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Construct Mining or drills for ships.


calewars

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This is Elector Cale(wars) speaking

   

     Mining cannot be done completely by 1 or a few players if they look to find a lot of resources. Having Constructs such as mini ships being able to mine asteroids would be an interesting part to the game to have. Just as in SE since Space Engineers is a game that almost resembles DU in different ways. In SE mining and building even isn't relied upon completely players. Having construct building and mining would be a good part to the game, because it would keep the fact that everything would be player ran or operated as jobs or just for solo play.

 

Having these could increase the amount one can build for itself a city or its company. It could increase the game economically aswell to the fact someone has to build these machines and the materials they mine could be sold in larger scales to produce more of these machines and other ships and vise versa.  

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You'll find ait megathread from some months ago that covers this. NQ stated that there will not be automated mining and no drones for that in order to give people and newbros something to do. If they would allow automation all over the place, people won't be interested. And newbros without those skills needed to run such equipment wouldn't have a chance to start earning money

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The general consensus is that automated mining, drones, and weapons would have an adverse affect on the community of the game. Restricting mining and weapons to be manual only will encourage team play and allow for these aspects of the game to grow and be diverse. Mining will not be just for new players; even a legendary player that wants to make a living being a fantastic miner can do so because the skills, knowledge, and time required can get extensive. Giving mining to drones will just be a time capsule for boring automation; you can't teach a drill to mine better. You could replace the skill tree of mining with the skills tree of making good mining equipment, but this is simply not the desired direction. With the direction being taken, there is no chance that there will one day be massive planet strip mining ships; even years into the game, players will still need to be at their keyboard to mine anything.

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As long as they are elements that cant be automated, I see that there is nothing wrong

The issue is that an element for mining drives out the beginning miner out of the market.

 

Its a time vs cost vs supply problem.

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There might be issues with giving players the ability to excavate more and more area of earth per time. Instead, efficiencies could be made in processing and production.

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The issue is that an element for mining drives out the beginning miner out of the market.

 

Its a time vs cost vs supply problem.

Which is why you would join a mining corp or do mission board stuff later. Mining does not have to always be point one in the player progression track.

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I personally think that some form of drill element could be useful but it does also make me worrisome about the consequences of it.
I would imagine that perhaps (because LUA scripting of it wouldn't be allowed for obvious reasons) it could be an element that would need to be manned by another person?
So perhaps have one man driving/flying the ship and pointing the drill, but then needing another person sitting in a separate cockpit to activate and control the drill?

As players advance further and further into the game, yes people will need resources, but on a much larger scale. So leveling up skills will make it better and easier to get resources, but it doesn't mean that you'll suddenly be able to gather the millions of tonnes of steel to create a battleship within any lifetime of your own.

*Enter the drills*

 

The drills would make it possible to have entire planets dedicated to the excavation of resources on a massive scale. If we think about the issues posed towards the new home planet Alioth and how we will deal with the fact that ground surrounding the Novark will be shredded by people searching for resources. Having drills will mean more resources easily accessible to sell to other players. When a new player joins, their first idea is 'Lets go mine the doorstep' because they will need resources, and why travel further when you can just start mining straight away? If they can simply be confronted with a store upon joining, they can get a bunch of resources that have been mined at an off-site location.

Now I realize that you can just make people go and mine in one spot together to help protect the landscape, but that will only last so long in lands close to the Novark.

Not sure if all that made sense, but basically I think that a limited sort of drill would be handy and add to immersion. (Personally thinking of mining an alien planet makes me think of Avatar, when we see the massive mining quarries with lots of trucks and massive mining machines) Of course after seeing how quick mining can be with just a player, it would also make me wonder how you could make a drill that is more effective than the players ability to mine so quickly.

*All speculation and ideas of course* ^_^

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As players advance further and further into the game, yes people will need resources, but on a much larger scale. So leveling up skills will make it better and easier to get resources, but it doesn't mean that you'll suddenly be able to gather the millions of tonnes of steel to create a battleship within any lifetime of your own.

