Jump to content

Suggestions to make the whole asteroid experience interesting!


Wolfram

Recommended Posts

So, a bit of feedback here on how the current DSAT/Asteroid Mining experience works and what could be improved to make it more interesting with the upcoming release.

 

Spawn asteroids across the week instead of just Saturday

Basically, instead of spawning all asteroids over a single day of the week, you do it over a week, maybe even have a timer showing on the DSAT window showing how many days until that specific asteroid leaves the Helios system. This would "funnel" more people into the asteroids, which for any asteroids outside the safe zone would mean more chance of encounters, since almost always people would want to be the first on those "tasty" T4/T5 rocks, and also allow for those who don't have much time during the weekend (or just prefer playing during the week) to have a chance at participating on asteroid hunting too!

 

Remove the middle-section (recently discovered) from the DSAT screen

Simply make the DSAT show an asteroid as either discovered or not discovered. If you still want to give a timer before publishing then fine, but don't make that timer public. Having participated on asteroid hunts before the only two uses I noticed for it are either letting people know that something was found, so they might go for another asteroid, or for ganking and piracy. We don't need yet another camping-based PvP mechanic in the game.

 

Allow us to retract/close the DSAT antenna when not tracking anything

This is more of a cosmetic thing than functional one, but would be nice to be able to retract the antenna when the DSAT is not in use, would fit designs much better.

 

Well, those are my 2 cents on things that could be improved, I'm sure other players might have more ideas, but thought about bringing up that discussion out of Discord into a more official place...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I like the suggestion of removing the middle column. For the current method of asteroid discovery I think it could be improved by maybe making the rarity not known until you land on it. When searching all you should have is the asteroid name and general direction, details of it shouldn’t be released until it’s found by a player. This way a player can stumble onto a rare asteroid without intending to. 
 

I would also like to see permanent asteroid belts with lots of asteroids that provide a challenge to fly through. Not all of the asteroids would have material and only up to T2 would be mineable. These could be permanent installations in the central safe zone or have higher tier belts out in PVP space. Their locations wouldn’t be marked on the map nor would the DSAT be used to find them, you would have to stumble upon them or go seek them out in space. This would provide a goal for exploration type players to find unseen belts. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Asteroid belts would make a quite nice addition to the game too, even if they kept being reset over and over or had lots of spacing in between, would be cool to scan and mine there. I'm even fine with locations being well-known or outside the safe bubble, as they would be kind of a high-reward place.

 

The point about not showing the asteroid tier also sounds quite good, maybe replace it with something more "technical" such as estimated mass or something like that, then from that players could try inferring if there's anything useful there or not.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Izon2887 said:

I like the suggestion of removing the middle column. For the current method of asteroid discovery I think it could be improved by maybe making the rarity not known until you land on it. When searching all you should have is the asteroid name and general direction, details of it shouldn’t be released until it’s found by a player. This way a player can stumble onto a rare asteroid without intending to. 
 

I would also like to see permanent asteroid belts with lots of asteroids that provide a challenge to fly through. Not all of the asteroids would have material and only up to T2 would be mineable. These could be permanent installations in the central safe zone or have higher tier belts out in PVP space. Their locations wouldn’t be marked on the map nor would the DSAT be used to find them, you would have to stumble upon them or go seek them out in space. This would provide a goal for exploration type players to find unseen belts. 

 

2 hours ago, Wolfram said:

Asteroid belts would make a quite nice addition to the game too, even if they kept being reset over and over or had lots of spacing in between, would be cool to scan and mine there. I'm even fine with locations being well-known or outside the safe bubble, as they would be kind of a high-reward place.

 

The point about not showing the asteroid tier also sounds quite good, maybe replace it with something more "technical" such as estimated mass or something like that, then from that players could try inferring if there's anything useful there or not.

I too would like to see a "permanent" belt of rocks.  Perhaps when the tech is ready that can be the physical divide between safe and not safe for new solar systems.  No belt, no safe zone other than Sanctuary if even that.

