Repeating Mining Location Gradually Increases Difficulty

[Thorp]

Thumpers in Firefall were categorized on their difficulty. Higher difficulty Thumpers would garner greater mining rewards but also "aggravate" the more ferocious wildlife. The Thumper categories were solid in that players could dictate the difficulty. However after awhile repetition can set in and pose less and less challenge as players became familiar with the repeat difficulty.

Would calling down thumpers feel more engaging if the difficulty at a repeated location gradually increased? It would not only gradually challenge the players to improve in skill but also induce a sense of increased risk while the area becomes more and more hostile to the repeated disturbance.

*glances at screenshots of Firefall's Exp Valley*

 

[Omnires]

I like the idea. The way I see it is that for the most part thumpers has only been doing surface mining. Gathering things that are not that deep in the ground and easy to get to. But what about things deep in the ground? The drills on the thumpers are not ones designed to go that deep. So what if we had another option to build or call down a deep miner that is designed to drill really for down, like miles deep? It would take time to get the drill that far down and would need watch it the whole time just in case you need to place the drill head for faster digging through different layers of ice, earth, and rock. And the whole time you are making the local wild life more and more "upset". No only that but there is no way something that massive will not go unnoticed by the enemy who might start to send in kaiju to stop you.

Big risk big reward, is the name of the game for the deep miner. After all, remember things like heavy metal and heavy metals are hard to find on the surface of planets for a reason. Because heavier metals and minerals often sink in magma/lava while lighter rocks and minerals float on top. So if you want that super dense mineral or metal you have to dig deep. Unless you get lucky and find a vine of it near the surface in a upheaval zone or volcano.

 

[Pandagnome]

The deep mining could imagine an icon of how far deep the drill has gone down with a %

Would the drill type be something to consider just like in rl there are different drill parts for different jobs.

So if the thumpr wanted to drill really deep the very powerfull drill would be used but to add to the risk is that if the drill goes beyond could get stuck

What could happen then:

A) Either you get another thumpr to loosen the area where it is stuck

B) Go in as a pilot and use special engineer tools to free the drill but must escape before the drill
starts up or may seriously get hurt!

C) If the drill gets stuck in an underground base so you have to enter as a pilot and find the area to switch off the defense that is locking the drill otherwise the kaiju will eventually destroy the drill.




Thumpr drill types and sizes

During that time you may find other areas and veins deeper underground but lets say the big drill is not ideal for some and you wanted something more trusted enter the mini drill its a smaller version and the thumpr too but with a faster rate the only down side is that it is less armored than its relative big thumpr.

a) Big thumpr - high capacity, big sounds, big rewards, slow rate
b) Small thumpr - low/med capacity, small/med sounds, low/medium rewards, fast rate

Drill part:
1) Thunder drill - this uses powerful electrical charge surrounding the drill to then send increased shock in the ground to break for deeper mining

2) Burst drill - this drill pulses than a constant drill it is used for surface to upper regions

3) Standard drill - standard issue jack of all trade master of none.

Add on for drill
* Laser attachment - pin point accuracy with a laser tip focuses exactly the area to mine with slightly less disturbance due to the improved accuracy.

* illuimino resin makes drills stand out in the dark more of a skin for the drill but there could be different design patterns too.

 

[Aisman_]

I like the idea. That would replace upgrading the Thumper, if something like that would get implemented.

 

[Wyntyr]

Good luck with mining the same location a few times, not that it couldn't be done. Unlike FF where you call in the thumper, kill shit, send it back, wait for the small cooldown to complete and rinse/repeat. In Em.8ER you have to escort your resource drone back to a base/turn in point fighting along the way...then...go back to try again. Depending on the resource, its quality/rarity, peeps helping out at the site but don't help with the turn in run so they can call down their THMPR, etc....again...good luck.

 

[Mahdi]

Has there been any concept talk about minimal distances between thmprs? Wynter is spot on but the topic is very game/player friendly. A good arguement for population count vs world size. Could the server spread more quantities of resources after detect server population? That way one farming team has less chance to hit the majority of nodes across multiple plains? Still keeps the hunt important but not only feed HC thumping teams?

 

[Omnires]

The way I see it is that the deep miners is something else different from the thumpers. The way I see it in my mind is that thumpers are more like backhoe. Sure they can dig and move a lot of earth, but they are still really only good for things like surface level stuff. While the deep miners are would more like a tunnel boring machine or drilling platform with legs and rockets for movement. Because of their size it would be hard for a single player to protect and run a deep miner on their own without the help of A.I. and things like auto turrets in key locations.

