Mining points

[Slignerd]

While mining points ensure that miners bring materials to the station, I feel it creates a somewhat unhealthy mindset in some miners - all they need is to mine some minerals, kill some mobs, then go on a boss killing spree. With some occasional notable exceptions, miners end up being by far the most difficult to work with - they're incredibly uncommunicative when it comes to asking for anything but minerals - rarely responding even when someone asks for them on their own channel.

When they do respond, you might often get responses such as "why would I waste my points on you?" while asked to purchase something for another department, even when the request came from the captain. This mindset occasionally bleeds into other roles - such as golems who hoard points for themselves instead of contributing to the group's efforts.

I wonder if it could be tweaked to not encourage self-centered behavior like that somehow?

[InsaneHyena]

Miners usually are the most toxic department on the station at any given point, it helps that they are most often played by the same (extremely shitty) people. However, they're also absent from the station for the most of the round, busy jacking off to their boss kills and snowflake loot, so it's really not a problem.

[Gun Hog]

Nerfs to Science, specifically making the NV Meson and Bag of Holding items more difficult to get, along with the mining vendor replacing tools provided by Science has weakened the back-and-forth relationship between Sci and Mining. It is not entirely lost, however, as some KA mods are still provided by Science. The ORM upgrades are also quite important for miners, as the laser upgrade gives them more points.

Lavaland's high difficulty levels and tools required to handle them have left mechs behind. I do not know how often mechs are used by miners, but it is extremely rare for me to see one. All mechs are ash proof, and the Firefighter Ripley is lava proof, but I am better that most miners do not know (or care) about that. They are extremely slow while on the station, and do not have a weapon suitable for combat. (The plasma cutter very good at mining, but does not handle mobs well)

It is no wonder that miners are losing interest in working with others. Their own stuff works just fine for them, and the alternatives are not probably not worth the risks and hassles associated with outside interaction

I am not making any balance suggestions here!

[Slignerd]

Personally, I've been thinking that removing KA upgrades from the mining vendor would definitely give miners more incentive to help Science and communicate, rather than just dump minerals now and then.

[Cobby]

to be fair there isn't exactly a lot of "team-oriented" gear in the vending machines, or even in lavaland for that matter. The only team-oriented DROP [mining vendor has the fultons and I guess you can consider the medical items if you use it on others] I know of is the Hiero Staff, and that's only because I had suggested it be given more team-oriented features [props to the maker for putting my ideas into Byond words].

There's no incentive to work with the team [and by extension the station] when there's not a lot you can do to provide for the team.


As for specifically mining for the station, I think that would better fit in policy discussion as to whether or shaft miners can consistently meme about in lavaland instead of doing their job as Shaft Miner. I would think it would be no different than going engineer for free tools/igloves to yellowtide consistently.

[Ergovisavi]

Having created the ORM, I do have a few comments:

• I believe that stripping KA upgrades from the ORM would probably be for the better, this will increase the amount of time some miners spend on station. Keep in mind that once you hit a certain skill level, any interaction with the ORM/Science isn't necessary to deal with megafauna, so this will only likely change for newbies.
• Miners not purchasing things from the vendor for other departments is somewhat of a weird thing, it's the equivalent of your boss at work or a coworker telling you to spend the money in your wallet on them, which is pretty shit feeling. Even if that's not technically the case and the currency doesn't really mean anything, this is still a psychological thing that can't be fixed. This is exacerbated by the fact that you're already supplying the entire station with minerals, which is already highly useful to them.
• The ripley has never been useful to mining. Ever. Even before lava land, even before my changes, even all the way back to when mining was first implemented, the ripley has always genuinely been fucking useless for mining. Any miner worth their salt never needed it when we still used the asteroid due to exploitation of the high mineral value turfs that the ripley could not properly manuever in, and when we moved out of slow hardsuit land and encouraged fast movement over a very wide area, the ripley is even more pointless. I find combat mechs to be an absolute blight on the game, but I do have a spot in my heart for the ripley and odysseus, so this does make me a little sad that it just isn't very useful.
• As for communication, keep in mind that mining involves very lethal combat, alongside constant combat chat spam, which means radio traffic often gets lost frequently. This is an inherent problem with the game in general, but is the worst for miners. I often miss people radioing me unintentionally because I genuinely just never see it. Miners also have absolutely no time to talk when fighting megafauna, as even the slightest slip up results in instant death, so they can hold radio silence for a very long period. Add in that the station often has no idea if miners are actually alive without them checking in on the radio, and you can never really tell if they're ignoring you, or are just dead. This isn't something we can really fix outside of removing combat chat spam, which has very negative repercussions on the rest of the game.
• Many miners have given up on interacting with science because it's always a crapshoot on whether or not they can actually get gear from them. Trust is a two way street, and so when miners deliver the minerals quickly and in volume, but science has zero research, it gets old fast, and that trust is broken. Again, this only really affects newer miners, I honestly don't even give a shit if science exists when I deliver minerals, that's part of my job as a shaft miner.

