Fractal Softworks Forum
Starsector => Suggestions => Topic started by: DeMatt on November 04, 2014, 01:38:01 PM
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(because the latest thread I found on the subject was over two years old)
Now that we have ores and metals and all sorts of exciting new industries to sell them to... I'd like to suggest the introduction of a basic "asteroid mining" mechanic. Get comfy, this is a multi-part suggestion.
1. "Mineral" Damage Type
Add a new damage type to the game, I'm calling it "Mineral" because that's what it's for. Mineral damage would be like EMP damage, in that it doesn't add to the rated DPS of the weapon, and in fact has no combat use (unless you wanted to make it better at blowing up asteroids in combat). Mining Lasers and Mining Blasters would obviously have it in spades, there might be a couple other weapons which have a little... otherwise, no change.
2. "Mining Scoop" Preinstalled Hull Mod
This would be a hull mod like "Shielded Cargo Holds", in that the player can't install it. What it does, is it doubles (or triples or somesuch) the effectiveness of the ship in the mining calculation (see part 4). It'd just be present on some hulls and some variations. I'm thinking Mining Pods, Shepherd, and Venture are guaranteed; Tarsus is a possibility... maybe the Hegemony puts it on their Buffalo variant?
3. De- and Re-spawning Asteroids
Just a means of despawning the asteroid after the player's mined it, and then respawning it somewhere else randomly in the same belt. I have to ask, does Starsector actually retain asteroids when you leave the star system? Because I think that's a waste of memory.
4. "Mine Asteroid" Conversation Event
Essentially, this would take the Customs Inspection conversation and have the player trigger it on an asteroid. I figure it'd go like this:
- Player clicks on asteroid and fleet flies onto it.
- The fleet's mining capability is determined. The thought I had was that each ship would add up the sustained DPS of all its weapons (firing at Armor, so Kinetic and Frag are both penalized), plus bonus Mineral damage, then multiplied by the existence of a Mining Scoop hullmod on that ship. These are added together, then adjusted to make "given X composition and Y capability, get Z resources" easier to calculate.
- Conversation window opens, giving a rough idea as to the asteroid's composition and listing the fleet's mining capability. I assume composition would be determined by the belt - I'd put Ore, Rare Ore, and Volatiles as possible results.
- The player can decline and try finding a new asteroid; the first one despawns and respawns somewhere else.
- Or the player can accept, in which case his fleet lingers around the asteroid while a timer-bar ticks up. Once it finishes, he gets his resources and the asteroid spawns elsewhere.
- Getting attacked aborts the process. Don't try this with hostiles nearby!
...And that's the lot. Thoughts?
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I am already working on a similar mod. http://www.mediafire.com/download/oor30bvicpc7xvo/XMod.rar (http://www.mediafire.com/download/oor30bvicpc7xvo/XMod.rar)
to work, you need to upgrade JANINO
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Any time you start suggesting that you need to upgrade a core Starsector library to run your mod, you have a problem with your mod. You need to compile your mod before distribution.
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Sorry DeMatt. Have you tried Vacuum's 'mining'? system. You can get random events where you get under attack.
I'm not sure how I feel about grindy mining in a game where you actually shot up asteroids. I'd rather setup a automated mining facility or some such thing, leave it with some crew, then come back from time to pick up ore. Or maybe even let other generated traders pick up ore, and I automatically get credited the overall profit.
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I like mining quite a bit, as a side activity players can do, especially if it actually eats up finite resources and may result in encounters (time simulation). I'm not sure I'd be happy with a "set up a mine and forget about it" model; while that's realistic (a huge asteroid worth mining in the first place is a long-term activity) it doesn't really fit with SS's "lots of teeny asteroids" look and feel. It'd make more sense if there were a few really big ones and a few really small ones, with custom graphics... which, huh, we can do now, I think.
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Alex was pretty clear that's he's not a fan of the personal, grindy style of mining. Instead we'll probably get to set up, supervise and protect our own mining operations at some point. Which I'd much prefer.
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It would be nice to see a scenario where pirate are attacking mining fleet and player need to fend them off until objective is completed (like mining enough ore or getting something valuable. You know, space Indiana Jones and all).
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Alex was pretty clear that's he's not a fan of the personal, grindy style of mining. Instead we'll probably get to set up, supervise and protect our own mining operations at some point. Which I'd much prefer.
I feel that, just as with the X-series, there's room for both "shoot up an asteroid" and "stick a mine on an asteroid"-style operations. The former you'd do early on, when you only have a couple ships; the latter you'd do late in the game, when you can actually afford to hire the hundreds of miners and run the freighters necessary to carry the mine.
Another part of making this system act like the customs inspections is that we could have NPC fleets doing the same thing.
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Well, I don't think I'd mind the first few hours of game including a *little* bit of 'grindy' mining, but as a mini game it is really only an early game aspect for gaining money.
