Shipwright Archive
Thread: Flagrant attempt to promote healthy discussion: The Miner...
Kalano
Fri Nov 12, 2004 12:49 am
#14
When the bring the next expansion in, which i truely hope they bring in ground combat vehicles (that would make me so happy), a miner would be an awsome profession to bring in then.
I would have to agree that they would need to put definate, miner only droid abilities, or new droids that miners only could use. Hmmm....i think i just said the same thing twice.......need sleep i think. anywho. They would also need to do the resource blending as mentioned by Byrion.....urg....sorry for butchering the name. use the same excuse i just previously used. Definately the ability to mine astroids. Oh, that would be totally awsome. Same type of resources........but wait......new expansion.....new resources that only you get from the astroids. hmmm.....possibilities there. maybe an increase in survey range and sampling, but no increase on the BER rate.
Yeah, definatly with a new expansion and more stuff to buy, own, and play with that requires more crafters. yeah. 
ok, time to sleep. damn that thing called work.
Jagged-F3l
Fri Nov 12, 2004 6:47 am
#15
I saw this notion being thrown around in the beta forums, and I love it. However, what I saw on the beta forums was pitched a little differently. The branches of the Miner profession included ideas like:
- Enhanced Surveying - give miners the ability to survey more efficiently. Perhaps withouthaving to travel as much. Perhaps more efficient use of survey droids (which I think are fairly useless at this time).
- Enhanced Harvesting - give the miner the ability to harvest more resources than anyone else. Simple. Maybe they simply receive a bonus that allows their harvesters to extract better than anyone else.
- Resource Refining - the ability to shove a harvested resource into a refinery and pull out something with one or more improved statistics. Perhaps this would work with a tool and a factory. The tool would be used to take a particular resource and experiment on one or more statistics (much in the same way that a crafter experiments). The tool would produce a profile for the refinery, which would take large amounts of the resource and refine it to the profile (at cost of maintenance and energy and maybe even other resources).
- Composite Production - the ability to create new resources through the combination of other resources. We do this in real life--carbon-steel composites tend to be stronger then steel. They do it in the EU as well--ferrocrete, plasteel, durasteel.
However, I also saw ideas thrown around that intimated to removing harvesters from architect and giving the ability to craft these to miners. Strongly disagree on this point. In fact, I indicated that there would be new tools and structures (e.g., refineries), and those should be scattered around between artisans and architects. In real life, the miner mines, he doesn't build miners.
Happymob
Fri Nov 12, 2004 7:31 am
#16
Jagged-F3l wrote:
- Enhanced Surveying - give miners the ability to survey more efficiently. Perhaps withouthaving to travel as much. Perhaps more efficient use of survey droids (which I think are fairly useless at this time).
- Enhanced Harvesting - give the miner the ability to harvest more resources than anyone else. Simple. Maybe they simply receive a bonus that allows their harvesters to extract better than anyone else.
- Resource Refining - the ability to shove a harvested resource into a refinery and pull out something with one or more improved statistics. Perhaps this would work with a tool and a factory. The tool would be used to take a particular resource and experiment on one or more statistics (much in the same way that a crafter experiments). The tool would produce a profile for the refinery, which would take large amounts of the resource and refine it to the profile (at cost of maintenance and energy and maybe even other resources).
- Composite Production - the ability to create new resources through the combination of other resources. We do this in real life--carbon-steel composites tend to be stronger then steel. They do it in the EU as well--ferrocrete, plasteel, durasteel.
This seems to be the model most popular in the artisan forums, where this discussion comes up relatively frequently. You don't have to add harvester certs (except for new, larger, miner only harvesters possibly). You don't have to take anything away from anyone's current template. You don't really have to add more lots for miners (just let them harvest more on the same number of lots).
Like many other crafters, I got tired of being both a miner and a crafter (doctor/CM stuff in my case). Since I couldn't find a decent supplier of flora organics, I dropped the medical crafting and went full-time organics miner. I pride myself on the fact that a brand new doctor can buy resources from me for 4 to 9 cpu and immediately turn these into 15 cpu stimpacks or woundpacks without placing a single harvester.