[onleavedontatme]

or even in lavaland for that matter

The most basic survival tool in lavaland, the shelter capsule, requires at least two people to get the most out of it. People actually complained several times on the forums that they couldn't do things solo. There are also drops like the teleporter cubes and linked backpacks that are explicitly designed for two people to use, never mind that two people = double damage when fighting mobs. Outside of maybe security there is literally nothing else in the game that rewards team work more than mining*

It's another "people who have never played lavaland for more than a couple rounds complain about mining" thread.

As for specifically mining for the station, I think that would better fit in policy discussion as to whether or shaft miners can consistently meme about in lavaland instead of doing their job as Shaft Miner. I would think it would be no different than going engineer for free tools/igloves to yellowtide consistently.

>comparing choosing to do different parts of a job to literally griefing and stealing shit

Guess we should ban scientists for doing xenobio or toxins instead of RnD next time I bring in materials and nothing is done.

Personally, I've been thinking that removing KA upgrades from the mining vendor would definitely give miners more incentive to help Science and communicate, rather than just dump minerals now and then.

I was actually a bit surprised to see upgraded KAs in the mining vendor, but I figured it was best to give them the equivalent mod kits when removing those.


*Granted the people who have played mining for 3-4 months now constantly have mastered it to the point where they don't need help, but outside of shit like mobs autostunning someone in range so their friend has to save them there isn't much that can be done to prevent people mastering AI enemies.

[Bombadil]

Nerfs to Science, specifically making the NV Meson

On a level 1 to 10 how badly do you not realize 90% of the time miners can never get these because emp 6 requires botany? We don't even need night vision mesons

BOH's are nice. But i never needed them to kill boss mobs. I usually get Bags of Holding so i can store my staff in there without grey shits stealing it.


and 50% of the time im a miner i break in and do research because no one has done so.

My method for mining is as so:

Get about 20 of everything except diamond try to get 6 or so. Return tot station deliver ores to science if no one is manning science break in and max research. Make advanced plasmacutters for rapid mining to megaboss targets. Get back to the mining station purchase gear from the vendor. Kill megafauna and then use bluespace satchel to pick up all the ores. Go back to station restock on gear and go back out.

Occasinally if ash drake is nearby and i'll ask other miners if they want to go at it. If they are new i'll tell them the proper way to fight a drake and then we have a go at it. Had to use my own pen to save newbies a few times.

Still laughed at the stupid fucks who tried killing a drake by shooting the targeting thing the crusher has.


I may have a massive murderboner but I do my damn job.

[Gun Hog]

I have code ready for giving mechs a Heavy (Super) KA for metal/glass (low reqs so they can be deployed in the useful portion of the round), and Hyper KA for when minerals are deposited. Do you support such an idea, Ergo? I do not know what other changes I can do for them without going overboard.

On a level 1 to 10 how badly do you not realize 90% of the time miners can never get these because emp 6 requires botany? We don't even need night vision mesons

Level 1, as THAT is the problem I am trying to point out. Miners used to be able to get them shortly after dropping off minerals as it enabled Scientists to get the required levels. NV Mesons used to be part of the standard kit I provided to miners who came to the desk. I usually gave them NV Mesons, satchel of holding, Bag of Holding, and their choice of a mining tool (Hyper KA, Jackhammer, and/or advanced plasma cutter). After the nerf, I can now only provide them the satchels and a tool (usually mods for their KA, and sometimes the plasma cutter). It is a sad affair that I feel for the miners not getting as much equipment due to it being more difficult to get levels now.

