Why the mining "fix" is/was a bad Idea.

[Neon_42]

I know a lot of you were clamoring for mining to be changed. I know lots of you wanted different ways to mine. In some sense I agree with you, but when it comes down to the raw game mechanic mining is really a one dimensional activity. Once you find the best way to mine you repeat it so you can enjoy the other aspects of the game.

I think this most recent update will have a negative effect on the community. In order to make efficient salvage arrays they must be larger than they were before. This means that the time it takes from early to late game is getting longer. This game is not the most accessible as it was. Now players will have to spend more time mining and less time exploring, building, and fighting. Below are my two reasons the mining nerf is/was a bad idea.

1. It is currently impossible to have a base and one competitive combat ready ship in the span of a day or two. This is bad for those of us who play casually. Not all players are in high school or college and can spend hours after hours playing every day. Some of us have jobs, families and responsibilities. It would be nice if those of us who can only sign on a few times a week could still be competitive.
   
   
2. Because it takes longer for players to get established this means that farming weaker players will become easier. Players can hide for a small amount of time before they are inevitably found by someone else. In all likelihood the more powerful player will farm them for resources. Even if ships are docked to a base it is not hard to wait for someone to leave a base before attacking them. With a shorter early to late game length of time it is possible to mitigate this effect.

Lastly, I do not think that having multiple mining techniques is a bad idea, but really I don't see any two being equal. One will always be better than the other. It might as well be a 1 block 1 cannon array. This game is also in alpha so none of these changes are permanent and we can change them to make them. The reason for the change was not really stated by anyone on the dev team. I think this change was made to make sure that players in the later stages of the game will slow down a bit, but in reality this is going to have the opposite effect. The players in the late stages will continue to grow, and players just starting out will be snuffed out. schema I hope you read this and take it into consideration or at least correct my assumptions.

 

[Kaelani Revyruun]

Well said :D By limiting the amount of work that new players can do, the game will end up making smaller factions have to make alliances with larger factions, for resources or protection.

 

[jorgekorke]

I really fear this mining changes will play against our growth rate at steam. We, veterans, won't really bother, since we know all the tricks of the game and might make allies in order to become stronger. But new players will just get too bored and quit the game after realizing it takes too much time to do anything solid.

We are getting close to the Steam and a brand-new newbie wave is upon us. I doubt they will seek existing factions, most will try going by themselves, and end up getting bored.

 

[Andir]

It makes me wonder if you guys are playing on servers with pirate drops turned off or you just focus on mining. I don't have a problem with a mining focus, and I feel like mining has a huge disadvantage to fighting because the default pirates drop TONS of finished products (so much that you fill your inventory with one kill, let alone 4!). Ignoring mining, because it's not advantageous to start by mining, I find it incredibly easy to get a ship going by just raiding a pirate base and taking the old sledgehammer to it. It's even easier if you find a planet to plunder (more beneficial if it has a city).

Don't get me wrong... Mining needs to be buffed, or AI needs to be buffed to make it harder to pirate plunder... But let's not lose track of balancing the intent of the game. How long SHOULD it take to get a viable ship going? Is there any systems that can be added to enhance mining so that even if lasers are weak, the output could be handled better (I think crafting needs a look into... I'd love to be able to mine and process/break down on the mining ship or have an easier way to dump off my ore...)

I just caution that we don't go break things by demanding huge buffs to single systems before looking at the impacts.

Also, how about letting effects impact salvage lasers now since they do virtual damage. Area effect mining with explosive/pulse, multi-block mining with pierce/punch...

 

[FunnyBunny14]

The reason for the change was that all the effects that went with the salvage were broken. The effects relied on damage, and since the salvage beam didn't actually do any damage all the damage nerfs and buffs didn't apply. This left the pulse unusable andthe damage beam working fine. The missile combo I don't know anything about (never use it). And last, but definitely not least, the cannon combo was extremely OP. It reduced power consumption and increased speed, leaving it the best choice no matter what.

The new system allows all these combinations to work just like they're supposed to, and gives certain combinations a use. Now the pulse will be best for reducing the array size and the cannon will be best for control.

I still need to test it though, so my opinion might change. Until then, I guess this is my opinion on the matter.

