Today we discuss the current state of mining, what issues remain with it, and what could be added to make it even more amazing than before and finally tie it all together and make it more meaningful. What are your thoughts? Let me know in the comments!
I think the biggest improvement to the overall mining loop would be having a reason to mine low-tier materials for crafting and base-building in a player-driven economy. I'd also love to see some additions to rock-fracturing mechanics, such as focusing your mining laser on key fracture points/seams to potentially increase the clustering of resources into rock fragments. And I'd like ships like the Starfarer to "mine" gas clouds for gases or vaporized liquids (hydrogen, helium, argon, etc.)
I honestly think that this will come naturally, as low tier materials will still be essential in some capacity. And they have confirmed that you will at some point you will harvest gas clouds for important gasses.
Low-tier and high-tier materials need balancing and reasons for being. Working backwards, high-tier means high-reward but high-risk. Risk to your ship, risk to your components, risk of piracy. So perhaps you just get sick of the piracy and you can't have another component explode, low-tier resources won't be so lucrative but at least you're mining. I also think things like crafting, repair, refining and base-building will need to have low-tier resources as catalysts and/or alloys. I hope they take a (very small) page out of factorio's intermediary system when it comes to the crafting economy.
Scouting has SO much to bring to mining with less random more patterns. Example. We scanned the entire Halo, found patterns in the belt and found patterns with quantanium. Developed parallax scanning to find quant out 15k. Setup operations. It was no exploit, just few game permitters that came together by chance. It was hard work. It was some of the best times I had in the verse. I hope we see more of this down the road!!
They need *safe* player to player contracts (trading) to buy and sell resources, like minerals.. like EVE has. So a PVP org could pay a Industrial ORG to get their materials for them.
My biggest gripe with mining as it stands right now is how I need to bounce back and forth between my mining site and a refinery, to offload my hauls. Even just being able to drop the raw ore off at the nearest station, and then later haul it all to a refinery at your own leisure, would be a huge improvement. Cargo is physicalized, but unrefined ore is still in a weird state.
I have supported myself since the prospector came out. It will get better when other minerals become valuable for the economy. Currently waiting for my Arastra! I find the game loop very relaxing and its challenging breaking big rocks by attaching gadgets to them.
Agreed! The gameplay loop is very relaxing. And it should be in most cases. It just needs to be tied together with other important aspects of the game.
If Odin is one of the early systems, The Coil would make me a miner. Constant electrical storms, player and NPC pirates, high value minerals. You'd legitimately need to pay for for an escort since mining ships are awful, and buying quick location data for in and out operations. Miners addicted to adrenaline.
We just need to make sure we can use our own refineries while they are parked in hangar. BUT, you'd need to use an industrial hangar to run it, or one of such.. Uh.. I can't remember all of them anymore. Been zero reason to hang out in one till now, but if each hangar had a huge plus/minus factor in one to another. That would make me actually use my industrial hangar vs. what ever the white fancy ass applestore look'n one.
Everyone will have there own take on what mining needs, for me what I liked from this video is environmental factors or more generally increased and variable challenge, difficult mining spots, cave mining, (with a ship), unstable ground, drilling though ice to get to rocks, pirate controlled areas, military bomb sites, extreme weather, competition from other miners, equipment failure, more varied mining techniques (without gadgets). The other ideas in the video all sounded good to enrich the loop but if the loop is a grind making the payoff more worthwhile still wouldn’t make the experience fun.
I would like to see new ores added (which will come) as well as the previously shown mining missions! Prior to the 3.19 changes, there were fracture points, and there still kind of is, but they don't mean as much as they used to, I would love to see that come back to where you had to hit the perfect spot to get that perfect break.
It seemed, no pun intended, that any rock could be broke if you took your time and found the sweet spot and went untill it cracked a little, then you'd have to find the next spot. Fracture mining was fun. Expert pilots could solo a mole and make bank. BUT that was the old days.