By the way, the difficult requirement is Engineering 6, not EM 6. This requires either the prototype crate from Cargo, or a 5/6 power syringe from Genetics. As Genetics is unlikely to provide this, the most optimal route is selling cargo tech disks to pay for the crate. Botany CAN help, but botanists do not seem to care about upgrades (in my rounds as RD at least), so Sci's relationship with them is one of leeching rather than sharing.

[onleavedontatme]

RIPLEYs would need to be faster for me to want to use them.

[Gun Hog]

Are you talking about faster on Lavaland, or faster on the station? (Perhaps both?)

[Wyzack]

I feel like unless they get Gygax goin turbo levels of sanic speed they will continue to be never used.

I still think mechs in general would be awesome if you could get special PAI's to manage your equipment for you. Like if they could use the mech interface to swap your equipment for you and loudly blare about WARNING WARNING SYSTEM INTEGRITY AT 60% ACTIVATING COUNTERMEASURES and stuff like that. I would love to play as a MechPAI

[D&B]

Maybe because miners just give up on interacting with Science at some point?

If you want to make it so miners only mine, then make it so botanists only grow food, or science only focuses on research. Kinda shit to enforce, isn't it?

Miners being able to buy modules is fine because most of the time, nobody is doing RnD. When there IS research, in all rounds I've played they have been delivered the ai upgrade board, and laza injectors because it benefits miners in the long and short term. Not only me, other miners do this.

However, you can't neither blame miners for ignoring stupid requests like "pls bring laz ian is ded ;___;" or a powergaming captain that wants to put a jetpack in his stolen CE hardsuit.

Mining is the only department where you can die and actually forget about playing the rest of the round because if the other miners die, you're gone forever. I can count the number of times people actually worry about miners in my hand.

You wanna talk about toxic departments, talk about science then. We had one fucking meme thread of an autistic RD trying to bruteforce his "learning experience moments" and they're often the most autistic department when they close shutters and refuse to give out anything to the station.

[Bombadil]

Ever since the Research nerf it seems like there's a 50/50 chance when you get to station that there may be no research done.

Meanign you have to break into science just to get better gear AND THEN do the research.

I do it because plasma cutters are great for making arenas to fight megafauna but its shit. Having to risk your life and then having to do someone else's job just to get gear

[Slignerd]

Okay, that settles it. Once I get my PC fixed up, I'm going to go play RnD again and satisfy your need for levels and equipment.

That being said, stuff like Machine prototype or Lazarus injectors are crucial to even hope for NV mesons and HUDs or improved machine parts - including the parts for the ORM. Engineering 6, Electromagnets 6. Yet when I get "fuck you, my points" as answer to asking for a Lazarus, it makes such things being dependent on miners' extended cooperation incredibly cumbersome. Especially when they aren't truly dependent on anyone to begin with.

[oranges]

We can't really make mechs much faster because someone made humans nearly at the speed cap again (thanks you know who), so there's not much room for speed buffs.

As for mining, it feels like a second game, for people who wanted to pve against a bunch of simple mobs, it's no wonder the people who play it don't interact with the main game much.

[onleavedontatme]

Sounds like the real culprit here is the RD rework that expects miners to blow their personal points to allow research to get finished.

[oranges]

it's not required, I think it's just that some items can get you to some levels faster.

[Slignerd]

Not really, Lazarus injector is one of the very few items that can get you to Electromagnetic 6. Mining vendor is the only way to get a Lazarus injectors to begin with. Same for getting a new hardsuit jetpack upgrade, too - there is one in CE locker, after that no one but miners can get one.

It's not just about RnD, it's about mining vendors being the only way to acquire gear that isn't really mining-specific.