Ideally, to run a deep miner at optimum performance you would need someone to watch over and man the drill to make sure it is not over stressed and stays on target, someone to watch the output make sure they are getting the right stuff and sorting to out (example they can program it tanks to reject things so they only get what they want. There is more than one tank so keeping track of each one is a good idea so you back up and clog the system.), some to move the miner around to get to best spot or to avoid danger, and someone to protect it from enemy attacks while the other people are working.

Like I said you can have A.I. those jobs for you if you are alone. But they will not be as efficient as other players. Meaning that if you want the drilling done as fast as possible with the greatest yield possible than it is best to try and get other people to help you. This mostly for game balance reasons to help make it clear that deep miners are meant to be done in large groups. After all, these things make Thumpers look small. When random people see one of this things they should know that a large reward is coming up if they can get the job done. The downside to Thumpers in FF was that if there was enough people around there was no worry of losing because there was only so many things that could spawn at once and the threat level can only go so high. But with the deep miners counter this by not being on a timer and can mine the same spot for real world days as long as one player is there to man it. And the way to keep all the tanks from getting full is do like you would in real life. As one tank fills up you replace it with an empty one and ship it off. Meaning that even if all the other roles are fill and there is enough people to protect it, you can still help out by being a runner, taking the tanks to base and back as fast as possible. And going by what is in the tank you are holding it might make you a larger target for the enemy, if you are holding a tank of a rare resource.

in a way deep miners could be like Human version of a Cat 4 or 5 kaiju, if the devs wanted to make them into giant robots able to fight. And example of this would me like in Nier Automata remember they had those giant oil rig fighting robots.

 

[phoenix]

Maybe like the pollution mechanic in Factorio? In Factorio each factory produces pollution and when the pollution spreads to the biter nests they become hostile and start attacking the factory. Over long exposure they start to mutate and become much stronger. Could we have something similar in Em8ER? Each thumper produces pollution. If you keep mining in the same spot over and over again, more and more powerful creatures will spawn until the pollution subsides. Kind of like crop rotation.

 

[Wyntyr]

Has there been any concept talk about minimal distances between thmprs? Wynter is spot on but the topic is very game/player friendly. A good arguement for population count vs world size. Could the server spread more quantities of resources after detect server population? That way one farming team has less chance to hit the majority of nodes across multiple plains? Still keeps the hunt important but not only feed HC thumping teams?

Good questions. Regarding minimum distance, I believe Grummz has mentioned that there will be a minimum but not what that distance is. Probably one of those put one in and adjust it based on how the mining mechanic/encounter is set up and how the player base will react/work with it. As for the others the answers would be guess work at the moment. Also I forgot to mention that the THMPR will roam around mining v/s being stationary and with a minimum distance for the drop it could allow for another Reaper Team to call down their THMPR before your team has started the resource turn part of the encounter. This will be very interesting to see and try for sure. I imagine that the team will get a ton of feedback for this part of resource gathering.

 

[Mahdi]

What I have enjoyed greatly here has been the team's responses to the community. The A.I. is suppose to be pretty devious by design so the thought of multiple drops in a tightened area could produce a more powerful kaiju that needs both thmprs to fight on the return mission. This would give a loan team pause in dropping multiple thmprs.

We have not been given a team size limit yet. So that is a major factor. In firefall you could help randomly with someone's thumping and get a small portion of the yield. To me it always seemed based on your time participating for the thumper and even then was only around a 5-8% gain for not being in the party. The clan I was with would find that awesome node and it took time but by finding the edges but you could get three S3 and one P3 all at the same time for one party. Would kill a fresh node in less than two cycles of drops.

I would rather see one team get overrun easily dropping multiple thmprs but multiple teams doing so would have the increased difficulty this thread is talking about but also a higher yield and higher shared yield between teams by proximity for the encounter.

 

[Faeryl]

@Wyntyr and @Mahdi Grummz has mentioned that there IS a radius limit but, he has yet to reveal what that might be.

 

[SomeUnregPunk]

Good luck with mining the same location a few times, not that it couldn't be done. Unlike FF where you call in the thumper, kill shit, send it back, wait for the small cooldown to complete and rinse/repeat. In Em.8ER you have to escort your resource drone back to a base/turn in point fighting along the way...then...go back to try again. Depending on the resource, its quality/rarity, peeps helping out at the site but don't help with the turn in run so they can call down their THMPR, etc....again...good luck.

until now, I never really thought about it... but this comment has brought it to my attention...

how is ammo going to work in this game?
infinite pool with a recharging mechanic OR limited pool with ammo drops from enemies or allies.
If it's the second one, ain't that going to be hard to keep your armies ammo pools topped off during the mine phase and 2 escort phases?

