HP based mining

[Pacific_Jim]

I think it's safe to say one of the biggest problems with planetary mining is the lag stemming from how many blocks are being affected at once. I think a solution to this may to combine salvaging with the HP system, and instead of grabbing objects block by block you keep a salvager on it until the HP is drained, and get everything in one go, replacing every block with a waste block. Possibly having this work in stages were as you drain HP past certain thresholds this happens gradually.

I will admit this takes away the "Galactus-ing" a planet aspect we have so far, were we just watch planets disappear, but this system would be less taxing, and it would be more practical to set up auto-salvagers on a large scale without tanking the server as much.

 

[Leanson]

I think it's safe to say one of the biggest problems with planetary mining is the lag stemming from how many blocks are being affected at once. I think a solution to this may to combine salvaging with the HP system, and instead of grabbing objects block by block you keep a salvager on it until the HP is drained, and get everything in one go, replacing every block with a waste block. Possibly having this work in stages were as you drain HP past certain thresholds this happens gradually.

I will admit this takes away the "Galactus-ing" a planet aspect we have so far, were we just watch planets disappear, but this system would be less taxing, and it would be more practical to set up auto-salvagers on a large scale without tanking the server as much.

Dude, this is almost the same idea I had. But let me run something by you. What if we reduced the amount of ore that is in a planet so players will focus on the core of the planet, where they shot a salvage beam to the planet core, the hp of the planet will count will reduce by the amount of ticks of each beam and strength. When you take away the planets hp, you get ores in return, randomly generated and depending on the radius of each planet you will get a bonus. It won't take away blocks from the planet and reduce lag. When the planet hp reaches 0 it will explode. You can stop mining, have the planet hp restore and go up, you in return can start mining again. We can also adjust the amount of hp in planets so they are at a good level.
This is what me and keptick have been talking about for some time
I think this is a good idea. Thank you for bringing it up.

 

[Winterhome]

I approve of Leanson's suggestion - steady block income as salvagers drain Core HP. You can either do a quick mine of the entire planet for a short term resource boost, or you can set up salvager based core quarries that keep the planet just under full HP regen for passive, permanent automining.

I suggest also making the system save the rate at which mining quarries are salvaging planets, provided they're run by Logic connected to a Salvage Computer, and are docked to the planet. That way, when the sector is unloaded, the quarry continues to gather imaginary HP. When you load the sector back up, the number of HP the quarry would have mined if the sector were loaded is converted to resources instantly and dumped into the storage modules connected to the quarry.

 

[Leanson]

This is a really good idea, that doesn't need any new blocks, and can easily be coded and implemented. The rate of blocks that would be gathered would need some work, but it can easily be done. And the best server lag would reduce because it takes away the need for mass planet mining and planet block removal! Dam thing got me excited now.

 

[Reilly Reese]

Obviously the most immersive and fun idea would be if we had actual excavators on the planet surface that we would have to defend from other factions and the planetary Fauna. But until planets themselves get a good optimization treatment I'll go for this.

 

[Winterhome]

Obviously the most immersive and fun idea would be if we had actual excavators on the planet surface that we would have to defend from other factions and the planetary Fauna. But until planets themselves get a good optimization treatment I'll go for this.

Our refined subsuggestions make that possible

 

[Pacific_Jim]

Obviously the most immersive and fun idea would be if we had actual excavators on the planet surface that we would have to defend from other factions and the planetary Fauna. But until planets themselves get a good optimization treatment I'll go for this.

I could definitely go for this.

And as for Core based mining, yeah that sounds even better really.

 

[Dark-life]

Great ideas guy!

 

[Kaamio]

Not a bad idea, would make mining a bit more abstract as opposed to pointing at the ore and getting it. Maybe add a treshold value at which point salvagers switch to bulk mode, maybe at 200 damage/tick or when you have more than 5 beams firing...

Then again, might just not be possible to have it both ways at the same time. Anyway, in bulk mining mode you could just get updates every 5-15 seconds with blocks disappearing to get more gradual effect and maybe with a bit less lag as you don't have to update many times a second... although I guess deciding which blocks get eaten is a bit of a task.

 

[Leanson]

The goal is to when mining not remove any block and just reduce the planet heath to receive blocks. As you are mining the planets core. I think updating removes blocks is what causes massive lag. This system if implemented would reduce server lag and like on Shattered skies, would allow for 100 players to mine a planet easily, of course they would have to load the planet, but still it would make servers run better. It give planets a purpose to settle and visit too.

 

[Winterhome]

The goal is to when mining not remove any block and just reduce the planet heath to receive blocks. As you are mining the planets core. I think updating removes blocks is what causes massive lag. This system if implemented would reduce server lag and like on Shattered skies, would allow for 100 players to mine a planet easily, of course they would have to load the planet, but still it would make servers run better. It give planets a purpose to settle and visit too.

Don't necessarily have to load the planet more than once, plus any time you visit the planet to collect ores.

It'd help get rid of some of the grindy aspect of the game, and give factions a good reason to want to expand. With the amount of factions we have on most servers, I'd expect to see plenty of factions in the core territories fighting over systems with planets in them for the passive resource gathering.

 

[Leanson]

Don't necessarily have to load the planet more than once, plus any time you visit the planet to collect ores.

