The resource deposits are way too huge for single player, they were well done before the dedicated came out. But we can adjust those manually if we want. What would be nice would be a way to disable the meteorites, and play "if you run out, you need to move on to a new planet." The erestrum/zascosium deposits are way too big. These are "rare" ores but they aren't rare or difficult to locate/amass. The sathium deposits now available on planets take away any reason to mine asteroids. That was a dangerous (and fun) part of the game. It's also too easy to mine asteroids now too, because most of the sathium asteroids are unguarded, kilometers from the nearest drone. The drones should be placed specifically so that they guard one, instead of the generic patterns they're in now. (Or add some more space stations guarding them.) Connecting biomes to the variety of mineral deposits on a planet is bad, too. (Ice planets contain the same mineral? Why? Unless that mineral is ice, just no.) I really hope this connection is just a temporary way to produce some variety of planets.
Short comment on that: No I didnt assume it. I also dont want to move all the time with my main base. My intention is to get rid of refuling my base in multiplayer. I got 140 x spoiled food because my 4 large fueltanks went empty. I usually keep the stuff on hold so i can hopp straight into my cv when i go online. But i have to refuel once a day and if i have smth better to do in rl the base energy goes down - even with turned off constructor. So a bit more luxury in managing energy issues would be nice. Beside that renewable energy work quite well in the game setting. With geothermal energy on lava planets, helium 3 farming, etc. theres would be also a nice variety in producing energy.
Agreed, however in multiplayer a handful of players can obtain all the zascosium fairly quickly and then there is never anymore for others. Need to have it replenished by meteorites on the planet(s) that contain the deposits. This is pretty game breaking for multiplayer as it creates an unbalanced two class system. Not to mention how many players abandon a server once they learn all the zascosium has been mined. Of course meteorites yield a large quick easy amount, so perhaps the quantities of Z ore contained in those should be much lower. Alternatively or additionally, have all meteorites have a dynamic range.
I specified single player in my comment. There aren't a handful of players in a single player game. Of course the same setup wouldn't work in multiplayer. Generating the same amount/size of deposits in all games regardless of the number of players is going to be bad for either one or the other.
Indeed, I was merely adding an aspect and not trying to take away from your statement. Thus I specified multiplayer in mine, which by its very nature is affecting more players negatively as we speak than too many resources is affecting single player gameplay. There is after all just the one resource thread under feedback, and not broken out single/multi for each feedback subject. Galactic configuration will be different from single to multi, and I will trust the developers can make the distinction.
I also assumed single player. To be honest, so far I've probably only ever mined 1 or 2 percent (if even that much) of the total resources available in the system, so I don't ever see running out, especially with asteroids now appearing when the resource on the planet is gone. I also suppose it's a matter of how you view the game (talking about single player here). Is it survival ? (Doesn't take long to get past that stage.) Is is to build neat ships and structures? (As stated above, you have plenty of resources to do that with, and there is always creative mode.) Is it exploration? This latter is how I see it eventually. But to stay true to its name the survival aspect needs to be brought back in. That can be done by increased alien intervention (the more things you take, the more aliens appear, not just troopships, but random patrols). And the resources should be smaller, and guarded by drones and ground troops. This can scale as you become more powerful. But I'm getting off topic. Bottom line, for single player I think there are way too many resources that are easy to get as it is.
I hope this is already on the Dev Radar, but just in case... I seriously hope we won't have only Iron Ships to fly in forever & someday we'll have stronger better Hull & Armor Plate Materials in the future, including but not limited to Steel, Titanium, & i'd love Adamantium or some kinda homage to it! Naturally the Ores for these &/or some way shape or form of Metallurgy will be of use for making this happen. Also i'd love an 'Electric' Ore of some kind for future Lightning Planets, for making Electric stuff, like Lightning Guns for our Characters, more kinds of Energy Devices, Lightning Harvesting Machines, Maybe even Lightning Cannons for our Ships! (Both Manual Fire & Turret kinds!)
