Mining Prices Overhaul

[jammi]

Honestly, it would be relatively easy to modify the prices to reflect dangers and other environmental issues. For example, all of our prices are generated by looking at the cent/second rating, which then generates the suggested price based on the length/time of the route.

To amend that, all we'd need to do is set the table so each individual ore can have its own c/s specified again. Currently it's a universal variable that's applied to all of the listed ores. At that point, we'd just have to adjust the desired c/s to reflect whatever hazard we're interested in. For example, you could look at it using the following system:

Mined in safe system: no modification.
Mined in moderately dangerous system: +50c/s
Mined in very dangerous system: +100c/s
Traded across embargo: +100c/s.

The above isn't necessarily a good idea though, because the idea of imposing a flat rate is to make all ores equally viable against each other by normalising profits. Currently, ore balance is absolutely buggered.

There's been no consistent system applied to ore prices whatsoever. Instead, it looks like they've been roughly "eyeballed", with a general aversion to (balanced) larger numbers and reactionary knee-jerk nerfs as exploits are uncovered. Check the first sheet of the link to see what I mean.

The entire thing needs to be more consistent, to have a method applied to it that makes all ores equally viable and logically priced. This kind of suggestion would be best combined with field standardisation and merges, but honestly, the sooner this kind of thing is implemented the better.

Ore prices shouldn't be subjectively decided at a whim - they should be calculated evenly, the same as the rest of the economy.