I know the mining platform is an idea that has been discussed previously, but I figured a thread dedicated to implementation of this feature would be unique. (Side note: who wants to open a forum subsection for discussing programmatic implementation of features?) A bit of background: I have been coding since I was 14 (and programming professionally since I was 17) and work on large projects (mostly in ecommerce, but most recently in statistical analysis). Figuring out programmatic issues and planning implementation strategies interests me, so I want to start a relevant discussion. So, here is my idea for implementing asteroid belts: asteroid belts are regions of space subdivided into equally spaced sections. Each section has a limited amount of metal, and the mining platforms reclaim it similarly to forests. The server keeps track of only the remaining/available metal in each section of the belt; the client renders the asteroid dust belt procedurally. Similar to forests, there is no numeric UI indication of the reclaimable metal in each section, making mining operations a bit of a gamble, but the amount of asteroid dust/fragments left in each section provide a general, visual indication. In this way, a lot of the code for forests can be reused, but remove the pathing code. Tl;dr: think "asteroid dust belt between Mars and Jupiter" rather than "Oort cloud" or "Kuiper belt". Perhaps, in later builds, the dev team can add a chance of damaging orbital units as they transfer across this belt. The chance and severity of damage would have to decrease proportionally to the asteroid dust remaining in a section (overall effect would be logarithmic), and an amount of dust is removed from the section proportional to the metal damage done every time an orbital unit takes damage. I do not know the structure of the code for forest-unit interaction, so I have no idea how much time it would take to implement this. What do y'all think about this?
Bump. I do not mean to be a total narcissist (although I might be), I think that my thoughts on the subject are actually worth reading. Besides, I spent a lot of time thinking about it and writing it out--I'll probably not use the forums again if this is completely ignored.
There is a json file for an orbital mining platform that generates around 75 metal. I don't know if it is going to be a thing, or just something a dev left in there...
They released mining platforms and gas giants in the latest PTE build, and they have released a "September 5th launch trail", so I suppose this is no longer relevant.
Nope, still entirely relevant! Development for PA will continue for as long as the folks at Uber can keep it going. This means feature requests and suggestions are still entirely viable.
They've added a DIY Death Star system but not the unit cannon. The kickstarter trailer showed asteroid fields and the unit cannon, but now the launch trailer shows a death star that uses the geographical features that have been on metal planets since forever (probably a secret goal from the beginning). Meanwhile, Dox still need to be balanced and there is no way to protect orbital units from nukes. I just wonder where their priorities lie.
Honestly I feel the Death Star matters much more than a unit cannon, also the dox IS better balance wise in the PTE. And there's.. anti-nukes for that last bit, haha? (They extend up to the orbital layer I believe) Remember these things like the unit cannon were not promised for release, only that they'd be there eventually. Also, remember that the kickstarter trailer wasn't set in stone and that it was just a visualization (Literally said visualization on it. )
Try building an anti-nuke on a gas giant And I understand that it was a visualization. But the unit cannon is so iconic, and the devs mention it in all the live streams that I've watched. It just seems a bit weird.
