloy ore would similarly be a problem as it produces a very good level 6 armor, and ceralloy ore produces a level 5 armor. As long as the tinker can produce armor from ore it is the tinker outputs, not the raw ores, that must be considered for balancing mining.

Any change to mining must fix this.

[digdug]

As long as the tinker can produce armor from ore it is the tinker outputs, not the raw ores, that must be considered for balancing mining.

A solution:
Tinkers could refine the ore and make the metal ingots.
The metal ingots could be brought to an armor dealer to make the armors.

Both steps require money, and maybe time, what about a timer (like the corporate trading post) for each tinker custom work ?
What about limiting the number of tinker custom works too ?


Prophet, a small idea for your mining mod:
what if some asteroids need specific weapons to mine ?
Example: to mine in Eridani a simple mining laser is enough.
To mine in a late sytem, maybe you need a level 5-6 or more mining weapon.

OR

To mine small asteroids, a mining laser is fine.
To mine larger, you need a higher level weapon.

In this way a player cannot mine completely a system, I suppose that mining is a large industrial process, you need probably dozens of ships to mine a large asteroid, or some very powerful weapons, or very large amount of time.

[Prophet]

This is way too much of an advantage for a strategy to have. In 1.0 RC2 a set of orthosteel is better than the Class V, which used to be the poster child for overpowered, and is potentially available in the first system if you get a tinker. In RC3 armor is getting buffed nearly across the board, excepting only worldship plate and possibly the other meteorsteel armors.

Duralloy ore would similarly be a problem as it produces a very good level 6 armor, and ceralloy ore produces a level 5 armor. As long as the tinker can produce armor from ore it is the tinker outputs, not the raw ores, that must be considered for balancing mining.

Any change to mining must fix this.

This has already been addressed in my mod. I have complete control over what ores drop and ceralloy, duralloy, and certainly orthosteel will never show up in a system less than level 4.

what if some asteroids need specific weapons to mine ?

I have started something similar, where asteroids contain either or or gas and each requires a different mining weapon. I am also looking at different things I can do with the miningN attribute. Perhaps an overpowered mining weapon will simply destroy the ore and the asteroid. I'm also thinking about scaling the mining difficulty by system level, and using the miningN weapon ability in a totally different way. Not sure how well this will work, I haven't yet tried anything yet.

[Aeonic]

I'm not sure I like the 'shields must be down' idea for mining, if nothing else, because there's nothing telling the player that they'd need to do that. Of course, there's nothing telling the player how to mine in the first place, either. I had to search the forums to figure this out, but that's beside the point. It also sounds like more of a nuisance than anything at the moment. Requiring specific shields to mine would be more reasonable if asteroids could damage you somehow (explosions, radiation, etc...)

For mining weapon levels, you could simply have it so that a higher level mining tool is needed to mine deeper into an asteroid, or in other words, to mine more ore. So if an asteroid generates 4 pieces of ore, you can extract the first one with any level mining tools, but the second one will be a little more difficult, and the third yet more so. The better your mining tool's level, the better your chance of getting the second and third ore. So you may discover an asteroid full of orthosteel, but without a good tool you won't be able to get to any of it. This would be better if accompanied by some kind of scanning tool that would tell you that the asteroid was full of valuable ore, though.

Since you've already made ores easier to pick up, having asteroids launch tons of them when you're using a nice tool wouldn't be too big of a deal.

[Atarlost]

You could limit by kind of ore instead. It doesn't matter if Eridani is full of orthosteel if you need a plasma torch to get it.

[Aeonic]

I'd rather limit ore by asteroid type. It makes no sense to pull valuable ore out of asteroids made up of worthless ore, and more advanced asteroid types typically appear later in the game anyway. Limit things like orthosteel to volcanic and you won't have a problem. I also wouldn't mind having a few more asteroid types in the game.

[Atarlost]

Who says you can't do both? I think volcanic asteroids start showing too early for orthosteel ore to be reasonable. (in level 2 systems I think)

[Prophet]

The asteroid types can appear at any level so determining extracted ore type by a combination of asteroid type, system level and the mining weapon should be enough for balance.
Eg. a mining lvl2 weapon used on an ice asteroid in Eridani may only give some water ice, however a lvl7 weapon in Eridani will be able to extract more ice or might destroy the asteroid. However, if you mine once, the ore is gone, trying again with a better weapon wont yield anything. Using a lvl2 weapon on a volcanic asteroid in Eta Ceti (level 7) it may only get one ton of Xenotite ore but the better weapon can get it all.

I haven't gotten to building the ore tables for determining the yields yet, I'm still rebuilding the base code at the moment so please leave some ideas on what kinds of ore SHOULD be available from what asteroids and at what levels.

Code: Select all

Asteroid Type | ore Type(s) | number (range) | system level (range)
=================================================
Generic Asteroid (Earth) | Cerallox 2-4   |   3-6
Ice Asteroid (water)
Volcanic Asteroid (Fire)
Metallic Asteroid (Air?)

[Atarlost]

What about making a tradeoff between multirole capability and mining level? Hand out mining1 like it's going out of style, but restrict mining7 to stuff that's pretty much useless for attacking anything but asteroids.

So the mining laser does mining3. Let every other laser have mining1.

Make a particle cutter with mining4. Give the other particle weapons mining1 or mining2.

The plasma torch has mining5. The Ferian Cannon has mining2. Give the EI plasma cannon and Ares plasma cannon and kytryn blaster mining2 as well.

Mining7 can go to a ringer tool that does something pathetic like 1d4 nano damage and has ballistic properties like the Siege MAG.

Make a mining MAG with a big radius blast and a low mining level or multirole the high flux. Now you've got a substitute for the ore scanner: lose the first ore from all the asteroids in an area and you know which ones to hit with your real mining tool.