Read by Council Let the robots grind I want to fight.

[Mango888]

Will there every be a mining mode for AI modules? To be honest I hate mining it's super boring. The only game I liked mining in was Terraria because it was full of variety and danger. I'd rather only get resources from battle and start back at the bottom when my ship dies except I'd like the bottom to be a random light to super heavy fighter class ship. Losing everything is a nice way to lose interest completely.

 

[therimmer96]

Will there every be a mining mode for AI modules? To be honest I hate mining it's super boring. The only game I liked mining in was Terraria because it was full of variety and danger. I'd rather only get resources from battle and start back at the bottom when my ship dies except I'd like the bottom to be a random light to super heavy fighter class ship. Losing everything is a nice way to lose interest completely.

Using rails, you can set up automatic planet eaters, so kinda, yeah. Sector just needs to stay loaded.

 

[SomethingSlimy]

Maybe Starmade should have some "default" blueprints you can buy for stuff like auto-miners, turrets, astronaut gravity cannons, etc. Just so that new players don't have to figure it out all on their own.

 

[hunterRAE]

It is super easy to setup a auto-miner, but yes, the sector must be loaded. There is plenty of blueprints that show this on the dock and I think the owners of these blueprints would greatly interest you with their creations.

 

[Valiant70]

Maybe Starmade should have some "default" blueprints you can buy for stuff like auto-miners, turrets, astronaut gravity cannons, etc. Just so that new players don't have to figure it out all on their own.

It would be fairly easy to select a set of them from the community content area once the game is out of alpha. If we did it now they'd all be outdated and crappy in no time.

 

[Pacific_Jim]

As far as having salvager ships operated entirely by AI who go off and munch up asteroids and planets whilst you stay in your base I don't really see happening, at least in that way. That's a lot of extra loading and entities the server will have to keep track off.

 

[Lord Daro]

I am not a fan of mining either, so I would like a feature like that too.
But it can probably implemented without necessarily loading the sectors. It's planned to populate the starmade universe with alot of live anyways.
For example could the sever analyse the ship of an AI pilot as soon the sector it's in get's unloaded and have mine a fix amount based on the ship, every half hour or so.

 

[Valiant70]

What we need is not automated mining, but alternatives to mining. Some stuff could come with flora and fauna systems like growing plants that leech ore from the soil or breeding creatures that grow crystals on their shells.

 

[SomethingSlimy]

What we need is not automated mining, but alternatives to mining. Some stuff could come with flora and fauna systems like growing plants that leech ore from the soil or breeding creatures that grow crystals on their shells.

Or something less weird, like an NPC bounty system.

 

[hunterRAE]

What we need is not automated mining, but alternatives to mining. Some stuff could come with flora and fauna systems like growing plants that leech ore from the soil or breeding creatures that grow crystals on their shells.

Even though this seems other worldly, that's kind of the spirit of having alien life in a game. I agree that this should be something possible for those determined to explore and find stuff like this in their server. Also, this is not as farfetched as many think (we do stuff like this with genetically modified species today . Nice job bringing this idea out Valiant70, this actually might be a nice touch to the game.

 

[nightwalker_007]

Well, hmm.. At first I'd want to say no.. but I'm okay with the idea of your ship auto-mining for you, so long as you have to manually fly to a location, and you're only able to auto-mine asteroids. I have logic on my miner which will fire the beam for me, I just have to point my ship in the proper direction, and watch the asteroids melt away. Basically, it would behave like a turret, only rotating, but never accelerating. I do not think mining should be fully aromatic, however.

 

[Mango888]

I wish there was strong trade, trucking, and farming when I hear of world miners. World mining sounds pretty evil actually. I would actively seek your destruction in game knowing that you mine worlds clean were I not trying to figure out how to be a better pirate myself. I wish worlds would regenerate knowing you do that sort of thing. Of course how would I ever know you mined a world? Does any notification even show up when some one attacks your base or enters your space? Don't tell me it's just some radar blip I have to hope to discern.

