Development Notice: Mining Update

[Moberg]

I think a lot of people have been excited about this for quite some time. Looks very promising.
Some things I'm noticing: Xeno artifacts are balanced at around 690 credits/s (normal ores are around 640).
Iridium is balanced like other ores, with a standard price at Dortmund, 90% at the sair and cast shipyards and 70% at the other unlawful/Junker buyers.
I'm not sure how Azurite is balanced but it's definitely using a longer mining constant time than the standard 480 seconds which makes sense when you consider the mining rate is supposed to be "very slow".

Xeno artifacts are balanced differently because of their unlawful origin. Turning the commodity into profit requires two ships with different IDs, and trading them is essentially smuggling. In a news article dealing with the distribution of Xeno Relics among the blackmarket all governments are advised to put them as contraband. Alternatively, the profit at a houses capital can be tuned down if it's not treated as contraband.

And the mining time takes much longer indeed.
a) Asteroids are more difficult to hit.
b) Constant hazard if you're not limiting yourself to a very small arc in the mining area.
c) Mining area is very cramped and allows only one escape, making mining dangerous. Scanner interferences makes it unable to notice targets until they're sufficiently close to the mining area
d) Asteroids drop commodities half as often, and at 3/5 maximum yield compared to other fields if they do.

One question: Iridium is "Mined by AI, Core, Order and Zoners at 3x bonus" and Azurite is "Mined by Core, Order and IRG at 3x bonus."
Does this mean that IRG get a bonus on Azurite but regular Zoners do not? Do IRG get a bonus on Iridium?
It's unprecedented that an official faction gets an ore indies cannot mine and I hope that's not what's going on here.

Zoners are excluded from Azurite because they generally don't have the sufficient knowledge available to them. In that case, they can use the Order as substitute to gather it for them. IRG however is a rather special case, given that they are an official faction focused on research and roleplay. This makes them special enough to say that they have the knowledge to extract some of the Azurite without a doubt.

Finally, regarding the ships: The Clydesdale and Rhino are already balanced as Quad-turret mining freighters giving Core and Order a big advantage. The X-Shuttle/Voyager is useless for mining as it has only one forward turret.
The Dromedary and Correo only have two parallel turrets so Zoner and Corsairs should consider requesting another freighter (maybe the Sunburst).

Each respective OF is welcome to request up to a total of 3 mining ships, given they have the justification to have the ship in the first place, as pointed out in the update post.

Alright, it was just funny to see all omicron factions getting mining commodities, but Outcasts.

Outcasts are a bit more difficult to put into all of this, as their presence in the deeper and southern Omicrons is rather limited. I have something for them planned in the Taus and Sigmas to create ambient activity and competition with their enemies. (Including Corsairs, of course)

Instead I'd much prefer if Corsairs got a mining bonus on Iridium. Many people are discontent that the Corsairs have been forcefully 'booted out' of Omicron Delta and the southern Omicrons in general.

Corsairs are the most qualified to get a bonus there themselves, but it will require a bit of roleplay before that happens. Corsairs also weren't 'forcefully booted out', the whole development was arranged with the people in charge at the time with the justification given in the infocards: Increased focus on the Omegas, little focus on the deeper Omicrons. If that changes in the future and Corsairs have easier access to Lost (via Order/Zoners, I don't know) then I'll gladly add a bonus.

Quasi-lawful FR5s are extremely problematic for activity when it comes to unlawful factions. Leave it to the actual factions that are based in the Omicrons

I believe you are exaggerating on this. The Core FR5 was a consequence from an action much greater than simple piracy. Actually, in the 5 years here, I don't remember any other faction FR5 by the Zoners apart from the Order one, which was a mistake and rightfully reverted after TAZ got a seperate IFF. Additionally, I believe the Corsair official factions are entirely capable of striking a deal with the Zoners to overlook the occasional 'export tax', if need be.

As a slightly zany suggestion, maybe give Nomads a mining bonus on some new commodity? It could be like what old normal scrap used to be for Junkers, but with better balancing I'd hope. If it was placed in somewhere like Iota, it'd create ambient activity in the Nomad home system and provide incentive for factions like Core and Order to raid (Iota has always been incredibly empty). And Nomads are a race of aliens, not just outright monsters. Creating some sort of, dare I say, 'civilian' life of them could be a possibility, right? A bit of resource gathering for their cause?

Nomads are not going to have a way to earn money efficiently via trading/mining. Allowing human-mined commodites in Omicron Iota is an intriguing idea though. I've looked at creating certain nomad/pirate themed raid systems which are still around on my disk, only accessible from Iota or during an event on weekends, with rewards ranging from expensive commodities to material for weapon manufacturing.
The key point is here, that Iota is inRP very strictly guarded, and chances of escape are close to zero in roleplay.