I'm a geologist by profession and also trained at astronomy (planetology) and did some minor research for ESA in university(not currently employed though), so if you aim for some sort of realism I think I can help you quite a bit in this. I've worked in many different working mines both underground and open pit environment as well as out in the field with prospecting targets. So I've gathered some knowledge of different types of ores and deposits, which I'd like to put in use to make this game better, since we are still in a phase where we can make difference. So let's start with the original questions and answers, then moving on to the more pressing matters, if you guys are prepared to read a wall of text equal length to the great wall of china 1. Number of deposits -Current number is insanely low in realistic approach, however I understand the need to limit numbers so players are forced to move out of their starting planet. (just in comparison here's number of currently economically viable ore deposits in Finland alone: Gold 22, Base metals (copper/nickel/iron) 16, Diamonds 1). Proposition: -In a planetary scale personally I'd double the number of deposits to make it slightly more realistic. Just remove restriction of ores spawning in the land to make it more difficult to access all the resources of one planet. Or make half of any type of ore spawn under water. -Asteroids should have chance to spawn all basic ores, since they have every kind of ore irl( yes it would make starting planets quite obsolete in the long run, but it would be more realistic and you can always limit the amount of ore in a asteroid) 2. Size of deposits -Sizes are pretty good, it seems to be rule of thumb that rarer the mineral the lower the amount of ore in deposit, which kind-of holds true irl as well. (Irl size of the deposit mainly depends on the formation process so the shape of the deposit is quite good indicator on how large it is) Proposition: - In the mountainous terrain make deposits look like cylinders so they will be huge 4-7k ore, but very tall and go deep inside the mountains. - In flat terrain make deposits shallow and oval shaped can be anything from tiny outcrop 100-1k ore to 2-4k ore - In larger water pools deposits in the bottom of the water are either type and any size - Asteroids can have either type and any size deposits, ranging from tiny outcrops to whole asteroid consisting of same metal 3. Drop rate of resources -Drop rates seem to be generally good, in planets you get anything from 1 to 7 x ore per one hit of the drill and asteroids you get more, also rarer the material then less it drops from one drill hit. (Irl this holds quite true as well, size of the deposit comes slightly in the play though, so generally smaller the deposit more high quality ore it has. As for the asteroids, moons and other non-atmospheric objects the deposits are generally much richer than on planets, since they lack the eroding and corroding elements which lower the quality of ore. As a matter of fact the highest quality ore should come from asteroids, since they can be composed of 100% of the needed material. So far we know at least 10 solid gold asteroids in stable orbits in our own belt Proposition: - Make smaller deposits give more ore per drill hit than larger so you will need to balance time to drill vs ease of drilling. For example if you get 1 to 4 ore per drill hit from large to huge deposits make tiny ones give 4 to 6. This also means that tiny deposits run low fast and you need to find new ones. - Mining in moons and non-atmospheric objects gains should be higher than normal planets, hence huge deposits should give 2 to 5 and tiny 5 to 7 -Mining in asteroids should be the most profitable since it takes most effort(and since whole asteroid can consist of high-grade ore) and also all known ores should appear in asteroids as well as they do irl. So make huge deposits yield 4- 7 per hit and tiny 6 to 10. 4. Smelting process -Process from ore to ingot currently gives 2 ingots per 1 ore regardless of what metal you have. This is quite fine, although rarer the material the less of it should be in ore. (irl this goes hand by hand in the quality of the ore itself, so technically you could get nothing but pure metal from the asteroids) I'm not 100% sure if this works well in the game though, unless you want to make two types of ores for all, as a low quality ore and high quality ore. Proposition: -Leave iron, copper, cobalt, silicon, magnesium and crushed stone as they are, reduce gains from rest to 1 per ore. Promethium is the borderline and could remain as it is, since I supposed it's based on uranium, which is quite abundant and present pretty much everywhere in real bedrock. -If you want to make two ore qualities in the long