' Wrote:If you want to discuss suggestions, I offer you one. That one seems to have been unnoticed in the main thread, so I decided to propose it here. I just want to know other people's opinions on that one. And I used BMM as an example here.
This proposal seems interesting. However, I'd say that dropping ore prices by 55-60% would be enough. Also, double the bonuses of the mining mod. This may help with the following:

<strike>1) Solo-Hegemon mining becomes nerfed enough (may also nerf Hegemon's speed/agility and cargo hold, but buff armor, to make it more like a mobile mining base; who knows, maybe depriving the Hegemon of thruster in the long run will do the trick).</strike>
2) As for those, who switch to their traders and grab their own ore... Maybe buffing trading (even by 10%) will make them forget about mining. So, we'll get the powertraders (since we're going to get them anyway), but we will get rid of some powerminers.

I'll use BMM as an example (just the first mining faction that came to mind). I was thinking of adding more than 1 ore-buying point (e.g., let the BMM drop ore somewhere in Bretonia for a small sum like 800 per unit), but now player factions can arrange that without admin interference (since the Barge was introduced). I imagine it as something like: BMM sign a contract with Bowex, deliver the ore to Bowex barge, get their share. Then Bowex traders get the cargo from the barge and deliver it to the destination. The profits would not be as high as they used to be, but people will have RP and factions will actually cooperate.

What we need is to find the balance between time and profit: hauling ore must be profitable enough for Bowex (so that they prefer hauling to simple trading), but solo mining+selling ore must be worse in terms of time/money balance than simple trading.

Some other thoughts about mining. These are improvements that could be done to get rid of the problems of the previous mining system.
Add more mining fields with various ore-dropping points. I'd really like to see at least one mining field in Liberty (in Pennsylvania, Colorado, or somewhere else), and at least one field somewhere around Kusari (Sigmas, GMG and gas mining).

I don't know whether adding real gas mining is possible without making a patch. My point on this matter is: why invent something new when you can just make some asteroid fields drop "Gas" commodity? I am aware that it would not look true-to-life, but there're many things on Discovery that look like they'd look in RL (e.g., human guns on nomad morphs, etc). This may be the temporary solution, but it's something that may be done, sort of a compromise.

By adding mining fields for GMG and DSE we will:
1) Give activity boost to DSE and GMG.
2) Provide Kusari with some activity (by putting dropping points there, at least the dropping point for DSE-mined commodity).

General result: mining nerfed enough, trading buffed a bit, powerminers switch to powertrading (though it doesn't mean they'll spread all over Sirius; still we'll get powertraders anyway, without mining mod or with the mining mod nerfed enough), mining provides more RP for both trading and mining factions.

' Wrote:Background: The current mess with mining is the fact that there are too many lolwut miners that end up generating too many bull**** sanction reports. There aren't enough admins to go through all of these, and they believe that they are subject to too much work sorting them out.
Mining is also consuming disco. Back when i started to play, a year ago, gold had a larger price and smaller yield. It wasn't so strongly traded as it is now. Now ores are pretty much the only item people trade it. its some ore here and there with taking a generic commodity back to the ore site. This is a problem, and its not the fault of lack of good trade routes. if the fault of
a) too much frowning on piracy
b) having an easily exploitable mining system

I have made this suggestion before, haven't got enough feedback and I truly believe this should increase trading activity as a whole.

Quote:-Mining system-

• Add a new system of "Approved Factions." An approved faction shall be a mining faction, that has applied and pledged to have a system of RP where members cooperate and function as they should in RP. They should be responsible for all of their members. and strictly weed out all of those that tear down their image. Meaning, make mining sacred!.
  a) Idea: These factions should petition their creation request to an official faction, OR to the community in the faction creation request thread

Quote:

Approved Factions aren't official. Meaning they do not have have the ability to set RP policy (like on the comm channel)

Official Factions (which are inherently approved) shall also be given the ability to mine. they should be the source of light for everyone in disco. Official mining factions need to have the following responsibilities:
a) They must do their best to set a good example to new players
b) They must make very clear RP guidelines on the forums how to RP their faction. Not everybody is going to be reading the [story] lore of every faction, and to have simple RP guidelines is a better way to go.
c) If someone who is applying to the official faction has "bad quality RP," do whatever it takes to change that, and to allow the members to join.

Quote:-Mining yields in coherence with above system-

Raise Ore prices 3-4x

Reduce Yields 3-4x

All Mining IDs/IFFs will have their own base yield.

