[TESTREQUEST] Mining and Prospecting

[Ketraar]

5.00 brings some adjustments to the mining and prospecting features. Though neither changes are very deep, it would be good to get some feedback on them during this beta cycle. If you have any feedback related to these features please post them here. We'd appreciate any insights from both players that start new games, and also from those that are using saves from previous versions.

Mining Regions
To improve performance, some changes and fixes were made to mining regions. This had some impact on region yields, and we adjusted them accordingly so that they have approximately the values that we had before.
Based on previous feedback, a few additional gas regions were added, which should help combat the scarcity of some gases.



Prospecting
Placing resource probes no longer prioritises mining locations.
Mining ships will decide where to mine based on which spot is the best, within the restrictions set by their parameters.
Placing probes in good spots still has an impact on mining efficiency.
Players that want to control where ships should mine or where they shouldn't, can use the blacklist feature to define that, on a per ship basis where necessary.



Please let us know what you think and how this impacts your game. We are looking forward to your feedback. Thanks in advance.

[SirBerrial]

Ships still seem to cluster in spots.
Some clusters are in locations with no coloured tiles:

[errorname1002]

For me , the ships started distributing themselves better than ever. There are still some hotspot , but they are way less condensed than last update
https://ibb.co/m4rBf2d

[cheef.che]

Thank you guys for working on mining improvements. However in my game started from 4.20 I've mentioned an issue with mining behaviour. There is my situation:

I have a mining station in Family Nhuut with 3 big gas miners. And methan in this sector is almost fully depleted (they flying in hours to deliver something), but miners won't relocate to neighboring Family Zhin which has around 50%-80% methan available (according to the 6 resource probs). Their manager has 4 stars, so I suppose it's not optimal behaviour.
Meanwhile in Family Zhin I've setup 2 advances methan mines which mines in same sector, which is good and expected.

After updating to 5.00 Beta I saw that my advances miners from Family Zhin immediately relocated to mine to Family Nhuut, where methan is depleted. That's sounds like an issue which I "manage to fix" by setup their "Max sectors to mine" to 0.
There are screenshots from RU version shows the mining probes info ('Метан" is methan).




P.S. I have 4.20 backup saves and actual for 5.00 beta if they needed

[Ketraar]

Would be good if people posted their saves when pointing out issues. It helps looking into it, thanks.

MFG

Ketraar

[SirBerrial]

Would be good if people posted their saves when pointing out issues. It helps looking into it, thanks.

MFG

Ketraar

Save from here.
Save from 4.2.
Ships behaved the same way after clearing the orders, but not assignments.

[ajiuop]

I have some crazy thing with miners in Memory of Profit IX.
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ ... rbox=false

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hW0lYC ... sp=sharing

[alt3rn1ty]

Having had a few days with 5.0 Beta 1 hf1 I am noticing a bit better resource gathering by my miners working for PHQ in Scale plate green.
Also noticed a good distribution of blue patches on the map where previously there were none, in Matrix#9, Matrix#451, Turquoise Sea IX and Turquoise Sea X.
Path to Profit used to have a big square blue patch of a gas cloud covering most of the sector, once you lifted the fog of war it looked a bit un-natural being square, but now that has changed into a more rounded big patch which looks better aesthetically.
I am also noticing other factions are laying resource probes better than they used to, just today saw a ZYA Prospector Jaguar laying resource probes in Pious Mists IV, never seen that faction laying resource probes before, but they are not laying resource probes excessively, which is good.
Only problem I still see is the scarcity of Ice, especially for my PHQ in Scale Plate Green.
Ice is also a problem if (after you have helped / befriended the Yaki) you want to build stations in Savage Spur I, depends on what resources your stations need, I made mine not dependant on Ice in that area.

No yields to offer as feedback, just a general feeling, overall I think mining has improved a little.

[alt3rn1ty]

+ Atiyas Misfortune and Faulty Logic sectors seem to have a better spread of resources (at least visually on the map anyway)

[Ketraar]

I have some crazy thing with miners in Memory of Profit IX.
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ ... rbox=false

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hW0lYC ... sp=sharing

Ok I had a quick a look and oh boy!

Memory of Profit IX has 700k Ore in its best days. You set up a fleet of 250 Miners with mimic command to a Local Autominer command. This means these ships wont leave this system ever and they will make short work of the minerals there in no time. This is a case of less is more. It would have been much better to just have 20 M miners for example with Advanced Automining (3 jumps radius) then 250 fighting from scraps.