I suspect a lot of medium-sizedcrafters would be willing to give up resource harvesting if they could get a ready supply of reasonably priced resources. To get there, we need more miners dedicated to the resell market. A miner profession would help with that.
rols_cerentz
Fri Nov 12, 2004 7:47 am
#17
While I completely agree with the concept, I don't quite agree with the model of the 4 trees you are suggesting. I can see a miner profession having a better capability at surveying the surface of a planet, perhaps with a new specialty resource scanner that can scan out several thousand meters or pinpoint higher quality concentrations where the artisan profession cannot, such as an extra layer of resource veins that can only be reached with the mining profession.
I can see the trees having one to do with Surveying, one for Extracting, one for Refining/Smelting and perhaps another for crafting advanced mining platforms that take up as much space as a medium house. Below, I explain a few ideas about how those trees can work. Perhaps I am off base, perhaps this could work excellently.
Surveying
This can provide larger ranges of the surveying skill, perhaps used in conjunction with a new surveying tool. The range increase could start at 500m and work all the way up to 2000m at the 4th Box. This would give a miner profession the capability of more quickly covering a planet looking for this or that resource. It could also include a way to check a resources stats without having to kneel and extract a sample of ore.
Extracting
This could provide access to deeper deposits of veins, perhaps allowing for either a bonus on the extracting unit or an overall bonus to deposits. Perhaps a BER10 unit would act as a BER12 or higher upon reaching the 4th tier of this box or a resource showing up as 45% for Artisan players would look like a 55% or 60% vein to Miners with a 4th box in Extracting.
Refining/Smelting
This would be the moneymaker skill for the Miner class. With this the miner can take existing resources and refine them, increasing certain or all stats, but decreasing the amount of ore in the pile. There would obviously have to be a gate of either only allowing it to be used once for a grouping of ore, that obtains a new serial number/name. It would also be interesting to see if it would be possible to allow stats to be pushed up over 1000 for the inorganic resources, but obviously not much over 1000, perhaps as high as 1100 or 1200, but only at the 4th skill box or Mastery of the profession.
This could also be used to take two different resource and create a composite resource. For instance, most anyone with a high school education is aware that Steel itself isn't mined directly from the ground, but Iron is and that is combined with other materials in order to create various grades of steel. The Smelting part of this branch would allow the Miner to take Iron and Carbonate Ore, for instance, and combine the two into a grade of steel. Perhaps with a 2 Iron to 1 Carbonate Ore or vice versa. This would allow the miner to collect mass quantities of resources and then merge resources to match the changing market needs, or create certain specialty allows that could be used for particular high-end components for the other crafting professions.
Advanced Mining Platforms
Have you ever gone surveying, only to find that the resource you want is best concentrated deep in a lake or large body of water or is nestled into a tight hilly area that keeps you from putting down anything bigger then a personal extractor? With this ability, the Miner could build mining platforms, like oil derricks out in the Gulf of Mexico, these 'towers' would be similar in design and function.
They would take up lots, but either allow upwards of 3 or 4 Medium Harvesters to be 'mounted' on them or would have their own built-in harvesting machinery that would be individually maintained/operated by the Miner. This would allow, for instance, the extraction of Minerals, Chemicals and perhaps Gasses at the same time. Of course, they would take up just as many lots as individual harvesting units or one additional lot over that. The benefit would be that these platforms could be placed in deep water and be easily accessible and also be placed in hilly/mountainous regions.
Also, due to the cost of operating such equipment the Miner would need a regular income of credits, especially when needing to move such a platform.
Anyway, it's doable and could add a significant amount of flavor and possibility to the game.
I can see the trees having one to do with Surveying, one for Extracting, one for Refining/Smelting and perhaps another for crafting advanced mining platforms that take up as much space as a medium house. Below, I explain a few ideas about how those trees can work. Perhaps I am off base, perhaps this could work excellently.