Great subject to revisit Hav0k. Mining without shields in the new patch is going to get spicy that’s for sure! I am just going to reinforce what you already said as you nailed it. I feel like FPS mining should be supported by lore around delicate minerals ghat need to be mined using low power tools and precision to access rare low volume minerals that are needed in exquisite blueprints for crafting or to access things which you cannot get using the ‘big tools’. Also feel that CIG need to present more of that same skill/time risk/reward level of gameplay that we all enjoy around Quantanium. I love the Mole but so wish it had more skins for it! I have an Arrastra on CCU and waiting to see what they do with that. I’m also hook hoping that rare or essential materials that you can only get from Pyro are in the game. Perhaps even a sole source which is guarded viscous by a gang that controls its sal and protects it massively meaning stealth mining in close proximity to the enemy whether that be FPS or using the asteroids to cover your signature while you sneak in and steal some 😅 I’m thinking like the Dwarves in LotR protecting Khazakdoom, the mountain full of Mythril used to make the toughest, lightest armours….but don’t dig too deep. You never know what’s down there 🤫
I think that they could make fps and vehicle mining really lucrative in many ways. They just need to improve them and add more resources for both to farm and give them a reason to be used.
I hope someday there are veins to mine in the ground like they originally showed in concepts for the Prospector. Land near it and mine down on it vs just finding rocks sitting around all the time.
Agreed! They don't even have to be physicalized, but they could just be nodes that we mine until it's depleted. And then they can regenerate over time.
@@Hav0k exactly, hell can be balanced that you don't find those high tier ores there either. You only really find them for the more basic things like iron, quartz, etc. may not be worth a ton but it's the things that some day you'll need a massive amount of for crafting. Then you go out searching for the rarer stuff as we do now (though I'd love if there is still the chance at finding a high tier vein but it being incredibly rare and the veins are usually much much smaller than those of other minerals)
Giving more REASONS to mine would make leagues of difference to the gameplay. But the mundane situation of mining itself would still detriment the enjoyment or challenge.
That's why I believe a lot of those are reliant on the 3 features mentioned: base building, crafting, and the economy. The assumption is that mining will tie them all together.
@Hav0k and it will have to. Eventually, the economy will be ~80% player-controlled. We will build and sell ships, weapons, components, and other things. The resources need those reasons to be mined and used, including base building.
They put a lot of work into mining gameplay and then stopped right before it felt complete. Might be waiting for more economy gameplay before they do more. It's annoying when they don't finish a project, but Im thinking there is a big picture reason why attention was pointed elsewhere for now
I think that's probably one of the many reasons they stopped. Often times I believe they do this to get it to a place to test it and ensure it works before the bring newer game changing features that add more to it. But we'll see what happens when things begin to progressively be worked on.
Ship mining is awesome but it would be fun to ground mine right from your surrounding base mountains and hills with base refineries or large storage for transport later. In my opinion ground mining is dead with a few exceptions.
i love mining in SC, i just want them to let me put s2 mining lasers on the prospector, esp with the new engineering system where i have more granular power control, make me chose between shields or engines and having full power to an oversized laser. i want the challenges associated with engineering to play a factor in pushing my gear to the absolute limit.
I can't wait for more mining options I have every mining vehicle and can't wait for the large and Cap ships to get in game. I would also like it if they could add map scanning all something if your in the mole the co-pilot should be doing the scanning and have a map of the belt as you scan so you you can keep track of the rocks your would like.
I think hand mining should be fleshed out with more variety and even refinables....speaking of...let's get refining hooked up and in game. Also make jennalite more attainable..
Agreed! FPS mining should definitely have more to mine and adding more depth to refining would be great too. But I think that's largely dependent on crafting and base building.
The last time I enjoyed mining was 3.16. Now, it’s overly complicated, you can’t crack many of the rocks you find, scanning still sucks, it takes too much time, the payout isn’t worth it and the poor server performance causes significant problems.
I think that will be adjusted in time. And they are working on scanning and radar improvements that will hopefully fix some of the issues with scanning. And maybe server meshing will help with server performance at some point.
I only mine for profit and because its relaxing so even if they added base building I would still mine for those reasons only. Its mining so you can't expect it not to be repetitive. Adding all that extra stuff is cool and all but I don't need it to become complicated to mine and sell when its still going to be a repetitive loop regardless.