[Cobby]

The most basic survival tool in lavaland, the shelter capsule, requires at least two people to get the most out of it. People actually complained several times on the forums that they couldn't do things solo. There are also drops like the teleporter cubes and linked backpacks that are explicitly designed for two people to use, never mind that two people = double damage when fighting mobs. Outside of maybe security there is literally nothing else in the game that rewards team work more than mining*

I like lavaland and don't really care too much about the "mining powercreep" meme when science has done much of the equivalent without too many changes. I'd even say i'm *gasp* pro-miner because it's a fun place to explore and even moreso to try to overcome [since I've probably done all there is to do onstation].

The shelter capsule also has warm-donkpockets, which if I recall correctly will heal you a bit as well in the form of omnizine.

Of course, a "support" could just be another offensive character to rack double damage and pull you away, but [for me] I prefer to hang back and aid the damage dealer before they even fall down, like a TRUE support. Maybe I mislead people in my last post, but there's not a lot of TRUE support items that isn't lavaland specific [even hiero is a mainly offensive weapon]. I do not know about the telecubes or the backpacks [> Having opinions on something you rarely play], but having utility support and having things that heal/directly aid someone in combat are different [the latter being what I wished lavaland tailored to and was focused on in the last post].

>comparing choosing to do different parts of a job to literally griefing and stealing shit

You don't even have to be doing that. Simply fucking off with the tools [and even the slot] when you have a pseudo-obligation to say setup a power system seems like a valid policy topic. If you[not specifically kor] are going to create a system that requires departments to be dependent on other departments [which is fair], then I think it's silly to disregard the idea that a player should prioritize their job if they voluntarily rolled for it. Shaft Mining is even more true because, quite frankly, there can easily be 1 miner if the other 2 die given the numerous ways someone can PERMANENTLY die if they're not careful [aka THE DRAW to lavaland]. Without miners doing their job, science and other departments [lol] can't progress unless they do the job themselves, which we would then say what's even the point of having the shaft-mining specific job if the people going on the job are going to force others to do their job for them?

> Miners should get stream-lined loot [albeit they pay for in mining points, a currency that is only used to get streamlined loot] in the case that RND is not done
> Science can fuck off if Mining doesn't do their job / Makes a minimal effort to do their job while they get SHWEET LAVALAND GEAR

This isn't how it should play out.

[Incomptinence]

The ripley had a slight point in the asteroid days before iron was made more rare and requiring a sensor.

It was a top strip miner bulldozing the large iron deposits into a ridiculous mound of thousands of metal and storing them as it did it.

Did anyone really have the time to use enough iron and glass to rebuild the station from scratch? Not really but I still liked doing it.

[Ergovisavi]

I don't know who added research levels to the lazarus injector, because when I first made it, it sure as hell didn't have any tech levels, explicitly to stop shit like this from happening.

The bizarre need to turn things that are supposed to be abstract game mechanics into something that gets hooked into every design subsystem is awful. It should not be assumed that miners should spend points to get stuff from the vendor to help out research, in even the slightest, and if that is the design assumption, it needs to be changed.

[Slignerd]

Okay, but why is the ability to revive mobs unique to miners to begin with? It seems far more useful on the station than on mining.

[Ergovisavi]

Okay, but why is the ability to revive mobs unique to miners to begin with? It seems far more useful on the station than on mining.

Because when I first implemented mobs to mining, the Goliath was significantly more horrifying and deadly, so reviving them to use as an attack dog on station when you wanted to go loud was a viable tactic, which was the intended design.

It being useful to revive Ian was just a nice side effect.

[Slignerd]

Now it's actually far more useful to revive Ian or sentient Xenobio creatures, or crewmembers who were transfermed into simple mobs. Maybe it would really be better in RnD, instead of having to ask miners for it? Same with the mining jetpack upgrade?

[Cobby]

I must have a warped view of how the game should be when I think items should have a broader scope of applications outside of niches they fill.

[John_Oxford]

Logically speaking you buff science's ability to make mining equipment, giving miners a reason to interact with them.
Not debuff miners to make it so much of a grind that no one wants to play miner because all you get is a pickaxe.