 

That's why this is an MMO and you need a crew to man such huge ships - you can't even mine that amount of resources needed. Band together, mine together, build together, fly together.

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Which is why you would join a mining corp or do mission board stuff later. Mining does not have to always be point one in the player progression track.

No it does not.

But having to join an org is sort of "forcing" people down a certain path. Its not because its cool or convenient that it would be desirable or good for the overall game. I dont think we can really judge the impact either way right now.

 

Me personally I wouldnt really mess with the mining itself. I would explore ideas for creating elements that enhance the mining gameplay. Or an element that has a benefit of some type, but the speed/efficiency of gathering the ore would stay the same for everyone. Either way its a tricky thing to balance because it would affect the entire economy. And I dont think its fair to tell Timmy he must join an org, but thats just my opinion.

 

Mining is more then just digging and collecting ore.

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Of course after seeing how quick mining can be with just a player, it would also make me wonder how you could make a drill that is more effective than the players ability to mine so quickly.

The ability to dump the resources instantly into the cargo bay, instead of having to interrupt the mining every time your inventory is full

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No it does not.

But having to join an org is sort of "forcing" people down a certain path. Its not because its cool or convenient that it would be desirable or good for the overall game. I dont think we can really judge the impact either way right now.

 

Me personally I wouldnt really mess with the mining itself. I would explore ideas for creating elements that enhance the mining gameplay. Or an element that has a benefit of some type, but the speed/efficiency of gathering the ore would stay the same for everyone. Either way its a tricky thing to balance because it would affect the entire economy. And I dont think its fair to tell Timmy he must join an org, but thats just my opinion.

 

Mining is more then just digging and collecting ore.

Thing is, they aren't forced to join an org. There are other ways to make money when all you can do is walk, scan and hand mine. You could do courier missions from mission boards placed by other orgs (ones that don't require a ship), go around the planet in a cheap but fast ship and scan areas for resources and sell the data, or loan out a mining ship and mine yourself. The path of least resistance for new players will change as the in game economy changes, and the mid-late game is more likely to favour org related paths than non-org related paths. Its simply because you start on a highly developed world. I mean, you could even take a transport to a fringe world and mine there (since resources on the outer systems will be in shorter supply, and therefore more profitable).

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Calewars.

 

Watch the GDC meet-up video, PLEASE. It has everything you are talking about and more and answers every question you may have about this topic. Also, there is a handy search bar in the upper right of the forums *wink wink* ;)

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  • 4 weeks later...

Well.. i have an idea.

What if there would be specific rewards for mining with hand.

like you could get a large quantity of iron using a huge drilling ship but Dilithium crystals would likely be destroyed in the process. and that's where miners with sci-fi pickaxes come in.

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DU is not similar to SE, I don't understand why people keep comparing it. The best way to describe it is "Eve Online with Minecraft features", and it's way different than "Minecraft with Eve Online features". I'm saying that even because I'm afraid someone could get the wrong idea about this game.

 

Regarding Op question, mining elements that you can mount on construct have not been confirmed. I think I heard them saying something like "maybe, as long there's a player manually mining", that considering their vision about the game, it's a realistic assumption even if I remember wrong. As long as it doesn't break the game, they'd like to add everything (following a list of priorities though)

 

Mining with a ship would consume more energy (if you'd mine more than by hand), the equipment is expensive, it's more risky since your ship is valuable and mining is mostly a pvp activity, so there's no need for further balance to reward the "by hand" mining players

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What Shynras said.

As long as the drills are not automated, then sure, go for it. Or at least, NQ should provide a specialised "laser drill" for avatars to handle that increases the rate of mining per cycle in comparison to the nanoformer. Make the drill take nanopacks for ammo and syphon materials in them, while having the drill operate on the player's energy to keep mining.

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  • 4 weeks later...

People talking about the insane amount of elements u need to Craft like Battleships or like omg i want to build a death Star -_- if u want to kick it up a notch or two ask your self how much materials u need to craft a Dyson Sphere. And if u even can craft that u never again need to build something more that u can get like energy from.

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