 

Edit:  If such a thing as a belt is used to divide safe/not it should span 80/20 with only 20% being in safe.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

These are all great suggestions, and have been proposed by the community previously. Asteroids are currently very annoying and staid, and there will be complaints from the New Player Influx if we go with the current system. Adopting even some of the suggestions above would go a long way to making them more fun and accessible.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Wyndle said:

 

I too would like to see a "permanent" belt of rocks.  Perhaps when the tech is ready that can be the physical divide between safe and not safe for new solar systems.  No belt, no safe zone other than Sanctuary if even that.

 

Edit:  If such a thing as a belt is used to divide safe/not it should span 80/20 with only 20% being in safe.

 

Having a belt being partially in the safe zone but majoritarily on the pvp zone would make lots of players "dip their toes" into the pvp aspect of the game and I'm sure it would also promote more encounters too (that is, at least if they could find each other in the belt), but I'm sure would add lots of fun to it! It's a very nice risk-reward balance.

 

5 hours ago, Distinct Mint said:

These are all great suggestions, and have been proposed by the community previously. Asteroids are currently very annoying and staid, and there will be complaints from the New Player Influx if we go with the current system. Adopting even some of the suggestions above would go a long way to making them more fun and accessible.

 

Yeah my big concern is that when new players realize how the whole asteroid mechanic works, specially the fact they are only refreshed on a single day of week, we'll see the game have quite low activity during week days but a rush of players on weekends, potentially leading to lag, since they all are going to the same places. Sure, if someone wants to spend every day of their weeks mining they would be able too...

 

I'm not sure if NQ still checks their forums for suggestions (unless when tagged) but I really hope they take a second look at a few core mechanics before release. I really enjoy DU and would be quite a shame if players get turned away from it because a few mechanics aren't polished.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Wolfram said:

refreshed on a single day of week

This is such a stupid mechanic. It needs to be pointed to, shamed and buried asap. Frankly, the entire DSAT mechanics needs to be revamped. As has already been pointed out numerous of times, flying between a few points to click a button in a UI is not engaging game play, it is as bad as the AFK-loop of long distance hauling.

 

What DU needs is more active game play for asteroid mining, not timers and broadcasted asteroid locations (if you want a part of the cake, work for it or have someone give you the coordinates!). DU needs game loops that are engaging and with a reward balanced against the risk.

 

The above suggestions sounds like a really good start.

 

Oh, re. cosmetic changes. Yes, please let us retract the DSAT disc. Also, please reduce the physical size of the element, it is horrendously large. Keep the mass, but reduce the size by half.

 

Lastly, when do we get ship-mounted mining lasers? :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Yoarii said:

What DU needs is more active game play for asteroid mining, not timers and broadcasted asteroid locations (if you want a part of the cake, work for it or have someone give you the coordinates!). DU needs game loops that are engaging and with a reward balanced against the risk.

Org mining comes to mind.  One fuel efficient ship to hunt the rock, followed by a mining barge loaded with boxes and players.   Barge would slow boat in the direction of the first way point and could opt to hit warp-to the instant the rock is spotted. 

 

1 hour ago, Yoarii said:

Lastly, when do we get ship-mounted mining lasers?

We have a variation of mining lasers, but they are typically aimed at slower moving ships likely loaded with ore.  Did I mention earlier that the barge could be loaded with weapons and smaller PvP ships?  I know it isn't what you mean but I have been trying to get myself to think in terms of orgs rather than solo play.  The described scenario could provide action for at least 3 pilots while 1 to an arbitrary number more players ride along anticipating action.  Planning for PvE but prepped to defend. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I’m in support of this. I do not like how asteroids are auto broadcasted let people scan for them and discover them on their own. Having asteroids only spawn on weekends is a bad game design they need to be random to give every player equal opportunity in the game. Would also like to see smaller dsat for better ship designs.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

EvE and Star Citizen have ALL their asteroids in a pvp zone. DU needs to be the same.  Otherwise they will never compete with those games in terms of population.  NQ can't grow their game with a terrible population. 

