Mining Upgrades and/or experience

[yandonman]

posted on January 6th, 2010, 10:00 am

Last edited by yandonman on January 6th, 2010, 10:53 am, edited 1 time in total.

Here's an idea to make the economy a tad more 'interesting'

Give mining freighters an upgrade/refit that allows them to (one of the following, depending on race):
(federation) share a moon with one other upgraded freighter. (so in order for a moon to be mined by two freighters simultaneously, two freighters would have to be upgraded)
(romulan) speed increase
(klingon) cargo increase

Allow the upgrade/refit three times.

OR (make the above idea cause the freighters to become dilithium specific or give progressively negative bonuses to tritanium mining)

Give the mining station an upgrade that allows it to unload tritanium faster.

OR

Give miners experience for unmolested mining. If a miner is molested (attacked) it loses all of its experience. either a) completely goes back to the basic freighter OR b) loses only experience not applied to a rank (i.e. it won't rank down, just reset next ranks experience gains)

A freighter would gain experience for mining a specific resource (dilithium or tritanium), and in turn it would reduce its effectiveness against the opposite resource (i.e. it would 'lose' experience for tritanium mining if it gains experience for dilithium mining).

Rank or experience/affinity would confer speed, cargo and/or defense bonuses.

OR

The mining station could also gain experience (one could make it interesting by requiring that it process both tritanium and dilithium to gain experience). Rank up would mean that it unloads/processes resources faster, ultimately allowing it to unload two mining freighters at the same time.



---
Each of the upgrades/refits would give roughly the same increase in economy for cost. Upgrades/refits could also reduce defense, giving yet another tradeoff.
---

As an attacker, the above ideas makes certain mining freighters more enticing to attack. As an economy minded player, this gives me more options than just expanding to develop my economy.

---
Inspired by Starcraft and how players are required to invest, and keep investing, in their mining operation/economy. This is also a trade off, invest in more miners or invest in more units/buildings.

In FO you only have to invest thrice - once for the mining station, twice for two additional freighters - for a moon. (well... race specific... but very basic economy management)

posted on January 6th, 2010, 10:43 am

Why does that give me this image of a bunch of disgraced Klingons trying to eke some measure of honor out of their job on a mining scow by overharvesting, and filling their berthing with raw tritanitum, so that they are sleeping on piles of rocks?

posted on January 6th, 2010, 11:06 am

I like these ideas and I would be in favour of implementing one of your suggestions  Very interesting!

posted on January 6th, 2010, 11:26 am

The Federation ability (having multiple miners mine simultaneously) seems like it could easily get overpowered.  It would also require them to build more mining stations, because otherwise they'd have to wait and they would fit into the normal 3-miner cycle.

As for the Romulans, I always wanted their freighters to be able to cloak, but I don't know how well that would work.

Good ideas, though!

posted on January 6th, 2010, 11:57 am

I know there was a mod where romulan construction ships could cloak, and build while cloaked.  So it may be possible.

posted on January 6th, 2010, 12:14 pm

The Federation ability (having multiple miners mine simultaneously) seems like it could easily get overpowered.  It would also require them to build more mining stations, because otherwise they'd have to wait and they would fit into the normal 3-miner cycle.

As for the Romulans, I always wanted their freighters to be able to cloak, but I don't know how well that would work.

Good ideas, though!

Ever used the stationary cloak?

[1337 64M3R]

posted on January 6th, 2010, 2:50 pm

Last edited by 1337 64M3R on January 6th, 2010, 2:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Give mining freighters an upgrade/refit that allows them to (one of the following, depending on race):
(federation) share a moon with one other upgraded freighter. (so in order for a moon to be mined by two freighters simultaneously, two freighters would have to be upgraded)
(romulan) speed increase
(klingon) cargo increase

Allow the upgrade/refit three times.

Cap it!

OR
Give miners experience for unmolested mining. If a miner is molested (attacked) it loses all of its experience. either a) completely goes back to the basic freighter OR b) loses only experience not applied to a rank (i.e. it won't rank down, just reset next ranks experience gains)

A freighter would gain experience for mining a specific resource (dilithium or tritanium), and in turn it would reduce its effectiveness against the opposite resource (i.e. it would 'lose' experience for tritanium mining if it gains experience for dilithium mining).

Rank or experience/affinity would confer speed, cargo and/or defense bonuses.

Good idea, but unlikely to be codable. 

OR
The mining station could also gain experience (one could make it interesting by requiring that it process both tritanium and dilithium to gain experience). Rank up would mean that it unloads/processes resources faster, ultimately allowing it to unload two mining freighters at the same time.

---
Each of the upgrades/refits would give roughly the same increase in economy for cost. Upgrades/refits could also reduce defense, giving yet another tradeoff.
---

As an attacker, the above ideas makes certain mining freighters more enticing to attack. As an economy minded player, this gives me more options than just expanding to develop my economy.

---
Inspired by Starcraft and how players are required to invest, and keep investing, in their mining operation/economy. This is also a trade off, invest in more miners or invest in more units/buildings.

In FO you only have to invest thrice - once for the mining station, twice for two additional freighters - for a moon. (well... race specific... but very basic economy management)

Uhh......... I hate trade offs like that. I mean, to me if you were to increase space you'd also increase armor but instead decrease impulse speed.

---

And that is my 50 cents of the day folks.

posted on January 6th, 2010, 2:58 pm

The 'increased cargo capacity' would fit better with the efficience of Federation or Dominion tech.

posted on January 6th, 2010, 4:28 pm

@Yandon, did you mean inspired by Starcraft II? Starcraft I had no experience system or incentive to keep investing as I recall 

Can't say I'm too big of a fan to increase complexity of the mining system, but the ideas are interesting to hear

Idea two has been suggested in the past, but if I remember correctly the Devs did not want to included any sort of experience system for civil units as the emphasis is supposed to be on the military units. As it is now mining is just supposed to be a periphery activity, while taking care of the fleets is the main goal.

I know there was a mod where romulan construction ships could cloak, and build while cloaked.  So it may be possible.

Beta 2 had cloaking Romulan construction ships which could build while cloaked. Extremely unbalanced

posted on January 6th, 2010, 4:30 pm

Not unbalanced with this version; you can see the station being built, and that pretty much tells you where to send the Starbases anti-cloak weapon.

posted on January 6th, 2010, 4:39 pm

That is, if you've researched it . Not to mention that construction ship could easily go behind enemy lines and build a Starbase at the beginning of the game 

posted on January 6th, 2010, 4:41 pm

That's what scouts are for. Who wouldn't research anti-Cloak tech against the Romulans?

Though, I'd probably pay money to see someone try to build a Starbase inside the enemy base that way...

posted on January 6th, 2010, 4:45 pm

That's what scouts are for. Who wouldn't research anti-Cloak tech against the Romulans?

Though, I'd probably pay money to see someone try to build a Starbase inside the enemy base that way...

It's been done before - maaaaany times before in fact 

posted on January 6th, 2010, 4:47 pm

Obviously playing new people or ones who don't know what Romulans are.

posted on January 6th, 2010, 4:51 pm

There was a reason it was changed. I guess you'd say the same about the Klingon Chor in Beta2 then too, eh?