I had a few ideas for mining that I think would be awesome. It would be great if there were surveying and prospecting tools that you could craft, so that when you're on a planet you can use these tools to check and see if it has a mineral or resource you're looking for - how much of that resource can be found and what "quality" that resource is. Also, as you get better resources - you craft better tools to find them. I think having "better" and "worse" of the same type of metals or minerals would make searching for the best ones possible so much fun, and really add a lot to the experience. So, say you could find iron that is 67% Rating easily. but, iron that is 90% or more Rating is more difficult! Spending that extra time finding the best Ratings results in crafting better armor, weapons and tools. The next part of this is Harvesters. This would be amazing. Lets say you find the resource you've been looking for... Instead of mining each one individually you can place a Harvester on the surface that you crafted to mine it for you, and it will mine it as long as you keep it powered with batteries. Ideally you won't even have to be on that planet after you placed the harvester. If the server is dedicated, you wouldn't even need to be logged in to have your Harvesters going. The best Harvesters should be able to pull resources from a given area (2000+- blocks). This same idea works for paying an NPC to mine for you. You do all the surveying and exploring, and then bring hired NPC's to do the mining! They will work as long as there are enough resources and you've paid and than stop. To save from having to program A.I that digs until it finds the minerals in real time, you could just have the NPC's place a mineshaft on the surface that the player doesn't enter. This would mean that you would have to have a way to track how much was mined and remove it from the planet as a whole. Maybe there is an elegant way of doing this that I can't think of. Thanks for reading!
Love this idea! I like the thought of having an army of miner mercenaries working for me. Also, I think later in the game, a way of having a large-sized scanning system on the ship could let you know if the planet have a good amount of what you're searching for.
The good thing about making suggestions about a game that is so early in it's pre-Alpha phase is it's so much easier to create new and good ideas and get them put into the game. OT: I like the idea of harvesters. But maybe limit to how many times they could be used before you would have to obtain a new one?
That's not a bad idea, not bad at all. But mining is soooo 2 milleniums ago. Now it's about robots that can mine for you!
It sounds great. The implementation behind it would create an "Always On" mentality that would make coming back to the game a much more exciting prospect. It's one of the most powerful aspects of MMOs, and I'm sure they could pull it off eventually.
I like this. It seems like it would fit too, if possible maybe even have a probe that gives you a vague list of what is on the planet so you can chose if you want to survey it further.
You could set a limit of how many harvesters could be used at any one time by a player. So you can craft as many as you want, but only place maybe 4 at a time.
Take a look at NeKoNeKo's Suggestion i have posted some ideas which might help enhance his idea but can also help on this one. Things such as are in the other suggestion. *Environmental changes *Damaging equipment *Fuel
i would like the idea of a digger modual. like in the flash game "Motherload" http://www.xgenstudios.com/play/motherload It would be neat to drive around in one of these and have to refuel it and such.
I'm just hoping for a wide variety of block types and ores. The more options, the better the experience for those who want to build/mine/craft alot. I want to bring resources from all over the galaxy, so I think the idea of being able to pay miners, or have harvesters would be epic!
On the topic of the "harvesters", I just imagine this to be like a mining machine you can make using the "Technic Pac" mod for Minecraft. Check out some videos about it. I think a pre-made blueprint of a harvester that you could place over resources to mine would be a very useful tool!
I assume you played Star Wars Galaxies back in the day I love the idea of resources having a quality value. Given the procedurally generated equipment in the game, this seems like a very logical thing to include. The quality of the resources used could modify the seed of items crafted with them. Another mechanic related to this that might be useful to borrow from SWG is experimentation. Basically, you could experiment on the item you are making to try and make it better, at the risk of wasting the materials. The risk of wasting the materials and the potential effectiveness of experimenting could be modified by the quality of the materials used.
I did play it! And, I think it had some of the best crafting of any game I ever played. I think experimentation with crafting would make me the happiest space camper!
There is a similar/related idea over in mechanics: http://community.playstarbound.com/index.php?threads/procedurally-created-materials.928/ Let's not let either one of these get buried.
Sounds like a facinating idea. I wouldn't mind specific materials that need to be "refined" or "Purified" to get the best of the best. I like having to work for epic gear.
