Changes: - SSOR instead of Voxel The planetary deposits are no large spheres or “blobs of ore” anymore, but are now split up into smaller chunks of “sub-surface ore rocks” (SSOR) that can be found inside the perimeter of a deposit. These SSOR work similar to the surface rocks, which break and drop ore when you drill them. The difference: The SSORs currently hold a single type ore and a larger amount of it. As a side note: With this new method, we could even have “mixed ore deposits” in a future iteration. - Ore Scanner As the new deposit parameters allow to have those rocks scattered in a certain area (dense or wide-spread), and while you will need to remove more dirt, you’ll get the first iteration of an ore scanner as a new gadget to help with the discovery process. This device, which you simply put in your toolbar, works like a “near field ore scanner”. When activated, it will visualize the position of the SSOR close to you, so you do not need to do a lot of guesswork where to drill. The discovery of an ore deposit itself, is still done the old way (This might change in the future as well) The ore scanner currently has a range of 40m. - Autominer (AMiD) will deplete deposits This can be configured for servers ( "depletion on/off" ) in the dedicated.yaml via 'AutoMinerDepletion: true' or 'AutoMinerDepletion: false' Autominers calculate their efficiency based on the deposit content. Note: You might notice the AMiD work although there is no SSOR left. This is because the AMiD will "grab" the last SSOR (=remove it from the game) and "work" on it until it is processed. NOTES: - Asteroid mining will not change - Handheld drill speeds were increased. Therefore the special "fast dirt remove" mode has been removed. A.1 How does the Ore Scanner work? 1. Equip any drill 2. Add Ore Scanner to your toolbar > If you are close to a deposit, you will notice "glowing spheres" which will indicate the SSOR nearby. A.2 How does the Ore Scanner in a vessel? 1. Hold a drill in your hand and have the ore scanner in your inventory (NOT in toolbar) 2. Enter the cockpit of the vessel while still holding the drill in your hands. This should bring up the ore scanner halos. B. How do i mine the SSORs? > Just as before. Set your drill to MINING and go for it! C. How do Autominers calculate their efficiency? > Basically the AMiD checks the content of the deposit when it is placed and every time it takes on a new SSOR, so the calcuation is semi-live. > The maximum efficiency (100%) for all three AMiD tiers is currently set at a fixed maximum of about 9000 ore per deposit. So if your AMiD works on a 10.000 ore deposit, it will drop in effiency when it reaches 9000 and below. This might be subject to change in the future! D. Can i modify the SSOR deposit size and amount like before? > Yes, same as before (CountMINMAX, SizeMINMAX, etc). > You also do NOT need to rework your custom playfields! Planned improvements - CV and HV drill turrets will see a "auto-targeting & mining" tier version Known issues: - The ore boulders hover in the air when you clear the space beneath them; this will be addressed in the future
Please discuss global gameplay changes about weapons, templates and game progress over here: Alpha 7 - FAQ and Feedback: GLOBAL REBALANCING & CHANGES Alpha 7 - FAQ and Feedback: WEAPON REBALANCING
I like the change, but the rest of the game needs to adapt, otherwise it is a very annoying change. - HV miners are already a pain to use as of all those hover issues, and now they also constantly fail to mine those new ore-blobs. - HV mining turret no longer serves any purpose. - Placeable miners in single-player are almost unusable, as I am not going to run this game for hours just to get some ores. Especially if they are actually depleting the ore, running through the deposit with a miner is infinitely more efficient. Please spend some time focusing on getting the HV back to usable. A miner that constantly flips over no matter how you build it ruins the whole experience.
Hello, thanks for the great update overall. I personally have 2 issues with the new mining, especially for the very firsts deposits. 1. Accessing the ore blobs with the handheld drill is a BORING (nice joke, I know...) process. I may be doing it wrong but on average I need to use almost a full biofuel unit just to reveal the blobs; I would enjoy the game more if they were closer to each other. 2. The Ore Scanner shouldn't be needed for the very first deposit. To me, having to craft the ore scanner doesn't benefit the gameplay in any way; we could just have the function integrated to our helmet right on game start; it even opens helmet upgrades for scanner, light, headshot multiplier for PvP so on and so forth... Plus being forced to sacrifice an inventory slot is never a good option. Thanks for all your work, keep it up!
(Omicron start) - Drilling was more fun in the experimental version. Due to the reduction of the maxium ore amount in a deposit, the number of SSORs/'ore pebbles' fell. After digging 5-10 minutes for copper without any find, and running dangerously low on bullets, I switched to Promethium. Had to dig 10 minutes for my first SSOR, and with 15min I got the second one (of maybe four in the whole deposit). With this low stimulation rate, drilling feels like a chore. I avoided it after that, and got all my other ores from surface stones. If there are only few pebbles to find, there is much more volume to sift through. - You can luck out, but usually you don't. With the current setup, the ore scanner seems to be absolutely needed. But you can build it only in the base constructor. And for a viable base you need Promethium (>bullets for your turrets...). ... Which you have to drill... Suggestions: A) Make the ore scanner craftable in the survival constructor again. or B) Reduce the size of the volume in which the few pebbles spawn. or C) Add more pebbles, but less ore yield for a pebble. or D) Pebbles spawn in veins, and one of the pebbles is close to the ore deposit marker. This makes guessing of the next position(s) fun: By 'dumb' drilling you get at least a minimum amount of your desired ore, and if you want more, you have to dig with a system.
What exactly will this string look like in the dedicated.yaml? It's not in the default dedicated.yaml, I've looked. And in order to actually configure this for a server, I need to know what the exact string will look like in the file so I can add it in...as of yet, I cannot find any place where this information has been published... can you throw me a bone here?
