Mining versus Salvaging

[Defektiv]

I put a good 250 hours into this game doing the mining/refining thing. I knew it would be the more labor intensive way of playing but also know that's the best way to learn something, diving into the more difficult part first. Now I've started a new game where the focus is almost exclusively salvaging. In 10-15 hours I've already surpassed the stockpiles of components from my mining game by at least 3 times the quantities each. And I didn't have refining or assembly time to worry about at all. And it doesn't add to resource load having altered asteroids. In fact, just last night after I stopped hunting derelicts due to adequate resourcing and a Military Transport started drifting straight for me. I disabled it and got half way through salvaging and my large containers on x10 inventory were overflowing halfway through the salvage.

Is the difference between resource generation supposed to be this drastic? I enjoy mining just as much as salvaging but it almost doesn't seem worth it to mine anymore. I don't play miltiplayer but I could imagine anyone trying to survive on mining in those games would be at an incredibly serious disadvantage.

[Day1Committed]

MOST MOST Multiplayer disable cargo ships from what i have seen......got to admit there is just something satisfying by building your project from the ground up starting with pretty much nothing.....and yet still take a break to try something different.....just my two cents...

[Defektiv]

yeah don't get me wrong, I enjoy the options and do both as well. And I kind of understand resource treeing will always put more resource weight on components over ores. Maybe refineries just need to be buffed or something to make mining more of a viable option.

[Fonzaano]

How do we evwen find other ship[s and stuff in game?

[Aetrion]

Depends on your world settings. In a realistic world where refining and assembling run at x1 efficiency salvaging is a heck of a lot more efficient. Most servers run at 10x though, and there mining tends to actually be faster, provided you have a good source for all the materials.

[Bobmin357]

Actually I think you managed to get lucky, I've seen some worlds generated that were littered with only tiny ships, and in one case I remember starting a world that had NOTHING within 50km of the starting point.

The quality and quantity of the exploration ships that you can salvage seems to me to be in the hands of the RNG gods.

[Defektiv]

I just flew 500km in a straight line and ran into a bit of everything. There are common spawns, even for the station spawns. I found 2 frigate bases, 2 civil stations and an asteroid base II. That last one will drop your sim speed almost in half when you are near it, until you get right up on it then sim speed stabilizes. That said, the cargo ships have been a far better source of salvage with few exceptions. One military transport will fill up a large cargo container with steel plates alone on x10 inventory.

[Day1Committed]

Also keep in mind.....people playing on a MP server have alot more need for all those things in greater quantity then 1 person in survival....but then again it just a matter of adjusting your perspective on how you plan to play the game.....

[Defektiv]

I was strictly observing the accumulation rate, relative to each other (mining and salvaging), with the same settings applied. It's not even close. If you cranked up refinery and assembly speed and left grinding on realistic they might be closer.

[Vigo the Dudepathian]

My large ship miner can pull in enough res in 5 min to never ever need that type of res again, and its only got 9 SF drills on it, and its MP survival. We put the XL refineries and assemblers on our server too, helps a lot.

[zgrssd]

Of course salvaging/recycling is faster.
You bypass the entire mining, refining and assembling process.

However, the viability of salvage will change as the game develops.
Before turrets (that fire autonomously), the ships always had explosion traps. Wich were easy enough figured out and disarmed.
Turrets are a bit harder to get past, but they are still only "bot smart".
The next itteration will propably be ships that flee or have crewmen that defend it (after they AI get to that part).

[Day1Committed]

Ok...so what can be added to the game....that would make it realistic in a way that you would need a constant supply of ores....ya know what I mean.......for instance JUST AN EXAMPLE...(.in minecraft tree farms are made to supply wood to make charcoal to fuel a furnace)...so how or what can be done to create something to use in SE for ores or component.....Ice for Oxygen is another example thats works good....we need examples of that....Your opinion??

[Defektiv]

I'm not advocating for any change in the resource treeing at all. I'm just saying that it seems something to expedite the mining/refining path would make it a much more competitive alternative to salvaging.

[full of streaming multiprocessor]

the ice refining to get oxygen makes no sense, you need complicated tools to separate oxygen from water, and then you would have a large excess of hydrogen, wich could be dangerous if not stored properly.

[Defektiv]

O2 is new so there's bound to be changes to it at some point. I think the real sinks are in refining, cobalt and nickel in particular, even in an arc furnace. Uranium I can understand, as even on realistic setting a single refinery refining uranium can keep a medium operation sustained. But cobalt and nickel are definitely a bottleneck in the process.

[Day1Committed]

Why would ya say a bottleneck? Are you saying there is too much of them?