 

[aceface]

I know a lot of you were clamoring for mining to be changed. I know lots of you wanted different ways to mine. In some sense I agree with you, but when it comes down to the raw game mechanic mining is really a one dimensional activity. Once you find the best way to mine you repeat it so you can enjoy the other aspects of the game.

I think this most recent update will have a negative effect on the community. In order to make efficient salvage arrays they must be larger than they were before. This means that the time it takes from early to late game is getting longer. This game is not the most accessible as it was. Now players will have to spend more time mining and less time exploring, building, and fighting. Below are my two reasons the mining nerf is/was a bad idea.

1. It is currently impossible to have a base and one competitive combat ready ship in the span of a day or two. This is bad for those of us who play casually. Not all players are in high school or college and can spend hours after hours playing every day. Some of us have jobs, families and responsibilities. It would be nice if those of us who can only sign on a few times a week could still be competitive.
   
   
2. Because it takes longer for players to get established this means that farming weaker players will become easier. Players can hide for a small amount of time before they are inevitably found by someone else. In all likelihood the more powerful player will farm them for resources. Even if ships are docked to a base it is not hard to wait for someone to leave a base before attacking them. With a shorter early to late game length of time it is possible to mitigate this effect.

Lastly, I do not think that having multiple mining techniques is a bad idea, but really I don't see any two being equal. One will always be better than the other. It might as well be a 1 block 1 cannon array. This game is also in alpha so none of these changes are permanent and we can change them to make them. The reason for the change was not really stated by anyone on the dev team. I think this change was made to make sure that players in the later stages of the game will slow down a bit, but in reality this is going to have the opposite effect. The players in the late stages will continue to grow, and players just starting out will be snuffed out. schema I hope you read this and take it into consideration or at least correct my assumptions.

the main reason why I am not in favour of having to have bigger salvagers is the shear lag caused by them.[DOUBLEPOST=1416842064,1416841970][/DOUBLEPOST]

It makes me wonder if you guys are playing on servers with pirate drops turned off or you just focus on mining. I don't have a problem with a mining focus, and I feel like mining has a huge disadvantage to fighting because the default pirates drop TONS of finished products (so much that you fill your inventory with one kill, let alone 4!). Ignoring mining, because it's not advantageous to start by mining, I find it incredibly easy to get a ship going by just raiding a pirate base and taking the old sledgehammer to it. It's even easier if you find a planet to plunder (more beneficial if it has a city).

Don't get me wrong... Mining needs to be buffed, or AI needs to be buffed to make it harder to pirate plunder... But let's not lose track of balancing the intent of the game. How long SHOULD it take to get a viable ship going? Is there any systems that can be added to enhance mining so that even if lasers are weak, the output could be handled better (I think crafting needs a look into... I'd love to be able to mine and process/break down on the mining ship or have an easier way to dump off my ore...)

I just caution that we don't go break things by demanding huge buffs to single systems before looking at the impacts.

Also, how about letting effects impact salvage lasers now since they do virtual damage. Area effect mining with explosive/pulse, multi-block mining with pierce/punch...

good point :D thing is just that i hardly ever see them :/

 

[Neon_42]

FunnyBunny14 what do you mean by OP/broken? Having multiple mining systems is a pipe dream. One salvage system that works better that the others is always going to be the case. The old system worked great, players could gather enough resources in a reasonable amount of time and had time to build what they wanted. The game is becoming slower. The old system worked. It wasn't broken, it did what it was supposed to do. If it wasn't broken why fix it?

aceface yes, lag is a big issue. Maybe then the way to fix mining is to adjust all crafting recipes by a factor of 5-10. As it is gaining a significant amount of resources takes way too long.

 

[MrFURB]

Heyyo, folks!

Last night I took a look through the block config files for salvagers and here is what I've got so far:

With a single salvage beam module you can salvage a block in 2.25 seconds.
200 'damage' to salvage/2 damage each tick = 100 ticks
-10 initial ticks on beam contact with a block
-1 tick per 0.025 seconds
2.5 seconds per burst

If the values on the block behavior config are working as intended, then for each burst of salvage you should be salvaging about the same number of blocks as is your salvager, sluggishly scaling up the larger the array due to the 10 initial ticks per block. With each burst beginning 5 seconds after the last one began you'll gain 20% of your salvage modules in blocks salvaged per second.
It's important to note that on each salvage system except for salvage/beam there are 100 ticks in a burst.