run, then adjust that ore mined in planets and from big deposits at non-atmospheric objects is generally low quality and yields ingots as it does now and give some extra value from ore to ingots for high quality(anything from asteroids and tiny deposits at non-atmospheric objects) ore, like 5 ores give 15 ingots or such. 5. Gathering -I like the current laser drilling, it's easy and doesn't make things feel too much like grinding even after you've exhausted whole planet of resources. However looting ore after it drops is pain in the arse, since game doesn't have "loot all" button. Also can't fit a drill in the small or hover vessels. Proposition: - Add either separate "loot all" button or make holding "loot" button gather all resources from 1 to 5m radius. - Make larger version of drill which we could fit in either small vessels or hover's (making this hover vessel only would give some purpose to actually make a ground vehicle and it could be modeled to work like current turrets, which could in turn allow you to explain why it's restricted to hovers, since small vessels can't have turrets atm) - Add conveyor belt or tractor beam system to the mining turret so you can gather ores you drill with vehicle 6. Grouping of the ore deposits - IRL quite many of the ore's have tendency to form in same processes meaning few ores will almost always be together in similar deposits and similar type of terrain. This works even in the most of the asteroids, since the metal affinities usually come into effect before proto-planets get smashed into bits and become asteroid belts. Currently this seems to be wholly random. Cobalt and copper have strong affinity so these two (and nickel) usually form in same types of deposits meaning almost all copper deposits have cobalt in them and vice versa. Also magnesium is very abundant resource and could be produced almost everywhere, however irl current favorite method is using electrolysis to seawater Proposition: - Make copper and cobalt spawn close together, except in asteroids where location of asteroid is more or less independent from from the original place of the deposit - Magnesium deposits should spawn close to water or even underwater if planet has water in the first place 7. Ore colors - I'm quite fond of current method where mining ore makes a dust cloud in the same color as the ore itself to allow aligning of drill into proper targets, however there's a few minor issues in the coloration of the ores themselves. Aside from the fantasy ores which can be whatever color you want there's a few very basic things, which hurt my eyes Copper -Oxides extremely easily so 99.9% of worlds copper ore's look like this: Cobalt -Mostly mined from cobaltite, which looks like this: Iron -Also oxides fast so most of the worlds iron ore looks like this: Silicon & Magnesium -Both are pretty decent as they are, magnesium could shine slightly more, for example: Neodymium - Could be slightly more brownish or yellowish, not enough to be mixed with sathium though Proposition: - Most of the accessible planets have some kinds of atmosphere so adjust ore colors to realistic levels and just use same colors through the galaxy regardless of whether they are inside atmosphere or not, just to be consistent. -Iron -> dull red -Copper -> moss green -Cobalt -> dull blue -Magnesium -> add shine -Neodymium -> yellow tainted brown 8. Few oddities: There's barely any trees in any planets so far and absolutely nothing that can be done with wood, although in the first survival building would almost certainly be some sort of wooden hovel if there's materials at all for that. Same with crushed stone, if you have water and crushed stone you should be able to make concrete which is good for building first phase bases but too heavy and brittle to be used in capital vessel building. Also if you have greenhouse which is able to grow plants or atmospheric filtering system your base / capital ship should be able to sustain breathable atmosphere if you make entrances as a tiny space with double door's in both end to act as an airlock. Similar filtering system is currently active on ISS, and keeps them on oxygen! Also what bothers me is that we have working FTL drive but no solar panels... Even current economically made solar panels can get 30% operating efficiency and both production cost and efficiency of the panels are skyrocketing, they're even worthy of their price with current efficiency up here beyond Arctic Circle where half of the year sun doesn't rise at all! Proposition: - Add very simplistic wooden blocks (like full block, wall block, corner and wedge) - Add very simple concrete blocks (need first constructor and can make very rough shapes(as above) from crushed rock and water) - Add atmospheric generator for