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Automated Mining


Shynras

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As you may already know, there's a risk associated with the automation of constructs. 

 

Mining Automation

 

Would be cool to create mining drones, or huge mining ships capable of digging tons of materials from a planet surfaces in a couple of minutes. If this is a thing the resources would inflate, they would lose their value like constructs would (because they're made out of the same resources). So, how to balance this?

-Saying that, if we dig 100 tons/hour, then a single block shoul require 1 ton of material. That's not reasonable, so increasing the costs of blocks to a ridicolous amount, doesn't solve the problem (i.e. what about a new player that doesn't have the equipment to dig enough even for 1 block?) 

-Creating a daily limit to the amount of resources, maybe with some kind of cooldown required from the mining drills. Well, that wouldn't be good either, this is a sandbox after all, there shouldn't be limits. I don't think that a labour point system, like archeage is something people like.

-Then don't let people make mining drones or large mining ships. This isn't a good suggestion either. 

 

So what's the solution?

-Slow down the mining drills. (Not too much, or it gets boring)

-Add a "resources gathering system", that requires time (see Elite Dangerous). Dunno, maybe we would have a tractor beam that can't be run when the mining drills are active? Maybe we would need to use an anchor to hook a chunk of material, and then move it to another element, that "absorbs it". There are many ways, but having just a mining drill that "absorb the materials", like  SpaceEngineers, doesn't solve the problem. 

-Resources should be relatively rare in general, you need to search and scan for them, you can't just dig 5 blocks and find a gold vein. They should spawn in relatively small veins (depending on their rarity) to reduce large mining ships effectiveness. But still, to give them a reason to exist, there could be large veins (should be rare anyway) of the more common materials (iron, copper, ...) that are usually cheap.

- More....

 

Why should this be good for the game?

 

-The amount of resources enters a market is "controlled", and meets the amount of request from the public. This way, mining doesn't lose his value once a guy, with a single large ship (or an army of mining drones), could maintain alone the needs of thousands of players. This alone, is a good enough reason. 

-This improves the new player experience.

-More gameplay depth.

-More challenges for builders/scripters.

-If resources are rare, explorers would have a reason to exists. Since we know that we will most likely use probes to explore other systems first (because it takes too much time), explorers will have to "explore" the already known solar system, for resources and other useful informations. 

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Good sir, setting up such a joint of mining a whole by yourself, is not something that could be done with 1 huge ship for many many many reasons. 

1 : Mass : Your ship extracts materials, those materials weigh down the ship. Your thrusters can barely support your ship as it is, fine tuned for that busines,, fuel efficiency being a part of that.

2 : Hazards : Piracy is a thing in this game. You'll need protection from them either in the form of turrets on your ship, that drain power from your ship, making your power ratio go down on the drill, or have players accompanying you as protection.

3 : Functionality : You can't have everything and the kitchen sink on a ship, ergo, your drills will have to be on a land-rover type of vehicle, transported there with another ship, therefore, the newer players will have the chance of operating automated mining rovers on the ground by driving them around, scanning for minerals and tapping on them for as deep as the drills can go.

4 : Claim of your mining site : You'll need a land base for your operations, as your drilling rovers will need fuel and a settlement for refuelling and possible repairs, will be needed.

5 : Having to script a drill, how it automatically harvests and all that, should be a high end reward, not gimped. It's what makes people look up to you.



Saying that, new players will have to progress to create their own ships and gear if they choose to, or roll with an organisation that can provide for the gameplay they want. That's cooperation and emergent gameplay in essence, as organisations will ensure a market for your ores, that you can always find someone to sell to. That's called internal market, it helps with inflation as you manage resources in your own nation. And, you'll have to realise that some worlds will be off limit by players. You simply can't mine anywhere and most probably, you'll be minding in space, on asteroids full of iron, rather than going through dirt and rubble to do so.


