Mining could really use some positive attention, the only thing done to it so far is nerfs; and it wasn't a great experience before.

I'm not talking about raising resource levels on alpha. I see the goal of some of the changes were to make mining more interactive, but the result was making it more frustrating. The process of mining needs to be improved, the ui and feels needs attention.

I agree with mining needing work, and I think it should go back to prenerf. Mining to the vast majority of people is the chaff you have to work away to get to the heart of the game. It's what makes the world go round here for everybody, but the way it's set up is kind of backwards to me. If it's more frustrating to go mine for the minerals to build the bot then it was for getting the bot blown up...

Pre-nerf mining wasn't fun... but it wasn't tedious either. You don't want hordes of afk miners on alpha, and that's fine... roaming npcs help with that. But I don't play this game for the mining, I play for the social aspect, and the pvp. In my opinion, the work/fun ratio prenerf for minerals was fine. I'd like to be able to replace my stuff when it gets blown up, and I expect to have to work for it -- it's not about free replacements -- but the amount of work required is too high. Having to constantly scan for new places, having to drive 3km from base to find something worth spending any time on, and then having to deal with driving it back to base at some point. I think the scales were tipped a little to far the other way with the mineral nerfs, and apparently alot of the people who no longer log on agree with me.

I agree with Smokey, it was stated that there where too many minerals available and therefore the nerf would bring minerals back into balance. My problem with that was that the problem was looked at from e wrong angle. It wasn't necessarily that there were too many minerals, it was that there weren't enough avenues for minerals to be removed from the game to balance it out.

Pre nerf, you could lose a mech and replace it in mineral value in a couple of hours without wanting to stab your own eyeballs out. Now, it takes longer, is painful and makes losing a mech in PvP all the more painful as you know you have to spend a game session mining in the most awful manner to replace it, therefore people are more scared to fight which reduces everyones ability to enjoy the game.

Put the mining back the way it was, reduce mineral density on alpha and promote roaming NPCs to control afk mining.

In order to combat the the long time players having too much of an advantage you can look at the skill trees and also the prevalence of material types. Put alpha only materials in the game and with POS or some other mechanic force Beta islands to need HUGE quantities of it. Beta islanders (not considering alts here) do not want to spend 90% of their time on alpha, much better to mine/fight/pve on beta and buy from alpha..... Oh dear did I just create a Market dynamic for those wishing to live and pve on alpha to be engaged in the overall game as a part of a complex sandbox game??? Guess I did.

Mining is too painful, change it back and put in the high level matereial sinks (bigger bots, POS, big buid req equipment) in to counterbalance an increased amount of minerals in the game. The devs seemed to have had the right intention in the nerf, they just put the wrong solution in place.

So... First I'll be the first to agree that mining is not fun, but the mineral reduction was and is necessary, and reverting it isn't the answer.

There was another reason for the reduction, besides there being 'too much ore' on the market, making mining/scanning skills actually mean something.

I don't want to have to go into all the minute detail, but to put it simply, skilled miners will get much more ore per hour than unskilled miners now.

It was totally unbalanced when military specialized characters could spend a few days of EP and mine 80% as effciently as a dedicated miner.

That said, they now need to do 'something' to make mining not as tedious for dedicated mining characters.

Arga, I agree with your points, I also pointed out the skill trees in my post as I am a huge proponent of specialisation being the key to increased gain. PvP chars should definitely not be within a mile of a specialised mining char, but they do need to be able to assist, just at a very poor level. I also agree that the scanning skills needed a boost in viability, I just don't agree that making life painful in the game for everyone is the best way to approach fixing something like this. It feels like we are all punished because the mechanics don't fit the situation the DEVs found themselves in.

A long time ago there was talk of a mini-game for mining that involved aligning the mining lasers with precision that increased yield fractionally and leaving them unaligned too long would effect your mining yield.

I loved this idea but I can see it making it more mind numbing if the minigame was too easy.

I personally dont see the problem with AFK mining. If i stick my miner on something and go do the laundry, at least im another active player on the server doing something. Bot prices should be cheap, modules should be expensive. I should be able to hop into a new bot, and be shooting teh bad guys with less agravating work then it currently requires. There's got to be like 10 people on the server that mining is their only enjoyment in the game.

I guess it goes back to the arguement of hardcores vs casuals. We can all agree that the game needs more people, be they casual or hardcore, and we're always going to have more of the former.