Suggestion: "Fixing" asteroid belts.

First I would like to recommend taking the names off of the "named" asteroids. Replace this with a target, the text "mineable" or some other method of marking it. With this change: players would no longer be able to fly around only mining the "good" asteroids, and since very asteroid would then have an equal chance of being mined, this would greatly improve the quality of the belt for mining. In addition it would add some measure of realism, as you may not necessarily know the content of an asteroid with out at least scanning it first. If players want to recognize asteroids by color and chose what to mine that way, it would be more realistic, and still not as much of a problem as the "cherry pickers" that we have now.

Also it would look MUCH better if asteroids did not stack. This is an unintended feature, and it would be nice if it was removed. Removing this "bug" would also improve the quality of the belt. Currently only one type of asteroid spawns in certain location/orbit. That's why we find stacks of sids, or kams, but no stacks of both sids and kams. If asteroids were not allowed to spawn stack, then if all of the spaces for 1 type of asteroid were taken, a different asteroid type would be forced to spawn. Once again improving the quality of the asteroid belt.

I don't really agree with renaming the asteroids to the same thing. Sure it may make the belts more even, but you would never actually see that. I like the feeling of finding the rarer asteroids.

I do agree that we need to fix the stacks. It keeps additional asteroids from spawning, and isn't the way belts are supposed to work.

Here is a though I have that might help. If I am correct, all the different asteroids actually have the same chance to spawn. The reason certain ones are "more common" is because people don't mine them as often. So, What I would recommend is for asteroids to have a timer, before they are destroyed and re-spawned as a new random one. This way, if a belt is inactive it would return to a natural state of balance. And, as it is being mined, it helps to keep things from getting too out of whack. If the timer is long enough, there would still be incentive to mine all of them to get high quality ones faster, but you would never show up to a cherry picked belt that requires 30 minutes to start spawning well again.

I don't really agree with renaming the asteroids to the same thing. Sure it may make the belts more even, but you would never actually see that. I like the feeling of finding the rarer asteroids.

I do agree that we need to fix the stacks. It keeps additional asteroids from spawning, and isn't the way belts are supposed to work.

Here is a though I have that might help. If I am correct, all the different asteroids actually have the same chance to spawn. The reason certain ones are "more common" is because people don't mine them as often. So, What I would recommend is for asteroids to have a timer, before they are destroyed and re-spawned as a new random one. This way, if a belt is inactive it would return to a natural state of balance. And, as it is being mined, it helps to keep things from getting too out of whack. If the timer is long enough, there would still be incentive to mine all of them to get high quality ones faster, but you would never show up to a cherry picked belt that requires 30 minutes to start spawning well again.

Suggested that to Jam and he said it would stop the roids "growing" Which i guess is something that is not fully on-line yet. Since i see no difference from "old" roids and new ones other than the amount of time it takes to burn.

Anyhow maybe someone can explain the growing thing to us:)

[jam]

Every time I suggest I fix stacks there's a chorus of protests, some people like them. Idno why they're pretty ugly.

Growing _does_ happen, you guys just don't see it because asteroids don't last more than about a day on the live servers... I should show you a SS of the test server one day...

Anyway regarding the original 'issue', cherry picking is part of managing an asteroid belt. As in, it's bad asteroid belt management. With the public ones people are always going to do it, most likely, but when they don't everything works better. Once I add outer belts you'll see a lot more management of them.

People keep asking when that will be... do we want it before stock markets or player made gates?

Once I add outer belts you'll see a lot more management of them.

People keep asking when that will be... do we want it before stock markets or player made gates?

If it's easily possible to do, I think we all would enjoy outer belts ASAP.

Every time I suggest I fix stacks there's a chorus of protests, some people like them. Idno why they're pretty ugly.

I also liked higher yield Autinites and the overflow glitch. But they were not the way the game was intended to be. I agree sometimes stacks are nice, and maybe if they could be limited to 2 or 3. But, when 30 Sids are stacked in one spot, that's unintended and I think makes the belt worse overall. Even if they can be convenient and people like them. That's what I think, anyway.

