Player Features and Ideas Discussion

To start with I’ll start by saying I’m not a mining expert, nor is that the area of the game I’ve focused on but I’ve been doing some theory crafting around the new drilling rig platform and wanted to share my ideas for debate.

I started off with some simple ideas surrounding the drilling rigs which were

1. = Allow them to spawn an asteroid belt once a month
2. = Be able to transport ore back to a station / industrial array via ore pods
3. = Be able to warp to either Asteroid belts/sites or moons
4. = The idea around ore pods (See further down for details)
5. = The rigs should have an anchoring / un anchoring time

But from those basic ideas I thought okay so let’s thrash this out a little and see what I come up with, which has lead me to the ideas below.

So the way I see the drilling rig platform creating the most interesting game play is to have it come in 3 different versions.

1. The Vanilla T1 Drilling Rig = This is a rig that isn’t great at either moon mining or belt mining it gives standard abilities to both.

1.1 It can warp within a solar system but only to moons / planets or mining sites/belts.
1.2 It has an anchoring / un anchoring time.
1.3 It can be deployed by a JF / rorqual.
1.4 It has say a 20% bonus to both belt mining and moon mining.
1.5 It can be destroyed during the anchoring time and reinforced when anchored.
1.6 It tractors in ore cans automatically to its cargo hold and stores moon goo the same way etc after a 30 second delay.
1.7 It has the ability to send its cargo back to either the new industrial arrays or a station in something called “Ore pods” (more on them later). (Active Ability)


2. T2 Moon mining Drilling Rig = So this rig is specialised towards moon mining and it has bonuses towards that area.

2.1 = It can warp within a solar system to moons only or be deployed there by a JF/Rorq.
2.2 = It has a 50% reduction to anchoring / un anchoring time.
2.3 = It has an 80% bonus to moon mining efficiency.
2.4 = It can be destroyed during the anchoring time and reinforced when anchored.
2.5 = It collects moon ore via ore pods that arrive at the rig that are tractored in after a 15 second delay.
2.6 = It also has the ability to send moon ore back to either an industrial array or a station automatically via ore pods. (more on them later). (Active Ability)
2.7 = Once a month it’s generator has saved up enough energy to activate a cutting beam that hoovers up 3 day’s worth of moon mining in 1 hour.

3. T2 Asteroid Mining Drilling Rig = So again specialised towards asteroid mining and bonuses geared towards that game play.

3.1 = It can warp within a solar system to asteroid belts or Asteroid sites.
3.2 = It has a 50% reduction to anchoring / un anchoring time.
3.3 = It has an 80% bonus to Asteroid mining lasers efficiency.
3.4 = It can be destroyed during the anchoring time and reinforced when anchored.
3.5 = It automatically tractors in ore cans after a 15 second delay.
3.6 = It also has the ability to send asteroid ore back to either an industrial array or a station automatically via “Ore pods” (more on them later). (Active Ability).
3.7 = Once a month it can spawn an awesome asteroid belt that includes mega asteroids the content of which would depend on the sec status of the system it’s deployed in.

All 3 variations of the drilling rig can just hold ore in the cargo hold but due to its small size to avoid continual trips to pick it up the active ability of using ore pods can be activated.


Optional Extra for the T2 variety

Active Shield = So coming from the position of creating interesting game play I think a really neat bonus would be to have a defensive shield that would extend for say 50km and either have a timer or ehp.
The active shield would have to be deployed by selecting an option on the rig so you’d have to be there.

Ehp Shield = If it deployed an EHP shield then attackers would have to simply burn through the shield at which point it would drop, and the ships within would be attackable. So this means the more fire power you bring the quicker you get to kill the ships/ore pods warping to the rig inside etc. Also it has a cool down timer this can only be deployed say once per hour etc.

Timer Shield = So this deploys a shield that is impenetrable for a period of time during which the ships / ore cans that arrive inside can’t be attacked. After it goes down then the carnage can begin. Also it has a cool down timer that means it can’t be deployed again for another hour.

Building the Drilling Rigs

So to create the T2 variety you could make it so that what makes it a T2 rig is either done by invention and materials or by adding a destructible rig to the standard rig.

The invention / material idea has some great game play around resource gathering and trading etc

And the module rig idea has some game play around being able to change your drilling rigs by removing / adding rigs as the needs of your organisation change. This would have to be done when the structure is un anchored thus making it vulnerable etc.

ORE PODS

Ore pods are a new way for asteroid and moon ore to be collected and transported and have the following attributes.

1. = They travel by warping from the resource to the drilling rig / station / industrial array.
2. = When being sent back to an industrial array / station they can’t do it all in one warp their warp drives are small and so have spool up and spool down timers this creates opportunity for all sorts of game play (awoxing etc).
3. = When they drop out of warp they can be either blown up or looted by scrambling the pod to prevent it warping off.
4. = Scanned down using core scanner probes.
5. = When arriving at a moon mining rig T1 or T2 it can be looted until it is tractored in
6. = Completes the warp with just 1 cool down stop when transporting to a moon mining rig.

What's wrong with the ccp thread on this topic?