Consider having ship be able to move from one location to another, so that they dont get stuck in one sector where the replenishing rate cant keep up with the mining rate of your mining fleet.

Only problem I still see is the scarcity of Ice, especially for my PHQ in Scale Plate Green.

Will have a look but don't think there is a shortage of ice. Yes it may not be abundant in some regions but that is fine as long as there is generally enough around. Up to you to find ways to get it.

Thanks for the feedback so far, more is always welcome.

MFG

Ketraar

[alt3rn1ty]

Will have a look but don't think there is a shortage of ice. Yes it may not be abundant in some regions but that is fine as long as there is generally enough around. Up to you to find ways to get it.

I think overall I generally do ok with getting Ice, but shortages are especially noticeable when you have a Terran station trying to produce Computronic Substrate, the stations high demand for Workforce on those stations need a lot of food (variable depending on workforce faction), and Ice for water supply to generate foods becomes a bottleneck for such stations.

[ubuntufreakdragon]

Xenon in Emperors Pride definitely need larger yields, they don't mine in their own system, if the Paranid set up a blockade in Litany of Fury These Xenon sectors always perish.

[ZacKPloK]

Maybe we can also get a complete Prospecting overhaul?

The problems I see:
It is really annoying to manually place all these resource probes, especially when resources get depleted and you have to move them over.
You don't know the yield of a region until you place the probe.
The IS Asteroids do not represent the yields on the map, so you can't even place them yourself in a meaningful manner. I just send some ship to drop Probes randomly in the coloured regions on the map.
Placing many probes is a really tedious task and clutters up the map.

Possible solutions:
Give us back our Mineral Scanners. Could even be you have to choose between this one and the Police scanner. This could give mining ships the same bonus as resource probes.
Let us have access to Prospectors. Could be a default behavior for Scouts with resource probes, who will go in an assigned sector and automatically drop Probes in the best regions. Then when resources get depleted move them somewhere else. Should also be possible to assign scouts with probes as part of the stations mining fleet to get the same behavior so they don't show up in our possessions list.

Just some thoughts, I hope this is the correct place for this suggestions, but you were asking for feedback

[CBJ]

I hope this is the correct place for this suggestions, but you were asking for feedback

No, as per the rules for this forum, it's for feedback on the features that are in the current beta, not for suggestions for completely new features or redesigns. That said, your feedback on what you see as the problems is fine here.

[Thurak]

5.0 HF 1

It's an continued 4.2 game.

In my game everyone seems to want to mine Ore and Silicon in Saturn 2. Everyone. Miners from Asterpoid Belt? Gone. Miners from Second Contact II? Saturn 2. Does not seem right to me.

game: https://www.dropbox.com/s/lhpc0yv2x0oml ... ml.gz?dl=0

[ubuntufreakdragon]

Hewa's Twin III looks so empty some Ice/Gas deposits would look nice and Hewa's Twin V should have higher yields, currently only Hewa's Twin II has deposits worth noting, but it's close to Xenon and Ring systems so it shouldn't be the primary deposit of this system.

[ajiuop]

Memory of Profit IX has 700k Ore in its best days. You set up a fleet of 250 Miners with mimic command to a Local Autominer command. This means these ships wont leave this system ever and they will make short work of the minerals there in no time. This is a case of less is more. It would have been much better to just have 20 M miners for example with Advanced Automining (3 jumps radius) then 250 fighting from scraps.
...
MFG

Ketraar

That was my goal: eat all resources and look what they will do next. It's a typical case when you are mining nividium and station has its own mining fleat which works where you told. But I didn't understand why they stay in a square corners, where 3 corners without recources. I expected that they will stay in asteroid belt and will wait available resources.

[HeinzS]

Placing probes in good spots still has an impact on mining efficiency.

If you want to mine efficiently, you have to constantly monitor the probes, which means that if you have several mining areas, you won't be able to get to anything else.

[Ketraar]

If you want to mine efficiently, you have to constantly monitor the probes, which means that if you have several mining areas, you won't be able to get to anything else.

That's the nature of micro management no? I mean its now much better to set automated mining where ships will relocate on their own even outside of own sector. That is a rather strong increase in efficiency that doesn't require ANY managing after exploration and set up. The probes is for micro managing and pushing even more out. Arguably the most efficient mining would be if you would do it yourself as that has the best outcome, which would be also the most micro intensive approach.

So you don't HAVE to place probes at all, but you can and it has some impact.

MFG

Ketraar

[FatalKeks]

How much of a difference do the probes make now? Like 10% more/faster yield or like 50%?