Mara Rinn
Minmatar
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Posted - 2008.01.29 00:23:00 -
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I like the previously suggested ideas of "obfuscating" asteroids. Rather than seeing "Asteroid (Plagioclase)" in the overview, we should just see "Asteroid". Miners will then need to scan the belt to determine which asteroids are interesting to mine - just like we can but don't need to do now. Keep the same graphics, so omber will always be glinting golden rocks - this allows for people to tell their corp mates, "hey, there's some glinting asteroids in this deadspace, and some dark black ones too".
I've been mining in 0.5 for a little while, and I must admit I'm rather disappointed with the NPCs. They spawn infrequently, and my drones can take them on without raising a sweat. I'm currently flying an Osprey with three mining lasers and three light/medium drones (acolyte, hobgoblin and friends) with Drones 3, Combat Drones 1 and Scout Drones 2.
The ideas about exploding asteroids (Mercoxit on steroids) are quite appealing - I can imagine that the stress a rock goes through when being vacuumed up by a Strip Miner II would make it fragile or even volatile. Radioactve/EWar asteroids are also novel, and appealing in some ways - but can't stop thinking about how pirates preying on miners could use exploding/EWar rocks to their own advantage. If you warp do a field, knowing that it has a 20km radioactive field that disrupts targetting and warp engines, and there's a miner sitting 12km from the nearest rock - wouldn't you just park at 20km from the miner and kill them with your missiles before heading in for the free loot?
On the flip side, seriously buffing Mining Barges and Exhumers against the passive radiation from asteroids will help encourage miners to use barges instead of Ospreys & Scythes. This will raise mineral costs though, since the smaller barges are not able to extract ores as quickly as the mining cruisers.
Exploding asteroids that damage everything around them (in, say, a 30km radius) would be excellent if they also reduced the potential of other asteroids affected by the explosion. Pick your asteroids carefully, folks. Go for the fat haul first. Strip mining from one end of a belt to the other will reduce your yields.
I enjoy semi-afk mining right now. I park my Osprey near a bunch of rocks in mission space, and just walk past the computer every couple of minutes to transfer stuff from my hold to my jetcan while I'm vacuuming, hanging out the washing, or ironing clothes. Mining is a boring chore - I only do it to make ISK while semi-afk. While I would appreciate something being done to mining in order to "spice it up" for the times I want to pay 100% attention to the game, I don't want mining to require my paying attention to the game. Anonymous asteroids is a good idea for me - I warp to the belt, scan the asteroids, make my decision about which is the best rock to mine, the set my Osprey up for my semi-afk mining.
If you really want to make mining exciting, add new "flagged asteroids" which are ultra-rich in valuable ores, but the act of mining the will flag the miner as blinky red to everyone and post a bookmark in Local. Risk vs Reward. This way the miner makes a conscious decision to go for the fat reward along with the extreme risk. But is the miner just bait in a trap?
Or an "anti-macro" asteroid that labels itself "Asteroid (Plagioclase)" in the overview but when scanned will show "Volatile Corrosive Waste" - mining it will do 51% damage to your ship's shield, armour, hull and capacitor every cycle.
Or a "volatile" asteroid that is higher in yield, but comes with the increased chance of explosion.
And make the explosions matter. No more 5km toxic cloud. Stick a 0 on the end there.
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