 

Also those games don't broadcast where someone is. That's the dumbest f*cking thing I've seen. It actually does the opposite to promote pvp. SC and EvE whether you are the hunter or miner, you have to actually go out and look/explore.  It's more balanced. The miner should expect to survive 95% of its pvp mining ops. This in turn adds way more people to do it, enough so the pvper still occasionally finds someone and emergent gameplay happens.  

Edited by CousinSal
Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, Wyndle said:

Org mining comes to mind.  One fuel efficient ship to hunt the rock, followed by a mining barge loaded with boxes and players.   Barge would slow boat in the direction of the first way point and could opt to hit warp-to the instant the rock is spotted. 

 

Thats what a few Orgs did already with the Asteroids since the start of them. Why does it need a change?

The Point of Removing the second Part of the DSAT screen is only because you got ganked on an asteroid.
PVP Space is not a safe space and the game is not a single player game, get People together dont fly with unarmed ships out in the PVP Zone and let atleast one people in the ship and watch the radar. If you got contact all people go back to their ships and defend the Asteroid or the hauler.

And their are many Orgs that know how to get rid of the possibility to get attacked because of the second screen.

If you dont want to lose an ship then go to the Safezone asteroids they have plenty enough ore on it and the number got massivley increased.


And for the timing, on the Weekends most of the People have time to Play so its still the best timespot to spawn them, so orgs can plan activites to go mining, yeah People who work on the weekends cant go there but if you spawn them on midweek more people gona cry.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, CousinSal said:

EvE and Star Citizen have ALL their asteroids in a pvp zone. DU needs to be the same.  Otherwise they will never compete with those games in terms of population.  NQ can't grow their game with a terrible population. 

 

Also those games don't broadcast where someone is. That's the dumbest f*cking thing I've seen. It actually does the opposite to promote pvp. SC and EvE whether you are the hunter or miner, you have to actually go out and look/explore.  It's more balanced. The miner should expect to survive 95% of its pvp mining ops. This in turn adds way more people to do it, enough so the pvper still occasionally finds someone and emergent gameplay happens.  

Never played SC.  Unless it has been removed in the past 6 months there are definitely belts in High Sec systems in Eve.  Granted, the mining bots strip them clean on the regular but they are there.

 

Eve does worse than DU for letting people know you are there (some exceptions) by having a solar system based local channel as opposed to ranged local.  If the number of players in that channel changes it's time to run or do sweeps; or camps start buzzing to decloak the new arrival.  The vultures know where to pick up the dummy that took the level 4 mission into one of many dead end low sec systems known for mission gankers.  That isn't to say that Eve is better or worse as a game overall, but I'm not seeing Eve measure up to what you want in DU from it.

1 hour ago, Heartbeat1 said:

Thats what a few Orgs did already with the Asteroids since the start of them. Why does it need a change?

I wasn't suggesting a change other than perspective with that post.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, CousinSal said:

Also those games don't broadcast where someone is. That's the dumbest f*cking thing I've seen. It actually does the opposite to promote pvp. SC and EvE whether you are the hunter or miner, you have to actually go out and look/explore.  It's more balanced. The miner should expect to survive 95% of its pvp mining ops. This in turn adds way more people to do it, enough so the pvper still occasionally finds someone and emergent gameplay happens.  

 

The fact DU makes it so easy for anyone to track someone else is why so many don't go out and risk out in PVP zone. NQ doesn't seem to understand that, they keep trying to make encounters an easy thing to see if players get involved in PVP without realizing this will only end up with the PVP space being a place exclusive to PVP players, with nobody else wanting to get into there with risk of being camped/scanned/whatever.

