Resource Restocking/Respawning

[Sydney]

Currently Known space is becomming more and more like a resource desert.

Its becoming difficult to find systems that have even good supplies of moderatly valuable resources left let alone high value ones. The downside to this is that mining is becoming progresively more and more difficult to make a profit at. Players that are following a mining path are being forced to move further and further away from SOL... and heaven help any newbies that want to mine, actually i image most would take a look and give up.

My suggestion is that planets have their resources restocked at semi-regular intervals. Each planet/moon could have a list of 'regular' resources that are more or less guaranteed to re-spawn. I find it hard to imagine that a gas giant the size of jupiter can be completly mined of all available resources within a few days game time. The regular resources should be almost unlimited on planets, currently players doing mining are like the aliens in Independence day, we come along, clear away all the valuable resources and move on. There is no reason to spend any effort developing a system since even a large one can be cleared of everything valuable with basic mark 1 modules in a couple of weeks. Planets could also have a small chance to occasionally spawn an amount of a valuable resource. Ie a Gold deposit was discovered, a small load of Chengdite was uncovered something like that.... Resource variety and potential 'special' resources could somehow be related to planet size, ie a 16 slot planet has more potential to spawn an 'special' resource than a single slot planet, It should also have a larger variety of 'regular' resources.

This respawning of resources should happen automatically without any special notification to the players. Some planets/systems would then become valuable to posses or control. As they have more valuable resources in their 'regular' respawn list. If a list of potential 'special' resources was also fixed it would re-inforce that further, as a planet that occasionally turned up some uranium would be more desirable. The current resources available would be shown in a survey... over time players could figure out what the regular resources were and what the special resoources of a plaent were with regular re-scanning.

[JamJulLison]

While not too bad of an idea, it would take away from the realism of the game and the actual story. In real life when most resources are depleted, they can't simply be replaced. That said, depleting an entire planet of it's resources should take time. Perhaps the larger planets should have a much more abundant supply of resources. Gas Giants themselves, should take ages to completely mine of it's resources. For an example of a gas giant having it's resources depleted, Star Wars might prove a good example. The planet Bespin was a gas giant and they mined Tibana Gas. The planet had been mined for almost 2000 years and it still had plenty of the gas. I am aware that is just sci-fi, but it does seem to indicate it would take an incredibly long time to harvest an entire gas giant even with advanced technology.

Sydney your description of it being like Independence Day is an accurate one. Fact is in real life, there could be aliens that do just that. In the current situation in the game, Earth has had pretty much all of it's natural resources depleted and they are out searching for more resources to help the people of Earth. They spread out to nearby planets to mine resource. As resources become more scarce, they are forced to expand further and further.  I actually like this realism in the game. Unfortunately this can make it harder for newer players who might want to mine. But that can be fixed if people work to help out new players as they join. Like in real life, the people who decide to help scrounge for resources and explore space would have to venture out further to find it and it would be more difficult on them then those who were among the first to start volunteering to become a captain and help with the expansion.  The game also does have the possibility of a star going supernova enabling a respawn more or less of a solar system. While of course the speed new planets occur is unrealistic, it does help to keep resources in the game.

[Sydney]

Yes, I agree that in reality resources are not infinate... 

However ingame SOL corp at Earth seems to have an unlimited supply of resources for sale.

Whereas this earth sized planets entire resources can be stored in my ships cargo hold.

Cadmium    56 m3    25.45 km    $22,176
Kamacite    1077 m3    31.52 km    $45,234
Leadamalgam    1649 m3    43.76 km    $100,589
Cabriite    540 m3    52.78 km    $144,180
Taenite    1288 m3    59.99 km    $100,464
Methane    177 m3    33 km    $10,620
Neon    2278 m3    62 km    $170,850

I dont actually see any real gameplay difference between saying that these resources are unlimited, or that there is millions of m3 of each available. Adding a re-fill job, also allows too add an extra facet of occasionally other resources turning up.

