Pilot Archive

I think this would definitely be good for the Y8, especially when you these facts into account: The Y8 is simply to big to manuever like you would a fighter to get the asteroid bits using the forward facing pilot gun, meaning no one wants to put the main laser there. That means there is no room for a tractor beam, since th ebottom turret is useless in mining and the top turret is the only space viable for the best mining laser. However, if the tractor beam were able to pull in the big rocks, the pilot would not have to manuever unless a rock went out of the turrets ROM, meaning the main mining laser could be placed in the pilot controled slot, the top turret get have a tractor beam, and the bottom would stay as a defensive gun. The way I see it, if you have this baby and the right parts, you shouldnt have to even move while mining. I dont really see the process as manuevering and chasing after little rocks, with a good well planned operation it should be a static process. While some may say that this would simply be too easy an dpeople would just make tons of money out there, if the pilot wanted a good crew on the ship he would have to split the yields evenly between them, and while this would still produce a huge amount of cash, hey- its better then camping spawns for loot and griefing newbs.

The main reason people can make money at mining is that the mining ship can't effectively mine, and there's no way to get enough resource on a single trip to make anything except the most basic items. The fact that most miners get frustrated jacks up the CPU rate more than anything. The biggest frustration I have is that the moment I get into the groove, my hold is full, I need to land empty out, then launch, reboot my programs, fly back out to a rock.

A nice option would be to be able to pay the Mining stations to trasnport your resource. In other words, you fly over to the station, drop off your cargo, and then return to work. When you land on the planet for that system, you can step over to an NPC or a terminal and pick it up. Something like trasnport by dropping things in your safe deposit box, except you need to pay to pull things out, and you're not locked to a single system.

Also nice would be if the Tractor beam function shown in the mining missions worked in the rest of the game! It would be fun to pirate resources that way, but far better would be for a mining ship to tractor in resource from helper ships. You suck in the resource from your friend's 1550 starfighter hold into your 34k Y8 hold, and he goes back to work.