 

I'm not even bothered if some PVP org decides to claim one asteroid as theirs or camp it waiting for players to come there and gank them, that should be valid gameplay, same as if someone wants to patrol the areas around asteroids or hunt down someone carrying good cargo, but like everything else PVP and piracy should need active work from players and not only consist of someone looking at the DSAT middle column and saying "ok boys, let's go to this asteroid because someone just landed there". Why should I, as a miner, be forced to spend 40 minutes slow boating to some asteroid plus a extra minutes trying to pin-point its location and even more extracting its contents, which takes some time for T3+, while on the other side some random kid can just automatically know I set foot there and come directly at me to take my stuff, without barely any work on his part other than camping the DSAT screen?

 

DU needs more PVP interactions? Definitely. But pushing players into it hoping they will start participating more will just end up with the opposite effect.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Wolfram said:

 

The fact DU makes it so easy for anyone to track someone else is why so many don't go out and risk out in PVP zone. NQ doesn't seem to understand that, they keep trying to make encounters an easy thing to see if players get involved in PVP without realizing this will only end up with the PVP space being a place exclusive to PVP players, with nobody else wanting to get into there with risk of being camped/scanned/whatever.

 

I'm not even bothered if some PVP org decides to claim one asteroid as theirs or camp it waiting for players to come there and gank them, that should be valid gameplay, same as if someone wants to patrol the areas around asteroids or hunt down someone carrying good cargo, but like everything else PVP and piracy should need active work from players and not only consist of someone looking at the DSAT middle column and saying "ok boys, let's go to this asteroid because someone just landed there". Why should I, as a miner, be forced to spend 40 minutes slow boating to some asteroid plus a extra minutes trying to pin-point its location and even more extracting its contents, which takes some time for T3+, while on the other side some random kid can just automatically know I set foot there and come directly at me to take my stuff, without barely any work on his part other than camping the DSAT screen?

 

DU needs more PVP interactions? Definitely. But pushing players into it hoping they will start participating more will just end up with the opposite effect.

 

100%  they just dont understand basic game design.  they could put ALL the asteroids in pvp zone, but make them relatively safe with proper game mechanics, yet still knowing danger could be lurking. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't understand the complaints about the middle column.

It is very useful for all people who want to completely avoid PvP.

Activate 10 different roids and come back to just one of them later.
You have a 99% chance of being able to mine without ever coming across anyone.

Asteroids are tossed anyway.
There is nothing going with them, they are behind a wall of 1 hour flight time in AFK, no PvE and PvP challenges on them.
It's a disaster.
We should have had real radar, capable of scanning space for those dynamic points of interest and other players.

Players must move only when there is interest, it is unacceptable to make a player move to a place and make him waste 2 hours of his time to find nothing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, Knight-Sevy said:

Activate 10 different roids and come back to just one of them later.

 

Are you insane? The middle column is good only for 120 minutes, which then goes to the completely public list of asteroids.

Each asteroid takes like 40 minutes or more just to reach the area and be scanned.

 

7 hours ago, Knight-Sevy said:

Players must move only when there is interest, it is unacceptable to make a player move to a place and make him waste 2 hours of his time to find nothing.

 

Well that's the whole point of risk-reward. If a player is spending 2 hours scanning and going to an asteroid, why should their interceptors be allowed to magically know where they are? The moment they get ganked by some random player who waited until a middle-column asteroid to show up they also lost their 2 hours of work, if not more, because they were mining.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have no problem with the risk aspect of asteroids. I go in fully expecting that there may be a person there already or that I may be interrupted after a few minutes of mining.

 

All that said, the system as it works now doesn't make sense, and that is like a splinter in my brain. What is in game reason that people with this magic DSAT know when an asteroid has been found? Are the DSAT and the asteroid sharing some psychic link? It makes little sense.

 

There are so many things lately with this slapped together feeling and no explanation for why it works this way. If we had deep space radar that could detect activity in the region of asteroids, then create a mechanic for that. At least this sort of mechanic could feed into other new features.