Preferably id like to see several hundred active players in the game... if that was the case how far out would this desert zone extend? 100Ly's? I cannot imagine any newbie being prepared to travel 100Ly's to try their hand at mining... heck a large majority seem to stumble at getting out of SOL

[JamJulLison]

I am still a newbie myself.  Just joined yesterday.  I have only been to one system outside Sol. I will say Alpha Centauri isn't dried up yet.  Also if the supernova thing works like it should, it should solve some of the resource issue.  I do agree the Sol station having unlimited resources is unrealistic. But if it didn't have it, I doubt anyone would get very far in the beginning.  The training academy does help a lot though.  I am still in the process of doing that.  I am on the pain in the butt investigate a distress signal. mission.   I think before we start talking about the resource respawning, we give the supernova thing a chance. The game is only 2 months old.  I can't see all the nearby star systems being deserts just yet. Though I can see it eventually happen in the Sol System. That likely will be the only one to not supernova.

[Sydney]

Well, when i say desert i dont mean that there are no resources left in the systems. Heck there are even plenty of resources left at sol.

But it is the value of the resources left... Its not much fun waiting 5 days for a basic MIF to mine 100m of Iron for the PHAT profit it brings at SOL...

[JamJulLison]

You make it sound like that though.  I do admit mining isn't a lot of fun.  But i think in the early game newbies should focus on transporting more then mining anyways. Mining for the most part should be left for when you get a little bigger and can actually get the stuff you need to protect yourself from pirates. Not to mention then you can manufacture better mining facilities then for faster mining.

[SirEmi]

Well, the supernova will be only for the un-explored space, that means quadrants over -1,1

In the explored space and Sol, there will be some sort of discovery of new deposits, so basically they just pop out again within limits for each planets once dried up... So it would be in your best interest to dry up a deposit if you have a planetary base, and then see if something else pops up, maybe a valuable one... Of course if everyone mined just the rare ones, then you would end up will only plain deposits in explored space of course that's not a bad thing, as you would eventually have to venture into un-explored space to see if you can find better mining spots.

[JamJulLison]

Good to know Sir. Thanks.

[Sydney]

In the explored space and Sol, there will be some sort of discovery of new deposits

Use of future tense. so...

Is this currently implemented and active? Does it/will it work on the planetary level or at the System level. because Ive cleaned out a few planets with no respawning of resources as yet. Are the resources fixed as per my suggestion or are they random?

If its not yet implemented, weve had a fair amount of focus on combat in the last several updates, how about something for those of us economically focused players?

[Sydney]

FWIW

stummbled over a planet in known space with the following resources

Iron    5828 m3    1.3 km    $58,280
Iron    4736 m3    23.09 km    $47,360
Nickel    8245 m3    28.36 km    $115,430
Nickel    1464 m3    44.28 km    $20,496

I simply cannot see anyone putting down mines on this planet. What is the point? It will take you a month of sundays just to recover the cost of a few MIF's on this planet... although your facilities might well be safe from pirates. I cant see pirates wanting to clog up their cargo holds with Iron or nickel, unless they convert it straight into a few fuel cells.

Potentially the only reason to deploy MIF's here is to clear the planet to trigger a restock, and hope you get something interesting, but thats a major longshot. Especially when there are hundreds of planets with better resources to mine.

Id almost be in favour of planets regularly spawning mineral deposits even if they havent been depleted. It would mean that even this planet has a hope that someday a player will however briefly, occupy it.

[JamJulLison]

FWIW

stummbled over a planet in known space with the following resources

Iron    5828 m3    1.3 km    $58,280
Iron    4736 m3    23.09 km    $47,360
Nickel    8245 m3    28.36 km    $115,430
Nickel    1464 m3    44.28 km    $20,496

I simply cannot see anyone putting down mines on this planet. What is the point? It will take you a month of sundays just to recover the cost of a few MIF's on this planet... although your facilities might well be safe from pirates. I cant see pirates wanting to clog up their cargo holds with Iron or nickel, unless they convert it straight into a few fuel cells.

Potentially the only reason to deploy MIF's here is to clear the planet to trigger a restock, and hope you get something interesting, but thats a major longshot. Especially when there are hundreds of planets with better resources to mine.

