Discover v4.88: Mining - Bugs, Balancing, and Feedback

[Karst]

----(MOSTLY) SCRAP RELATED BALANCE----

Incoming wall of copy paste. This has been built up for a while.

Junkers are indeed pretty much screwed by the current prices, much like ALG was pretty much screwed all this time previously ever since Premium Scrap became a "real" ore.
Well, not quite as much, they do still have three sell points at Okinawa, Singapore, and Chalons-en-Champagne.

I imagine there's probably changes planned.

What I'm curious about though is why DSE are now as good at mining Premium Scrap (not just regular) as Junkers and ALG, and actually better at selling it than Junkers because they get the Yokohama sell point.
A minor bonus on regular scrap makes sense I guess, and that's what they had in the latest draft of the new mining bonuses that I saw. It seems DSE themselves also neither requested this nor new about it beforehand (and most probably still don't).
And before anyone says they don't get the 14k sell point, the Yokohama point is balanced equally for the distance (and connects perfectly to Nagano where they can steal/buy Samura's platinum).

It kinda sucks for ALG and Junkers who have specialized in scrapping since vanilla that another mining faction suddenly gets the same bonuses they do, and that's in addition to top tier bonuses on Copper and Platinum as well as a medium Silver bonus.

Picture this:
[some guy] "Okay, I want to mine premium scrap so I'm considering making an ALG ship."
[me] "That's great! I can show you how to-"
[some guy] "But why wouldn't I just make a DSE ship, which can do the same but also mine three other proper ores, and doesn't have legal issues in the main mining area?"
[me] "..."

Is this intentional? If so, why does DSE get four proper ores (AND regular scrap) and no other faction gets more than three?

For Junkers and ALG, this is all we have. We're not like DSE, Daumann or whatever other mining/industrial faction that doesn't fully specialize in one commodity. Scrapping is what we do, so I'd expect that at the very least, we'd be better at it than anyone else.

I don't mean to be all anti-DSE. What I do want is my faction to be excellent at what we specialize in, better than factions that do not specialize in the same things.
Let me put it this way. The current changes are basically the same as:

Kruger suddenly gets the same 4.0 bonus as BMM on Gold ore (that's the premium scrap).
BMM's other 4.0, Beryllium, is cut in half to 2.0, and Kruger also gets that (that's regular).

Giving DSE both Scrap and Premium means they get more ores than any other faction. Yes the regular scrap bonus is low, but it's the same as ALG's which is supposed to be specialized in it since the company's founding.

The initial mining draft gave us a slightly lower regular scrap bonus than Junkers in return for a slightly higher Premium Scrap bonus.
I was already skeptical since the mining time for Premium Scrap is largely irrelevant due to the length of the routes, while the mining bonus for regular scrap is extremely important for the opposite reason.

Now we not only do not get a higher bonus on Premium Scrap than Junkers, but DSE get the same and to top it off, our Regular Scrap bonus is cut down to half the Junkers', on par again with DSE, plus the Council, EFL, and even the generic miner ID.
Basically, regular scrap is nonviable for us now, since mining time is extremely important when the trip times are so short.


Don't get me wrong, it's nice that we finally have proper premium scrap routes, but that isn't really a "bonus". That's just a way overdue normalization of sell prices.
And at the same time, our regular scrap got ruined and Junkers and us are no longer uniquely capable of either. It doesn't make sense in roleplay and it doesn't make sense for balance' sake.

MUNICH SCRAP FIELD INACTIVE

Seems to have happened at some point yesterday, as it was fairly normal earlier in the day while being completely unmineable later in the evening.
Counted barrels just now and got 239 out of 50 on a quad mining turret Golem....little more than a field that's been completely turned off. This is not a viable mining location with those drops.

Edit: Whatever it was, it's fixed. Thanks a bunch!

I was extremely relieved to have found this fixed, with drops back to their regular 30-50 early today.
However, as the day wore on, a feeling of dread rose within me.
A nightmare from days long past was stirring, though I tried to ignore it at first.

But now, in the early morning hours, long after I should have gone to bed, I had to face the terrifying reality: the field wasn't fixed at all - FIELD DRAIN IS BACK!
Cannot find any other explanation for why the drops were so good to begin with and so godawful at the end.
From around 30-50 to around 6 within one day.

Please tell me I'm imagining this. Please tell me this is a mistake. Please tell me that godawful feature is never coming back.



I'd also like to bring back something from a long, long time ago: At some point years ago, when Aet was still mining lead, I asked why the prices for certain ores were so comparatively low in Gallia despite longer journeys.
I was told this was because jump trading abuse ruined the economy (which it does) with sell prices that are too high - but since the original adjustment of Pscrap to 14k, that's obviously been out the window.
This concerns ores like Silver, Copper, Cobalt, Gold, and Uncut diamonds, which based on distance should have much higher prices in Gallia.

tl;dr: DSE cannot legitimately have the bonuses they have, they make them far superior to any other mining faction.
Regular scrap for ALG is unfairly low, considering we only have one other mining commodity and specialize in scrap.
Sellpoints for Pscrap for Junkers are too low. We all know how Congress ruined it for them by jumptrading ridiculous amounts of Pscrap to Alpha, but this should have been fixed by removing jump trading much, much earlier, not ruining Pscrap for all Junkers.
Sell points in Gallia for many ores are much too low, considering the price cap is clearly no longer in place.


Oh and one more thing, why are Uncut Diamonds permabuffed in New London? Their buff was just never turned off, I'm not sure how many people even realize this.

Thank you for your time.

---