 

An alternative would be some sort of hacking feature that would allow players to hack into a DSAT network to locate where a DSAT is actively scanning.

 

These sorts of things would create additional conflict, make some actual sense, and require a more active role to be played by the hunter. There is way too much passive gameplay now as it is.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Current real world technology can identify mineral content in asteroids and comets from Earth so the only aspect of DSAT as is that could potentially make sense is triangulation.  If NQ were to add directional scanners tuned for different purposes it would make sense, add active game play mechanics, and probably be fun for PvE and PvP.  The cone width/resolution should be adjustable and provide a range of functionality akin to different handheld scanners/modes for ore.

 

Edit:  This could also lend itself to ECM and ECCM game play. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

54 minutes ago, Wyndle said:

add active game play mechanics, and probably be fun for PvE and PvP

 

thats the issue. It needs to be active, and could add to exploration. Miners need to actively go explore, and find random types of asteroids, PVPers need to go actively fly and hunt. 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, Wolfram said:

 

Are you insane? The middle column is good only for 120 minutes, which then goes to the completely public list of asteroids.

Each asteroid takes like 40 minutes or more just to reach the area and be scanned.

 

 

Well that's the whole point of risk-reward. If a player is spending 2 hours scanning and going to an asteroid, why should their interceptors be allowed to magically know where they are? The moment they get ganked by some random player who waited until a middle-column asteroid to show up they also lost their 2 hours of work, if not more, because they were mining.



 

Yes, it takes a mechanic where you can be found ALL the time
But also that you can monitor if a few things are not flying at you.

The middle column makes no sense, whether for hunters: you have no one to catch except a few beginners.
Only for minors:
You must search for several asteroids before you can go mine on one, in order to completely avoid any attacks.

We need a long range scanner to find asteroids and player ships. Scanner that can detect if you have been seen in order to give the minor a chance to leave before being intercepted.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 hours ago, Deathknight said:

There are so many things lately with this slapped together feeling and no explanation for why it works this way. If we had deep space radar that could detect activity in the region of asteroids, then create a mechanic for that. At least this sort of mechanic could feed into other new features.

 

An alternative would be some sort of hacking feature that would allow players to hack into a DSAT network to locate where a DSAT is actively scanning.

 

These sorts of things would create additional conflict, make some actual sense, and require a more active role to be played by the hunter. There is way too much passive gameplay now as it is.

 

The idea of a deep space radar would be awesome to have, having it ping ship locations would add to all kind of new mechanics and meta too, not just into asteroid hunting but to PVP, hauling, pretty much everything, since one could use that radar to find asteroids, players on pipes, detect blockades, etc. I guess everyone would have a more active gameplay, too. For example, the hunters would need to monitor that radar to find prey, the miners or haulers would have to monitor it to detect any pirates, etc. I really wish oneone at NQ had a look at this and gave us some feedback :P

 

19 hours ago, CousinSal said:

thats the issue. It needs to be active, and could add to exploration. Miners need to actively go explore, and find random types of asteroids, PVPers need to go actively fly and hunt. 

 

Exploration and active gameplay is what lacks so much on DU and that will be a bummer upon release. Like, most things pretty much only sum up to afk travelling from point A to B, both if you have some kind of autopilot or not. It's boring. Would be nice if we had more things to do, even if it was some kind of minigame to "scan" space with our radar.

 

19 hours ago, Knight-Sevy said:

You must search for several asteroids before you can go mine on one, in order to completely avoid any attacks.

We need a long range scanner to find asteroids and player ships. Scanner that can detect if you have been seen in order to give the minor a chance to leave before being intercepted.

