[Wild_Bill]

I absolutely support higher profits for mining. I also agree while every ore should be present in every sector, some ores would be more plentiful in some sectors than others, pretty much like it is currently. What I would like to see added is that in the mix of various ores in each type of 'roid, some areas would have higher percentages of one ore than others. Perhaps Solrain Semifluxors would have higher yields of Silicon, though the percentage of Semifluxor roids would be lower than say, Quantar. (idea stolen from GrimGriz).

All non-common ores should be in greater plentitude in unreg, with perhaps larger roids as well (incentive to mine in unreg). Pures, if they are in Jumpgate Evolution should also come in larger sizes in unreg for the same reason.

[netburnr]

I would say the unreg sectors between factions, I would leave it out of deep unreg as that is where the underbelly will live, and it would just be mean to make people go out that far to get the good stuff, while also giving the bad guys an advantage. With it between the sectors, patrolling faction "offense" would be more likely to run into a pirate miner (hey pirates need stuff too), and have a chance to get some much wanted payback.

[Chaser]

I see what your saying, and your right. Some sectors, just because they SAFER will be mined harder, so the good ores will disapear fast from them. That way even with respwans, the serious miner/manufacturer will need to go into other areas to mine.Just remember how hard it was to make stuff before, there wasnt enough stations making the same thing and miners got upset they were literally hunted by pvpers who then cryed that there wasnt enough weapons and stuff being made. If they plan all this right, we can have it a lot better, and miners can do what they want, mine while hunters will have an ever challenging bunch to hunt. Maybe things will be better with all the new AI and such, we'll see soon I hope.

[Solo]

How's about large asteroid clusters, or things like comets (a large body with some cloud of smaller bodies), with more special minerals drifting through the map like the clouds in Jumpgate-C, some showing on map others invisible. When reaching a sector they more or less slowly drift across it during a few days giving the ones finding it some time to mine them, especially during the short time near(er) to the gates, until they vanish into deep space again. With watching direction it maybe could be possible to predict in what sectors they arrive next some (quite long) time later.

The profits of mining could be higher, that's right. Escorts could still be a problem though because of boredom. Though if it's possible to dump mined ore so the bigger vessels can scoop it (and get rid of the mass if necessary) there is the possibility of fighters do some mining as well or even a place for some new type fighter/mining hybridcrafts. Of course that means the escortcrafts are inferior to pure fighters (though a Phoon with just 2 weapons was still a not to underestimate fighter back then, though the thing with the energy made it a bit special anyway) but still better than no 'escort'. Like in Eve, escort duty meant doing it with mining equipped (battle)cruisers or a good book at hand, and unlike Jumpgate Eve is a game where having a good book at hand comes handy anyway.

[Badger]

Solo, I really like the thrust of your ideas, which is to get more people involved in the mining process. Anything which makes it more social is good. And yeah, I think it'd be really cool to see players able to fit out a fighter for light mining duty without compromising its ability to at least fight off a couple of space ferrets.

Eve is a game where having a good book at hand comes handy anyway.

Truth.

[Wild_Bill]

IF we get AI escorts, then hiring one while you mine would be do-able. The only time I could get a mining-escort was from one of my own squaddies or some bored and/or newb that needed a little extra cash and some flux kills.

[Badger]

Originally Posted by Wild_Bill

IF we get AI escorts, then hiring one while you mine would be do-able. The only time I could get a mining-escort was from one of my own squaddies or some bored and/or newb that needed a little extra cash and some flux kills.

As soon as you said AI escorts, I heard two things:

Cannon Fodder
Diablo Mercenaries

I think having AI escorts would end up just being like EVE drones. And it would give you much less respect for the AI being developed, and encourage yout to see it as cannon fodder. Unless...

When taking out an AI mercenary, you pay a flat fee + "life insurance"

If the mercenary makes it back to base safely, you get the life insurance deposit back. If not, the money goes to his orphaned space ferrets.

[Wild_Bill]

Well Badger, if they could adequately protect me from flux and ward off pirates for a set fee then I would be for it. If all they did is get killed and cost me money, then they are not much use to me or anyone else. I was just going on the hope that AI escorts would be at least decent. If they're not any good, then no one will use them and it won't matter.

[netburnr]

I think AI Escorts should be equal or better than the typical player. So all ND needs to do is get a baseline for the average player (by looking at stats collected in beta) and set the AI to have similar attributes. That way a decent player (pirate) will have a hard time taking down that AI escort and actually have some fun doing so.

I know I look forward to taking on AI ships in the forms of enforcers and hopefully escort ships

[Bingofuel]

Originally Posted by netburnrol

Ohh, in SWG, when mining, did you ship get slower and harder to move? Cause that could cause problems being implemented in Jumpgate Evolution if the ships mass causes you too slow to be able to move fast enough to catch the rocks

Sorry for the late response but I had 4 complicated apps that needed to be writen tested debugged tested and delivered by yesterday. o time for message boards.

No, the ships never gained mass nor was there any inertia in SWG. Comparing the method of SWG mineing with the ships in Jumpgate Classic. The Light and Heavy minners would be able to do it even when the hold nears capacity. The Cargo ships would probably maybe be able to get 3/4 capacity before it would be impossable to keep up with the roidlets.

In SWG you were able to target the roids and match target speed which made the process easyer to get directly behind the roidlet. With a little adjustment to your aim so the tractor beem is shooting down the bullseye, you could blast the roidlet an suck up the ore in the same hit. This also required the use af a ship where the 2 guns were mounted close together. You could also mine purely with the mineing laser by blasting the ore. This method yields 1/3 the ore that tractor mineing yields.

The mineing laser also made a fair weapon so you could fight the pirates that would occasionaly spawn instead of a roidlet. The tractor beem would help limit the enemys ability to manuver and fly faster than you can.

[Bingofuel]

The way I imagine AI escorts will be are little more than speed bumps. They wont have the ability to win fights without your help. But they will be an extra gun, taunt NPCs off of you well enough for you to make a run for it or to get cheep shots off.

[netburnr]

Speedbumps eh?

Well if the person is smart they will hire a couple speedbumps.

However I doubt ND will nerf them that bad, I envisioned them as "almost as good as a real person" yet I'm sure they can make them "even better than everyone" if they wanted.