Expand and rework public mining

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chocolate_bickie
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Expand and rework public mining

Post by chocolate_bickie » #587064

Public Mining is a completely underdeveloped part of the station. I have several suggestions that I think improve public mining as an experience and that would add to other game play elements.


Suggestions
1. Economy
This is the big benefit I think Public Mining could have. Bounties just aren't working for reasons others have expressed (example: https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic ... lit=bounty).

Public Mining could fill this niche, providing players a method to gather credits that also adds value (materials) to the station. Ideally this would also involve the removal of mining points and just replacing them with credits. 1000 credits of space cash can be bought from mining vendors for 2000 points. A rough value of each ore in credits is therefore already known.

2. Public Ore Reclamation Machine
Ease of access determines if a game mechanic is used or not. The ORM is located in cargo, which prevents use and reclamation of mining points for non-miners unless they break in. Whilst you can ask for access at HOPs or from QM/CTs this is not always an option and invalidates the point of Public Mining. If you need to ask for access then Public Mining isn't public.

I suggest one of two solutions;
1. An Ore Reclamation Machine is put in Public Mining and access restrictions are remove from the ORM.
2. A new type of ORM is added to Public Mining that has no access restrictions but provides fewer credits.

3. Engaging for the crew
Lavaland and mining is general is an expansive part of the code that adds absolutely nothing to 95% of players each round. More should be done to increase player access to these areas. Making Public Mining easier and more directly rewarding would allow more players each round to engage with what is currently used by 3 players per round (the miners).


Issues
1. Isn't this off station and therefore subject to feature freeze?
All the modifications I suggest are station only and aimed at non-miners. It meets the spirit of new features which is to add more for station players to do.

2. Doesn't this just invalidate miners?
Miners start with better equipment than Public Mining does. In addition Public Miners do not have access to Cargo protolathe. I believe should an issue occur, that Public Mining can be balanced by modifying the cost of equipment in Public Mining vendor or even removing equipment from Public Mining Vendors.

3. Abuse glass etc for quick credits
I anticipate players will quickly try and determine how to gain the most credits for the least effort. Glass is the most obvious one and should probably have a very low credits return to avoid spam. However I believe that by standardizing mining points to credits these numbers can easily be tweaked and re-balanced far more easily than other parts of the economy.


Conclusion
Public mining is being under used at the moment and could improve some of the worst parts of the game such as economy, lavaland bloat and material shortages. Not all these suggestions have to be implemented together but I believe each suggestion has merit.
Last edited by chocolate_bickie on Tue Jan 12, 2021 12:03 am, edited 2 times in total.
cacogen
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Re: Expand and rework public mining

Post by cacogen » #587102

This is a really good post.
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Super Aggro Crag
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Re: Expand and rework public mining

Post by Super Aggro Crag » #587116

i like public mining and getting enough credits to add mining access to my card and become a real boy
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Cobby
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Re: Expand and rework public mining

Post by Cobby » #587161

The mining part of lavaland isnt the reason why "private mining" is 3/3 most of the time yet you still are scraping the bottom of the ORM for upgrades.

Lavaland seems like a sunk cost we keep trying to make work for other jobs (we cant even seem to get the mining part right) which always just ends up being not used or broken to hell because you have a limited time in a round, and going to play in a private play pen for a majority of it is relatively boring and needs to be thrown goodies to make it palpable.

I mean look, the suggestion here is to throw in some additional rewards for mining unrelated to actual mining because not-you as a non-miner has to go to the public mine for mats, but getting mats is a snooze so not-you will want either gbp for the totally-balanced "mining" vendor loot (to play with the rest of lavaland aka the additional loot for miners) OR money for the totally-balanced economy and we literally do not know how much ore there is since it's entirely based on RNG.

At the very least the mining aspect needs to be largely removed and be mainly done by some sort of automated process that feeds a constantly flow of mats into the station.
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chocolate_bickie
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Re: Expand and rework public mining

Post by chocolate_bickie » #587214

Cobby wrote:The mining part of lavaland isnt the reason why "private mining" is 3/3 most of the time yet you still are scraping the bottom of the ORM for upgrades.
I thought ORM upgrades had been removed.
Cobby wrote:Lavaland seems like a sunk cost we keep trying to make work for other jobs (we cant even seem to get the mining part right) which always just ends up being not used or broken to hell because you have a limited time in a round, and going to play in a private play pen for a majority of it is relatively boring and needs to be thrown goodies to make it palpable.
I agree lavaland isn't working but I don't think it's going to be completely reworked so I thought I'd aim for something that at least makes it better for more players.
Cobby wrote: money for the totally-balanced economy and we literally do not know how much ore there is since it's entirely based on RNG.
Ore density and credit rewards are all variables that can be modified that don't require a complete re-code. They are much easier to balance because how common ores are and how much they are worth can be changed
Cobby wrote:At the very least the mining aspect needs to be largely removed and be mainly done by some sort of automated process that feeds a constantly flow of mats into the station.
Maybe, but I doubt anyone is willing to go through the effort of doing that. Again I wanted to suggest some minor changes that could at least help
cacogen wrote:This is a really good post.
Thanks
Super Aggro Crag wrote:i like public mining and getting enough credits to add mining access to my card and become a real boy
Where do you deposit your ore to get your points?
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Super Aggro Crag
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Re: Expand and rework public mining

Post by Super Aggro Crag » #587226

Im a greyshirt i have all access if i see a window
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cacogen
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Re: Expand and rework public mining

Post by cacogen » #587305

I think airlocks are more desirable nowadays
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