I firmly believe that newer players will have to earn the gear they want by the organsation they choose to roll with. That's emergent gameplay, the veterans creating "quests" and "quest rewards" and "reputation rewards" by keeping track of the new players and how they provide for the nation/empire/corporation they work for.

I hope I offered a comprhensive response good sir.

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Good sir, setting up such a joint of mining a whole by yourself, is not something that could be done with 1 huge ship for many many many reasons. 

 

1 : Mass : Your ship extracts materials, those materials weigh down the ship. Your thrusters can barely support your ship as it is, fine tuned for that busines,, fuel efficiency being a part of that.

 

2 : Hazards : Piracy is a thing in this game. You'll need protection from them either in the form of turrets on your ship, that drain power from your ship, making your power ratio go down on the drill, or have players accompanying you as protection.

 

3 : Functionality : You can't have everything and the kitchen sink on a ship, ergo, your drills will have to be on a land-rover type of vehicle, transported there with another ship, therefore, the newer players will have the chance of operating automated mining rovers on the ground by driving them around, scanning for minerals and tapping on them for as deep as the drills can go.

 

4 : Claim of your mining site : You'll need a land base for your operations, as your drilling rovers will need fuel and a settlement for refuelling and possible repairs, will be needed.

 

5 : Having to script a drill, how it automatically harvests and all that, should be a high end reward, not gimped. It's what makes people look up to you.

 

 

 

Saying that, new players will have to progress to create their own ships and gear if they choose to, or roll with an organisation that can provide for the gameplay they want. That's cooperation and emergent gameplay in essence, as organisations will ensure a market for your ores, that you can always find someone to sell to. That's called internal market, it helps with inflation as you manage resources in your own nation. And, you'll have to realise that some worlds will be off limit by players. You simply can't mine anywhere and most probably, you'll be minding in space, on asteroids full of iron, rather than going through dirt and rubble to do so.

 

 

I firmly believe that newer players will have to earn the gear they want by the organsation they choose to roll with. That's emergent gameplay, the veterans creating "quests" and "quest rewards" and "reputation rewards" by keeping track of the new players and how they provide for the nation/empire/corporation they work for.

 

I hope I offered a comprhensive response good sir.

 

1)We don't know how thruster/mass will be balanced. There's no gravity on asteroids. A large mining ship is intended to have enough thrust to carry his load.

2)We don't know if players will let pirates use their stargates. Still, piracy isn't enough to solve the huge damage that automation/large mining ship could deal to the economy.

3) We don't know if there'll be need for a land veichle. And still, ship, drone or landveichle, doesn't matter; i'm talking about the potential to mine tons of materials in a small amount of time, whatever the construct.

4)A large mining ship is supposed to have everything it needs to run for a good amount of time. 

5)Yes, but still doesn't solve the problem. 

 

Imho, every kind of mining should be possible: drones, landvehicles, base, mining ships, large mining ship, .... all this can coexists, there are ways to balance that, you don't just make a large mining ship no viable, just because you don't like it, because there are people that does (not me personally). 

 

You didn't get what I wanted to say. If a veteran sells in the market 100 tons of iron daily, the price would go down close to zero. This means that everything made out of iron is extremely cheap, and new players can have that pretty much for free. At the same time, if they want to make some money, mining iron (or any other material) wouldn't be rewarding enough since their equipment is hundreds of times worse than the guy with the mining ship. All this is perceived as unbalanced and not polished by a new player. To conclude, in a game, you don't just let the organizations take care of the "new player experience", you develop an appropriate gameplay, even for soloplayers, otherwise it ends like eveonline.

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1)We don't know how thruster/mass will be balanced. There's no gravity on asteroids. A large mining ship is intended to have enough thrust to carry his load.

2)We don't know if players will let pirates use their stargates. Still, piracy isn't enough to solve the huge damage that automation/large mining ship could deal to the economy.

3) We don't know if there'll be need for a land veichle. And still, ship, drone or landveichle, doesn't matter; i'm talking about the potential to mine tons of materials in a small amount of time, whatever the construct.