Don't make everything about dangers. There seem to be quiet a few players that enjoy mining for the relaxing gameplay. There doesn't need to be a danger attacched to every single mining place and/or mineral. For some its realaxing and chill acitivity to gain profits. Yes it will be more tied into the economy, but it doesn't need to become a adrenalin pumping gameplay loop. And don't try to force it into player driven economies. If they add the ability to safely trade with players, those players still need to have an eye on what each mineral is worth. Because NPC groups will sell them too. So as a player building a base i don't care if i can buy the materials needed from a player or an NPC. As long as i get the biggest bang for my buck.
Definitely not all about dangerous. There will be plenty of locations that will be safe and still lucrative. But it's important that there are dangers for high level resources in some way. None of this would be forced into player driven economies (or rather player markets, since the economy won't be very player-driven, but instead influenced.)
@@Hav0k that "high level resources in dangerous areas" is way to gamey. Naturally high value resources draw a lot of attention. But not only to pirates but also to legal companies. There have been suggestions to move away quantanium from Stanton and put it in Pyro. That makes absolutely no sense, as big corporations settle where those resources are, they do not abbandoned those places. Best way to describe it would be the Aaron Halo. Its a vast space out of anybodies control. And that is where the dofficulty factor comes in: you do not know what is out there. You could run into a meteorid shower, or a group of pirates, or a corporation mining operation. But the other thing is you could also fly a long time and run into nothing of those. Still, most valuable materiaös are valuable because they are rare and you have to be lucky to find them. And that alone is a very viable example of danger not being important when it comes to rare materials. Its not that when you need a specific rare mazerial, you just fly out there and get it. The time spend in search of rare materials is as much as a balancing factor as dangers are. Plus you have the dangers that do not involve others. You can still make fatal mistakes. I am not agreeing on rare materiaös being gated by dangerous places or hostile entities. That is way to linear and one dimensional.
Im not sure about a quality system. Id be curious how many people would care about a HQ rifle they made, when they could just loot something just as deadly off a corpse? Not to mention, you go through the effort of getting all HQ gear just for some random player you hardly know just to shoot you in the back and take your stuff. And yeah, they'll probably misfire more, or whatever. Players are pretty squishy even with good armor on, and theres nothing stopping someone from being a jerk. At some point the toxicity is going to be so terrible in SC it'll be as bad as LoL or Helldivers 2.
@@Hav0k idk, stats on gear might not be the right fit for SC. At the end of the day, i still think someone in mid gear should be able to down someone who is in "bis" gear. Maybe have crafted food, medicine and repair kits be HQ and give bonuses to what they do. Might need to look for more inspiration from survival games than a traditional MMO. But back to mining, i think one thing they could add is a calibration mechanic to scanning for resource gathering. Since scanners arent physicallized and god i hope they dont ever allow us to swap them out, but scanning on a certain planet/moon or gas anomaly in space slowly builds up scanner accuracy? LIke first scan on a planet theres a 5% chances to pick up all materials at an increased range, and step it up with each scan. The down side is each scan is like a big "Im over here" to anyone listening. Obviously if you leave or go somewhere else you'll need to "recalibrate". But thats all something they could do with MFDs and not have to create a component with. And it would carry over to something like the starfarer for fuel scooping. Cause when mining you should be doing more mining and less scanning.
@NormFC FWIW, I wasn't really arguing for stats. Just bonuses that give those with better gear a little bit of a leg up. A mid geared person should of course be able to take down someone with the best gear. However, with the way this game is going more into the MMO realm, i wouldn't be surprised if we actually do see stats mattering at least in some way. Ultimately what i want for mining are nodes where you'll literally be sitting there mining for hours on end, be able to mark the location and come back to it, or log out there and come back to it the next day. Mining needs something that keeps bringing us back and keeps us busy. Rather than just mining one node and having to find a new location.
Tracing certain parts of the rock to crack it further would be pretty entertaining. As long as they focus on making it as engaging as it is now, I think this would add a lot to it.