 

There aren't too many asteroids to do this and usually they aren't close to each other. If you take 40 minutes to go from one asteroid to another you only have 3 asteroids on the "middle column" before their location starts becoming public, and even so one can still track you since they can see which was most recently discovered. I do agree with the scanner idea, though, it would be MUCH better to just have that, even better if we could equip ships with some kind of jammer element that would require you to be much closer to properly scan that ship. There's so many possibilities here, but Idk if we'll ever get to that, sadly 😕

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Wolfram said:

 

The idea of a deep space radar would be awesome to have, having it ping ship locations would add to all kind of new mechanics and meta too, not just into asteroid hunting but to PVP, hauling, pretty much everything, since one could use that radar to find asteroids, players on pipes, detect blockades, etc. I guess everyone would have a more active gameplay, too. For example, the hunters would need to monitor that radar to find prey, the miners or haulers would have to monitor it to detect any pirates, etc. I really wish oneone at NQ had a look at this and gave us some feedback :P

 

 

Exploration and active gameplay is what lacks so much on DU and that will be a bummer upon release. Like, most things pretty much only sum up to afk travelling from point A to B, both if you have some kind of autopilot or not. It's boring. Would be nice if we had more things to do, even if it was some kind of minigame to "scan" space with our radar.

 

 

There aren't too many asteroids to do this and usually they aren't close to each other. If you take 40 minutes to go from one asteroid to another you only have 3 asteroids on the "middle column" before their location starts becoming public, and even so one can still track you since they can see which was most recently discovered. I do agree with the scanner idea, though, it would be MUCH better to just have that, even better if we could equip ships with some kind of jammer element that would require you to be much closer to properly scan that ship. There's so many possibilities here, but Idk if we'll ever get to that, sadly 😕

Imagine adding a real time sound element like sonar/echo location/ping on a submarine.  To the trained ear the tone, amplitude, and intensity would be able to tell the player what type of scan just hit faster than they could read a message about it.  Talk about immersion!  There's the gentle sweep of a wide scan like a handshake between players saying, "Hello to anyone out there, I am in your local space."  There's the deep bass thud of a directional ore scan that will lead to community discussion about checking LoS before performing repeat scans.  Then we have the trill of the hunter's ping that raises the hair on the back of your neck with the slightest increase in amplitude and the haunting feeling that something hungry is watching you.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 8/20/2022 at 5:09 PM, Wyndle said:

Imagine adding a real time sound element like sonar/echo location/ping on a submarine.  To the trained ear the tone, amplitude, and intensity would be able to tell the player what type of scan just hit faster than they could read a message about it.  Talk about immersion!  There's the gentle sweep of a wide scan like a handshake between players saying, "Hello to anyone out there, I am in your local space."  There's the deep bass thud of a directional ore scan that will lead to community discussion about checking LoS before performing repeat scans.  Then we have the trill of the hunter's ping that raises the hair on the back of your neck with the slightest increase in amplitude and the haunting feeling that something hungry is watching you.

 

How do you even dare suggesting something as cool and immersive as that! I know it's not very technically possible, but at least the part of having something to "detect" and ping us about that scan would be quite cool. As I said, there's so much potential for cool mechanics, but I'm not sure if they will ever consider adding them 😕

Link to comment
Share on other sites

49 minutes ago, Wolfram said:

 

How do you even dare suggesting something as cool and immersive as that! I know it's not very technically possible, but at least the part of having something to "detect" and ping us about that scan would be quite cool. As I said, there's so much potential for cool mechanics, but I'm not sure if they will ever consider adding them 😕

It is very technically possible, but the question is would it be scalable?  A search mechanic like that would essentially be a ray trace, reporting collisions (including any vessel's velocity potential) within a cone.  The volume of the search area would be the same in every case.  It would be a matter of variations between a short distance sawed-off shotgun blast and ultra-precision scoped long barrel.  As for a vessel's velocity potential; that is the entire spectrum of possible change in movement from the trajectory, mass, and max possible maneuvering from those factors.  I envision it as a mushroom shape where the stem length is determined by that vessel's current min stop distance with max effort (i.e. turn and burn with full brake).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...