4)A large mining ship is supposed to have everything it needs to run for a good amount of time. 

5)Yes, but still doesn't solve the problem. 

 

Imho, every kind of mining should be possible: drones, landvehicles, base, mining ships, large mining ship, .... all this can coexists, there are ways to balance that, you don't just make a large mining ship no viable, just because you don't like it, because there are people that does (not me personally). 

 

You didn't get what I wanted to say. If a veteran sells in the market 100 tons of iron daily, the price would go down close to zero. This means that everything made out of iron is extremely cheap, and new players can have that pretty much for free. At the same time, if they want to make some money, mining iron (or any other material) wouldn't be rewarding enough since their equipment is hundreds of times worse than the guy with the mining ship. All this is perceived as unbalanced and not polished by a new player. To conclude, in a game, you don't just let the organizations take care of the "new player experience", you develop an appropriate gameplay, even for soloplayers, otherwise it ends like eveonline.

 

Thing is, no one in their right mind would inflate a market like that because then their product would be worthless. What's the point in selling 100 tons of iron a day if you only get $100 for it? That's only $10,000 dollars. If you stockpile and sell it in increments, you gain much more profit. And they prolly couldn't even gather that much unless they had a massive mining ship like you mentioned. Personally, I think massive mining ships are simply a bad idea. Assuming the physics engine is even moderately realistic, as you mine more, your mass increases. Now, when the ship is empty, it can move around fine. As you increase the mass, it gets harder to move, until it's positively snail-like. This is because of inertia. You could offset this by adding more thrusters, but then you'd have to add more power, which requires more fuel, which requires more space to put the stuff, which takes away from space for resources. 

 

Simply put, after you go over a certain size, massive mining ships become more inefficient than their smaller counterparts.

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@Shynras


I see your logic, but you still have to consider what NQ's position is on botting, because that's the real issue here. And I don't think they will be supporting botting. You will actively have to be on your ship for it to mine, LUA scripts won't make Skynet for you.

And the usual rule of thumb for game admins is to check for how long a player is online and how much interactivity they have, yes, they can see that.

I once went on a 36 hours spree of mining in WoW to clear my mind and I had a very funny conversation with a GM who thought I was a bot. Tehe conversation ended with the GM saying "women, am I right?" :P .

The point is, I see your arguement on inflation, but Halo381 has a more valid point. Why sell those ores right off? Stockpile, wait for the prices to skyrocket, create a vacuum in the market for that mineral and then take advantage, usually, after a war, as iron and all those things will be needed to rebuild a fleet.

And you got to clarify what you consider automated farming, cause botting is easily dealt with a ban, temporary or permanent.

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I doubt they would not have some way to automate it or at least mine from a ship as mining by hand can get really boring and isn't really fun to do all the time. The massive amount of materials may actually be needed though in order to build large constructs like a stargate or an 8km space station and unless there is some real reason to no industrial type organization would crash a market in a material as it would crush their own profits in that material.

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If scripting is strong enough we might well be able to make our own mining drones, if we are given all the components and information needed.

I discussed this on how scripting could work with another member, and it would basically be that the drone has a laser drill "weapon", and you could program it in LUA to detect ground ahead of it or around it, then fire the laser drill, collect the ores via magic sci-fi convenience and then have a secondary loop that detects inventory space, or fuel capacity and energy levels, to send the drone back where it came from. It's possible, and it won't be a load on the servers.

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So no drones? :(

 

I mean, they could just make resource rare enough to counter botting and this insane potential to farm stuff. 

Fighing drones could be a problem, still I think there should be an option to create some. Let's say that to make a drone you need a really precious element, so you can't spam them. Problem solved, now I can have my trusted Ai robot following me around the base, assisting with various stuff xD

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So no drones? :(

 

I mean, they could just make resource rare enough to counter botting and this insane potential to farm stuff. 

