Avorion

Avorion

[2.5.2+] Xavorion: eXtended Avorion
Changes to Mining Laser Power Consumption in Latest Update
I copy-pasted this over from the Bug Thread where it did not belong if it seems to start a little out of context...

If I may though... I would certainly encourage you to revisit some of those numbers. I was playing a Homeworld-inspired play through and so was mining a single system at a time with ten very small resource collectors dropping off at controllers that would in turn go refine. Your new suite of ship systems allows this because the controllers can have a generous teleporter range for cargo transfer and even compact, five slot ships can finally have a sensibly decent amount of cargo with two R-lasers. Nothing else though. And the collectors are only ever going to be able to fit two lasers with trinium being the absolute max. Until I saw the power consumption changes I thought you had designed the new Class mods with this type of RTS mining in mind.

I love the new ship systems. I see almost every bit of logic behind it and am excited for the roles that can be created at all ship sizes and their effectiveness. I've already spent hours getting the parts to turn destroyers into wickedly specialized broadside machines without a lick of pd, frigates into zippy hit-and-run specialists, and industrial ships into real mining op leaders. The new possibilities for fleet composition are endless. Except on the industrial side where mining ships are always going to have to be huge now? It seems like at some of these numbers mining and corresponding industrial fleet-building are going to become an absolute grind, don't you? Ok, 450MW for a naonite laser was extremely low but I would argue that 15GW per is too high. Not to mention the 50GW for trinium. I don't see how the laser stats support that logic.

The thing is I was already slow mining in a fleet with balanced ships (using all Common mods by the way) and that's the stated purpose of your changes. The first thing the changes did, however, were prevent me from slow mining in a fleet with balanced ships equipeed with Common mods. At least to any kind of effect. I figured the first station I was going to build was going to take eight hours of in-person mining since my limit is...was...20 Trinium lasers. Now it's a couple days. And I'm already almost 100 hours into this galaxy. I'm not salty about any of that but it does lend some outside perspective. I agree with you trying to make big in-game achievements into actual big in-game achievements but that's too big of a difference.

The experimentation with old ships was what really cemented my opinion on this. I mentioned ships with six Xanion lasers in my original bug post. It took alot of tinkering to get those into as conservative a package as I could but those ships were still pricey if you're frugal like me and their power and cargo required planning and compromise. They were never going to have a seventh laser and ogonite was definitely out for turret material. That they now can't mount two lesser lasers means that they're down to below 33% effectiveness out of the gate once you account for yield % differences between xanion and trinium. Without tinkering with any blocks those particular ships, however, are down to just 14% effectiveness. In my last playthrough, I had eight of those ships and my empire was hardly wealthy at any given time. Knowing I would now need 56 or more such ships to get a similar result is... daunting. Also filling any cargo hold worth having seems like a grind. I don't know. I agree with your upgrades rework but don't quite see how this one is going to work out at all. I tried to rebalance those same mining ships with just the new mods and quickly found that no matter if I spend thousands on the newly-effective common grade of mods or many millions on higher grades, even my most conservative and well-designed industrial ships are now pretty useless. Having to build a substantial ship centered around just a single laser while invalidating most old builds seems like a step back. Very limiting.

You have a suite of well-designed and successful mods and I've always been a fan. I want to assume you have more math at your disposal and insight into this than I do. My knee-jerk and later, more measured response to this change was pretty bad though. I understand these numbers are not final and I sincerely hope they get a healthy amount of consideration.
Last edited by DrEkpyroticus; Mar 3, 2024 @ 9:28pm
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LM13  [developer] Mar 4, 2024 @ 1:15am 
Originally posted by DrEkpyroticus:
I had eight of those ships and my empire was hardly wealthy at any given time. Knowing I would now need 56 or more such ships to get a similar result is... daunting.

Thanks, I was hoping to get some feedback on this. Eight ships should be really enough for a mining fleet. And that grind time was NOT intended.

I'll be looking into this, but I'd great to know more about ships you use - and number of resources you have/aim for.

Also, how do you mine? Captain Orderss? Loops? Manual?
LM13  [developer] Mar 4, 2024 @ 7:23am 
All right, did some testing with suggested ships by Brankor.

Issue does start around M4/M5's with Trinium lasers and up. The other issue is that... Captain Mining orders seem to just ignore attached turrets. If there's a single one, it's the same as 8 (what the hell?)

I'll tweak both missions and turret energy usage, to match closer available energy from suggested ships - and averaged income per hour.

EDIT:

I did not respond properly to your feedback. Many thanks for detailed answer, and reaching out.
I don't use captain missions that much, and no issues were reported - so part of balancing was made on assumption, that current values scale well in less tested scenarios.

Thanks again.
Last edited by LM13; Mar 4, 2024 @ 7:26am
LM13  [developer] Mar 4, 2024 @ 8:46am 
About Captain commands... looked at the code and - not sure If I want to touch that.

Those have increased yield already, but adding actual usage of what ship has seems to be too much work.

So, I'll probably just leave that part as is - order loops are working correctly, and energy usage of mining/salvaging turrets has been toned down just now.
LM13  [developer] Mar 7, 2024 @ 2:21am 
@DrEkpyroticus

I did read all those (deleted)posts, really appreciate your effort to share.

Yeah, I see what upgrades you've picked and how that works for roles.
It's fun to see new upgrades working, especially for players that put effort into making 100% out of a sandbox game :D

You have a really interesting way of playing, and I see how new energy requirements get limiting.
While Refiner turrets allow a little bit more flexibility, since you can trade cargo space for energy - that's not a recommendation I'd use here.

I'm not sure about changes applied "by default" for Mining, but I could make optional mod in "Xavorion Tweaks" series - the question is, what would you like to see changed exactly?
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