The solution to under planetary mining

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    Am I obsessed with Starmade? Well I guess the answer is yes since I dreamt of this solution last night.

    A very large problem in Starmade is that players can simply fly below a planet and either build block it or use their mining ship. Many people are in support of the "oreo" style planet to fix this but I believe I have found a more realistic way that wont divide a planet in two halfs.

    While reading this make sure you under stand that I am assuming that this diagram is what the planets look like:



    (created by WaffuMann, original post: http://star-made.org/content/suggestion-current-planets-includes-shape-changes-not-gravity-changes)



    The way under planetary mining would be deterred is by making the outside 100m layer pure rock. Personally I wouldn't want to waste my time collecting thousands of cheap rock. So the only way players will still mine like this is if they have planet eaters, and then they deserve to be able to.

    Another important suggestion that I am assuming would be made is that ores would be in deposits, instead of randomly spread around. (I am sure there are posts about this but it is very self explanatory)

    Now for the new ways to mine! There would be two different types of machines you can use, a mine or a rig(not quite sure on the name for this one).

    A mine would dig a 10x10x100 cube over a period of time, collecting everything it picks up. To increase the area of material that it removes, you would add mine extenders. Each extender in the x and z direction would increase the length by one and every in the y would increase by 10 (to prevent outer planetary mines, which are silly looking)

    A rig would dig straight down until it found an ore deposit. It would then extract the ores until the deposit is depleted. Rig enhancers would increase the speed that the machine extracted the ores.

    The advantages to the mine is that you don not have to be as precise as to where you placed one. The disadvantage is that you would create a large hole in your planet and pick up a lot of useless rock. The rig would be useful if you knew where a deposit was while exploring a cave or using a mine. The disadvantage is that you may or may not hit a deposit. Both machines would use plenty of power just like factories so that players actually have mining operations on planets.

    I really want to hear your suggestions so that I can improve this post until it is something players want. Thank you for reading.
     
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    I like the idea of planets having very few but very big random caves inside A LOT.

    The rest of them are all a matter of taste.
     
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    +1 for all of this. all though mabey only 25 blocks of rock instead of 100
     
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    For current planets 25 blocks would be good but once a planet is a whole sector wide then 100m on both sides will be able to be sacrificed.