Fighing drones could be a problem, still I think there should be an option to create some. Let's say that to make a drone you need a really precious element, so you can't spam them. Problem solved, now I can have my trusted Ai robot following me around the base, assisting with various stuff xD

No, drones are acceptible, the way I explained it. They are slaved to you, they are not automated. A drone is not an automaton. You are commanding it via remote.But having a ship doing automated mining wihle you are AFK, THAT is botting.

 

 

I discussed this with Cornflakes and I gave him an exampe in LUA script of how it would go in the game when it comes to detecting ground and firing a laser drill. But THAT, would require you to drive the drill-bot there yourself, then setting it onward with your LUA script and the bot will come back, when it's out of laser drill fuel, or reaches maximum carrying capacity, or even running out of fuel and needing to go back where it started. That's a drone and it's pretty self balanced. But a shp would be a son of a bitch to code. You got thrusters, detection, space traversing in script, controlling mass and thrusters, balancing forces and a ton of shit to keep in track when you write the code, and THAT as well would require you to be on board the ship to operate it, because, as far as my 4 years worth of CSD at the university taught me, you cannot put a ghost in the shell. The ship's functions will be automated, it's flying and landing would be automated, but NOT everything. The human element will need to be there still, but not in a micromanaging way. So yeah, good luck in coding a ship sized drill drone :P If asteroids have momentum you could be toast if your super expensive crashed on them :P

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No, drones are acceptible, the way I explained it. They are slaved to you, they are not automated. A drone is not an automaton. You are commanding it via remote.But having a ship doing automated mining wihle you are AFK, THAT is botting.

 

 

And you are against botting in this manner? What do you think?

 

The way I see it, if they give us the tools and the ability to have an autominer, then we should be able to. Especially since this is a sandbox game. I agree that complete automation is difficult and usually requires some human to manage things, but I don't think I should be artificially prevented from making that interaction as small as possible.

 

If an army of autominers were able to cause problems for the servers, then I would agree that limitations need to be put in place. I would not agree to those limitations before knowing whether autominers/automations were going to cause issues.

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And you are against botting in this manner? What do you think?

 

The way I see it, if they give us the tools and the ability to have an autominer, then we should be able to. Especially since this is a sandbox game. I agree that complete automation is difficult and usually requires some human to manage things, but I don't think I should be artificially prevented from making that interaction as small as possible.

 

If an army of autominers were able to cause problems for the servers, then I would agree that limitations need to be put in place. I would not agree to those limitations before knowing whether autominers/automations were going to cause issues.

 

 

 

 

 

Botting would be if you were on board a ship with automated LUA scripts and had a bot running your player character mate. That would be botting and is considered a cheat. I did mention AFK on my comment.

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Botting would be if you were on board a ship with automated LUA scripts and had a bot running your player character mate. That would be botting and is considered a cheat. I did mention AFK on my comment.

There are ways to balance automated stuff, like by limiting resources. But yes i do agree that automation would be bad, just because it plays the game instead of the player. Still, i think that having a few automation, with limited capabilities could jist be a good thing. You'd need high level skill and a really expensive element to make it work, so automated constructs would be just something rare, that you wouldnt use in a fight (too precious), just a bunch of people would have them . Mijing would be something that's not really worth the investment. Just a gimmick, to guide guests inside your base, to move cargos, to assist you whathever you're ddoing.

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There are ways to balance automated stuff, like by limiting resources. But yes i do agree that automation would be bad, just because it plays the game instead of the player. Still, i think that having a few automation, with limited capabilities could jist be a good thing. You'd need high level skill and a really expensive element to make it work, so automated constructs would be just something rare, that you wouldnt use in a fight (too precious), just a bunch of people would have them . Mijing would be something that's not really worth the investment. Just a gimmick, to guide guests inside your base, to move cargos, to assist you whathever you're ddoing.