capital vessels / bases (can be replaced with growing plants and proper airlock) - Add solar panels (made from silicon, able to power bases and ship subsystems, doesn't work on thrusters, since they don't provide thrust mass needed to travel in vacuum of the space!) TL / DR version: I've got "some" experience from mining industry & astronomy irl and here's some propositions based on irl experience: -Increase amount of deposits, but make half of them spawn underwater & asteroids -Asteroids should spawn with any kind of ores(if you want to limit two rarest to planets, just do it) -Make size of the deposit have some relation with it's shape -Adjust drop rates to favor asteroid mining -Nerf ore to ingot ratio on rarer materials -Add "loot all" button and make drills mountable on Hover crafts -Add affinity value to copper & cobalt so they spawn relatively close together -Adjust ore colors to look like they do irl -Add some very first survival blocks (wood, concrete) -Add atmospheric generator, so ships / bases can hold breathable atmosphere inside, even in space or on planet that doesn't have one -Add solar panels So there you go, extremely generalized, and shortened course in general geology (and slight bits from planetology side), that's about it all. So please let me know what you think of this and if any of it is doable in first place.
Can we have a constructable item that drains the ore deposit like we have with oxygen and H2O generators? It would be a good placeholder until you get another idea in place. After you get your base setup and build your first ships, there is no incentive to go mining.
Mining isn't everyone's cup of tea, but some of us can enjoy the carnage of taking a Drill to the Planet & tearing it up & making it answer to us. Some, like me, can even use it as a form of RL Relaxation. (Along with building stuff.) With that said, it'd also be good to add in some options for those who don't find Mining their cup of tea, cause this game is for EVERYONE to enjoy, not only just some of us. Similar for peeps in regards to Building, Combat, Building Design Experimentation, flying around, & other aspects. MP can band aid fix some Issues like this, like if one could join a Clan & have different Members doin stuff they like & covering on doin that stuff on behalf of other Members who don't enjoy that aspect, but still, can use more development on this over the course of the Game getting built up & crafted. (Especially in regards to some peeps have a DAMN hard time getting to MP with other people, including me. ) Ya mean after ya build your first basic slapped together creations ya've never sat there & thought about how they handled, performed, & failed, & succeeded, & wondered if ya could then make another better more effective creation? Even if ya use other people's BPs from the Steam Workshop, ya've never thought about how it was built or handled & thought of adding your own touch or spin to it? That's a shame... Maybe this game itself isn't your cup of tea. & if ya ever do, you'll be needing more Resources to turn into the stuff ya need to go about that stuff.
Here's a wall of text of my detailed thoughts on mining and resources, as well as some of the systems that interact directly with resources. But wait - there's more! Act now and you'll get my suggestions as well, at no extra charge! On "mining monotony": I think that player-built objects could be the key to mitigate mining monotony in the mid and late stages of the game. If you are technologically advanced enough to have a capital vessel - maybe even a small vessel - you should have some automated method that mines out a deposit. An automated drilling platform, for example, that will mine everything under it. Or a drone that can be operating out of a base or CV with the appropriate equipment within a certain sector (a planet, its moon, or the space orbit nearby). They don't have to be just as fast as mining since they're passive. On resource placement and size: This is just nitpicking on my part, but I think that Zascosium should return to lava planets and that Erestrum should be moved to Masperon. Why? Erestrum is neon green, matching Masperon. Zascosium is reddish orange, matching Aestus. Plus right now I would argue that Aestus is significantly harder than Masperon due to much higher critter spawn count - the flood of Nightmares and Overseers are much more dangerous than the Alien Bugs found on Masperon, which are trivial threats. I also think that erestrum and zascosium deposits should be smaller. They are rare ores, and you don't even need that much. Perhaps 500-1000 ores in a deposit. Right now there's so much in a single deposit - you don't need nearly that much. An issue that can appear with players just starting out is that they can