Player Features and Ideas Discussion

How will moon mining work?

Will there still only be one drilling platform per moon, or can multiple structures compete with each other for the limited hourly resource allotment?

I really like the latter.

i have a fev questions about the drilling platform. can it mine ore? is it automatic or do i have to manualy control the mining lasers?

Regarding drilling platforms I would rather they did not arrive in a passive or 'AFK' format.

When I watched the fanfest structures presentation I gathered the drilling platforms would not form part of a POS or outpost. The larger rock/planetoid formations would appear randomly in asteroid belts and/or mining anomalies . The drilling platform would be dropped by an Orca and anchored to the larger rock/planetoid. It would look in appearance like the mining colonies you see in mission deadspaces currently but would be operated like a mining ship. Beyond that I'm not sure except that a capsuleer/s would have to be present for mining to take place.

Do you foresee drilling platforms being available in null, low, WH, and high sec systems or just candy for null-sec ?

Questions:

Will the Market and Office Hubs be available in W-space, allowing us to FINALLY have jump clone service available?


Will Drilling platforms come in a size or version that facilitates temporary or one-time deployment? In W-space we often scan down a chain looking for gas, and if we found a good system with some instrumentals I can see us utilizing a platform to improve our gas harvesting. You could make it so that it has storage and we could deposit the gas there instead of taking it all the way home, making the platform a potential content generator as people attack it or ambush miners/indies at that location.

Some questions on drilling platforms:

* Will they be anchorable in nullsec without sov? If not, will they be anchorable in lowsec to access moongoo there?
* What will happen to drilling yield when sov is removed from a system? I.e. will sov give a yield-bonus to what is extracted?
* Will there be a possibility to increase a drilling platform yield by iHub upgrades?
* Will siphons work on drilling platforms? If so, what will they siphon out and how to "control" what is stolen?
* Will reaction chains work the same way as they do today in POSes, or will there be a possibility to chain longer reaction-chains?
* Will you have to have several drilling platforms in a system to extract the moon-goo which is today extracted by a POS? I.e. will you also have to manually transport the goo and/or reaction-results between different platforms, in analogy with how it works with POSes today?

Some general questions concerning the new structures:
* Today, cynos can be lit so that ships are instantly within docking range to stations/outposts, in reality making jumpcapable ships invulnerable when using cynos to these structures of today. On POSes however, you have to ligth cynos at least 5000m from the POS-shield, adding a certain risk to cynoing in to POSes. What is the intended cyno-functionality for the new structures?

And finally some idéas and comments:
I understood that there where some thoughts about connecting R64 moon-goo to the sov-mechanics, so that sov gives some kind of "bonus" to the yield possible from moons in sov-space. I think this (if it will be so) is a splendid idea! Today there are R64 moons available in lowsec, and those moons are just as valuable as a R64 in nullsec. My view is that the value should scale so that R64s in lowsec are valuable, but not as potentially valuable as a R64 in nullsec where you have sov. The reason for this is that connecting R64 incomes to sov would give large alliances a reason to fight for sov. No large alliance will fight for upgraded ratting systems IMHO. Alliances WILL however fight fiercly for R64 incomes.

About the Market Hubs. I realise that the dev blog is part concept and partly a base for discussion.

In one of the pictures there is a Market Hub in Luminaire that is under attack and has a corp icon. Does this mean you are planning to allow players (corporations really) to deploy a market hub in high sec and if so would be be like a normal station where you can buy and sell? or some sort of hybrid like null sec where you have freeports (e.g. in providence) or stations that exclude non-blues?

Or am I reading too much into the concept art and things are still under discussion?

It would be great if I could fly up to someplace where an event is taking place and drop a open-to-the public market, full of ammo and modules for everyone.

That means markets cannot be limited to just XL structures. Give traveling salesmen something too.

An idea for drilling platforms: Turn over the role of spawning mining anomalies to these structures. Essentially, they have a scanner that finds the rocks. This scanner should be script-able. You can set it to find anomalies slanted toward different minerals. In that way, miners can follow the market, spawning that is most valuable at any given time.

Are you considering allowing these drilling structures to mine ore/ice from belts/anomalies? I think this would be a valuable addition to the game. It has a good mix of risk and reward that can be balanced such that in order to recoup the invested cost of the platform must be functioning and protected for quite some time. It can, and probably should, mine at a lower rate that a comparably expensive mining fleet of exhumers/barges.

As a numerical example perhaps a 1-1.5 bil isk mining platform can mine with the effectiveness of a moderately skilled hulk. The platform cannot flee if an enemy appears, its moderate defenses cannot fight off a dedicated opponent, but it does mine with effectiveness that if the structure is still standing 2 days later you will be gaining a profit, and it does mine 24 hours a day. This can be expanded into a 10 bil isk structure that has non-trivial defenses, mines as much as a fleet of hulks, but would take a week or two to start making a profit. Or a 100 mil isk strucutre that has pitiful defenses and mines as much as a mining barge.

By adding these automated ore/ice drilling platforms there is still a place for miners who enjoy mining. Those of us that are willing to invest into structures that are constantly at risk, and can't stand mining, would gain a huge avenue of gameplay. It would bring additional meaningful gameplay and be a wonderful target for roaming groups.

How is moon mining going to work in the new system. Is it still going to be relatively passive income, or will there be an entirely new way of getting said materials.

If the new structure can mine like the old ones (moon harvesters), please give us the ability to mine up to four types per moon (assuming the moon has said types). A lot of base r4 and r8 materials are mined as a byproduct, usually on deathstars.

I wasn't referring to "fencing off" a planet, or any other resource...but merely a way to give us a method of interrupting/removing others. Could be any number of "Planetary Drilling Platforms" around a planet as far as I am concerned. Scan them down, and then kill the ones that don't belong.