Well, yes, the same coding used for mining could be retrofited for the droids to make transportation runs for items instead of the playeer doing so, the point is, there will be DPUs as the devs explained, the thing is that it's like in real life, one prcessor doesn't fit every situation, so it's safe to expect different tiers of DPUs, perhaps taking more commands as you go up the tier list, while increasing power consumption, so you couldn't use a high tier DPU to make a droid, but you could use a high tier DPU to automate a space ship's functions that can also support the power need of the greater in power DPU.

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Well, yes, the same coding used for mining could be retrofited for the droids to make transportation runs for items instead of the playeer doing so, the point is, there will be DPUs as the devs explained, the thing is that it's like in real life, one prcessor doesn't fit every situation, so it's safe to expect different tiers of DPUs, perhaps taking more commands as you go up the tier list, while increasing power consumption, so you couldn't use a high tier DPU to make a droid, but you could use a high tier DPU to automate a space ship's functions that can also support the power need of the greater in power DPU.

Automation is not a bad thing. Period.

 

Complete automation is a bad thing. When complete and total automation of a specified process occurs, a play is given a benifit beyond belief. I beleve that everyone could do with a little automation. 

 

Let me just hand you an example. Let's say you have a smart home system that wakes you up, turns on the coffee machine and opens the blinds. That is completely fine and should be welcomed, as it already is. However, when you see that the automation now lifts your bed, glides it down the hallway and gives you a full course breakfast, it's a problem. Not only is it a problem, but it sounds absurd because now you have eliminated things that are healthy, and have turned it into a complete glob.

 

So, automated mining, to a degree, is a healthy thing. Automated, mining, extraction, refining, and crafting all on the same ship or station without any workers. Problem.

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And automation make life easier for pirates and rogues too. Machine is always easier to defeat/destroy than human, especially when player program it and go afk ;D So, for me, you can even script avatar actions - I will have tons of fun destroying such automatons ;p 

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Automation is not a bad thing. Period.

 

Complete automation is a bad thing. When complete and total automation of a specified process occurs, a play is given a benifit beyond belief. I beleve that everyone could do with a little automation. 

 

Let me just hand you an example. Let's say you have a smart home system that wakes you up, turns on the coffee machine and opens the blinds. That is completely fine and should be welcomed, as it already is. However, when you see that the automation now lifts your bed, glides it down the hallway and gives you a full course breakfast, it's a problem. Not only is it a problem, but it sounds absurd because now you have eliminated things that are healthy, and have turned it into a complete glob.

 

So, automated mining, to a degree, is a healthy thing. Automated, mining, extraction, refining, and crafting all on the same ship or station without any workers. Problem.

 

I would have to disagree with this simply because if I can automate a miner I better be able to automate the unloading of said miner and there should be a way to move that inventory to other areas using conveyors and sorters in very large quantities. Then who in their right mind would want to refine all that by hand? I would of course have defense everywhere as well as a few people at least in case something breaks down or goes wrong but for the most part I should be able to automate the whole process. I still have some human interaction (idk how or if repair drones would work but I would still need the humans for things like script problems). I doubt mining ships of the scale I am talking about will be common in game for a while after launch but they will happen as people need more and more resources.

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And automation make life easier for pirates and rogues too. Machine is aleays easier to defeat/destroy than human, especially when player program it and go afk ;D So, for me, you can even script avatar actions - I will havetons of fun drstroing such atomatons ;p

Here's a man with a good grip on the situation. Kudos good sir. :)

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I would have to disagree with this simply because if I can automate a miner I better be able to automate the unloading of said miner and there should be a way to move that inventory to other areas using conveyors and sorters in very large quantities. Then who in their right mind would want to refine all that by hand? I would of course have defense everywhere as well as a few people at least in case something breaks down or goes wrong but for the most part I should be able to automate the whole process. I still have some human interaction (idk how or if repair drones would work but I would still need the humans for things like script problems). I doubt mining ships of the scale I am talking about will be common in game for a while after launch but they will happen as people need more and more resources.

From my experience with A.I. scripting, yes, you can access inventories by command prompts. You can automate it, th point is you have to be prcise. 

