Early Auto Mining

[Nighthaven]

Ok so, I am toying around with fleet settings, not much money yet, so I was considering to try my luck with some early Mining setup. namely, I been Testing my chances with a Roach, aided by a two fighter escort.

Well, long story short, Damn, are those pirates horny for some rock -_-

In essence, there seems little point in a mining setup unless you can affort a fleet of ships to protect the miner, because everytime that miner sets out, I get minimum 3 pirats setting onto it, and usually the escort stays behind to fend off the pirates while the miner tugs its tail in and runs. Though even if the Escort survives, by the time they reach the miner again, it's already set upon by new pirates, and usually that second wave ruins the whole fleet.

Am I doing something wrong ? Or is that one singular rock, worth maybe 2k creds, really worth all that effort ? O-o

[DatBeanGamer]

well i found that as long as youonly have 1 escort and give shields to the minder and escort they tend to win everytime, also a little secret

~~trading ships are a lot more worth it~~

[chaosavy]

The roach is uselss for mining... I'm probably going to remove it from the game or as a player option to buy - it snags too many early players.

Try hiring a Geb and going to an asteroid field.

[Nighthaven]

Well, the idea was to have some money trickling on the side, doesnt have to be much, but the amount of pirates chasing after it once it snags a rock is insane. Been trying it with a Geb, which looks a lot more lucrative, though the amount of pirates, and thus the amount of escort you need for em, still seems a little out there. Can't wait to have the funds to try a proper Mining run :)

On that note, The roach Repair ship has a bit of a short range, repair missions for Energy stations have to be done manually with it, because on crew controle it tries to repair the platform from a range approx three times as far as the beam reaches.

[chaosavy]

That platform has an "irregular shape" - I might remove it from the list of potential platforms for that mission.


Early mining/trading runs are meant to be with the player as an escort - extra income and fun! But still they need to be tweaked.

[Nighthaven]

Well, they sure are fun, I just have to get used to the feeling of being outgunned for a while XD
Does feel a bit frustrating with some missions when your generally outnumbered and have to reload tons to make sure you aint loosing a ship. My biggest gripe there is, courier missions, I can outrun em, but once I try going back to overworld, my ship is generally facing the pirates, jumping me right back into them -_-

Kinda wish it would behave like when your jumping out of a station sector, where the ship resumes the heading it had when initiating the jump, unless I am doing something horribly wrong there ?

[chaosavy]

For that -

Make sure you aren't targeting the pirate - otherwise your ship will go towards it when you switch to overworld.

Make sure you are pointed where you want to travel - in overworld - since that's where you will travel towards on the switch.

[Nighthaven]

Thanks, that actually does the trick.
Strange question though, is the Pluto Immune to combat when on Automining ? I been comissioning one just to see what happens, she was set upon by a multitude of pirate ships before she even started mining, but for the entire time, they simply camped and followed her, no actual attack O_o That would make it to easy in comparrison to the low level counterparts, as in, impossible to protect, and money made ways to easy.

[chaosavy]

Sounds weird. That's not intended behavior.

[Nighthaven]

Well, here is what I been watching, for both Pluto and Herculess. Both drawn in Pirates in swarms, and I mean, it is not strange for them to have around 20 individual ships over them, and they just follow them around like moth around a lightbulb. On random occasions they actually manage to attack, though it must be no more then one or two ships as both Hercules and Pluto survive it each time, and usually with the random ships comming in to kill the pirates.

Though, it usually ends with either ship reaching a station, and a red swarm of Pirate ships exploding into every direction, until the ship leaves station again, at which point, they imediattely start luring every pirate ships in the area to them. The Pluto usually already has min 5 ships over it by the time it reaches the Asteroid field, at which point the number starts to grow rather swiftly.

Same appears to happen for NPC owned/controlles Geb and similar mining vessels, some of them have ships hovering over them, but no actual battle taking place.

[Nighthaven]

PS: The amount of pirates in missions and on the map does feel a bit out there, my personal opinion though, feels more like it's an active warzone rather then some buccaners. If I am to go the simplest route to making money, I do courir missions tand upgrade my ship towards least a pimped out leon, switch to a caterpillar mk2 once I have the money, because, with its defenses and playercontroled it can fend off pirates long as they dont come with a Hog, and a few traderuns later I Comission Herculess or pluto for automatic runs, at which point, I don't have to do anything at all to make money. O_o

Compared to that, trying to grow a fleet with the frequent chance of losses, it feels like two extremes. May restart and try proper fleetbuilding and pirate handling though, maybe I just have to really focus on them, the few times I tried repair runs for instance though felt to punishing to even bother with it.

[Nighthaven]

Ok, trying a restart with more of a combat focus. Gotten me a Grim from the bountyhunters, but I found that, after every mission I do for them, the Grim starts randomly spinning whenever entering an area, and on occasion even behaves as though he slams into something with his right side so that he does either twist to the left, or start spinning again. Same on undocking, cam going crazy with it on the undock szene. Reloading fixes it, but only after the next bounty contract has been killed.

[Nighthaven]

O.K. , Back to the trading thing. Actually lost the Pluto now, though it was, just for the bounty, guarded by a Pimped Intrepid. No idea how I lost it, but wondering why I couldn't spot it on the map, I checked my shiplist, and both it and it's escort are gone. Be sweet to have a sort of longer term Log of sorts that notes such happenings. ^^

[Nighthaven]

I nearly feel like spamming now >.>
As in, that doesn't feel good kinda way. Still, more thoughts to be shared, even if they have gone far past the initial post now....

So, Repair missions. Payout, around 35k, dificulty Elite. Target, Fuel platform.
I come nto the area with Two intrepits, one Roach, Order intrepids to Guard the Platform with time dilution on, switch to Roach, turn time dilution off, and Approach. in comes the enemy wave, one corvett lots of fighters and some gunship. All firing away at platform before I have even the chance to start the repairs.

I can preserve my ships no problem, fending off the enemy and even manually keep my roach from being shot down. Though, there was no chance in hell that I could even begin repairs.
My suggestion, or wish, would be that Enemy waves enter some distance from the Platform, or mayhaps have a different set of Priorities in their firing order. Jumping in with what must have been barely 10, maybe 15 seconds of time to approach upon entering myself, and instantly opening fire across the board on the platform, is not managable.

PS: Was that platform spawned in for that mission ? or was it an already present one ? Cause, I think I might run out of platforms that way XD

[chaosavy]

That mission uses existing platforms - the plan is for factions to rebuild or build new platforms - we'll see.

Thanks for the feedback! No worries about "spamming" - but some might take more to get back to than others, and some don't have a clear cut answer at the moment.

[Nighthaven]

Good to know, and yeah, work in progress. But honest, just got to love this game.

That said though, is it intended that I get faction with Pirates and Reborn for each Beggar ship kill ? I just noticed this checking the logs more frequently now. A lot less red on the map now, will have to keep watching my bounty income and how my automatic fleets are doing with that change.