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Discovery’s mining prices have been outdated for a fairly long time, primarily owing to substantial system changes affecting routes, but also because the excessive number of sell points make managing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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News article library, feedback and content requests.

[Groshyr]

How about my request for Encalve ore sell points? Are you going to add at least a few to Enclave bases?

[jammi]

How about my request for Encalve ore sell points? Are you going to add at least a few to Enclave bases?

Read the data linked at the top of the page.

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News article library, feedback and content requests.

[Groshyr]

Have lags with google docs of any kind. Thank you, nice prices <3

[Karst]

A few things about the map: This was an attempt to visualize the new route layout efficiently, so if you aren't blown away by its graphical quality, I'm sorry.

Yellow squares are the buyers. Colored circles are systems containing mining fields, which then lead along their quickest route to their two buyers, grouped into regions.
Dark Blue, Taus source (Molybdenum, Niobium, Raw Hydrocarbons) -> Rheinland, Omicrons
Light Blue, Sigmas source (Helium-3, Uranium, Aluminum, Platinum) -> Liberty, Bretonia
Grey, Liberty source (Military Salvage, Premium Scrap, Copper) -> Gallia, Omicrons
Red, Bretonia source (Gold) -> Kusari, Rheinland
Diarrhea brown, Omegas source (Uncut Diamonds, Cobalt, Silver) -> Gallia, Kusari
and Dark Green, Omicrons source (Iridium) -> Liberty, Bretonia

It does not show the routes for Xeno Relics or Azurite Gas (since they go to all houses), and it also does not consider fences, in the cases in which they are not in the capital system, where the main buyers are. Including those would totally overload the map.

As you can see there's still a lot going on, but it's a huge improvement over the current status, where a map of all mining routes would essentially just be a map of Sirius.
Any more route compression is going to have to wait until we can take a good hard look at mining locations, which as mentioned in the OP, we intend to.

If there's any ID that you think should have access to a region's fences but currently doesn't, please let us know. It is of course conceivably possible that we could have forgotten someone. But please read the actual post and data sheet first, before asking if somebody is going to have access. The list is literally right there.

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[Wraga]

Time to sell some mining ships

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[Lemon]

Damn it guys
I just deleted my miner character
missions seemed more fun

now I have to bring one back, and you divert attention to the regional event so Smuggling the new routes is easier

Seriously impressed with the direction you are taking Discovery, focusing on core gameplay changes instead of grandioze events, you're making it so much fun for varied roles

[Jeuge]

I like

[TheShooter36]

And here goes the two sellpoints CR got after years of nothing.

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[Burning]

I don't have the knowledge to analyze the data sheet properly, but I like what I see and the idea behind it. Generally I appreciate the Devs/GMs approach to those overhauls and I'm grateful you guys take care of the game/mod.

As someone who is not in a mining or trading faction currently, I have a hard time keeping an overview of PoBs selling the ore I'd like to transport. Here's my idea how to make things more accessible:

A table gets implemented on the website (accessible through "Player Utilities". The table shows "Ore Type", "Ore availability", "Mining Activity", "Location" and "Last Updated". Ore type shows which ore is being sold, the availability shows how much of it, the status shows whether there's a miner nearby or not, location and last updated is obvious. PoB owners can create an entry for their PoB and appoint their miners/traders as mods who can edit the entry. Miners and traders that were appointed as mods then edit the ore availability whenever they stop by the PoB, so other traders (but also pirates for activity!) can plan where to go next on their routes. Mods can also put "active" in mining activity if they please. It shows traders that they can come by and grab a cargo load, but, again, it also attracts pirates. The "active" sign automatically switches back to "inactive" after an hour or so.