Making Mining more attractive.

[K0NFL1QT]

What can we do to lure more players into the mining profession? I was thinking maybe alter the crates they find to have more of a chance of being opened, and contain more fun stuff.

[Jennalele]

I find we have a regular influx of miners. I mean, they're played a lot more than the IAA, and they do get the cool stompy Rip. It's more a matter of when the players that play miners regularly happen to be on. It's a bit of a unique playstyle. And a lonely one. Like, super lonely. If people would talk to miners more often as is, they'd probably play more regularly.

See: Nary a batted eye when the poor Wright shrieks "OH GOD, HELP" over their radio as the changeling eats them alive. Poor, poor miners...

[Davidchan]

I kind of feel that Miners and Xenoarchaeologist being separated is a bad thing. Being a good miner means you are off on your lonesome with little to no interaction with the rest of the station save for Science department screaming over the radio how they can't do their job till you do yours. After your 2nd or 3rd load of rare materials, your job is done. Sure you can explore a bit or have fun hopping from rock to rock in your hardsuit, but once you've gathered 20 sheets of the 4 precious metals, a couple of extra stacks of glass, steel and plasteel, you could go SSD and nothing would be different.

I have a few random thoughts on how to allievate this, but without changes to the map, code or both, they aren't much.

1) Consolidate the Asteroid outposts. Engineering, Science and Mining have their own little outposts, with a few extra positions set up on the asteroid though rarely used. Making a larger, central facility on the asteroid with satellite outposts would allow crews away from the station to still feel like they are part of the team (and round) and if the players were smart refined metals and glass could be handed off directly to the relevant partner without the miners needing to shuttle it up to cargo for it to be dragged, muled or shot through the disposals. This might also give antags a better chance at targeting miners and xenoarchs as they would be in a somewhat more predictable area.

2) Make mineable asteroids or meteors on the same level as the station. This could be an event function or just alternative to hopping on the shuttle, proximal asteroids could randomly be around the station, miners could jump out an airlock or use a jetpack to do some zero-g mining (ala Spacebase DF-9) and bring the materials back to cargo to smelt. There would need to be a way to detect where the asteroids/mineable rocks were around the station, no where near as efficient but would allow players to gamble a bit more for materials the station needed without separating themselves too much.

3) Continuous mining. Either through rails, a constructible conveyor/gravity train or special designed mining mules that would ferry crates and oreboxes back and forth between the smelter and a set of beacons miners could set up to let the mule home in on them. Miners would be able to set up proper shafts and supply chains, being able to figure out a way for the materials to get straight back to the station to be processed in cargo would also be a very good idea. As an added bonus (risk), having a supply chain or series of constructible objects would give any antags looking to kill the miner(s) a trial of bread crumbs to find their target.

4) Mining drones. Robotics could build/upgrade a series or remote control drones. Operators on the station could guide the drones around the asteroid, looking for precious metals and sending them back to the outpost to be sorted and refined into useful materials. While it would remove the risk mining in a vacuum (what little there is to that), it would put the miners more on the same page as the rest of the crew as they could take more breaks, finding ways to automate the drones so they would home in and path back to base and remotely operating the smelter would give more time and excuse for the miners to interact with the crew.

[LetzShake]

I think the way to make mining a bit more attractive is what TG did. They added depth by making ores not visible, added gibtonite, some monsters in the richer part of the asteroid (that give a reward when they're defeated) and creating more tools. The miner doesn't feel like a full fledged job, how it is now. It's like if the chef could only make pies, burgers, and donk pockets.