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Well, not really you, but your TC!
After playing a few TC's and Plugs that use Asteroid Mining as a profitable source of income I have a few points to make.
Regarding Major Companies
What I mean by 'Major' is that they own territory and possibly their own line of ships. This doesn't mean that these ideas can be excluded from a one system mining company.
It will very if they want you to mine there or not. If it's illegal to mine in their space, the junks should reflect that (Having a scan mask). If they are fine, it shouldn't be a problem. Second off, companies are more concerned with miners gathering their ore, not scanning them for 'illegal' mining equipment. If it gathers ore faster, why want to stop them? So company's shouldn't have any Interceptors that get in the way of miners and potentially can be deadly for both sides.
A realistic feature is if the company is a low-down semi-pirate kind of company. Some of it's freighters should have an asteroid scoop and the 'Ship collects asteroid parts / Economy at work' flag checked, but not the 'Ship destroys asteroids' flag. This way when a miner or the player destroys an asteroid, they rush to the scene to scoop up the ore and escape. A company with more integrity and profit won't do this of course.
Regarding non-dictatorship\tyrannical Governments
An asteroid field is the worst place to be posted. It's a dirty, dark, cramped place, and the environment is against most missiles and long range weapons. Governments should have two kinds of 'Interceptors'; Essentially, ones that are garrisons and ones that are initiative. The garrison ones will act like warships, they show up, park over the planet and if there is no pirate activity they leave. The ones with initiative will be interceptors. I am assuming that because the interceptors are moving constantly, they will get paid more. While the garrison ones are just there to make sure there are no pirates.
Planets should have a turret mounted on them, if an asteroid is coming, why pay a guy to go up there and grab it when you can just chop it up into pieces. In fact, there might be 'drones' they are ships that don't move and hover above the planet, they have the 'Ship destroys asteroids' check lit, but can't move so they can't collect them. So the government will be protecting the planet. Pirates will be numerous, if the government doesn't have them under control. The interference and asteroids work perfect for hiding a terrorist.
A majority of the belt should be left alone. Except patrols of course, but if a ship gets lost in there. There will be an occasional friend or family member that will sue because there wasn't a 'You are here' sign every three meters. So message buoys set up on one or two systems away. Giving a warning that the systems aren't under the governments control; thus, in passing the systems the government cannot be held accountable. The same could be said for company's.
Regarding Tyrannical Governments
These governments are the ones that want to control everything. I mean everything. So their miners will be government specific, independents will probably not be allowed. If they are, a few of their freighters might have an asteroid scoop and the 'Collect asteroid parts' flag selected. Just like the semi-pirate companies. They will not care because hey, whatcha going to do? Second off they won't have garrison fighters, they'll have all interceptors, you don't like that, take your best shot.
They won't have the message buoys. Nor the 'drones'. Planets will have to stand up for themselves. Any drones will be a military purpose. As long as a politician member or friend isn't hurt, they won't care.
In fact. These governments will neglect these planets. They'll rot in the asteroid field in fact, they'll only send anything bigger then a fighter. Unless the planet starts to revolt. They will be on the last of the supply lists and only a few ships should show at a time. If this was the case, most of the miners would be privately owned. Unless a large enough quantity was there for a government exploitation. The planets will also have to make certain quotas. A realistic not is that some could be abandoned because they didn't make this quota.
Aliens (Non-Organic)
Non-organic aliens may pay special attention to asteroid mining. If their ships are mostly metal. Otherwise they would use shields, that wouldn't need metal and thus stay away. If it's the players' species is new to them, they will have lots of interceptors, even in warships that will want to look at a curious object. If the aliens and the players species have been allies for a good half century (or so) they won't care what your doing to the asteroids, only if you or them don't get hurt.
Interesting Asteroids
These are some ideas for asteroids that I came up with.
*Small metal asteroids can be plates of steel.
*A sentient lifeform that balls together to form their 'asteroid'. They multiply quickly and thus are worth little.
*'Destroy dangerous asteroid' missions, where an asteroid may pass a little close to the planet. The asteroid will have a 'destroys enemy spob' setting and be an enemy with the govt.
*Asteroid prices should vary on rarity and hardness. If the asteroid is hard to crack and found only in small quantities the price will be a fair amount larger then a soft asteroid with a million of them floating around.
*Transport ore missions (Hey, someone's gotta do it.)
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Happy Huntin' :hector_bird:
This post has been edited by IT 000 : 04 April 2009 - 07:00 PM
Some of these are interesting ideas, but I thought I'd mention this because I saw it used twice in your write-up:
The "collect asteroid bits" behavior flag, if I remember correctly and if it's still the same in v1.1, makes all ships affected by it cowards / incompetent in a fight (It forces them to use the Wimpy Trader Combat A.I., I believe).
Putting it on a computer controlled fighter craft makes that ship useless as a fighter craft. It works for the unscrupulous companies in the Major Companies section, but you also suggest it for the fighters of the Tyrannical Governments.
In that case, though, simply putting it on the miners / small freight ships of that empire, and having them be the same government as the fighters, should be enough. If the player tries something against the thieving miners, the fighters attack.
(I'm assuming when you say 'Fighters', you mean "craft actually meant to fight something", as opposed to being just any small ship.)
I like the "destroy dangerous asteroid" idea. You could even accomplish it pretty easily by using system gravity and making all other ships grav-immune. Then give it an anti-planet weapon, check destroy on fire, and you're more or less in business.
QUOTE
I found this out shortly after, and I apologize for the error.
You could also set the asteroid to 'Attack Enemy Spobs', then give it an enemy govt, and a planet destroying weapon and then it will only attack the planet.
I like it! Man, that was really well thought out! I hope this gets incorporated into a TC at some point.
Edit: both the "gravity" and the "attack enemy spobs" ideas sound good. It'd be interesting to play with them and see which looks best. The attack enemy spobs will probably head straight for the planet. This is realistic, but it might be over too quickly (either you save it or you don't). The gravity will, I assume, cause it to circle a few times. I don't know which would be best.
I assume many of these planets' "defense systems" will also be firing at the dangerous asteroid. That makes things exciting!
This post has been edited by n64mon : 21 April 2009 - 12:23 PM