Cannon:
The ONLY things that having a cannon slave changes is up to 50% reduced cooldown and 50% reduced damage per tick. The net change is neutral, but some advantage can be seen in especially large arrays that fulfill the 200 damage requirement in each tick, giving extremely large salvage/cannon systems a very potent and concise spike in effectiveness. Before that spike salvage/cannon systems remain equally as effective as base salvage.
It's important to note that the reduced tick damage of salvage/cannon systems applies to the 10 initial ticks, which (probably accidentally, but who knows) counterbalances the cannon's smaller damage numbers meaning less wasted ticks when needing one more to salvage something with only 1-2 'health' left.

Missile:
Applies up to 10x less damage per tick (including initial ticks on beam contact) counterbalanced by firing up to 10 different beams. Not necessarily the most effective or popular method of salvaging unless you're specifically looking to take a lot of random blocks from something rather large without worrying about being neat or having some waste here or there. It's nearly impossible to focus all ten beams on what you actually want to salvage unless you're eating a planet.

Beam: (I expect either my understanding here to be partially inaccurate or some of these stats to be adjusted down the line)
Beam support at 100% makes each tick take twice as long, makes each burst twice as long, doubles your energy consumption, and doubles your range. It's important to note that the doubled burst time without doubling cooldown means that the salvage/beam should have no downtime (haven't actually tested this).
The overall effect is an increase in range and greater ease of use due to not having a cooldown period, at the cost of increased energy consumption.

Pulse:
Increases your time to tick by 5, your burst time by 5, your cooldown by 5, your 'damage' per tick by 5, and your energy consumption by 5.
I'm especially interested in developing a salvage/pulse system as I can imagine it's buffed 'damage' per tick working wonders with the 10 initial ticks. When I hop into game I'll see how small I can get a salvage/pulse and still have it salvage blocks with every tick.

 

[FunnyBunny14]

FunnyBunny14 what do you mean by OP/broken? Having multiple mining systems is a pipe dream. One salvage system that works better that the others is always going to be the case. The old system worked great, players could gather enough resources in a reasonable amount of time and had time to build what they wanted. The game is becoming slower. The old system worked. It wasn't broken, it did what it was supposed to do. If it wasn't broken why fix it?

aceface yes, lag is a big issue. Maybe then the way to fix mining is to adjust all crafting recipes by a factor of 5-10. As it is gaining a significant amount of resources takes way too long.

The old salvage-cannon combo had no negative effects. It was plus, plus and no minus.
Let me explain. I'm now talking about before the previous update in which the salvage modules got (due to a bug, but still) 500 e/s per module as power consumption. Anyway. as we all know the power usage stayed the same no matter the size of your array back then. And the cannon combination reduced power consumption by 5 and increased the speed by 10 (probably more). This gave the following stats:

• 1000 e/s and 1 block per some time (it was a lot slower than the cannon combo) with only salvage modules.
• 200 e/s and 1 block per 10x less the time it takes an array with only salvage modules of an equal size to salvage 1 block.

This meant that the cannon combination was 5 (for the e/s) x 10 = 50 times more effective (not counting how much mass just got saved by only using the combo).

 

[Neon_42]

The old salvage-cannon combo had no negative effects. It was plus, plus and no minus.
Let me explain. I'm now talking about before the previous update in which the salvage modules got (due to a bug, but still) 500 e/s per module as power consumption. Anyway. as we all know the power usage stayed the same no matter the size of your array back then. And the cannon combination reduced power consumption by 5 and increased the speed by 10 (probably more). This gave the following stats:

• 1000 e/s and 1 block per some time (it was a lot slower than the cannon combo) with only salvage modules.
• 200 e/s and 1 block per 10x less the time it takes an array with only salvage modules of an equal size to salvage 1 block.

This meant that the cannon combination was 5 (for the e/s) x 10 = 50 times more effective (not counting how much mass just got saved by only using the combo).

So if we operate on the assumption that more energy= more blocks than the old system didn't work that well. If we operate on the assumption that some combinations are more efficient than others this makes some sense, though I agree that the amount of energy required should be greater. So maybe the correct fix is to make cannons linked to salvage is to make them cost the same amount of energy.