 

[Omnires]

Lol, that reminds of the solar powered pistol and other energy guns my engineers class had in Anarchy Online. To this day I still remember them being they first scifi game I played that actually put some thought into how you could make a gun with infinite ammo that never needed to be reloaded. As you leveled up you would use your engineering skills to upgrade the gun with things like larger batteries and capacitors and heat resistant barrels or focusing lens.

 

[OctoberNight]

I would be more interested in work being put into having several different ways waves of emenies work. One called down you have to use X strategy and then next call down you have to use Y strategy simply making it harder does not necessarily make game play more engaging. Forcing me to change up my kit from time to time is in my opinion much more engaging then simple it is going to be harder if you mine again.

 

[Pandagnome]

I would be more interested in work being put into having several different ways waves of emenies work. One called down you have to use X strategy and then next call down you have to use Y strategy simply making it harder does not necessarily make game play more engaging. Forcing me to change up my kit from time to time is in my opinion much more engaging then simple it is going to be harder if you mine again.

Sometimes i like to stick to one weapon dont know why i get very attached to something i like

 

[Omnires]

Sometimes i like to stick to one weapon dont know why i get very attached to something i like

Me too. Although for me it is mostly because I understand the science behind the weapon and know deadly it would me if done right. Like to most people having a giant powerful magnet as a weapon doesn't seem like much. But if you know what a magnetar is than you know how deadly super strong magnets can be.

For the people who don't know. This is a magnetar.

 

[Pandagnome]

Me too. Although for me it is mostly because I understand the science behind the weapon and know deadly it would me if done right. Like to most people having a giant powerful magnet as a weapon doesn't seem like much. But if you know what a magnetar is than you know how deadly super strong magnets can be.

For the people who don't know. This is a magnetar.

magnetar's that is very destructive, wonder if they can be smaller versions of this to target a specific object/weapon out of the enemies hands even create routes by breaking a surface.

I am guessing that they the villains have replicating ability to create their weapon back after a time hmm

A Kainetar Kaiju+Magnetar that would be one of the most deadliest kaiju !!!

 

[Omnires]

magnetar's that is very destructive, wonder if they can be smaller versions of this to target a specific object/weapon out of the enemies hands even create routes by breaking a surface.

I am guessing that they the villains have replicating ability to create their weapon back after a time hmm

A Kainetar Kaiju+Magnetar that would be one of the most deadliest kaiju !!!

The thing that makes magnetars so deadly is that the magnetic field itself distorts the atoms themselves, changing their shape. And if the change the shape of an atom you also change what it does. This why even normally non-magnetic things can be destroyed by power magnetic fields. But even more you get to that point off things happen to even normally non-magnetic things. Like trapping water in place so it floats within the magnetic field. This includes the water in your body. Meaning a strong enough magnet can even make people and other living things float around.

 

[Pandagnome]

The thing that makes magnetars so deadly is that the magnetic field itself distorts the atoms themselves, changing their shape. And if the change the shape of an atom you also change what it does. This why even normally non-magnetic things can be destroyed by power magnetic fields. But even more you get to that point off things happen to even normally non-magnetic things. Like trapping water in place so it floats within the magnetic field. This includes the water in your body. Meaning a strong enough magnet can even make people and other living things float around.

In a secret lab there could be untested things the reapers would have to go there and speak with the scientists and techs. Perhaps when they earn their trust, unique gadgets and technologies are made available.

Perhaps we could see an antigrav boots for pilots so when they are inside a building can stick to the ceiling or a mag armor that fires off the mek leaving it vulnerable for a short time and then the armor attracts back on.

Wonder if the light vehicles would have a hover mode using magnet to repel vehicle off the ground a small distance perhaps it could be more stronger in some areas depending on the biome

 

[0V3RKILL]

I personally like it exactly how firefall had it. No changes please. keep the formula that worked and made firefall so popular.

Thumpers in Firefall were categorized on their difficulty. Higher difficulty Thumpers would garner greater mining rewards but also "aggravate" the more ferocious wildlife. The Thumper categories were solid in that players could dictate the difficulty. However after awhile repetition can set in and pose less and less challenge as players became familiar with the repeat difficulty.

Would calling down thumpers feel more engaging if the difficulty at a repeated location gradually increased? It would not only gradually challenge the players to improve in skill but also induce a sense of increased risk while the area becomes more and more hostile to the repeated disturbance.

*glances at screenshots of Firefall's Exp Valley*