Surveying
This can provide larger ranges of the surveying skill, perhaps used in conjunction with a new surveying tool. The range increase could start at 500m and work all the way up to 2000m at the 4th Box. This would give a miner profession the capability of more quickly covering a planet looking for this or that resource. It could also include a way to check a resources stats without having to kneel and extract a sample of ore.
Extracting
This could provide access to deeper deposits of veins, perhaps allowing for either a bonus on the extracting unit or an overall bonus to deposits. Perhaps a BER10 unit would act as a BER12 or higher upon reaching the 4th tier of this box or a resource showing up as 45% for Artisan players would look like a 55% or 60% vein to Miners with a 4th box in Extracting.
Refining/Smelting
This would be the moneymaker skill for the Miner class. With this the miner can take existing resources and refine them, increasing certain or all stats, but decreasing the amount of ore in the pile. There would obviously have to be a gate of either only allowing it to be used once for a grouping of ore, that obtains a new serial number/name. It would also be interesting to see if it would be possible to allow stats to be pushed up over 1000 for the inorganic resources, but obviously not much over 1000, perhaps as high as 1100 or 1200, but only at the 4th skill box or Mastery of the profession.
This could also be used to take two different resource and create a composite resource. For instance, most anyone with a high school education is aware that Steel itself isn't mined directly from the ground, but Iron is and that is combined with other materials in order to create various grades of steel. The Smelting part of this branch would allow the Miner to take Iron and Carbonate Ore, for instance, and combine the two into a grade of steel. Perhaps with a 2 Iron to 1 Carbonate Ore or vice versa. This would allow the miner to collect mass quantities of resources and then merge resources to match the changing market needs, or create certain specialty allows that could be used for particular high-end components for the other crafting professions.
Advanced Mining Platforms
Have you ever gone surveying, only to find that the resource you want is best concentrated deep in a lake or large body of water or is nestled into a tight hilly area that keeps you from putting down anything bigger then a personal extractor? With this ability, the Miner could build mining platforms, like oil derricks out in the Gulf of Mexico, these 'towers' would be similar in design and function.
They would take up lots, but either allow upwards of 3 or 4 Medium Harvesters to be 'mounted' on them or would have their own built-in harvesting machinery that would be individually maintained/operated by the Miner. This would allow, for instance, the extraction of Minerals, Chemicals and perhaps Gasses at the same time. Of course, they would take up just as many lots as individual harvesting units or one additional lot over that. The benefit would be that these platforms could be placed in deep water and be easily accessible and also be placed in hilly/mountainous regions.
Also, due to the cost of operating such equipment the Miner would need a regular income of credits, especially when needing to move such a platform.
Anyway, it's doable and could add a significant amount of flavor and possibility to the game.
BadKarma777
Fri Nov 12, 2004 7:56 am
#18
Wow!
Really great input and ideas all around. I had no idea there had already been so much deliberation about the miner, but I'm glad to see there are so many like-minded individuals out there.
I've always thought that the exclusion of the Miner profession placed an undue burden on the crafting community, but that may just be me. =\
I have to say, I really like the suggestions of resource refinement and resource blending. Definitely strong ideas.
Of course, increases to surveying skill and droids to compliment that would be a must. I also agree - I don't think moving the crafting schems for harvesters away from architect is a very good idea - their (architects) economy is still shaky enough without shooting it in the head (so-to-speak) ;-).
As for the skill structure - I'm not really 'partial' to the model I laid out, it's mainly there to promote the discussion. What I mean is, no matter how it gets introduced, I personally would like to see the Miner make its way back into the game.
EXCELLENT stuff folks - keep it coming! =)
Message Edited by BadKarma777 on 11-12-2004 08:57 AM
Kharn_JB
Fri Nov 12, 2004 9:03 am
#19
Some Ideas for abilities of an enhanced surveying tree:
-640m survey range
-Estimate how long resource has been there and how long it might stay there
-High concentration scanning: gives a general direction but not exact locationto higher concentrations. 50%+ and/or 75%+ for a second level ability of this
Exotic harvestors and certifications for them could be another thing added:
-All terrain harvestors, can be placed on more uneven terrain and have around 10 BER.