 

[FunnyBunny14]

So if we operate on the assumption that more energy= more blocks than the old system didn't work that well. If we operate on the assumption that some combinations are more efficient than others this makes some sense, though I agree that the amount of energy required should be greater. So maybe the correct fix is to make cannons linked to salvage is to make them cost the same amount of energy.

There were definitely simpler solutions to this problem. I changed everything myself once. It should be here - somewhere. I posted it in the general discussion a while back.

The system had to change, I just don't know if the current one a good replacement. But the old system wasn't fun. The only thing I liked about it was that salvage was constant and immediately switched off. I also like the idea of virtual damage. I hope that explains my recent suggestion thread (in it I found a way to keep the virtual damage but remove the annoying pulsing).

 

[Ulfengaard]

Maybe once I understand the combinations better, it won't seem so difficult. Now, though, after having cannon+salvage in the last version (and feeling like that was slow enough), I'm really feeling like my first frigate will never get finished. As a relatively new player (I bought this to support it a while back and never played it until a week or two ago), it feels like an awful lot of front-loaded knowledge and work I would need without any certainty that I'll be able to put together a frigate any faster. I don't know how people get the resources to do those massive ships. If I had a frigate blueprinted already or something, it probably wouldn't be a big deal. But, trying to do this myself from scratch is a lot of investment. Until I read up a little, I had almost settled on the idea that this must be a multiplayer game in which you have to go on a server to really get started with resources and get into the game.

My two cents. I don't know as much about the game as all of you, but it's my new-player impression.

 

[Lecic]

Judging by what MrFURB said, I think the new system we got is fine.

 

[Commodore Decker]

Maybe once I understand the combinations better, it won't seem so difficult. Now, though, after having cannon+salvage in the last version (and feeling like that was slow enough), I'm really feeling like my first frigate will never get finished. As a relatively new player (I bought this to support it a while back and never played it until a week or two ago), it feels like an awful lot of front-loaded knowledge and work I would need without any certainty that I'll be able to put together a frigate any faster. I don't know how people get the resources to do those massive ships. If I had a frigate blueprinted already or something, it probably wouldn't be a big deal. But, trying to do this myself from scratch is a lot of investment. Until I read up a little, I had almost settled on the idea that this must be a multiplayer game in which you have to go on a server to really get started with resources and get into the game.

My two cents. I don't know as much about the game as all of you, but it's my new-player impression.

I cheat to get resources on my single player game.
I like building more than I like fighting or grinding.

 

[Malacodor]

Last night I took a look through the block config files for salvagers and here is what I've got so far:

With a single salvage beam module you can salvage a block in 2.25 seconds.
200 'damage' to salvage/2 damage each tick = 100 ticks
-10 initial ticks on beam contact with a block
-1 tick per 0.025 seconds
2.5 seconds per burst

If the values on the block behavior config are working as intended, then for each burst of salvage you should be salvaging about the same number of blocks as is your salvager, sluggishly scaling up the larger the array due to the 10 initial ticks per block. With each burst beginning 5 seconds after the last one began you'll gain 20% of your salvage modules in blocks salvaged per second.
It's important to note that on each salvage system except for salvage/beam there are 100 ticks in a burst.

Cannon:
The ONLY things that having a cannon slave changes is up to 50% reduced cooldown and 50% reduced damage per tick. The net change is neutral, but some advantage can be seen in especially large arrays that fulfill the 200 damage requirement in each tick, giving extremely large salvage/cannon systems a very potent and concise spike in effectiveness. Before that spike salvage/cannon systems remain equally as effective as base salvage.
It's important to note that the reduced tick damage of salvage/cannon systems applies to the 10 initial ticks, which (probably accidentally, but who knows) counterbalances the cannon's smaller damage numbers meaning less wasted ticks when needing one more to salvage something with only 1-2 'health' left.

Missile:
Applies up to 10x less damage per tick (including initial ticks on beam contact) counterbalanced by firing up to 10 different beams. Not necessarily the most effective or popular method of salvaging unless you're specifically looking to take a lot of random blocks from something rather large without worrying about being neat or having some waste here or there. It's nearly impossible to focus all ten beams on what you actually want to salvage unless you're eating a planet.

