Refining

[LordDragon]

Very nice, well thought out post DumbMarine. I'd like to point out how again none of us made an attempt to refute the fact of refining being boring when done alone. Why would we? T'would be a blatant lie... I believe Corinthian and I were trying to point out the uselessness of full-time refining - at least I was. To be clear, I win games by running the more efficient ship. The less time spent doing unnecessary or redundant actions, the better. Full-time refining SHOULD get boring when you only have a job for maybe 30% of the time; maybe as much as 50% if your miners are coordinated to keep you that way. It's for that same reason I will almost always get that drone as soon as I deem it worth the price - - Efficiency. With that drone, I now have permanent upgrades AND pings; no more crazy dance. Not needed, but gives an boost to the overall performance of the team.

Have you ever seen my ridiculous rapid-fire missile salvo kill of DOOM? I should have a replay somewhere....it needs at least 3 ai reloading missiles, and a LARGE stockpile. It's silly, though...
And, truth be told, is more a point made to rebut your 'Who buys AI for...' statement. I believe the point to address here refining, yes?

So, do we want to remove refining or not? I vote no; I do understand it to be rather tedious, and I'll be the first here to get a drone on it (I tend to play 5v6 anyway), but I think its has always played a rather important role in the game. Consider the effect of overlooking this simple but necessary process....all those minerals, and not a one used...
I can see how the 'Team balance' would remain equal when neither team has to refine, but I also see how the realism/immersion effect of the game would lessen. We could write it off as 'Cargo drones got an upgrade...they go straight to refinery now.' But then...what about chomper?

I'm sure I could ramble on all day about this. In fact, I've already deleted roughly three paragraphs to keep it 'short.' I will summarize:

- Refining provides an efficiency/manpower challenge for the team through its absolute necessity.
- Removing this concept would lower the difficulty of team management and streamline the upgrading process.
- Refining is often given as the ONLY job for a newer player, but refining should NEVER be a full-time job. Again, this mainly returns to Efficiency.


And now... time for a drink.

[Degra]

In my opinion the best solution would be to halve the costs for the first drone from what they are right now. At least for the veldite costs. It should be rewarding to have good miners in your team who focus more on moving asteroids, so you could keep the kerm costs as they are.
So in the beginning you have someone refining, but he won't be there for the entire game. Which certainly happens in the most cases currently, as 250 veldite is quite a lot.

[Tempest]

id be in support of a discounted price on the first drone, and price scaling upwards similar to hull upgrades used to for bc.

[Red-Rocket]

BC hull doesnt scale up anymore, but should it go from 125Y 25G to 300Y and 60G or 250Y and 50G, personally im for reducing drones as a whole but thats pretty biased of me as i use alot of drones and is my style

[Degra]

I agree about generally lower prices, usually a second drone would only be bought if you technically won the fight anyways but want it to continue, as the only purpose I could see of a 2nd drone to be on a nullified miner. That takes far too long to pay off though, and brings other disadvantages with it, for example less powerdocking.

[Red-Rocket]

actually i use multiple drones for mining, they give you life saving mins if you reatreat from a battle and a missile loader or 2, usally this is end game stuff

[Degra]

By that time the battle should have long been decided anyways.
The veldite costs for 2 or even 3 drones are just crazy, it approaches 1000, same as for ~160 kerm.

I assume you mean chase-like battles, where you need to up stuff during flight.
Indeed, nullified AI miners can be useful there, but when you have like 5 or even 6 players you should have no problems having 2 of them nullified and mining. Costs nothing in contrast to a drone and you don't need more than 3-4 persons to effectively man a BC anyways.
Also, veldite is one of those life saving mins, as it's needed for repairs and hull ups(practically like instant repairing) so I don't see how purchasing drones would actually improve your situation.

[LordDragon]

Posts have once more strayed from refining to drone use. If people want to use multiple drones to reload a stockpile of 50 missiles, so be it. Let's keep the thread focused on refining, yes?
I do understand the drone discussion is relevant in some degree, but only insofar as the cost. Uses/application can go elsewhere.

[DumbMarine]

My goal is not to remove refining. My goal is to have it improved, because it is boring. Having people say 'do not change refining' is in fact a refutation of my post.

I understand the positives having a refining has in terms of BC maintenance complexity, especially during the early game. It means a crew of one is constantly busy, constantly prioritizing, constantly pushing forward to get an advantage. But none of that will be lost if refining is improved. None of this is a proper defense of 'don't mess with refining'. Let me state my point this way:

Nav console -- flying the BC around is exciting. This adds to the gameplay. None of the other abilities justify the console without that. Imagine the nav console on a BC that doesn't have any engines or engine boost. Might as well remove the console, right?

Upgrade console -- upgrading things is tedious, but the end result is satisfying. There's a lot of strategy that (theoretically) goes into what order you buy the upgrades. Using this console is rewarding.

The weapon console involves shooting stuff, that's a pretty damn awesome console. Managing power on the power console is involving if you've got someone on navigation. Science is boring for now, but it has future plans. Construction? Also may have plans. Flying ships around is fun for the most part. For pretty much every other weak aspect of the game, there are plans to make it awesome.

Except for refining, AFAIK. Refining? I PICK THINGS UP AND PUT THEM DOWN describes the entirety of it, start to finish. The fact that it's a critical part of the game is the problem. Yes, expert teams will have one person doing four jobs so that refining doesn't bog them down, but not every team is an expect team. This game has newbies playing it too. I'd like to be able to give a newbie the refining task without it being a punishment job.

That is my main point, that is what I am trying to get across. Now I have stated that I would rather refining be removed rather than kept in its current state, and I stand by that. Complexity will be lost, yes, but it would be better to remove refining and add in new complexity to compensate than to stick with what we have IMO. But that is, once again, not my first option. I was hoping someone else would have an idea, a suggestion, or something. There is no rush here, do not think that Siretu's gonna remove refining tomorrow (at least, I hope not). There are other things to be done first, like ship boarding. But it eventually needs to change.

[Tempest]

ok so as per marines post, what could be done to refining to keep the general concept but make it more involved and entertaining? Thinking logically on a real BC there would be a machine handling the transportation to the refining bay such as a belt like the ref area has, could we eventually work towards a refining console that requires a player to function it and operate the machinery or some crap. This isnt a priority change but i can see where it could use some jazzing up. No player should be dedicated refiner though, 2 players on a bc should go where the other one isnt, a perfect synced team of two on the bc has both players operating everything as needed including the refinery bay, if we do make a change to make it more interesting and involved it will probably require more attention and then that awesome bit of teamwork will be eliminated. Imo this is something that should be changed very carefully if at all.