-Heavy harvestor installation: basically like an extremely heavy harvestor, 15-16 BER? and very high maintenece
Scoooter
Fri Nov 12, 2004 10:50 am
#20
BadKarma777 wrote:
Little-Green-Guy wrote:
There is an "undocumented" miner proffession. it's members far outnumber every crafter on every server. you just have to know where to find them.
Precisely.
There's already a player base that has dedicated a signifiacnt amount of time and resources in order to make this viable. All this would do essentially would be to add the game mechanics to actually reward that expenditure - i.e. increased returns and, let's not forget, visibility to the broader community.
Additionally, it might attract new players to the field. I know I used to mine on Sunrunner. All I sold were resources, and to be quite frank, I could never keep up. =\ Pips like the ones I suggested would have been a real help to me as well as my customers.
Message Edited by BadKarma777 on 11-11-2004 03:55 PM
Well currently people can mine all they want at no skill point expendture.
I have seen this before you are out to propse nerfing mining ability and require skill points to do it. That wont fly.
It will create a resource blockage and limit the resource in the game. And since mining costs do not go up or down based on the game inflation it will just create a few monopolies.
BadKarma777
Fri Nov 12, 2004 11:13 am
#21
Scoooter wrote:
Well currently people can mine all they want at no skill point expendture.
I have seen this before you are out to propse nerfing mining ability and require skill points to do it. That wont fly.
It will create a resource blockage and limit the resource in the game. And since mining costs do not go up or down based on the game inflation it will just create a few monopolies.
Actually Scooter, with all do respect, had you read the original post in it's entirety, you'd have noticed that at no time did I propose 'nerfing' the current mining abilities provided in the Artisan skill tree, but rather extending those abilities into an Elite Mining profession.
As a general rule of thumb, taking abilities away from players always creates problems, particularly within the attitudes of the player-base in question.
No, I'm proposing that a professional miner be given additional benefits, like being able to extract even more from a given location than what his harvester would do on it's own - essentially it's a "doing with more with less" (or maybe more with more?)kind of thing.
I don't know if 'nerfing' the artisan's mining abilities has been proposed before, but I'm certainly not proposing it and don't think that would be a good idea.
~ Cheers.
[edit = misspelled entirety =\ ]
Message Edited by BadKarma777 on 11-12-2004 12:14 PM
Jagged-F3l
Fri Nov 12, 2004 12:04 pm
#22
Unrelated, or maybe not, but if the devs were to introduce a mining profession, this would take care of inorganics, such minerals, chemicals, gases, and perhaps water. What about organics? To maintain balance, shouldn't there be consideration given to a profession called farmer? A farmer would be like a miner, with regard to flora, in that he could deploy flora farms with bonuses to harvesting, be able to refine flora, etc. However, what about meat, hide, bone, milk, etc? Interesting to think about.
rols_cerentz
Fri Nov 12, 2004 12:25 pm
#23
Jagged-F3l wrote:Unrelated, or maybe not, but if the devs were to introduce a mining profession, this would take care of inorganics, such minerals, chemicals, gases, and perhaps water. What about organics? To maintain balance, shouldn't there be consideration given to a profession called farmer? A farmer would be like a miner, with regard to flora, in that he could deploy flora farms with bonuses to harvesting, be able to refine flora, etc. However, what about meat, hide, bone, milk, etc? Interesting to think about.
That would be a good discussion for another thread.
rexan
Fri Nov 12, 2004 12:25 pm
#24
Niacia wrote:
A miner profession could add depth to the game. But there should be somewhat more gameplay involved then what you can do with the survey tree of artisan.
I like the idea of blending resources. There could be some kind of experimentation involved.
Nevertheless, this may not lead to uber resources. My suggestion:
Blending Ditanium Steel with Ditanium steel gives a new ditanium steel.
Blending Ditanium Steel with Duranium Steel gives unknown Steel.
Blending Steel with Iron gives a unknown ferrous metal.
Blending Steel with Copper gives an unknow metal.
Blending Steel with Gas would not be possible.
This would ensure, that nobody can blend iron and copper to get weapons that are a lot stronger then today, because the resulting metal could only be used in low level schematics taking metal.