 

[0Samuel0]

I wish there was strong trade, trucking, and farming when I hear of world miners. World mining sounds pretty evil actually. I would actively seek your destruction in game knowing that you mine worlds clean were I not trying to figure out how to be a better pirate myself. I wish worlds would regenerate knowing you do that sort of thing. Of course how would I ever know you mined a world? Does any notification even show up when some one attacks your base or enters your space? Don't tell me it's just some radar blip I have to hope to discern.

World eating is the largest source of resources for larger factions. It's just the way it is, until they implement a better system.

 

[jayman38]

Or something less weird, like an NPC bounty system.

I like this idea. To clarify, I'm thinking "set up a bounty on the boards that you want to buy x number of y commodities." Then NPC trade ships show up and you buy from or trade with them, much like from a trade station. That way, you have a virtually unlimited, if more expensive source of blocks to buy, when the shops run out, at the cost of higher prices and maybe delivery wait times. The NPC ships would simply spawn with a random number of the commodity, simulating an off-screen automated mining operation, without actually using up resources that you might want to use yourself. Problem: this is easily exploitable if variable prices are implemented.

 

[cyberus111]

Well, hmm.. At first I'd want to say no.. but I'm okay with the idea of your ship auto-mining for you, so long as you have to manually fly to a location, and you're only able to auto-mine asteroids. I have logic on my miner which will fire the beam for me, I just have to point my ship in the proper direction, and watch the asteroids melt away. Basically, it would behave like a turret, only rotating, but never accelerating. I do not think mining should be fully aromatic, however.

Without mining refining and building what would this game be ... Guild Wars In Space

While I know there is a group of people who would like nothing more than this outcome I hope it never comes to pass.

 

[philthy mcnasty]

What we need is not automated mining, but alternatives to mining. Some stuff could come with flora and fauna systems like growing plants that leech ore from the soil or breeding creatures that grow crystals on their shells.

like the ability to grow a ship? like the vorlons from Babylon 5, or the ship from farscape?

I mean technically, you can make a ship from anything, like the purple vine stuff, its just that your ship will die in combat, horribly, unless it has too many shields.

 

[Ithirahad]

Without mining refining and building what would this game be ... Guild Wars In Space

While I know there is a group of people who would like nothing more than this outcome I hope it never comes to pass.

Building will never go away, and refining, even if it's fully automated and the mining drones just dump supplies in the refinery, will always be going on in the background...

 

[Visitor]

I agree with rather having alternatives to mining with profits vs risk ratio balanced across the board for different activities. I actually already dislike the planet mining and generally - automatic cash grind. If players want credits, they should move their butts to earn it, the earning itself should just avoid being tedious as much as possible.

The general sentiment I cannot agree with. "Let the robots grind I want to fight". It's a straight way to "It should be fair for every type of player - let the robots grind, I want to mine", then "Let the robots build, I want to see my empire grow" and at that point it's "Let the robots play the game for me, I just want to see noobs pwned". And when the game plays itself for you, it's when StarMade dies as I doubt it would stand against the competition offering more and more things player both can and has to do in a varied gameplay.

Funnily enough, I've noticed such thing with a few MMOs where some, while offering automatic boons expanding with no effort in-game power of the current playerbase to keep them hooked, often get completely ignored by potential new players who see that without devoting their whole free time there is no chance to catch up.

It may not be exactly the same in StarMade, where there is great division with different servers and fluctuating userbase, but it will make the balance of power quite twisted as player factions will have even easier time to secure great amounts of resources/cash, while struggling players will struggle even more.

Lastly, the game currently, outside of building suffers from very short and bland progression. There's still little to see and few chances for original adventures to be had without players organizing themselves to provide such (it will probably change with some more background fluff, developed factions, quests, objects one will find in space and on planets - but so far lot of stuff is not even barebones yet). Offering automatic cash generators seems like a great idea to threaten the few reasons and limiters put on progression that are there (and they do a job bad enough that we don't really need to upset them more).