Discovery Gaming Community

The thread that Thexare had about factory ships made me think of something that is probably a bit too realistic for people of this game.

But hopefully everyone realizes that raw mined ore prices in the game are ridiculously out of line with the actual processed metal prices.

Yes, I know mining is something that can bring lots of people together for an activity. I've done it myself. But I have to ask - if all we're doing is simply busting up the rocks, then why are those broken rocks so much more valuable than the actual refined metal? Mining ships at least make sounds that simulate that they're actually doing something with the ore that they shoot with mining lasers and then tractor in.

I'll use two real world metals for an example. A very good, gold bearing vein of ore is going to net you 1 ounce of gold for every ton of rock processed. So you're going to get 100 ounces of gold, you need to figure on processing at LEAST 100 tons of gold ore. A good bed of copper is going to be around 1% yield, so that puts you getting 200 pounds of copper out of each ton of copper ore processed.

I know there's no specific and set size on what a ship can carry - we simply say that they're 5,000 unit cargo ships, for example. But it's sort of ridiculous that 5,000 units of ore is worth so much more than 5,000 units of the actual processed metal. 5,000 tons of gold ore - which is roughly 4,000 cubic yards in size - is worth the same as 5,000 ounces of gold - which is only 312.5 pounds, or the volume of 11 standard gold bars.

For reference, you're talking 500 truck loads of ore of trucks this size:



to end up with a finished product that's only 11 of these:



I'm just throwing this out for discussion purposes - I don't really have a fix, and I realize that it's a game. It's just something that has bugged me for a long time.

It's entirely possible that since we're working with ore sources that aren't earth, the ore-to-rock ratio is much higher than 1:1000 (or worse in the case of metals like gold).

(08-18-2013, 08:23 PM)Kazinsal Wrote: [ -> ]It's entirely possible that since we're working with ore sources that aren't earth, the ore-to-rock ratio is much higher than 1:1000 (or worse in the case of metals like gold).

I completely understand that.

Heck, I'm one of the people who are proponents of us here on earth going out and doing asteroid mining because of the volume of raw materials available out there.

But again, it comes down to why would 5,000 units of ore be worth more than 5,000 similar sized units of actual processed metal? That's what bugs me. It's not like ore is going to be purer or more useful than finished metal that's been refined.

Aye it bugs me to, but not really much that can be done about it, as the group mining activity needs to yield better products than hauling the commodity sold on NPC stations.

One possible fix would be to merely swap the names of all ores and the NPC commodity around? The justification being that proper mining ships refine the ores at the same time, not merely cut up chunks of rock and flinging em on the transports hold (Hegemon clearly looks like it's capable of that).
Meanwhile if you were try to buy say gold on a station, you'd only find the ore there, as all refined ore would have been in high demand and shipped off already. Just leaving the unrefined ores which were clumsily brought to storage on said stations and the mining company responsible for them hasn't made transporting the ore yet as high a priority, hence why you often find it on stations?

Dunno if anyone agrees with me, but that's just an idea how to justify it and have it make more sense. Simply renaming all current ores as the final product and all current "refined" commodities as ores.

Agmen in order to extract one kg gold many millions kg dirt/rocks must be refined.
When the ores are smelted only the slag is quite a lot when the gold is not much. I agree with your statement.
What is broken in Disco is that the refined product costs more then the ore but this is rather economy bug.
May be increasing the price of the refined product could solve it.

It bugs everyone who is logical.

But, like you said, mining is a thing. If there was a way to process and sell the finished metals, solely by players I suppose, then you could change the prices.

Then, people would need to mine the ore to make the finished products, which would then get them paid.

In such a system, ore could be made worth very little to nothing at all at sell points.

I dunno. It's a thought.

Yes I've always said its dumb but I realise that its necessary to make people actually mine.

As an alternative, you could add 20K onto the buy and sell prices of the refined metals you buy on stations, such as gold, silver, h-fuel ect. then add a bit more onto all their sell prices. This would make em more expensive than ore, but due to the fact that the buy price has been upped aswell, they wouldnt be more profitable, so people would still mine. The extra bit added onto the sell price would be to balance out the higher risk from carrying the more expensive refined metal, making it a bit more profitable than now, so people still trade it.

I think I read that the inRP excuse is that ore prices are like that and sell in such far away places because...well let's just use an example. The BMM station in Leeds buys Aluminum ore, which is mined by DHC, but some stations in Rheinland also buy aluminum ore for lower prices, which is refined and sold as, well refined aluminum. BMM wants to buy the ore to prevent Bretonian companies from going to a Rheinland one in order to get their production material, and locally refining it in Bretonia fuels the local economy by paying workers and local stations rather than having it outsourced. If that makes sense, I am pretty sure that is the reasoning that was used in the infocards.

What Hone suggested is actually really good idea.
Also what I do find stupid is that most of the ore have the same rate of mining and sells about the same price, only scrap is a bit different, some not so high valuable ores should take the scrap path- easy to fill and cheaper to sell.

It is the reasoning that was used in the infocards, it doesnt however, make sense. Nobody pays more for a 1000th the amount of something, which they will also have to extract themselves.

Nobody.

For any reason.