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Drone Surface-Mining System


Hirnsausen

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This is a suggestion

 

I think, I have a great idea, and many players will like it:

It would be a craftable small item, a "Drone Surface Mining System". This device is half computer and half a surface ore collecting system.

 

If this small device has been attached to a hover or flyer, it can be programmed to become a surface mining drone. The player can set a few instructions, like circling from the borders of the claimed land more and more to the center, or to move randomly over the claimed land.

 

While moving, the drone vehicle would then collect automatically any surface ore that is below it, or collect only ore of selected types. Therefore, the player needs to have at least a small container (or any larger) on this vehicle. The device needs to be linked to the storage(s). It controls movement of the vehicle.

 

If fuel is down at 5%, or the storage(s) report to be full, the vehicle returns to the place from where it started and waits for player input (emptying the container(s), adding new fuel. After landing, the device deactivates automatically. alternatively, it could also be linked to any base container(s) and empty the vehicle container automatically, and if it still has fuel left it would move off again and continue to search for more ore. The final stop would be when the fuel gets low and it returns for good to the base.

 

The player can decide how the vehicle looks, (s)he builds it the way (s)he wants. Just the addition of that device adds drone capability to it.

This would be a lot of extra fun, and also ease a bit the mining. Up to you developers, how small or big the ore-pickup range is below the device.

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I could see a drone working but you would have to build it and unlock it with skills that you could only get after the lvl 5 mining skills, which would take weeks to learn.
 

It would only do surface harvesting, so it would be a passive way to collect t1,2 ores only. And if you have to manually re fuel it that means you couldn’t go to far from it for to long and still use it.

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Then it leaves the only viable new player job as transporter if it’s implemented as carelessly as other mechanics have been.  (Borg cube meta).

 

At the very least implementing automation like this should require disabling some defenses that a territory gets (IE: automation eats into defense resources like power/PvP points).

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1 hour ago, CoyoteNZ said:

As much as I hate mining, it’s the only easy profession for brand new players. We can’t kill that as it would make the entry into the game to hard to get to the bottom if the ladder to start climbing. 

Honestly I don’t think this would kill mining as the deposits are finite and only sanctuary(new player hex) will have fresh / easy deposits in the future. So new players will still be able to sell in the starting safe zone just fine while the Oder players can use their drones in new areas to help augment their t1,2 industry since they will probably be mining for the higher lvl ore. Also once pvp gets going ore will become more in demand as things get blown up.

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Right, ore will be in EXTREME HIGH DEMAND with PVP enabled.

A drone mining system, after getting the appropriate skills, then will be almost mandatory. And honestly, mining without drone is really cumbersome. I do not mind mining to be slow, but let a machine do that while my hands are free to do other things or at least to wait at my base for the drone to return.

Maybe picking up surface ore would be more enjoyable if there would be some sort of good-looking flora and fauna with which we could (peacefully) interact while looking for ore. But drone mining is a must, now and very much later.

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