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Thread: Ideas for How to Implement Asteroid Mining
Here are some ideas I've come up with for asteroid mining that I'd like to see included in Jump to Lightspeed at some (relatively soon) point.
Iknowthere are a number of objections to allowing asteroid mining in JtL (including that the developers have said it won't be in theoriginal release), and I address most of these issuesin the list below. If you have any other objections, or if you'd like to add to these ideas or suggest some of your own related to asteroid mining, this is the place.
Enjoy!
1. Ten big space sectors should offer plenty of room for mining. If there's at least one asteroid field per sector, that's good; if there are multiple fields in some sectors, that's better. If asteroid fields are also large enough to have thousands of different-sized rocks, that's perfect.
2. It might be desirable to limit the use of space resources to schematics for ships and ship components. This would prevent people who buy the JtL expansion from having an advantage over those who don't and who are thus restricted to the ground game. Alternately, allow space resources to be used in all crafting -- what's the point of an expansion if not to get people to buy it because it gives them valuable new abilities?
3. Limit the impact of asteroid mining on the overall economy by requiring the use of ships with specialized cargo holds (inventory containers) whose sole use is carrying resources mined from asteroids. (If your ship is destroyed, you lose some or all of whatever is in your cargo hold.) Two other ways to minimize the economic impact of asteroid mining would be to make asteroid mining dangerous (see item 4), and to cap the total number of resource units that can be harvested (see item 12).
4. Space should generally be somewhat dangerous, what with natural hazards, NPC pirates, and factional NPCs (and possibly Space Monsters). The two "badlands" sectors should be even more dangerous. Resource quality should tend to improve with proximity to danger -- not 1:1, but often enough so that the risk vs. reward relationship is reasonably strong. Note that this also helps limit the impact of asteroid mining on the overall game economy by keeping the number of miners low.
5. Require a "mining rig" to mine resources from asteroids. This is a device that attaches to a ship in place of a weapon, modifying the appearance of that ship appropriately. This will distinguish mining ships from non-combatant ships (although pirates might look for ships with mining rigs!), and would improve the game experience by requiring players to make interesting choices between firepower and commercial abilities.
6. An even simpler approach might be to dispense with the mining rig concept altogether and just let the player sample from the nearest asteroid. The player would simply have to imagine that some kind of drilling rig is in use, but as this is pretty much how the ground game works now (other than the surveying/sampling animations), players are already used to it. The advantage of this approach is that it eliminates the need for new art resources (the mining rig image) to be created and programmed.
7. It would be nice if asteroid mining generated a unique animation similar to ground-based sampling/surveying.
8. Ships have to attach themselves to an asteroid to be able to mine it. (I'd say let ships land on asteroids, but that functionality is probably not in the initial combat-specific edition of JtL. OTOH I see no reason why we can't expect to be able to bump up against objects in space even in the initial release of JtL, so a very primitive form of "docking" to asteroids for the purpose of mining should be simple enough to implement. Naturally, there might be a bit of math involved in making sure the player's ship remains tangential to the asteroid's surface while taking on the 3-D motion elements of that asteroid and its rotational motion. But of course programmers live for solving that kind of challenge. )
9. Requiring players to be present to mine resources from asteroids allows reuse of the existing "sampling" UI, minimizing the new UI code that would otherwise have to be written.
10. Minimize crowding by restricting individual asteroids to one miner at a time. Alternately, base the number of active miners per asteroid on the size of that asteroid (assuming the sizes of asteroids vary appropriately).
11. To keep things simple, give each asteroid its own random percentage for all current space resources. Or if more "realism" is desired, calculate resource percentages just like on the ground (except in 3-D) so that the asteroids nearest the highest percentage location have the best percentages, but others farther away have decreasing percentages.
12. As yet another alternative, consider setting a total number of resource units for each asteroid when new resources are spawned. Furthermore, let mining operations on a particular asteroid actually "use up" all the resources on that asteroid as they're mined. Rather than players sitting in the same spot for days, you'd have miners constantly moving through asteroid fields, which would be a lot more interesting. Running out of asteroids with "good" resources shouldn't be a problem as long as space is full of asteroids (compared to the number of miners) and resources shift often enough. It would however still help limit the number of space-mined resources, thus minimizing the impact of these resources on the overall game economy.
--Flatfingers
Message Edited by Flatfingers on 08-25-2004 06:12 PM
A good argument Flatfingers. Since landing on asteroids won't be possible for the foreseeable future i'd recommend sticking with the mining rig concept and have it act like a tractor beam to remove resources from the asteroid. The additional idea of requiring specialized cargo containers in the hold for the minerals is also a good idea. This would be a reasonable bonus to YT-1300's as they have the lower turret to mount such an extractor and a real cargo hold.
Since asteroids are destroyed all the time by weapons fire i'd rather they be destroyed on depletion of resources and new asteroids spawn to take their place. Limit the mining rigs extraction to about twice that of a ground based medium harvester, this would take a lot more work than ground harvesters and require constant player attention so I see no problem in an improved performance rate to balance the extra work.
