Station/city modules are free and too easy to build (Useless money in EL)

[Kamiyami]

It sure sounds like a more fun way to mine, though I still like the idea of credits for building. Only real problem I see with the minigame idea is the effect it'd have on economy and money making. Fast mining = fast money + flooded ores market. That said, I'd be more excited about mining if it were a quicker process with some level of skill involved, but I'd also like for mining to not be mandatory for station/city building.

As it stands, I think someone who's repeatedly putting their life on the line fending off the Vonari threat deserves their own station as much as someone who parks in front of asteroids and plays solitaire until the "thunks"(what I hear when items enter cargo) stop.

[Edited on 3-22-2016 by Kamiyami]

[FotonCat]

The idea for this came from doing IR spectrometry in the lab, where routinely you hit particles with an IR laser, and only certain molecules will stretch, bend or get excited.

http://webbook.nist.gov/cgi/cbook.cgi?S ... =1&Type=IR

As chemical engineer I like your idea

[Ducimus]

Long story short, I fly alllllllll the way back to sapphire, then to pearl re-equip, load up 10 cargo hold slots with metal, then go all the way back.

The trip sounds familiar. All except the shuttling back and forth to and from Sapphire ... when, in fact, asteroid fields abound en route.

This was my first foray into deep space. I had my ship equiped a bit more for combat and less for mining. I left my target scanner at home, and I wont even both mining with a general tractor beam without it. No, I set auto pilot and went afk. I had already watched the nav map in between point A and B, and it's boring just sitting here watching hyperspace jumps in 10 sector increments when your starting with over 700 sectors to jump.


As per mining , Mining has ALWAYS been boring to me, but the benefits usually outweigh the tedium in most games I have played. Currently, to relieve the tedium, I use Steams web browser and read message boards while the mining laser is going. IMO, specialized beams, target scanner, and I think science officer are must haves. Without all that, its way too inefficient. That said, mining in Evochron isn't as bad as say, the now defunct SWG:JTL. That SUCKED. Think of the 80s game "Asteroids". To mine, you had to shoot asteroids with a mining laser to break off chunks, then vacuum the now floating off into space chunks up into your cargo hold with a tractor beam. It sounds cool on paper, but in practice it was like chewing on tin foil.

Now Minigames are cool - at f first, and they seem to be in vogue with game developers. The problem is, once you've done them umpteen times, they often become tedious. One great example is any fallout title by bethesda. In specific the hacking and lockpicking mini games. I don't mind the lockpicking one, because once you figure it out, it just flows, i can pick most locks the first try. But the hacking one drives me nuts, always taking multiple attempts and too much time, thus i absolutely hate it. So i don't even bother with that minigame anymore, and avoid it entirely.

[matchbox2022]

Hmmmm yeah just an idea. I guess moving the beam around works too. If there was Smth challenging to keep ur eye andmind on iit'd be better. So long as the rewsrd is mining in 25% of the time. Similarly for travels. I've done homework mining

[Ducimus]

What I find myself wanting is the ability to deploy multiple specialized mining probes. If that were possible, I'd be mining like a crab boat. I'd drop out a string of probes in a line, then circle around to the first probe and tractor up the cargo, move onto the 2nd probe, then the 3rd, and so on. That way your always busy flying, and not doing whatever to pass the time, not to mention making mining more effecient.

[Marvin]

I don't find building stations or cities to be too easy. Especially if you're an hour from civilization before realizing your Deploy constructor is installed but your Build constructor is in a cargo bay. Luckily, Vice had the foresight to add a deploy module which allows you to swap equipment in and out. Only, if your cargo bays and equipment slots are full, it takes a bit of juggling and jettisoning to get it done. Mining for metal was the easy part ... and allowed me to take a coffee break.

[matchbox2022]

Coffee breaks are nice, Id just wish if you were physically on your computer there'd be something more interactive.

Even what Ducimus said makes a lot of sense, at least you're doing something, and flying is the majority of fun in the game.

[Marvin]

When taking long trips, I find it to be a good time to read this forum ... or check my email. Because, unlike many other games, in this game I can Alt-Tab without borking it.*


* Keeping in mind that, to prevent borking, you should close any in-game menu window before Alt-Tabbing.

[DaveK]

Basically, what would you say to instead of moving the joystick around to mine a bit faster, you could "play a mini-game" and the mining if you succeeded.....would be a much,, much, MUCH, much faster payout (think the speed of picking up what's in a cargo container)

HOWEVER. in order to mine correctly, you would need to do a scan of the asteroid, and minerals it has would be shown as a changing spectrum.

Try timing mining with and without beam wiggling. I think that you'll find they are the same

There are two sorts of scanners available; Cargo and Target - you can use target scanners to find the make up of asteroids - useful f you want metals for crafting or diamonds for money

[J0shle0]

Why any buildable modules are free to build now?
You just need a metal - that's uninteresting and turns the credits in Evochron Legacy into just useless haystack. Building stations is WAY TOO EASY.

I even respect the possibility of introducing regular fee for station maintenance.

Also, if you don't want to make money to pay fee just by mining, the Misundertood Wookie offered a great idea - trade module
http://www.starwraith.com/forum/viewtop ... #pid186269
For example, if you build trade module and somebody decide to buy something at your station, you will get some reward. I think, this game can have much more possibilites in economics!

[Edited on 3-11-2016 by FotonCat]

This is what I thought buying a station was going to be. Without it being a revenue source, there's zero purpose to it that I can see.

[Marvin]

Without it being a revenue source, there's zero purpose to it that I can see.

You've evidently never done much exploring.

[DeathTech]

Just to toss my two cents into this conversation.

I have had a private conversation before with Vice on the topic of station ownership / control being private to the player (Station Management Simulation, ...)

And his response was that just not what stations do or are for in this game.
Making a station is just an easy way for players to add new stations where they please, they do not have ownership or any notion of control over the station other than initial placement.

In that way, I do not think we should be charged any fee to keep the station there, as we don't get anything from it.
Its hard enough to accommodate for the large quantities of metal to build said station unless you specificly go mine for it, it can be hard just to come by the metal otherwise.

I really wish there was a proper Station Management aspect for the stations of this game making money infinitely more useful and valuable as you could spend it on specific enhancements or improving hangar sizes maybe even the availability of more random crew people.

But there is no customisation station wise.

I am for expansion on the whole personal stations idea but Vice seemed pretty uninterested in making that a thing.
(Honestly I believe he still just wishes this game to be a space sim rather than a trade sim with business management aspects.)

Just gonna put that out there.

[DaveK]

I guess the problem is that we each have different interests. The Capital Ship Admiral team, the BattleMech bridade and the 'Can we fly to the edge of the Evoverse' explorer team have been quiet for a while but I'm sure will pop up again. Same for the City / Station managers or Economic Magnates who really just want an industrial/economics mod to add to EM / EL.

They're all great gameplays in their own right but really each needs a game of of its own or what will be created is a monolithic messy mixture of three or more separate games - Star Citizen demonstrates the pitfalls of trying to do too many very different things under one game umbrella - how many millions of dollars has been spent so far?

Vice has always been very clear that his games are focussed on solo pilot sandbox games - and I guess (and hope) that's what they will continue to be.