spawn a few kilometers away from crucial resources like iron. Quite a few times my spawn was almost nowhere near any sources of iron and it took me forever to find some. I suggest generating more deposits of smaller size - making resource distribution somewhat more even (do not take this idea so far as to make it uniform, though) but keeping the total amount on a planet about the same. Also, I am disappointed that only sathium is found on asteroids. There should be a variety of resources found on asteroids, such as iron. Big asteroid fields such as the new Asteroid Field sector, and concentrations such as the belt around Akua and the small field near Omicron, should boast a variety of resources. One of these resources should be ice in order to make a space base more feasible: currently, a space base seems to be nothing more than an immobile CV with inferior armament. (They don't seem to get the equivalent of the CV Rockets, for example.) Ice as a resource could make asteroids feasible for a base which could produce oxygen, water, and hydrogen (for those who actually use hydrogen fuel packs...), even if ice only had a 60% source quality. Ice might even be a possible way to make "barren" planets and moons conducive to a base - even if that base won't produce water and oxygen as fast as a base on a planet with water. On drop rate: This is more focused on the drill than it is the resources itself. If the current drill will be a mid-tier drill, I find this acceptable. A starting drill should be less powerful (half as fast as the current one) and the endgame drill should be incredibly powerful (twice as fast). Resources should have varying drop rates based on physical composition (and usage by player in the game): magnesium and promethium are relatively soft and chalky, and drop faster than iron. (Note also that magnesium and promethium are heavily used for supplies - fuel and ammo) Iron is hard but also somewhat brittle - perhaps it can drop at a slower rate but each ore dropped contains more ores, such as 10 ores, so that the net gain is only slightly less than magnesium and promethium. (Currently and for the foreseeable future, iron will be the primary building material for everything. Everything. It shouldn't take forever to collect it.) The rare ores should be very difficult to get, they are unstable so your drills have to use half-speed mode. It can either do it automatically, or we can implement a fun noob-unfriendly mechanic where if you drill too fast a portion that you are digging into can explode! Because the impacts of zascosium and erestrum are significant: they unlock the best guns in the game and the best constructor in the game, and they are not needed in great quantities.
I agree with how Asteroids should have more Ore types in them, especially when Drilling Asteroids is a fun & interesting activity for me. I also wish ya could Drill into the normal Meteors so ya could hollow them out & stick Bases into them, especially the real large ones. The 'fun noob-unfriendly mechanic' idea is hilarious! I take it ya lament RMB Drilling's lack of use. I'd have no qualms with this. Making the Veins of those 2 Ores smaller on the other hand... what if more Power Coil using Items & such get Implemented later down the road, including in combo with also needing new Items using Ores & Parts not yet implemented now? (Still holding onto my dreams of Lightning Planets & stuff like Lightning Guns & Lightning Cannons!)
I really enjoyed your crash course in geology and planetology. My cousin is a forensic geologist and I have always been interested in geology/paleontology as well as the planetary sciences. The lack of knowledge that the rest of us contributors have to offer pales in comparison to both your superior education in this subject as well as your professional experience. I know that your suggestions are both well founded and accurate. However, as stated by some of our previous colleagues, I believe that there is only a certain amount of realism that the developer is willing to extend themselves. I do hope, however, that the designers take some of your comments/suggestions into account as they would be great additions/improvements to the beta or finished game. Mining is arguably the second most important activity in the game (after constructing). It would be a travesty if the designers did not give mining the justice that it rightfully deserves!!
Very thorough and well researched. I am very hopeful that some of these ideas/suggestions will show up in later builds.
Mining crushed stone from planetary rock is extremely slow to mine, its slightly faster mining the asteroids but still very slow compared to any other ore. Even mining small quantities 1-2k is a chore. Please consider increasing the drop rate/yield.