Niacia
I shudder at the thought of this.
There are already far too many resources in the game. And we get hit with over 50 new ones each week. I shudder to think what could happen if we start to throw player crafted resources into the works as well.
rols_cerentz
Fri Nov 12, 2004 12:37 pm
#25
rexan wrote:
Niacia wrote:
A miner profession could add depth to the game. But there should be somewhat more gameplay involved then what you can do with the survey tree of artisan.
I like the idea of blending resources. There could be some kind of experimentation involved.
Nevertheless, this may not lead to uber resources. My suggestion:
Blending Ditanium Steel with Ditanium steel gives a new ditanium steel.
Blending Ditanium Steel with Duranium Steel gives unknown Steel.
Blending Steel with Iron gives a unknown ferrous metal.
Blending Steel with Copper gives an unknow metal.
Blending Steel with Gas would not be possible.
This would ensure, that nobody can blend iron and copper to get weapons that are a lot stronger then today, because the resulting metal could only be used in low level schematics taking metal.
NiaciaI shudder at the thought of this.
There are already far too many resources in the game. And we get hit with over 50 new ones each week. I shudder to think what could happen if we start to throw player crafted resources into the works as well.
It's called diversity and choice. Are you scared of diversity and choice?
I say it would be a good thing. If you are a crater focusing on building the best of 'x' and you know exactly what stats you are looking for, you could go straight up to a Master Miner and put in a request for the resource you are looking for and he/she could take your order, dig through their resource piles, fire up their smelter and come as close as possible to the resource(s) you are looking for. Thus giving you the chance to craft exactly what you are looking to craft.
This could also open up the doors to allow the devs to add hundreds of new pieces of content in the form of rare/new schematics, requiring fairly precise materials, that could add significant uniqueness to a character. Similar to the fairly significant increase in clothing available through tailors.
Sure, they could add all of that without needing to make those pieces dependent upon some new profession, but then it would be more of the same. Mine the resources, grind out the new items. It's just more of the same.
It's all about the content. Adding a mining profession with the abilities outline above would add considerable content, especially if linked with new pieces from existing crafting professions.
Change is good, choice is good.
Ricven
Fri Nov 12, 2004 1:01 pm
#26
Minjaru wrote:I didn't read the whole post but I get the gist of what you are asking and promoting is the return of the Miner profession. This profession was in beta at one time in which I did have time to play it. It was welcomed by many as a good addition to the game but just needed some tweeking and some good additions to it for people. I remember when they removed it saying that it was not fun enough and didn't add much to the game.Well people liked it and played it. There are many other professions in the game right now that I could call not fun and don't add much to the game but they are in the game. Let's take Merchant for example. Other then promoting a player based economy what does merchant really add to the game? How fun really is it to be a merchant?I would love to see Miner come back to the game with one major addition added to it that was not in the beta edition of the profession. As a person progresses in the miner profession allow them to increase their lot amounts. A person who is a master miner should have the ability to manage entire mining operations. Not just the few that he/she is only allowed to have.....but then again lots is for another topic discussion.
I would have to agree wit hthis poster myself. I being a Master Shipwright would also rather buy resources at a lower cost than waste the time tracking it down, the more time I can focus on my crafting the better I will become. How annoying is it to say sorry I can not make the item at the moment I am running my extractors. I also think that as the miner goes up not ONLY should they get more lots, but I think they should be able to extract further down in the earth. Let me explain this a tad bit... Lets say you have an artisan at level 4 in surveying, well when he surveys he sees what he sees but if you have a Miner he can see resources on the same planet that the artisan surveyed that could not see. So this opens wide doors not only to assist crafters but ALSO to help distribute the economy more to a wider variety of professions and people. Wit the new group change coming into effect that will basically kill solo groups for cahs, yet not XP, I would bet my best chasis "lol" alot more people would want to be a Miner to make cahs easier therefore lowering the resource price tremendoulsy, and then we would see miners come and go as they see the cash flow fit into their game play. Is that bad not at all, why because YOU can bet you will ALWAYS have miners.