Ford Hakata
Hakata Group
   |
Posted - 2008.01.28 11:46:00 -
[1]
Edited by: Ford Hakata on 28/01/2008 11:52:29
If CCP is moving ore out of the belts, I'd love to see an "Ore regeneration upgrade path".
1) Every "mining dungeon" ("belts 2.0") has a chance of having reactionary clouds in it (chance and type based on the amount of time the clouds have been able to react with it's surroundings, on availability of ore or any other regional factors.)
2) As the belts 2.0 regrow, there is a chance that the each roid reacts with it's surroundings, to become something else entirely, an new kind of asteroid, or that it gets trace amounts of some element in it, ore something else (lots of interesting possibilities have already been mentioned.) Any of these would then in turn also add to the reactions over time, giving an "upgrade path" for asteroids.
3) This type of ore regeneration/upgrades should only be possible in belts where nobody is mining for a long time (to give the reactions time to develop without the corrosive effects of mining lasers.)
4) As a belts are mined, they will slowly be "downgraded" since mining equipment is especially harmful to the roids. The amount of mining during a week should be the deciding factor for degradation of the belt. A couple of times a week ("culling the belts") would just slow down or stagnate the reaction process, while daily mining would increase degradation.
5) This would mean that if you want guaranteed access to the lower end minerals from the ore, you have to mine the belts regularly in order to stop the ore reactions from happening.
6) As the "quality" of the belts increase over time (and with it, their desirability and likelyhood for being mined) Pirate faction would notice this, and since they too are interested in the same ore, they'll pour more resources into protecting these belts. With enough time, this would actually affect the "desirability" of the of the systems, giving a new and interesting dynamic between ratters (who don't want the system mined) and the miners.
7) The most desirable ore should only be able to "grow" in systems where there are few people warping to the belts (obvious because of the bad effects warp field bubbles have on certain types of reactionary clouds.  )
As this "upgrade path" would be a function of available asteroids * reactionary clouds * time since someone mined them, I think it wouldn't hurt much to do make this part of "Need for Speed." the current state of a belt would be determined with just a quick lookup and a small calculation. 
Furthermore, I'm guessing this would result in new systems becoming more desirable, it may also make some player alliances focus more on managing resources in entire constellations, and not just "those few good systems", and it would make the mineral market a lot more fun, since mid-range minerals may require more thoughtful attention to get than the high and low-end, and mineral prices would vary more from region to region, due to their availability. 
--
|