Forums » Suggestions
Make asteroids with bots actually valuable
Ok I thought over the weeks I might discover some wonderful asteroids guarded by bots, that only groups could mine.
I was wrong.
Every rare mineral that exists is fully minable by an unarmed ship in a sector with little (artemis collectors) or no bots.
I remember the mining design document or whatever in the progress report/news said that somehow asteroids guarded by bots should have more valuable ore so we would have to team up.
We don't.
Pentric, for example, you can mine easily in the presence of mighty Artemis Collectors (oh no!), which only attack 1 at a time and can't hit the broad side of a barn. Heliocene can be found at stations and at sectors with no bots at all. Denic is all around stations and wormholes. Lanthanic and Apicene, same thing. Pyronic is at a wormhole in a huge amount, and at some bot-free sectors as well.
I am not talking isolated incidents here. All of the systems that are populated with a certain 'rare ore' have that ore sitting in the open at stations and wormholes.
Thus, there is nothing special in the 'bot fields'. Ok, I will say that it is true, several systems have tiny pockets of Xithricite that is only in bot fields. For example: Helios, Azek, and Arta Caelestis. However, Xithricite is only worth 900!
Why would anyone go to a bot field to get some horribly heavy ore and hire escorts, when they could, in the same system, just go to where Artemis Collectors are guarding Heliocene and Pentric, both of which are worth twice as much as Xithricite.
On top of all this, the rebalance of the Centaur has made solo-mining amongst Orne Guardians and Prosus Assaults a distinct possibility. All you have to do is learn to 'orbit' a roid as you are mining it, and the bots just follow you like little puppy dogs, usually not being able to get a bead on you. With the new thrust/mass ratio of the Centaurs, you can do this until you are mostly full of ore, then jet off unscathed. I will admit this is a bit difficult to actually pull off sometimes, especially with 4 dentek assaults on you.
However, it is much quicker and easier and cheaper to do this than to hire people to fight off the bots for you.
I should know. I have been on a dozen or so group mining missions, and the time it takes to set that up, gather your people, divide the profits at the end (dividing the cargo is especially annoying, you have to jettison outside station)...
It's just not worth it financially. You can make more money, more easily, soloing.
----
I would just suggest that perhaps we actually need a modification of mining.
I can see that if we had more people in the universe, things might work out better. All minerals at stations would have their prices crash as the hordes mined them, and the easy to find rocks would be hot all the time. Thus Xithricite from the bot-sectors in Helios or Azek might actually be valuable. However, we don't have enough people playing right now for that to happen. So maybe there is a way we could adjust for this, until more people do come.
One solution is to simply make roids cool off much more slowly. For example at station one day I heated dozens of Denic ice to 40 degrees kelvin. A few of them were to 70 or 80. I came back the next day, they were all 10 degrees again. If the 'easy to find' asteroids would stay hot longer, people would have to go into the bot sectors.
Another solution is to simulate the amount of people we need that would make group mining necessary. This could be done by NPC miners. They would provide the 'critical mass' of miners to where us players actually have to go into dangerous places to make money.
Another would be to change the price-caps on certain ores in certain places. For example, if Premium Xithricite could be worth 2,000 in places like Azek or Helios, then people would actually go and brave those bot fields in order to mine it, instead of getting Heliocene or Pentric from stations or Artemis Collector sectors.
Another solution is to introduce some new types of ore, that are found only where there are very hard bots. Not at stations, not at wormholes, and it would actually be more valuable than the other ores, not less (like Xithricite is).
Thanks.
I was wrong.
Every rare mineral that exists is fully minable by an unarmed ship in a sector with little (artemis collectors) or no bots.
I remember the mining design document or whatever in the progress report/news said that somehow asteroids guarded by bots should have more valuable ore so we would have to team up.
We don't.
Pentric, for example, you can mine easily in the presence of mighty Artemis Collectors (oh no!), which only attack 1 at a time and can't hit the broad side of a barn. Heliocene can be found at stations and at sectors with no bots at all. Denic is all around stations and wormholes. Lanthanic and Apicene, same thing. Pyronic is at a wormhole in a huge amount, and at some bot-free sectors as well.
I am not talking isolated incidents here. All of the systems that are populated with a certain 'rare ore' have that ore sitting in the open at stations and wormholes.
Thus, there is nothing special in the 'bot fields'. Ok, I will say that it is true, several systems have tiny pockets of Xithricite that is only in bot fields. For example: Helios, Azek, and Arta Caelestis. However, Xithricite is only worth 900!
