2020 Mining Overhaul, Phase 1: Price and Sellpoint Adjustments

[jammi]

Ore Price Review Data

Firstly, massive thanks to @Karst for doing a lot of the leg work to get this sorted. We’re intending to implement these prices as of tomorrow’s server restart.

Discovery’s mining prices have been outdated for a fairly long time, primarily owing to substantial system changes affecting routes, but also because the excessive number of sell points make managing those prices increasingly unwieldy.

Equally problematic, the profitability of ores varies widely, resulting in some being severely underappreciated.

I feel it’s important initially to set out why some of the changes described in this post have been made, as the overhaul is fairly radical and is likely to be unpopular with some.

The original intention of the mining system was twofold:

1. Encourage economic activities that prioritise team work as a way to generate activity.
   
2. Create activity hotspots by corralling miners and traders through mining hubs and system chokepoints.
   
3. Creating incentives to play corporate mining characters by adding unique or preferential mining bonuses.

Point 1 is still largely solid, even if the addition of POBs distanced the direct relationship between miners and haulers. Point 2 is largely where the system has begun to unravel, with multitudes of sellpoints being added for every ore. 3 is also holding up relatively well, although the distribution of ores across different factions is also fairly lopsided.

While this is great for individual route choice, it completely demolishes the intended function of creating regional chokepoints to funnel activity. To address this, substantial changes have been made to the destinations that purchase ores from each region.

• Ores have been reworked to standardise their prices. These prices are based on credit per second values as follows:

• Primary: Standard lawful sellpoints - 6.5c/s
  
• Fences: 80% (up from 70%) value for pirates and smugglers - 5.2c/s
  
• Boosted: Contraband and exceptional ores - 7.15c/s

• All ores now ship to House capital planets where possible. Each ore ships to two Primary regions, which are broadly classified as Bretonia, Gallia, Kusari, Liberty, Omicron, Rheinland.
  
  
• ’Secondary’ ore points have been removed altogether, as they cluttered the mining economy and frequently broke the primary design intent behind focusing activity. All factions that previously had their own specific sell points still have access to either primary sell points, or un/quasi-lawful fence locations.
  
  
• Fence sell points have been set so that all quasi-lawful and unlawful factions within each region have access to at least one sell point. These are typically Junker bases, and an additional point for whichever factions cannot dock there. The Omicron region only has one sale point, Freeport 9, because all factions can dock there without requiring additional fence locations.
  
  
• Contraband and exceptional ores are Azurite Gas and Xeno Relics. These still ship to everywhere due to their unique status and future plans relating to them.

Future to-do:

• Provide more interesting gameplay options surrounding Azurite Gas. ETA: imminent / short term.
  
  
• A ground-up reassessment of mining field locations and ore types to ensure that a better game environment is created in terms of activity hubs and route pathing. ETA: medium term.

I’m sure there will be lots of feedback about this system, and we’re happy to hear your thoughts and comments in this thread. With an eventual full review of mining system work, we also hope to even out the number of mineable commodities available, and the destinations they go to.

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