It'd help get rid of some of the grindy aspect of the game, and give factions a good reason to want to expand. With the amount of factions we have

Yes I believe they would fight over planets, large one in systems that contain them. Planetary invasions anyone. Now we can make it to where we can perform the action in any entity, like a ship to the core. Or have it where you can only planet mine with a setup on one of or all of its plates. Limiting it to the planet does give more work and immersion to the game as you have to setup a planetary base and give effort in getting a steady flow of ores.
Now keeping the planet mines going, instead of loading the planet or sector, we can just load the entity itself, that is performing the mining and storing the ore. Much like a world anchor, a simple block, could keep the mine going while away from the sector. Loading just the entity would have the same rate of ore per tick, the randomly generated ores would not lag the server. Idk, I'm throwing out ideas lol.

 

[Magocrat]

I absolutely support core mining. Salvage modules were already modified to sorta salvage blocks based on their hp doing "salvager damage" so, modding this to have a random ore/shard generated (and then claimed system multipliers apply) for like, every 1K HP drained from the planet core, would be both viable and balanced. I'm against any work done with sector unloaded, though. Human operator should still be required. At least pretend putting in some effort, folks.
This wouldn't only bring a sustainable resource, but would also give planets (and preserving them) a lot more value. Right now, they are only valuable until fully mined (and thus, ruined).
I'd even go further. Have only the handheld fabricator gather resources from planet BLOCKS. (thus people won't be hopelessly stranded and will be able to craft their way out) Salvagers would count the same on planets as build blocking (only terrain gathered, not ores and shards) and should only start producing ores once hitting the core. This would encourage single-beam planet miners instead of waffles with huge block updates forced every second, and thus lessen both server load and planetary destruction required for mining. Ores should only be gathered from planet plates using salvage beams, if they are no longer attached to a planet core.
Planets should be preserved. Some people like to build on them, and without planets, you can't watch the sunset

 

[Ithirahad]

I fully support this as well. Keptick's original suggestion about dedicated Resource Extractors was great, but with the new rail system, using a docked salvage machine to extract resources from the core is now very practical. +1.

The one particularly beautiful thing about this system is that it balances itself out. For a resource extractor to be sustainable, it needs to be small enough that the planet regenerates health faster than the extractor removes it, so you either destroy planets with a mega salvager, get rich quick, and lose the planet, or you have to actually capture and hold a largeish number of planets if you want a ton of resources. If a proper cargo system is added, this will make cargo runs become a thing too, since all these tonnes of ore have to be ferried back to industrial centers in the system and/or the faction HQ...

 

[Valiant70]

I think it's safe to say one of the biggest problems with planetary mining is the lag stemming from how many blocks are being affected at once. I think a solution to this may to combine salvaging with the HP system, and instead of grabbing objects block by block you keep a salvager on it until the HP is drained, and get everything in one go, replacing every block with a waste block. Possibly having this work in stages were as you drain HP past certain thresholds this happens gradually.

I will admit this takes away the "Galactus-ing" a planet aspect we have so far, were we just watch planets disappear, but this system would be less taxing, and it would be more practical to set up auto-salvagers on a large scale without tanking the server as much.

This still has the issue of stratifying server databases by saving way too many planets that no one is even using. I think orbital mining just needs to go away.

 

[Magocrat]

I fully support this as well. Keptick's original suggestion about dedicated Resource Extractors was great, but with the new rail system, using a docked salvage machine to extract resources from the core is now very practical. +1.

The one particularly beautiful thing about this system is that it balances itself out. For a resource extractor to be sustainable, it needs to be small enough that the planet regenerates health faster than the extractor removes it, so you either destroy planets with a mega salvager, get rich quick, and lose the planet, or you have to actually capture and hold a largeish number of planets if you want a ton of resources. If a proper cargo system is added, this will make cargo runs become a thing too, since all these tonnes of ore have to be ferried back to industrial centers in the system and/or the faction HQ...

Ithirahad captures it perfectly. This would create some interesting strategic situations and interactions - faction resourcing no longer would depend on who has the most and biggest mining barges, instead, on who can hold the most planets in their systems - as well as letting people focus more on the other aspects of gameplay instead of hours and hours of boring asteroid/planet grinding. Planets would suddenly gain some real strategic and economic importance as a sustainable source of income instead of being nothing more than a starting base for newbies and a single-use lagtastic chunk of resources. And yet, for sudden unforeseen demand (like rebuilding after a costly battle or war) the normal mining would still be there. Moreover, some factions might even sell planet mining concessions for allies if they happen to own a system with a lot of planets.

 

[Ithirahad]

Yeah, one little problem - as Keptick said in chat just a few minutes ago, once there's nobody nearby the sector unloads and the extractor stops until someone loads up the sector again. :\

 

[Reilly Reese]

This interaction all is rather inefficient until space battle near planets are regarded as feasible. It's unlikely factions would actually force them selves to use small fightercraft and frigates.

 

[Magocrat]

This interaction all is rather inefficient until space battle near planets are regarded as feasible. It's unlikely factions would actually force them selves to use small fightercraft and frigates.

Why not? Finally all those fighters and dropships and bombers everyone is posting in community content would find some actual use.

Ithirahad keeping entire planets loded constantly through a Starmade equivalent of a world anchor, would create more problems than it'd solve: namely, keeping those huge things loaded means server load, even if there are no block updates happening since the core miner only deletes blocks until it reaches the core. From that moment, no block updates happen, and if it's a docked or high orbital (outside gravity) mining rig, no collision detection checks are made either. Which was the whole purpose of the idea: gaining resources without excessive planetary destruction and the ton of block updates created during it.

 

[Leanson]

Why not just keep that mining entity and the planet hp loaded instead of the sector. Would be a better option and would allow hundreds of planet mines.