Why would anyone go to a bot field to get some horribly heavy ore and hire escorts, when they could, in the same system, just go to where Artemis Collectors are guarding Heliocene and Pentric, both of which are worth twice as much as Xithricite.
On top of all this, the rebalance of the Centaur has made solo-mining amongst Orne Guardians and Prosus Assaults a distinct possibility. All you have to do is learn to 'orbit' a roid as you are mining it, and the bots just follow you like little puppy dogs, usually not being able to get a bead on you. With the new thrust/mass ratio of the Centaurs, you can do this until you are mostly full of ore, then jet off unscathed. I will admit this is a bit difficult to actually pull off sometimes, especially with 4 dentek assaults on you.
However, it is much quicker and easier and cheaper to do this than to hire people to fight off the bots for you.
I should know. I have been on a dozen or so group mining missions, and the time it takes to set that up, gather your people, divide the profits at the end (dividing the cargo is especially annoying, you have to jettison outside station)...
It's just not worth it financially. You can make more money, more easily, soloing.
----
I would just suggest that perhaps we actually need a modification of mining.
I can see that if we had more people in the universe, things might work out better. All minerals at stations would have their prices crash as the hordes mined them, and the easy to find rocks would be hot all the time. Thus Xithricite from the bot-sectors in Helios or Azek might actually be valuable. However, we don't have enough people playing right now for that to happen. So maybe there is a way we could adjust for this, until more people do come.
One solution is to simply make roids cool off much more slowly. For example at station one day I heated dozens of Denic ice to 40 degrees kelvin. A few of them were to 70 or 80. I came back the next day, they were all 10 degrees again. If the 'easy to find' asteroids would stay hot longer, people would have to go into the bot sectors.
Another solution is to simulate the amount of people we need that would make group mining necessary. This could be done by NPC miners. They would provide the 'critical mass' of miners to where us players actually have to go into dangerous places to make money.
Another would be to change the price-caps on certain ores in certain places. For example, if Premium Xithricite could be worth 2,000 in places like Azek or Helios, then people would actually go and brave those bot fields in order to mine it, instead of getting Heliocene or Pentric from stations or Artemis Collector sectors.
Another solution is to introduce some new types of ore, that are found only where there are very hard bots. Not at stations, not at wormholes, and it would actually be more valuable than the other ores, not less (like Xithricite is).
Thanks.
I could heat some medium sized roids (if classifications are small, medium, large, gigantic) to 100K and they'd cool down after maybe 15 hrs. And these are my 80%+ Heliocenes.
I don't think we need to making things more difficult. Simply lower the viability of mining at stations, wormholes or other gaurded territories. Any of the upper teir ores should only be able to be mined in hostile zones. Could still leave a few small roids for beginning miners to make a little profit from, but should be small enough that they heat up too quickly to provide an exploitable location.
Releasing a couple of aligned collector bots around each station would keep the roids in that area warm and less easy to mine. It might also be possible to make areas around bases cool to something like 60K right next to the station and drop that by 2K for every 100m the rock is away from the station.
I presume that humans didn't stop using collector bots as I see various types of defense bots around stations, CtC ships, strike forces. Why not have some collector bots mining station sectors and dropping off their loot at the station?
We've also previously discussed the ability to temporarily clear out a sector of bots. This would have two good effects. 1) it would allow people to combat mine... go clear a sector and then mine it. 2) It would keep people from sitting in one sector, botting for hours.
Here's a variation on that scheme that might be fun...
1) sector starts off with fairly easy collector bots.
2) there is a delay between when you kill it and when a bot respawns. Easy bots respawn relatively quickly.
3) If that sector continues to lose bots, the queen starts sending harder ones there. Eventually she sends in things like Tycorps and Apu's. If those get killed, she sends in several assault ships at once, and the heat keeps getting turned up. The delay between wings gets longer (since it takes more time to assemble a 'strike force').
4) If a bot strike force patrols a sector for a while and encounters no resistance, the queen sends in more advanced collectors. The guards stick around for a while.
5) The queen withdraws the guards if they meet no resistance. Slowly at first. Say half of the assault bots leave every 15 minutes. If there were 8 bot guards, it would take about an hour for them to clear out.
6) if the advanced collectors remain undisturbed, when they warp out to return to the queen, she replaces them with the next easier bot.
7) left completely alone, some sectors would revert to Oruns.
8) if the queen in that system had been destroyed, then no new bots spawn. A new queen should respawn in the same sector as a queen in a neighboring system (after about 30-60 minutes). That new queen should then travel to a random sector in the system that is now devoid of a queen. Imagine the surprise one might have to note that a queen and her escorts just came in through the wormhole. Yikes, talk about a navigation hazard.