 

When coding A.I. you got to think of ants.

 

If you cut off the legs of an ant, an ant will undershoot its return home to the hive. Same goes for the A.I. . The variables on distance travelled should be measured and coded to make an automated factory, which is hard mate. Trust me, it is. I helped a friend once to finish his Uni project on his engineering degree and trust me, automating machinery is hard. The devs better add a range-finder in game, cause I ain't counting steps or voxels.

 

 

And an automated construct would be online, day in , day out, with or without you online. A ship though, would disappear on a log out. So, the devs have to make a really good "AFK automated mining" kind of detection, to prevent the system from being abused into complete automation.

 

The way I see it being implemented though, is that you simply don't have to fire the drill manually or adjust its range if it's on a gimbal. The script will do that, while you sip your coffee, eat your doritos and simply drive the ship from asteroid to asteroid.

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If a complete automated construct is going to be really expensive (like the most expensive thing in the game), as it should, botting is not a problem. 

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If a complete automated construct is going to be really expensive (like the most expensive thing in the game), as it should, botting is not a problem. 

Of course it would be a resource nightmare and an architectural diahrrea to manage, but so are actual factories in real life. My father used to be chief engineer in an industrial complex and when I was going to apply for my engineering studies, he pleaded on me to not do so, cause shit's intense and mad. It's not like writing code is any different though :/ 

 

But people who heavily invest in an industry are the ones who get to go further in life, no matter the industry. So yeah, I expect player made factories that create power cells for refuelling to be really prosperous. Perhaps even bringing "freedom" to some poor souls having done he mistake of being born over an oil reserve or something. :P

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From my experience with A.I. scripting, yes, you can access inventories by command prompts. You can automate it, th point is you have to be prcise. 

 

When coding A.I. you got to think of ants.

 

If you cut off the legs of an ant, an ant will undershoot its return home to the hive. Same goes for the A.I. . The variables on distance travelled should be measured and coded to make an automated factory, which is hard mate. Trust me, it is. I helped a friend once to finish his Uni project on his engineering degree and trust me, automating machinery is hard. The devs better add a range-finder in game, cause I ain't counting steps or voxels.

 

 

And an automated construct would be online, day in , day out, with or without you online. A ship though, would disappear on a log out. So, the devs have to make a really good "AFK automated mining" kind of detection, to prevent the system from being abused into complete automation.

 

The way I see it being implemented though, is that you simply don't have to fire the drill manually or adjust its range if it's on a gimbal. The script will do that, while you sip your coffee, eat your doritos and simply drive the ship from asteroid to asteroid.

 

I very much doubt a ship will disappear on logout simply because if would cause more problems than it solves and needlessly creates the need for a more complex system so the ship part would not be a problem. I have made auto-mining scripts in SE (sort of similar but I'm hoping this game has more freedom) and this is no where close to AI levels of complexity. Its literally just a fire weapons script with a movement script (this would also check fuel and such) and some kind of inventory management script. You also don't need a range just a position (preferably provided by the factory construct) of the offload point and a way to get the ships current position. most of the time this is relatively easy to get from ingame scripting.

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Of course it would be a resource nightmare and an architectural diahrrea to manage, but so are actual factories in real life. My father used to be chief engineer in an industrial complex and when I was going to apply for my engineering studies, he pleaded on me to not do so, cause shit's intense and mad. It's not like writing code is any different though :/ 

 

But people who heavily invest in an industry are the ones who get to go further in life, no matter the industry. So yeah, I expect player made factories that create power cells for refuelling to be really prosperous. Perhaps even bringing "freedom" to some poor souls having done he mistake of being born over an oil reserve or something. :P

 

 In that case they could just not add the "mine" command, so that automated constructs can't grind endlessy. We can't just ban any sort of automation because of mining/fighting problems, because you may use that for many things. Even for a simple platform that moves automatically up and down, as an elevator, is automated.

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