*Exosuits
*Mining Exosuits
*Tunnel Bores (mining projectiles)/(automatic tunnel makers)
*roundstart mining mechs (basic ripleys)
*science outpost at mining with a shuttle connecting it to research
*bluespace cannon hitting mining should destroy like 96x96 rock tiles and kill all the mobs caught in the blast
*six roundstart miners and eight roundstart scientests
*all scientests have mining access
*augments to resist ash storms
*augments to walk through lava (over short distances, you sink after x ammount of time and die)
*x-ray meson augments
*mining viscerator grenades, only kill mining mobs and circle around the mob who deployed them (emag for a normal viscerator grenade)

increase the list of drops from bosses and have them give fucking RIDICULIOUS research levels.
*nuclear whip (dragon drop) click in a direction of rock to lash a one by ten tunnel in that direction (gibs all mobs caught in the blast, moderate cooldown)
*ancient armor (80 resistance across all damage types if not stunned, slipped, bleeding, or below 20 hp, otherwise does a passive -1 oxyloss)

[Sidon]

Science babies are sad that their department sucks now

[Gun Hog]

*Exosuits
*Mining Exosuits Ripley, Firefighter
*Tunnel Bores (mining projectiles)/(automatic tunnel makers) Advanced Plasma Cutter
*roundstart mining mechs (basic ripleys) I am sure these would be made at roundstart if they became popular enough.
*science outpost at mining with a shuttle connecting it to research Aux mining base. It can call the mining shuttle to it after the beacon is readied.
*bluespace cannon hitting mining should destroy like 96x96 rock tiles and kill all the mobs caught in the blast Too powerful! Although the BSA station goal might work for this at a much weaker level
*six roundstart miners and eight roundstart scientests There is not a need for more Scientist slots, I cannot speak for miners though.
*all scientests have mining access Cargo department players, including the miners, would not likely find this acceptable.
*augments to resist ash storms The current augmentation surgery grants this!
*augments to walk through lava (over short distances, you sink after x ammount of time and die) Obsoleted by the Ash Drake's blood drop
*x-ray meson augments The xray vision implant is exactly this.
*mining viscerator grenades, only kill mining mobs and circle around the mob who deployed them (emag for a normal viscerator grenade) Interesting...

increase the list of drops from bosses and have them give fucking RIDICULIOUS research levels. If handled properly, I can see this being workable.
*nuclear whip (dragon drop) click in a direction of rock to lash a one by ten tunnel in that direction (gibs all mobs caught in the blast, moderate cooldown) Too powerful!
*ancient armor (80 resistance across all damage types if not stunned, slipped, bleeding, or below 20 hp, otherwise does a passive -1 oxyloss) Much too strong, and the Ash Drake armor fills this spot already.

[killerx09]

I remember for a fact that RIPLEYS were faster on the mining asteroid than on-station, before lavaland was added in.

[onleavedontatme]

I remember for a fact that RIPLEYS were faster on the mining asteroid than on-station, before lavaland was added in.

They're faster on lavaland as well, but still slower then people.

[Gun Hog]

I remember for a fact that RIPLEYS were faster on the mining asteroid than on-station, before lavaland was added in.

They're faster on lavaland as well, but still slower then people.

https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/20497

[Ergovisavi]

Now it's actually far more useful to revive Ian or sentient Xenobio creatures, or crewmembers who were transfermed into simple mobs. Maybe it would really be better in RnD, instead of having to ask miners for it? Same with the mining jetpack upgrade?

The idea that research should be the one stop shop for every power creep item in the game is utterly ridiculous.

That said, the lazarus injector outlived its purpose when goliaths got nerfed, and I don't even know who the hell turned the jetpack into a jetpack mod.

I remember for a fact that RIPLEYS were faster on the mining asteroid than on-station, before lavaland was added in.

They're faster on lavaland as well, but still slower then people.

https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/20497

This has a variety of issues but the most notable one is:

At it's heart, the Ripley is conceptually flawed. Much of its gear is funneled towards large scale mining, which is something that has never been needed to be done in the history of the game outside of excessive "Everyone on the station gets a Durand" memery. The core design of the mech needs to be addressed, and a mere speed increase is not the changes it needs.

[onleavedontatme]

As long as we have

-20 minute rounds

-Dirt cheap RD costs, ORM and protolathe multipliers, and high tile yields

-Me being too lazy to map proper ore spawn rates in lavaland

Large scale mining will never be feasible nor needed.