Today we discuss the current state of mining, what issues remain with it, and what could be added to make it even more amazing than before and finally tie it all together and make it more meaningful. What are your thoughts? Let me know in the comments!
I think the biggest improvement to the overall mining loop would be having a reason to mine low-tier materials for crafting and base-building in a player-driven economy. I'd also love to see some additions to rock-fracturing mechanics, such as focusing your mining laser on key fracture points/seams to potentially increase the clustering of resources into rock fragments. And I'd like ships like the Starfarer to "mine" gas clouds for gases or vaporized liquids (hydrogen, helium, argon, etc.)
I honestly think that this will come naturally, as low tier materials will still be essential in some capacity. And they have confirmed that you will at some point you will harvest gas clouds for important gasses.
Low-tier and high-tier materials need balancing and reasons for being.
Working backwards, high-tier means high-reward but high-risk. Risk to your ship, risk to your components, risk of piracy.
So perhaps you just get sick of the piracy and you can't have another component explode, low-tier resources won't be so lucrative but at least you're mining.
I also think things like crafting, repair, refining and base-building will need to have low-tier resources as catalysts and/or alloys. I hope they take a (very small) page out of factorio's intermediary system when it comes to the crafting economy.
@@davidsexton6076 Absolutely! I think crafting and base building will always need a variety of high and low tier resources or materials.
Scouting has SO much to bring to mining with less random more patterns. Example. We scanned the entire Halo, found patterns in the belt and found patterns with quantanium. Developed parallax scanning to find quant out 15k. Setup operations. It was no exploit, just few game permitters that came together by chance. It was hard work. It was some of the best times I had in the verse. I hope we see more of this down the road!!
Agreed! Exploration will also play an important role in finding new mining locations. I really want to see the Aaron Halo belt as well.
They need *safe* player to player contracts (trading) to buy and sell resources, like minerals.. like EVE has. So a PVP org could pay a Industrial ORG to get their materials for them.
Agreed. They do need player contracts for us to be able to make it even more worth while.
My biggest gripe with mining as it stands right now is how I need to bounce back and forth between my mining site and a refinery, to offload my hauls. Even just being able to drop the raw ore off at the nearest station, and then later haul it all to a refinery at your own leisure, would be a huge improvement. Cargo is physicalized, but unrefined ore is still in a weird state.
Yeah, I get that. Hopefully, soon, we can get ship refining along with the ships that will support them.
I have supported myself since the prospector came out. It will get better when other minerals become valuable for the economy. Currently waiting for my Arastra! I find the game loop very relaxing and its challenging breaking big rocks by attaching gadgets to them.
Agreed! The gameplay loop is very relaxing. And it should be in most cases. It just needs to be tied together with other important aspects of the game.
If Odin is one of the early systems, The Coil would make me a miner. Constant electrical storms, player and NPC pirates, high value minerals. You'd legitimately need to pay for for an escort since mining ships are awful, and buying quick location data for in and out operations. Miners addicted to adrenaline.
I would love to see this gameplay be expanded and have a reason to have escorts. We definitely need something that will make it even more lucrative.
We just need to make sure we can use our own refineries while they are parked in hangar.
BUT, you'd need to use an industrial hangar to run it, or one of such.. Uh.. I can't remember all of them anymore.
Been zero reason to hang out in one till now, but if each hangar had a huge plus/minus factor in one to another.
That would make me actually use my industrial hangar vs. what ever the white fancy ass applestore look'n one.
Everyone will have there own take on what mining needs, for me what I liked from this video is environmental factors or more generally increased and variable challenge, difficult mining spots, cave mining, (with a ship), unstable ground, drilling though ice to get to rocks, pirate controlled areas, military bomb sites, extreme weather, competition from other miners, equipment failure, more varied mining techniques (without gadgets). The other ideas in the video all sounded good to enrich the loop but if the loop is a grind making the payoff more worthwhile still wouldn’t make the experience fun.
I would like to see new ores added (which will come) as well as the previously shown mining missions!
