Piotyr Petrovsky
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Posted - 2010.05.04 05:06:00 -
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OK, HOPING that the high-sec resources are what you will pin them to when 50,000 extractors (or whatever number you have in mind) are all plopped down by everyone and their uncle on every planet in high-sec, and that the 0.0 levels are for ANY planet that no one is yet on. This would tend to PUSH people out when they want to do it, rather than your usual PULL way of 'Oh look! These planets out here of the exact same type just GUSH resources for no real reason!'
You KNOW the star types of each system, instead of a sec status resource distribution, index the star type and the planet type and size and orbit position to get a resource distribution...ANYTHING other than 0.0 just gets more stuff for no good reason.
Null sec has the shattered planets? Fine, that's OK. Null sec maybe has the most of a certain star type? Cool with me too as that means it's at a different time of galactic evolution! Just don't take the cheesy way out and say 0.0 gets more stuff 'cause we say so--build the box and fill it with sand and we'll deplete hi-sec soon enough!
But if you ask your planet consultant, I'm sure he'll tell you that the ability of the human race to significantly deplete a gas giant of any given resource is a pretty silly concept--so even high-sec gas giants should always spew forth lots and lots of stuff and not ever noticably 'deplete' no matter how many extractors are running, but other resources would have different rates--some significantly faster to deplete.
That's at level 1 extraction, though. If you take the idea to add levels to the extractors (and then the scanning ability as well) and also COORDINATES you'd add these things (using oil as an example):
1 bubbling crude - Jed Clampett strikes it rich
2 shallow drilling
3 deep drilling/ocean drilling
4 oil shale extraction
5 oil sand extraction
So a planet can be pretty much pinned to the bottom end of the resource scale at level 1, BUT, if no one has tapped level 2 yet, then you win!
You need the extractor skill to plant one the right level, so with coords you get the mini-profession of surveyor! Hire someone to scan for level 4 oil on your planet instead of drilling random dry holes--and hope he's not a scammer! (Corps would benefit since you know your corp-mate.)
Scanning and extracting would be MEGA skills, like x15 or x20; the effect would be for planets to deplete and spring back into vogue with higher skills then deplete again...for entry level give a 'basic' extractor that is a x1 skill and can extract ANYTHING on the planet but at a much reduced rate. You'd see like just two choices for each of the resources instead of four choices for a specific extractor type.
ABOVE ALL ELSE PLEASE IMPLEMENT THIS NEXT BIT!
Get rid of the import/export tax and replace it with the way more realistic 'gravity tax'! Which is to say it's the cost to launch your shuttle out of a given gravity well.
You already KNOW the escape velocity of all your planets; all you need to do is add a MASS to all the stuff and keep the volume, then you can fit 10 tons or 10,000 m3 into your shuttle, and then calculate the launch cost as fuel needed to make the shuttle get off the planet for the overall shuttle mass + cargo mass.
This adds a nifty dimension to it all--gas giants you are gonna export raw gas since gas is WAYYY more compressible than water (need to be able to extract hydrogen somewhere now) and other worlds would have other cut-off points for the 'export or build here decision?' It lets us find the sweet spots to do things in the most efficient way using ALL the planets. (BTW, import would be 'free' or very minimal cost, just glide a cargo can down to the surface.)
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