Growing _does_ happen, you guys just don't see it because asteroids don't last more than about a day on the live servers... I should show you a SS of the test server one day...

Huh, this is the first I have heard about growing asteroids. Do larger asteroids do anything? higher yields? Curious as to why they do this, too.

Anyway regarding the original 'issue', cherry picking is part of managing an asteroid belt. As in, it's bad asteroid belt management. With the public ones people are always going to do it, most likely, but when they don't everything works better. Once I add outer belts you'll see a lot more management of them.

People keep asking when that will be... do we want it before stock markets or player made gates?

Before Jump Gates, definitely. The new store commands and Passenger Quarters means fewer and cheaper jumps, so Gates aren't as necessary as before I don't think. If it is easy enough to get them going, I think it would be nice.

A couple questions about deep belts: will they have a longer "respawn" time then the core world ones? As in, you can only mine so much in one every day before it is depleted? And will they only have certain types of Asteroids instead of all? Possible new ones? Lastly, are Asteroid Belts the "Missing Numbers" on the Autopilot lists in Deep Systems?

[jam]

Before Jump Gates, definitely. The new store commands and Passenger Quarters means fewer and cheaper jumps, so Gates aren't as necessary as before I don't think. If it is easy enough to get them going, I think it would be nice.

A couple questions about deep belts: will they have a longer "respawn" time then the core world ones? As in, you can only mine so much in one every day before it is depleted? And will they only have certain types of Asteroids instead of all? Possible new ones? Lastly, are Asteroid Belts the "Missing Numbers" on the Autopilot lists in Deep Systems?

Longer 'respawn' unlikely, would make it more complex to implement as this was never designed for. Edit: although a lower number of roids in each belt would be relatively easy to do.

Only a subset of available roid types: very likely

New roid types: not immediately but very likely in the future

Missing numbers: yes, some of them are asteroid belts or clusters, some are rings, but some are just planets that crashed into other planets (rockeis or gas giants) or stars and were absorbed. These numbers will never appear as they are gone forever

thanks for the quick reply!

So I could theoretically find a belt of all Cols and Angs, and I could keep mining it as long as I wanted? this may be really rare, but at least somewhere out there.

Every time I suggest I fix stacks there's a chorus of protests, some people like them. Idno why they're pretty ugly.

Growing _does_ happen, you guys just don't see it because asteroids don't last more than about a day on the live servers... I should show you a SS of the test server one day...

Anyway regarding the original 'issue', cherry picking is part of managing an asteroid belt. As in, it's bad asteroid belt management. With the public ones people are always going to do it, most likely, but when they don't everything works better. Once I add outer belts you'll see a lot more management of them.

People keep asking when that will be... do we want it before stock markets or player made gates?

Well, sounds irrational for all those who like "sciency" things to want to keep stacks of asteroids. I mean has physics gone nuts and suddenly they can phase into each other?

I'd love to see the stacks fixed before all of the above but especially before outer belts...if you can actually see a belt is full of bad roids rather than have to find that stack for burn...you simply know it needs cleaning up in general..with the big stacks your never know till you've lapped the belt a few times and even then...could it just be too many people in front of you clearing things?

I'll admit, when I get a stack of 4 or 5 angrite or col roids it is nice payday...and certainly killing a stack of 40 sids to clean things up in one spot may be a shorter and lazier way to fix a belt for people that don't want to spend the time mining...but finding the other asteroids anyway...its not very realistic.

I'm pretty sure 99.9% of this fix the belts or get outer belts is because most of us are looking for the lucrative uranium, nio and tin....were gaming the system, because well it is easy to game it this way.

Missing numbers: yes, some of them are asteroid belts or clusters, some are rings, but some are just planets that crashed into other planets (rockeis or gas giants) or stars and were absorbed. These numbers will never appear as they are gone forever

Jam, if it is easy to implement, could you build a mechanism so we can blow up a moon so we can create our own asteroid belt? Again, a community project where we can build other components for the bomb. Say, use magnesium, silicon, and coils for ignition components, tin and graphene for the bomb structure, uranium into refined uranium for the boom.

I think we would love to customize our home star systems.