Beam: (I expect either my understanding here to be partially inaccurate or some of these stats to be adjusted down the line)
Beam support at 100% makes each tick take twice as long, makes each burst twice as long, doubles your energy consumption, and doubles your range. It's important to note that the doubled burst time without doubling cooldown means that the salvage/beam should have no downtime (haven't actually tested this).
The overall effect is an increase in range and greater ease of use due to not having a cooldown period, at the cost of increased energy consumption.

Pulse:
Increases your time to tick by 5, your burst time by 5, your cooldown by 5, your 'damage' per tick by 5, and your energy consumption by 5.
I'm especially interested in developing a salvage/pulse system as I can imagine it's buffed 'damage' per tick working wonders with the 10 initial ticks. When I hop into game I'll see how small I can get a salvage/pulse and still have it salvage blocks with every tick.

I made some tests (I skipped missile due to being useless):
No slave: Burst length < cooldown (50% uptime)
Cannon: Burst length = cooldown (100% uptime)
Beam: Burst length > cooldown (100% uptime)
Pulse: Burst length < cooldown (50% uptime)

Between mining two blocks there seems to be a delay, and the 10 initial ticks apparently compensate that. If there wasn't a delay there should be sweet spots like you describe, but I didn't find any. With 20 cannon blocks or 2 pulse blocks (always 1:1 ratio) the initial 10 ticks should be sufficient to instantly mine a block, but both slave types are pretty linear. Also, I didn't find any noticable difference in blocks mined per second between cannon and pulse slaves. Pulse mines twice as fast, but has 50% downtime and consumes 6 times as much energy.

However, I did find what looks like a hard cap. With 20:20 salvage/cannon I mined 21 blocks in one burst, with 21:21 I mined 22, but with 200:200 I mined just 22 blocks as well. I didn't test this with other combinations since the tedium is proportional to the burst length.

Edit:

Maybe once I understand the combinations better, it won't seem so difficult. Now, though, after having cannon+salvage in the last version (and feeling like that was slow enough), I'm really feeling like my first frigate will never get finished. As a relatively new player (I bought this to support it a while back and never played it until a week or two ago), it feels like an awful lot of front-loaded knowledge and work I would need without any certainty that I'll be able to put together a frigate any faster. I don't know how people get the resources to do those massive ships. If I had a frigate blueprinted already or something, it probably wouldn't be a big deal. But, trying to do this myself from scratch is a lot of investment. Until I read up a little, I had almost settled on the idea that this must be a multiplayer game in which you have to go on a server to really get started with resources and get into the game.

If you destroy a pirate ship it will drop tons of blocks, that's currently a much faster way of getting resources. If you want to mine you can't do wrong much, just avoid missile and beam slaves. Also claim the system you're in with a faction block to get the mining bonus.

 

[Neon_42]

I made some tests (I skipped missile due to being useless):
No slave: Burst length < cooldown (50% uptime)
Cannon: Burst length = cooldown (100% uptime)
Beam: Burst length > cooldown (100% uptime)
Pulse: Burst length < cooldown (50% uptime)

Between mining two blocks there seems to be a delay, and the 10 initial ticks apparently compensate that. If there wasn't a delay there should be sweet spots like you describe, but I didn't find any. With 20 cannon blocks or 2 pulse blocks (always 1:1 ratio) the initial 10 ticks should be sufficient to instantly mine a block, but both slave types are pretty linear. Also, I didn't find any noticable difference in blocks mined per second between cannon and pulse slaves. Pulse mines twice as fast, but has 50% downtime and consumes 6 times as much energy.

However, I did find what looks like a hard cap. With 20:20 salvage/cannon I mined 21 blocks in one burst, with 21:21 I mined 22, but with 200:200 I mined just 22 blocks as well. I didn't test this with other combinations since the tedium is proportional to the burst length.

Edit:

If you destroy a pirate ship it will drop tons of blocks, that's currently a much faster way of getting resources. If you want to mine you can't do wrong much, just avoid missile and beam slaves. Also claim the system you're in with a faction block to get the mining bonus.

This is great research. Thank you for doing this. It seems to me that cannon salvage is still the best way to go.