Assembly Hall

Disclaimer – 1) This idea and accompanying images was put together quickly and there is plenty of room for refinement and additions. 2) The models are quick Sketch-up drafts and have no textures 3) The base close-up image of the planetary rings is not mine and was found by a google search, I only added the ship, drones and overlay. 4) I'm posting this idea in both the 'Features & Ideas' section as well as the 'Assembly Hall' for more coverage and traffic, please post additions and refinements in the 'Features' post and support (if any) in the Assembly Hall. Thank you.



By Now I'm sure CCP have their own plans for this feature and several players have probably posted their own proposals, but this is my take on it and an idea I feel has merit.

The idea and inspiration for this post comes from Fishing Trawlers and the feel of setting a course and following it along the rings as others also trawl alongside you, casting out your net and hoping for the big score, sometimes you get it sometimes you don't. Ring mining should be like this and different from other mining in EVE, this post hopefully reflects that.

As to resources, ideally the materials recovered from ring mining would go towards Stargate construction, as plans shown at fanfest (2013) pointed out this goal for the next few years. However the resources could be used for any production or research CCP wishes to introduce (i.e. implants, Dust equipment, Tech 3 modules and so on). To me though, Stargate’s make the most sense, as these would not be new resources to New Eden (since high sec Empire planets have rings) but would be more along the lines of Concord granting permission to Capsuleers to finally mine them. The Empires have been able to build gates for a long time and that implies the resources do or did exist in their home systems.
That said, lets talk ring mining...

Stage One – Surveying the Rings

Planetary Ring Survey

Second Concept

So once you've found a suitable planetary body with rings, you'll need to survey it to find the best mining spot. Right clicking the planet and selecting 'Survey' will bring up the 'Mining Operation' screen (see above image) where you can plan and locate where the most efficient spot for you is.

You begin with an initial scan that displays if there are any other miners currently harvesting the rings and what ores are present.

Other Miners - If these miners are ahead of your chosen course through the rings then this could impact your mining yield as they may have already harvested the richest deposits of your chosen ore (however, there is no way to tell what they are mining short of asking them, and they could still lie). These players are shown by the red dots on the planetary rings and also includes the wake of their ships as they move along their orbit around the planet. A toggle is also available to show player names so you know who to contact, negotiate with or threaten if you chose.

Present Ores – Icons of all the available/discovered ores are also shown and highlighting one will display it's abundance within the rings and where those pockets are located. Similar to 'Planetary Interaction' these scan results can be refined and narrowed down with skills and adjustable filters. Mineral deposit positions vary from planet to planet as dictated by the planet's mass, radius, gravitational pull, the mass of the ores and their velocity in orbit.

Once you've select an ore to mine you then chose a distance from the planet that will be your orbital route or path that your ship will move along until you choose to stop mining. Confirming this selection leads to the beginning of your operation.

Stage Two – Planetary Ring Mining Barge

Mining Barge

Now this is where ring mining differs from other mining. Your ship, a new type of barge (possibly called a trawler or harvester), travels along it's orbital path just above the surface of the rings. A powerful and dedicated sensor system, located at the front of the ship, scans all material that passes below it and tags any that contain the desired ore.

Users can adjust and customise the threshold at which rocks are tagged. This is because unlike asteroids, ring rocks are taken whole and processed at a refinery, so it is possible to collect a large rock that contains only small amounts of the desired ore. Conversely it is possible to find small rocks containing an abundance of material. Managing and being selective about what you chose to recover is important as your ore hold is limited.

Stage Three – Tag it and bring it home.

Tagged Rocks

Successfully scanned and tagged rocks are highlighted in space. To avoid confusion and frustration only highlighted and tagged rocks can be recovered, so it doesn't matter if several other rocks are between you and the target as, while they are still visible, the non-highlighted cannot be clicked or selected. The overlay is also visible through non-tagged rocks so that they won't be impossible to see if other rocks move in front of the target (a sort of x-ray vision, holographic overlay). Tagged rocks can however move beyond your drone control range so skills and modules to extend this are strongly recommended. If you chose to recover a rock then select it and order a drone (or drones) to recover it.

+1
Nice idea and a good start on it as well.

Three days and so few responses? Is this a tl;dr problem or do poeple really hate the idea?

Tagged Rocks would be their own mining mini game. Depending on your skills, filters and chosen ore you could be seeing dozens or hundreds of results and highlighted rocks onscreen at once, particularly in rings found in null/w space where resources are higher in concentration. Balancing which rocks to collect and which to let float away would keep a miner's attention on the screen and focused on their mining.

I've heard people throw around the idea of using the new jettison can mechanic for hacking sites as a new mining feature but that doesn't fit the trawler feel I was looking at. It would fit more of a large asteriod or comet mining feature, where you blast off chunks and collect them.

But if you have other ideas of how to make mining 'fun' I'd love to hear them .

what resources do you propose for the rings?

will they be like ice belts and mined out in a given period?

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Sounds pretty reasonable, one question though. What would happen to the existing mining barges? Would they be rendered obsolete?

Could be interesting way to do things for those of us fancying a little interaction while mining that isn't just changing target...

Interesting idea but I think it should be handled a different way. The current mining mechanic is being messed with in Ice mining now which means that the ore side of it will be also tweaked soon enough. CCP can never leave things alone. Always have to NERF things for the sake of new ideas seems to always be the CCP idea of the day.

Perhaps using your idea with a POS mechanic would be a better reason to do it. Not to have it as an individual level item but something that should be at the corp level and does not have to be done at the alliance level. Something that requires teamwork.