In later to end game, I could occasionally do mining style activities IF it actually had increasingly significant risk/reward options available to me. I wouldn't care to do mining myself, I'd rather pay others to do it for me!
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What about this:
When you're mining, you may be attacked by pirates, it's then up to you to decide if you want to mine manualy and join the battle when pirates show up or leave everything to the autopilot and let it resolve battles while you're away.
I wouldn't setup a mining operation without some sort of escort fleet anyway.
I could see myself taking over a quick mining operation if I was in a hostile system with lots of enemies flying around, stealing some very rare metals from protected asteroids. On the flip side I could purchase some space real estate where I can legally perform mining in a safe star system and setup an automated mining op there because I wouldn't be worried about pirates. Meanwhile I would be running the Trade Fleet to transport all the good stuff.
It seems like a best of both worlds. Manual mining for the ones who want it and automated mining for the rest, with a good lore reason.
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Elite: Frontier had these rather cool automated mining crawlers you could buy and then deploy. It would drive over the asteroid/moon/whatever, find a good spot, and start mining for you.
Eventually it would send you a message saying it was full, unless someone else detected and destroyed it but that was quite rare.
I like that sort of idea, personally. Maybe I'll give it a go if it's not too hard.
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Just a quick question: is there mining in the game already? There are mining lasers and asteroids and materials on the market. With the newest Vanilla Version can i do this?
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No, asteroids and mining lasers have been in the game for quite some time, but there is still no mining.
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Just a quick question: is there mining in the game already? There are mining lasers and asteroids and materials on the market. With the newest Vanilla Version can i do this?
I believe Uomoz mod has mining, but so far it's incompatible with 0.65.1
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Alex was pretty clear that's he's not a fan of the personal, grindy style of mining. Instead we'll probably get to set up, supervise and protect our own mining operations at some point. Which I'd much prefer.
yes.
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Bump, because "Alex said no, because I think it's grindy" isn't much of a reason not to.
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Bump, because "Alex said no, because I think it's grindy" isn't much of a reason not to.
Alex also said "Instead we'll probably get to set up, supervise and protect our own mining operations at some point," which is the better choice.
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which is the better choice.
I disagree. Sitting around waiting for your miners to work your mines seems every bit as "grindy" as sitting around waiting for your miners to work your ships.
How big is the player's "faction" supposed to get, anyways?
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I find myself wanting to mine asteroids literally all the time. (That is literally what we call "hyperbole", for the Figurative-Nazis. (People who are figuratively Nazis, or people who are Nazis about being figurative -- take your pick.))
Given that ore can become deflated as low as 1 credit per unit in saturated markets, I think the game is already perfectly balanced to allow active mining -- it is self-defeating to use it for too long when richer financial prospects come along. It would be nice to implement it both actively (make asteroids asplode) and passively (make ore mines not-asplode) in the long term, as both could be enjoyable; the first when you want something that doesn't shoot back, and the second when you want no shooting at all.
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Another thought... add a deployment menu to let you pick which ships actually go mining, then subtract CR as if they were deployed. Since we're burning ammo shooting up a bunch of rocks.
Given that ore can become deflated as low as 1 credit per unit in saturated markets, I think the game is already perfectly balanced to allow active mining -- it is self-defeating to use it for too long when richer financial prospects come along. It would be nice to implement it both actively (make asteroids asplode) and passively (make ore mines not-asplode) in the long term, as both could be enjoyable; the first when you want something that doesn't shoot back, and the second when you want no shooting at all.
I should note that my suggestion here doesn't have the player scoot around shooting his guns, any more than the customs inspections have the player hold his ship still while the AI ships fly around him.
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Ah -- I didn't read the OP initially and just assumed it was another request along similar lines as past requests. Chalk it up to pure laziness on my part. =)
I suppose we'd need a much larger API to detect active blowings-up of asteroids in a combat scenario anyway, although it's been a while since I even bothered delving into Java long enough to see how well the API has matured... but if the combat engine is only used for combat then the rest of the game feels like a "make combat happen" engine, engineering circumstances to make things blow up, which doesn't quite sate my appetite for hands-on industry. That's possibly overstating the fact given how much attention was given to campaign style gameplay in the 0.65 update, but at least I personally feel as though there needs to be a point to have all of those mining blasters actually installed in your weapon mounts beyond merely throwing dice and putting on wizard hats. ;-)
That all said, having finally read the OP, I do like the conversation mining suggestion as written nearly as much as the concept of active mining!
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Asteroid mining is the ideal starter profession for new players getting to grips with the controls and earning a little money, fending off the odd low-level 'rat and learning how to trade.
Later on, managing fleet(s) of mining ships - and keeping them safe - would be a legit profession.
I like the idea of setting up mining installations on roids but that might be comparatively expensive compared to a mobile fleet of mining-capable ships.
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Please don't necro old threads, as per the forum rules.
Closed.