Alternate asteroid "gameplay"

[montaropdf]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe. Mining asteroids and there appearance is pretty boring and to random to be imersive.

Related Issue Links Partially related to #6046 and loosely linked to #6045.

Describe the solution you'd like I have done my best to be as structured as possible, but I have some difficulty to really separated the various points I want to group in this issue, so be gentle in the comment.

• Asteroid fields should be confined to dedicated zones loosely following what we know about them in our own solar system ( the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, the troyan asteroid fields of Jupiter, the kuyper belt, etc).
  • This will force the player to explore the systems to find them for mining operations.
  • With wide enough systems, asteroids could have much varying size.
  • Some of them could be populated with more or less apparrent buildings and structures.
    • Pirate, terrorist, crazy scientist lair
    • Spy station from a rival faction
    • Semi-permanent mining operation
    • Semi-permanent scientific station
    • More or less legal trading station
    • Habitat station
    • ...
• Ore asteroids should be much more visible, in terms of colors used to distinguish them from others.
• With regards to mining asteroids, applying a gameplay similar to boarding a ship seems more interesting.
  • It requires taking some risks, in terms of equipment and crew. Like with issue #6045, a dedicated equipment or industrial goods as equipment could be used here.
  • If asteroids are located in specific zones, new ore asteroids should pop more or less regularly, in the zone, to replenish it. A zone should be replenished when the in-game date changes, for example.

Describe alternatives you've considered / Additional context /

[McloughlinGuy]

* Ore asteroids should be much more visible, in terms of colors used to distinguish them from others.

We have asteroid scanners for a reason, you know.

[hellminister]

On steam, in the guide section, theres a plugin available also that makes the minable asteroids more visible The guide's name is Visible Minable Asteroids

[montaropdf]

On steam, in the guide section, theres a plugin available also that makes the minable asteroids more visible The guide's name is Visible Minable Asteroids

To bad it is not in the base game. Thanks.

[montaropdf]

* Ore asteroids should be much more visible, in terms of colors used to distinguish them from others.

We have asteroid scanners for a reason, you know.

There is multiple problems with your scanner.

1. It is not available from all outfitters, I find it strange for such basic equipment in this kind of game
2. None of the 3 smallest ships can carry such equipment without sacrificing lots of other stuff or they simply don't have a weapon to blast asteroids.

Even if I can do without the scanner at the begining the game does not provide me any visual or audible feedback that I am currently shooting at a minable asteroid or not, until it breaks or I give up on it.

So, my point of view, is that, the ships should have a short range scanner that can detect minable asteroids, even if they can't tell what they contains and your scanner is to have more precise data on the asteroids in shart range and to known there are minable asteroids at long range in a certain direction. After all, the ships are able to scan an entire system for pirate activity, in the Southern Pact missions without any additional equipment.

[Galaucus]

Largely agreed. If asteroids were a more reliable terrain feature rather than a chaotic swarm it would impact gameplay in more meaningful ways - you could plan and maneuver around them.

[Hector-of-the-Void]

So, my point of view, is that, the ships should have a short range scanner that can detect minable asteroids

This would not be a hard to implient fix, if all ships came with a single point of "asteroid scan power" then they could scan astroids at 1/6th the distance of a ship equipted with an astroid scanner.

However to be realistic most ships would not have this sort of scanning technology, to determine the mineral contents of an astroid beyond what visuals would show you would need dedicated tools.

The stations/interactions on the astroids could be simple enough to code, but fairly time intensive (2-10 h) to impliment as they would need to be added for each system, and would be permenent. It would be adding 'planets' that are astroids. The other option would be adding random events that add the 'astroid-planets' and then set a marker to remove them after so many days. This would be a good amount of work to impliment. This could provide all the things you wanted incuding missions on the stations/astroids. this would probably be a lot of work to impliment (10-50 h)

Asteroid fields should be confined to dedicated zones

This would be by far the hardest thing to do, as astroids are currently like ships in that they can go wherever and have hull points, they just spawn and despawn differntly and have no engines. Changing this would require some reworking the mechanics of systems and setting up something specificly for astroids. This would inevitably break a few other game components. I would not expect this to ever get done, the reward probably wouldn't be worth the effort.

[Amazinite]

I would not expect this to ever get done, the reward probably wouldn't be worth the effort.

It really isn't as complex as you describe. I already have a branch that would allow for tweaking the attributes of an asteroid belt (e.g. eccentricity of the orbits). See #6303 for some discussion on the matter, where I highlight that the current hard coded values lead to very wide asteroid "belts" (and we could probably change the default values to have default belts be much less loose).

[Zitchas]

Also worth noting that in the final sequence of Remnant Chapter 2: Cognizance, a bunch of systems gain dense asteroid belts that orbit the star. It looks weird to not have asteroids just wandering aimlessly around the system, but it also looks really neat.

I do wish that system with asteroid belts actually had some kind of easily noticeable belt that could be used as a tactical element. Ex. Hiding in the asteroid belt to avoid missiles.

[yafflehk]

Also worth noting that in the final sequence of Remnant Chapter 2: Cognizance, a bunch of systems gain dense asteroid belts that orbit the star. It looks weird to not have asteroids just wandering aimlessly around the system, but it also looks really neat.

I do wish that system with asteroid belts actually had some kind of easily noticeable belt that could be used as a tactical element. Ex. Hiding in the asteroid belt to avoid missiles.

Transiting a belt should degrade shields. Missiles, being unshielded, have to take their chances :)

[Zitchas]

Transiting a belt should degrade shields. Missiles, being unshielded, have to take their chances :)

Some belts, sure, but the majority of them I'd prefer to be the larger asteroid belts that we often see in movies where the protagonist hides amongst them, using them as cover. I don't really want them to be full on hazards, most of the time.

[Zitchas]

Asteroids, in general, are something I want to use, but generally can't.

For example, shows and movies are filled with depictions of clever pilots hiding in the shadows of asteroids to ambush ships, take cover from missiles, etc. While lines of sight aren't really an issue in ES, taking cover is something we can do. The only problem is that the vast majority of asteroids are smaller than our ships, and rarely move in such a way as to be useful. As a result, asteroids aren't "interesting terrain", but rather just a static modifier as to how useful missiles are.

I'd love to see asteroids being more useful to actually use as cover, and less of being a blanket that just covers the system.

[yafflehk]

One thing I did think of for asteroid related game play was Station Keeping - the ability for a ship to automatically follow, at a distance, a selected ship or asteroid - it's something that an asteroid miner would obviously want and something that a ships autopilot should be able to do. I also thought there should be 5 or six "landable" asteroids in each asteroid heavy system - like Scar's hideout in Danoa - only accessible if you have an asteroid scanner installed (or some sort of highly illegal pirate scanner?).

[Zitchas]

I know there is already work being done to add visitable asteroid bases, as part of the pirate campaign.

That being said, needing an asteroid scanner to be able to land on them (aka find them) makes a lot of sense.