* Now obviously this would need to be tweaked. Some sectors will never fall below a certain type/number of collector (Dentek's, etc). Other sectors will have a much quicker response to botting. Some will send in the bot strike force right away, others will take a long time. Some will start with some guard bots.*
This would add some variation to bot infested sectors, it would prevent people from hanging out in the same old fishing holes and would encourage people to explore a bit.
The 'bots sighted' list would need to be updated, and perhaps aged out if no one had been there in a while. Perhaps if no one had been in a sector for 30 minutes the map would show a message like "Bots Sighted: Dentek, Orun (30 minutes ago)". Perhaps this only works in monitored space.
I presume that humans didn't stop using collector bots as I see various types of defense bots around stations, CtC ships, strike forces. Why not have some collector bots mining station sectors and dropping off their loot at the station?
We've also previously discussed the ability to temporarily clear out a sector of bots. This would have two good effects. 1) it would allow people to combat mine... go clear a sector and then mine it. 2) It would keep people from sitting in one sector, botting for hours.
Here's a variation on that scheme that might be fun...
1) sector starts off with fairly easy collector bots.
2) there is a delay between when you kill it and when a bot respawns. Easy bots respawn relatively quickly.
3) If that sector continues to lose bots, the queen starts sending harder ones there. Eventually she sends in things like Tycorps and Apu's. If those get killed, she sends in several assault ships at once, and the heat keeps getting turned up. The delay between wings gets longer (since it takes more time to assemble a 'strike force').
4) If a bot strike force patrols a sector for a while and encounters no resistance, the queen sends in more advanced collectors. The guards stick around for a while.
5) The queen withdraws the guards if they meet no resistance. Slowly at first. Say half of the assault bots leave every 15 minutes. If there were 8 bot guards, it would take about an hour for them to clear out.
6) if the advanced collectors remain undisturbed, when they warp out to return to the queen, she replaces them with the next easier bot.
7) left completely alone, some sectors would revert to Oruns.
8) if the queen in that system had been destroyed, then no new bots spawn. A new queen should respawn in the same sector as a queen in a neighboring system (after about 30-60 minutes). That new queen should then travel to a random sector in the system that is now devoid of a queen. Imagine the surprise one might have to note that a queen and her escorts just came in through the wormhole. Yikes, talk about a navigation hazard.
* Now obviously this would need to be tweaked. Some sectors will never fall below a certain type/number of collector (Dentek's, etc). Other sectors will have a much quicker response to botting. Some will send in the bot strike force right away, others will take a long time. Some will start with some guard bots.*
This would add some variation to bot infested sectors, it would prevent people from hanging out in the same old fishing holes and would encourage people to explore a bit.
The 'bots sighted' list would need to be updated, and perhaps aged out if no one had been there in a while. Perhaps if no one had been in a sector for 30 minutes the map would show a message like "Bots Sighted: Dentek, Orun (30 minutes ago)". Perhaps this only works in monitored space.
That would definitely make you explore new spots and would make botting a lot more interested, though botting it's self would probably not get any harder, at the very least it's variety and that makes it less boring. I would love to see a queens death affect the spawn rate of bots, I can't stand the fact that you can NEVER clear out a zone. All and all, Furious has a great suggestions and something long those lines would be much prefered to what we have now.
8) if the queen in that system had been destroyed, then no new bots spawn. A new queen should respawn in the same sector as a queen in a neighboring system (after about 30-60 minutes). That new queen should then travel to a random sector in the system that is now devoid of a queen. Imagine the surprise one might have to note that a queen and her escorts just came in through the wormhole. Yikes, talk about a navigation hazard.
A truly great idea. Do it devs, you know you want to.
A truly great idea. Do it devs, you know you want to.
i like tramshed, I think i posted a suggestion similar to it, but i can't remember i might just have been thinking it.
anyway, that would make group mining more fun too, because you have to find the queen, destroy her, kill all the bots, mine, and get out of there before the new bots come.
anyway, that would make group mining more fun too, because you have to find the queen, destroy her, kill all the bots, mine, and get out of there before the new bots come.
Somewhat tangental, but I'm going to mention again my Ionized Ore suggestion. It would simply make ore mined from Ion Storms "Ionized" rather than "Premium", and Ionized Ore would be more valuable than Premium. This would help give Ion Storms more of a purpose than just annoying players as they were travelling, and would also give a larger reward for more dangerous mining. And I'm thinking our Pirate players would like it as well.
i also agree with Beolach, as i think i did in is other post.