So, after starting a coop game setting the depletion to false....I was able to go into the game save and look at the dedicated.yaml there and pull the exact string from that dedicated.yaml... it is as follows. AutoMinerDepletion: false Hooray for incomplete documentation in the change notes for the latest version...I fixed it for you Hummel... It's ok, it's ok, you're welcome! Much love to ya Hummel. =D
The mechanical drill for the HV is basically worthless . Holding a position and trying to hit a chunk of rock small as the drill or smaller is totally a pain in the butt to do. You are better off digging a hole ,then jumping out to use your hand held version instead. Learning this skill is worthless . I still think the ore veins looked better and made sense more originally.All that was needed was to lower the yield and give a smaller experience gain from it. This was such a bad idea too implement.
The mechanical drill for the HV is basically worthless . Holding a position and trying to hit a chunk of rock small as the drill or smaller is totally a pain in the butt to do. You are better off digging a hole ,then jumping out to use your hand held version instead. Learning this skill is worthless . I still think the ore veins looked better and made sense more originally.All that was needed was to lower the yield and give a smaller experience gain from it. This was such a bad idea too implement.
Having to wait until level 7, plus a lack of cobalt to build the ore scanner has completely put me off the game. In experimental, it was a lot more fun to mine than it is now. If your idea was to slow down progression, you've succeeded. Most people are simply giving up and quitting. Mining has become even more of a chore than ever. In experimental, it was almost fun again, but I really enjoyed relaxing and drilling out ore, carefully removing it so that I wouldn't fall down into a hole I couldn't get out of. HV drill turrets have become useless so you may as well remove them from the game. Hopefully, you'll take the suggestions here on the whole thing but it's pretty much a big mess at the moment. If you can't get it sorted, I won't be playing.
What about a hybrid of "boulder" and "asteroid" but on a planet : something like a huge boulder shaped like a thick dome, open face down on the ground ? Or even a "filled" asteroid, but shaped like a small hill ?
I agree. I'm on my 4th play-through with the Ore Scanner and I've started to feel like it should just be a feature of all of the Drills. The period of time when you don't have a scanner is on a non-easy start Levels 1 and 2 and its effect is to require the player to spend about 5-15 additional minutes of mining. After that, it costs you an inventory slot. My advice would be to add optional inventory slots (like armor augments) to the Drill and turn this device into something that extends the range of the Drill's built-in ore scanner. If you want to slow down initial mining, slow down the first Drill, or perhaps make it chew up more fuel.
Grats to you guys (Devs) on this change. Mining has been (historically) painful. It was reasonable early on (started playing a few months after initial release), but with each patch, the ore return got progressively worse. In 6.7.1, it wasn't uncommon to go 10-15 seconds with a T2 drill and have *no* ore populate in your inventory. Way better now, even on straight voxels (asteroids) - tried that yesterday, was terrific. 10 or 15 minutes of mining a Cobalt 'roid in Akua orgit yielded several thousand ore. Well done. Also having auto-pickup feature now built into the manual drill is very much appreciated, though it may seem minor. My keyboard F-key and I both thank you ;-) THE BIG CAVEAT: PLEASE... TERRAIN REMOVAL FEATURE ON T2 DRILL NEEDS TO MAKE A COMEBACK! Please bring this feature back. If you've ever tried to unearth a crashed ship (especially MS Titan wrecks on Akua which are *always* at least partially underground, often times half or more underground), you don't want to be drilling and pulling more crushed stone than you'll ever use. Terrain removal is key in unearthing wrecks, as the voxel removal rate is greater/faster than drilling (again, I'm talking with a T2 drill). Please bring this feature back, it's really useful!
This looks like another change to game balance that I am going to have to patch out of the finished game. Nice concept but it is something that again mucks up game balance even more. Which is something that has been broken for long while. Game is not more difficult. Just more grind added. Mining not possible below lvl 3. Only rocks can be used making the game a lottery. The only good thing is it breaks the "magic" base that appears at the start since there not enough fuel to keep it running it. That is great on easy start but might stop play altogether at higher difficulty. Still fixing playfield with magic base nerf but adding extra fuel to combat no mining below lvl 3.
I like the new mining style. It's faster, more fun and easier. No more need for LMB keybinds on my keyboard, since you get enough resources quickly. I think the devs nailed this part. I do however very strongly disagree with the scanner tool being like a level 3 item. It should be with you in the drop pod or the drill having its own module where we can place the scanner, like armor.
Yeah the fast digging by default is an improvement. Sounds good. A really bad scanner at the start is ok. Even if it is annoying to use before an upgrade. Having nothing is bad and does break the game on higher difficulty levels. Still testing the system but it also looks like it required for ore to spawn. Digging without it never seems to get anything. There should be ore finds without it being equiped. Down to luck of digging in the right spot. If this is the case then it does pretty much need to be in to pod from the start. Right now I do put one in the drop pod in my games and by pass the whole mess.
Catch 22 the best catch there is A. Possible fix. Let them grind rocks for it that same as the bike. Worth exploring. B. May reduce the problem. However I think the current spawn is broken anyway. C. Greater chance of a find but the same grind. It think this another one hard to look given lack of results in the current system. D. Oh that is nice. Player always gets something by going to the marker. The trail is hard without the scanner. This gives the game a lovely feel. Shallow mining till the scanner is available. Then the player gets access to deep mines. Nice idea if works out like that.
Then only way out of this is to run away from every fight to save ammo and keep rotten food handy. For making into the new Biofuel. Aleast that will kick start the constructor for a while. Running a base is waste of time early game now. Just get the bike and hop about colleting rocks. Till mining is fully possible and bullets can be made.
