Shurikane
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Posted - 2008.01.30 05:12:00 -
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tl;dr on the thread, so if I'm repeating something somebody else said... too bad! 
My comments:
1 - Keep static belts. Regardless of the way the project goes, we need to have a handful of static belts in the system, regardless of their nature. Those belts can serve to provide the really common minerals and at least give ratters something to do.
2 - Salvage complexes. I read this a few pages back and I love the idea. The discovery of a huge shipwreck, or an ancient battle zone, or an abandoned facility - perhaps the ruins of a station? Those items could be scanned and salvaged for additional materials, perhaps even components to make T2 rigs.
3 - No red herrings. Placing things like fool's gold would do nothing but infuriate a miner. If I'm going to be scanning down a stack of asteroids, I'd like to at least get some viable reward from my time of searching and pinpointing down the location (not a quick and easy feat with today's scanner tools.) The only reason I can see for those asteroids to exist is to visually complement a complex - much like the barren asteroids put into missions as large collidable objects.
4 - Moon minerals in asteroids. Asteroids are composed of a bunch of things. So why not stick a little handful of moon-reserved materials in them? You mine that piece of ore, and it happens to contain a little bit of, say, iron. Not a great amount, but enough for a small-time producer to put a few personal components together without having to rely on a POS.
5 - 1-minute strip miners. Simply because waiting 3 minutes to get one unit of Bistot is a disappointment...
6 - More deep core mining asteroids. I currently have a skill trained and an incomprehensibly expensive ship just to mine a single type of ore. It would be nice to get some variety into the mix - perhaps incorporate those with the moon minerals I spoke of earlier?
7 - Keep reprocessing universal, or make it a binary matter. I shouldn't have to lose a load of ore because I "refined it at the wrong facility." Either all facilities refine everything, or those that cannot refine a certain ore simply leave it alone.
8 - Specialized exploration ships/gangs. I tie this into the mining part for this reason: Normally, you want to scan down a hidden belt, you hop in a frigate, launch a scanner probe and get to work. Here's an alternate solution: strength in numbers. Under this new system, you could scan down belts the classic way, or you could fleet up with mates. Within the fleet, members coordinate their efforts and synchronize their findings and data. In this manner, several fleet members could launch probes that overlap each other and make the finding of good belts easier by achieving a globally higher sensor strength and/or scan deviation. Once all the probes are in place, the fleet commander hits a "synchronized analysis" button. Perhaps something doable by a gang module of sorts?
9 - Complex ores. These "conglomerate" asteroids are actually a bunch of different veins grouped up together. By fitting a specialized mining laser and/or correspondant mining crystal, the laser will pull in from the appropriate vein until there is no more - at which point you fit a different crystal and begin mining another part of the roid.
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