To extract resources a ship would have to be within a close distance to the object in question and at a complete stop. I think the largest asteroids don't move much aside from rotation. A ship would have to be on constant guard from pirates, claim jumper NPCsand hostile factions, space just isn't a safe place and being caught unawares just sitting there would be a big inducement to have friends watching your back.
Space extracted resources should be required some components for theSW and SFE professions but permit their use as generic materials in any ground based crafting profession to prevent unfair advantage.
Fellstaff, where did you get the idea that shipwrights can't be pilots. That's never been one of the Devs options. Repeatedly they have said that SW's could go into space to collect their own components to reverse engineer, or they could remain on the planet and let others do it for them. The SW and SWE take their skill points from the ground based skill point pool but the pilot skills take from an entirely different point pool.
As for the rest of your comments I agree Space should be dangerous but that's about it. A properly implements and responsible space based resource system should have no adverse impacts on the ground economy, if anything it should enhance it.
Message Edited by Mosati on 08-25-2004 09:51 PM
MultiE wrote:
I have to agree with Herbsman and Adoraz, please.. no space mining, I cant think about a roid and a mining laser without feeling sick after have played eve for 6 months
resource collection should be permitted in space, if you don't like it, you can just mine on the ground or not at all.
Commerce should be a big part of the space expansion and many people are disappointed that it isn't included yet. Mining should be part of that, but unlike other games, swg doesn't limit that as basically the only way to make money, it's just another option and options are always good.
Excellent discussion so far -- please keep the comments coming, pro or con.
I'd like to comment myselfon the "asteroid mining in Eve Online" question. I haven't playe Eve, but my understanding is that the biggest problem with asteroid mining in that game was that you could spend a bunch of time slowly collecting resources... and as soon as you head back to base, a pirate can come along and destroy you. No ship, no cargo, all gone. As one poster pointed out, this "is not for the faint-hearted."
Is this the main objection to including asteroid harvesting in SWG? If so, we know you don't lose your ship in SWG when it's blown out of the sky, so that's not a problem. If you don't lose all your mined cargo, would that address the other part of this objection?
If not, what else would asteroid mining in SWG need to include to make it fun for you and for other players?
--Flatfingers
Mkappus wrote:
1. New ships would be added that have a mining capability. I don't want to see Tie's and X-wings mining. What I think would be cool is possibly a multi-player ship where you have a miner/pilot, and a gunner or two. The gunners could be used to destroy smaller asteroids before they hit you, and also to fight those pesky pirates.
I think you're right about this. I considered baldly stating that only multiplayer ships (currently the SoroSuub yacht and the YT-1300) would be able to attach mining rigs, but I wanted to try to include as many players as possible in space mining.
On balance, though, I think I agree with you -- I don't want to see TIEs and X-wings mining asteroids, either. Would limiting mining to multiplayer ships (with or without the "mining rig" notion) work for you?
2. Possibly have a second type of mining ship that launches limited used droids and then recollects them. Would be a nice addition for DEs.
This is another idea I didn't go into much, but the idea of finding a way for droids to play a useful and fun role in space mining would be of great value in helping generate that "Star Wars" atmosphere. (Wait... space has no atmosphere! Never mind. )
I personally couldn't come up witha good idea for thisoff the top of my head as I was putting together my initial list of ideas, so I didn't follow up on it.But I likeyour idea of miner droids-- sort of like the seeker droids in ESB, except that they can collect resources and return them to the calling player. In conjunction with survey droids (would these be able to return info to you in space), they could really add to the flavor of space mining.
I alsolike the limited-use aspect you proposed for these miner droids. DEs and other professionsneed more consumables to sell beyond mere batteries-- why shouldArtisans (powerups), Chefs (food/drinks), medical types (stims/medpacks),and Smugglers (spices) have all the fun?
Good stuff!
--Flatfingers
Message Edited by Flatfingers on 08-26-2004 04:06 PM
Mkappus wrote:
1. Space mineral exploration, allow for different kinds of mineral/gas exploration and harvesting in space.
2. Ship salvage - give special abilities to harvest loot/resources off of destroyed ships, after a a timer has gone off for limited loot rights to the owner of the kill.
3. Ship repair - give these folks the ability to "rez" ships in space or tow into dry dock... Sort of like jumpstart in E&B.
4. Supply ship - sort of be a space merchant where you can sell fuel (if it is needed) missles, ammo, armor... in space. You can't make it, but if you get a deal with a shipwright/starfighter engineer you can be a distributor in space....
Sounds like a kind of mobile"space garage" -- you pull up to one of thesein your starfighter (or it comes to you -- slowly), ring the bell, and out floats the space mechanic to check your oil, lube your motivators, and send you back into action. When no fighter jocks need anything, the mechanic can spend his time as a prospector and treasure hunter.
I see no reason why something like this couldn't be included in JtL at some point, as it clearly offers a direct support function to space combat.
For now, I wonder if there are any other useful features that we can think of for asteroid mining...? (Could Creature Handlers tame space pets that digest ore and excrete high-quality metals? Hmmm....)
--Flatfingers