All "Approved Factions" Will have 2x the mining yields of indies. (admin suggestion: If this is hard to implement via char name, Make a separate ID for factions that allow this bonus)

Quote:Ore hauling should be a privilege: With a product that is in high demand, and very difficult to come by, Group mining operations are mandatory, for security and for mining speed.

Quote:Roleplay Changes

add rule 0.1 which clearly states that Cargo piracy is fully permissible and that all haulers and miners should be aware that Life sucks and wealth can be removed from them rather easily.

Ore traffic should be severely reduced, open to a much fewer audience. This system encourages official shipping factions to take over the shipping process, however nothing says indies shouldn't be allowed to haul, they should be well aware of the next bullet.

Since Ore is going to be so expensive and so hard to come by, Pirates may go out of their way to steal the ore. Cargo Piracy should be encouraged in general. That's how a lot of piracy works in the real word! Don't want all your ore to get stolen? hire security!

Quote:I'm sure a lot of folks who like indie mining will be angered by this idea, but mining operations are meant to be big, and they are meant to gather as much ore as possible in order to meet demand. in space they should go out of their way to get enough logistical support to maintain an operation. If such indie doesn't want to be an a faction, its their problem. If they want to make an "approved faction" then so be it. Just make it clear to the community that you can RP and that you will maintain order (RP and rule-wise) with your members.

' Wrote:In order to make mining a team activity the drop rates must be fairly high. Quicker the miner fills up, more he is dependent on others. I'm for higher drop rates and nerf in prices.

Quote:In order to make mining a team activity the drop rates must be fairly high. Quicker the miner fills up, more he is dependent on others. I'm for higher drop rates and nerf in prices.

' Wrote:Good thoughts on this so far...
Making mining factions as exclusive as SCRA, Phantoms, Nomads etc? Jolly good idea. Who's going to be in charge of who gets in and who gets left behind? How do new players get invited or even made aware that this is the way to go? Moneymaking schemes should -not- be exclusive in my opinion, so I am very much opposed to this idea. Being able to mine should not equate to having the moneymaking variant of the nomad gunboat turret.
the idea of having seperate factions that are much easier to create was to combat this issue. I dont think you understood what i meant.

You've basically summed up a few of the official faction responsibilities that come with the faction rights. Not sure what you're trying to accomplish by pushing this on unofficial factions.
right. the idea is to try to make these factions have a strong sense of RP. something that enough indies dont have, that have resulted in the mess we are currently in

I thought the aim was to generate more trade? Then you need more cargo, not higher value cargo. I would propose the exact opposite of this: Drop ore prices by 75% (to about the value of the base commodity) and quadruple their droprate. Then kill the Hegemon as a mining vessel (or halve it's bonus) to curb solo mining.
Then there is nothing special about mining, you may as well kill the base commodity sold in stations if you decide to do this.

Yea. Hauling unprocessed chunks of rock should be the domain of the most elite of traders. Sorry, but I'm going to have to disagree again. Ever seen a mining operation in real life? They have HUGE cargo movers to move a LOT of stuff in bulk very fast. You don't use armored transports for unprocessed rock. No, restrict mining to small miners to force people to buddy up with a transport, and ensure the transport is full rather quick so that:
a: The transport captain doesn't get bored. 30 minutes of just sitting there gets old.
b: The small miner can fill it's role as an escort afterward and be on the move as well.
You have an excellent point about the value of ore. but the fact of the matter is that disco has been using this value system for a while.
@ a and b
there I dont think there is anything wrong with hegemons. what you are suggesting is an adaptation to your own suggestion. IMHO mafics/dacites should be serving to hegemons THEN to transports. But this doesn't matter game mechanically i suppose:P

Please, no exclusivity, just drop the value down to that of every other basic trade commodity. Heck, do away with the "Ore" types entirely and just drop gold, silver, copper and whatnot directly. Gives miners who want to do short hauls a chance to drop it off at the nearest friendly base for a pittance, and pirates can do cargo piracy easily as well since most junker bases will readily trade base materials.
Again, i'm trying to remove exclusivity by allowing more factions using the same ID. (with one having official status,)

Corporations are big by handling volume, not value. How much sense would it make to have one unit of ore, pre-processing, be worth (if your proposal goes) 12-16x more valuable then it's processed equivalent?

again, good point, but this system has already existed.