It think it would be nice to have different types of mining for different play styles, with a long term progression that offers more opportunities than just the gradual scale up to strip mining.
I mean, I enjoy strip mining, but it can get monotonous, and in terms of end game faction confict it makes it feel like the competition is more about hordes of locusts competing with each other to consume the universe than it is about building space empires with factories and shipping routes.
I looked through previous suggestions to see what kind of mining other people are interested in, and here's a short list of small additions that would lead to big game play changes without making blocks from nothing or rewarding idling.
TLDR Version:
-Rare large deposits
-Core mining via factory bases, with resource scarcity and finite resource quantities
-Geological scanner to find rare deposits and survey planet cores
Early game:
1 - Rare motherload deposits, so that new players with small mining ships can occasionally hit the big time, making early game mining feel more like a hunt for treasure.
2 - A variant of the scanner that does geological scans to pick up on big deposits, so that in the middle game players can choose between building large slow mining ships and sticking by the home system or fast survey ships for exploring the galaxy in search of treasure.
Late game:
3 - Planet core mining, but not the infinite blocks from nothing variety. Spawn each planet with an assigned quantity of minerals and make it so that a geological scanner will tell you how much of each resource a core has. That way factions will want to explore to find good sectors to build outposts, and factionless noobs who are out exploring the galaxy will occasionally stumble on an ideal location for a base and it will make them want to maybe start a faction, or join one, or even just sell the information for blocks.
Resource scarcity could be put in at the level of motherload deposits and planet core deposits, so that casual and new players can always get the basic set of resources they need but end game faction play would still involve competition over systems and trade.
(and blowing up a planet could be used as a type of scorched earth resource denial)
5 - Make core miners a factory block instead of a ship block, so that it always involves building an outpost and usually an outpost that can be blown up. Then make the mining itself slow, and much less efficient than investing the same resources in strip mining, where it would take weeks to deplete a planet and you'd have to hold the planet that long to make it profitable.
6 - Keep track of core mining outside of the loaded sectors, so that factions can set up distant outposts and players just need to collect the resources with cargo ships. This gives an incentive to build empires of connected sectors with warp gates and other infrastructure, but it also opens the game up to piracy and petty theft.
I mean, I enjoy strip mining, but it can get monotonous, and in terms of end game faction confict it makes it feel like the competition is more about hordes of locusts competing with each other to consume the universe than it is about building space empires with factories and shipping routes.
I looked through previous suggestions to see what kind of mining other people are interested in, and here's a short list of small additions that would lead to big game play changes without making blocks from nothing or rewarding idling.
TLDR Version:
-Rare large deposits
-Core mining via factory bases, with resource scarcity and finite resource quantities
-Geological scanner to find rare deposits and survey planet cores
Early game:
1 - Rare motherload deposits, so that new players with small mining ships can occasionally hit the big time, making early game mining feel more like a hunt for treasure.
2 - A variant of the scanner that does geological scans to pick up on big deposits, so that in the middle game players can choose between building large slow mining ships and sticking by the home system or fast survey ships for exploring the galaxy in search of treasure.
Late game:
3 - Planet core mining, but not the infinite blocks from nothing variety. Spawn each planet with an assigned quantity of minerals and make it so that a geological scanner will tell you how much of each resource a core has. That way factions will want to explore to find good sectors to build outposts, and factionless noobs who are out exploring the galaxy will occasionally stumble on an ideal location for a base and it will make them want to maybe start a faction, or join one, or even just sell the information for blocks.
Resource scarcity could be put in at the level of motherload deposits and planet core deposits, so that casual and new players can always get the basic set of resources they need but end game faction play would still involve competition over systems and trade.
(and blowing up a planet could be used as a type of scorched earth resource denial)
5 - Make core miners a factory block instead of a ship block, so that it always involves building an outpost and usually an outpost that can be blown up. Then make the mining itself slow, and much less efficient than investing the same resources in strip mining, where it would take weeks to deplete a planet and you'd have to hold the planet that long to make it profitable.
6 - Keep track of core mining outside of the loaded sectors, so that factions can set up distant outposts and players just need to collect the resources with cargo ships. This gives an incentive to build empires of connected sectors with warp gates and other infrastructure, but it also opens the game up to piracy and petty theft.