Id almost be in favour of planets regularly spawning mineral deposits even if they havent been depleted. It would mean that even this planet has a hope that someday a player will however briefly, occupy it.

If I happened to come across that planet when doing resources, if I saw mines there I would loot them. Just for the extra resources. But I wouldn't go out of my way to hit it.

[SirEmi]

Id almost be in favour of planets regularly spawning mineral deposits even if they havent been depleted. It would mean that even this planet has a hope that someday a player will however briefly, occupy it.

That's a good idea, and I think we can add some rules like a resource deposit: how old is it? older then 90 days?, is someone mining it?. If older then 90 days and no-one is mining it, then it would disappear. Some other deposit will spawn.

I am working on the resource re-spawn  / super nova explosions, so you can still suggest on this. It's in the works, not implemented yet until properly tested.

[Sydney]

I am working on the resource re-spawn  / super nova explosions, so you can still suggest on this. It's in the works, not implemented yet until properly tested.

To summarise my ideas about resources re-spawning

Each planet should have a 'Regular' set of Resources that it is 'known' for... these should be virtually unlimited on the planet. Typically they would be the lower value resources but there should be a decent chance that a planet has a mid valued resource that is regularly available there. These resources respawn fairly regularly (new deposits are found by survey teams once the current deposit has been depleted) with a new deposit, at a different height/depth being generated reasonable soon after the existing one has been depleated. The planet should allways have at least one deposit of each of its 'regular' resources available after the respawn script has been run.

Each planet should also occasionally turn up a deposit of a random mid valued resource, and very occasionally a high valued one. In this case only if the planet has at least one module deployed on it. (otherwise who is it that is discovering these deposits). The quantity discovered should be enough to allow the construction of atleast 1 module that requires that resource. Eg at least 262 m3 Chengdeite so that a player can potentially build / upgrade 1 railgun.

The number of resources available at a planet should also depend on its size. smaller planets would only have a smal list of regular resources, larger ones should have a much larger list.

I think if you did this then people would have a good incentive to actually try and set up a permanent base in a system, or at a planet. Given that at the moment it is almost impossible to permanently defend more than a few planets, and you can really only patrol a couple of systems this would give miners a fighting chance against the pirates. (more on that in a seperate thread)

I do think it would be nice if the large Asteroid Belts and Gas giants occasionally Spawned a larger deposit of a rarer mineral as a sort of in game mini event with notification in the AG News. Actually give us some incentive to develope high level mining modules or harvesters.

In Unknown Space the resources could operate under the same principle, Or you could fix the quantities and use the super nova approach... or a combination of both. If you do go for supper Novas then the new star should be in the vicinity of the old one... Otherwise a group or single player opperating in one area will eventually create a 'null' space where there are no stars. Particularly if they invest heavily in setting up a larger base deep in unknown space.

[JamJulLison]

The part I don't like is the unlimited amount of resources on a planet.  I'm sorry but it just doesn't make any sense and is highly unrealistic. If this game didn't try to be realistic, I might be ok with that.  But to me it just doesn't seem to fit here. Instead of the native resource being unlimited, just give that planet an absurdly high amount of resources. After all look how long it took to burn through Earth's resources. Now I would say perhaps certain gasses could possible respawn from time to time because that wouldn't be unusual. In the real world on Earth, we breathe the oxygen. Exhale Carbon diaoxide. The plants feed on the carbon diaxide and release oxygen.  So no reason so me naturally occurring gasses couldn't respawn itself from time to time.  We need to keep the ground resources as a finate amount though. Otherwise people will have less reasons to expand outwards into the galaxy and into the unknown areas.  If we allow respawning of even just the gasses though, newer players can at least harvest those. There sure are plenty of gas giants out there. So they should be fine.

As for dealing with pirates. People everywhere will have to deal with them. As new players join there will be more people that want to pirate. The older pirates will likely migrate to the farther out areas as things expand.  As for minors protecting their mines. I think the limit on ships should be raised. If there is one on space stations that one should be completely removed.  This could allow for miners to patrol their areas more and protect their mines better.