Prior to the 3.19 changes, there were fracture points, and there still kind of is, but they don't mean as much as they used to, I would love to see that come back to where you had to hit the perfect spot to get that perfect break.
New ores would be great, and so would the mining missions! And I think (and hope) that fracture points come back!
It seemed, no pun intended, that any rock could be broke if you took your time and found the sweet spot and went untill it cracked a little, then you'd have to find the next spot. Fracture mining was fun.
Expert pilots could solo a mole and make bank.
BUT that was the old days.
Great subject to revisit Hav0k. Mining without shields in the new patch is going to get spicy that’s for sure!
I am just going to reinforce what you already said as you nailed it.
I feel like FPS mining should be supported by lore around delicate minerals ghat need to be mined using low power tools and precision to access rare low volume minerals that are needed in exquisite blueprints for crafting or to access things which you cannot get using the ‘big tools’.
Also feel that CIG need to present more of that same skill/time risk/reward level of gameplay that we all enjoy around Quantanium.
I love the Mole but so wish it had more skins for it! I have an Arrastra on CCU and waiting to see what they do with that.
I’m also hook hoping that rare or essential materials that you can only get from Pyro are in the game. Perhaps even a sole source which is guarded viscous by a gang that controls its sal and protects it massively meaning stealth mining in close proximity to the enemy whether that be FPS or using the asteroids to cover your signature while you sneak in and steal some 😅
I’m thinking like the Dwarves in LotR protecting Khazakdoom, the mountain full of Mythril used to make the toughest, lightest armours….but don’t dig too deep. You never know what’s down there 🤫
Lol yeah a lot of these would really make mining so much better than it is now. Even though it's pretty good.
I love roc mining, I have a roc, a prospector, and a mole. Most the time I prefer to take out the roc, I feel like it makes decent money too
I think that they could make fps and vehicle mining really lucrative in many ways. They just need to improve them and add more resources for both to farm and give them a reason to be used.
I hope someday there are veins to mine in the ground like they originally showed in concepts for the Prospector. Land near it and mine down on it vs just finding rocks sitting around all the time.
Agreed! They don't even have to be physicalized, but they could just be nodes that we mine until it's depleted. And then they can regenerate over time.
@@Hav0k exactly, hell can be balanced that you don't find those high tier ores there either. You only really find them for the more basic things like iron, quartz, etc. may not be worth a ton but it's the things that some day you'll need a massive amount of for crafting. Then you go out searching for the rarer stuff as we do now (though I'd love if there is still the chance at finding a high tier vein but it being incredibly rare and the veins are usually much much smaller than those of other minerals)
@@fatman9994 Absolutely! I'd love for it to have a big difference between the common and rarer resources.
They really had it right with those old UI's.
Giving more REASONS to mine would make leagues of difference to the gameplay. But the mundane situation of mining itself would still detriment the enjoyment or challenge.
That's why I believe a lot of those are reliant on the 3 features mentioned: base building, crafting, and the economy. The assumption is that mining will tie them all together.
@Hav0k and it will have to. Eventually, the economy will be ~80% player-controlled. We will build and sell ships, weapons, components, and other things. The resources need those reasons to be mined and used, including base building.
They put a lot of work into mining gameplay and then stopped right before it felt complete. Might be waiting for more economy gameplay before they do more. It's annoying when they don't finish a project, but Im thinking there is a big picture reason why attention was pointed elsewhere for now
I think that's probably one of the many reasons they stopped. Often times I believe they do this to get it to a place to test it and ensure it works before the bring newer game changing features that add more to it. But we'll see what happens when things begin to progressively be worked on.
I want refining to involve combing separate mined materials to create a newer, more valuable resource.
SAME! That would be amazing!
would be cool if npc/player wars and battles sent ore prices up or down like in some games.
A dynamic economy would be amazing!
Ship mining is awesome but it would be fun to ground mine right from your surrounding base mountains and hills with base refineries or large storage for transport later. In my opinion ground mining is dead with a few exceptions.
i love mining in SC, i just want them to let me put s2 mining lasers on the prospector, esp with the new engineering system where i have more granular power control, make me chose between shields or engines and having full power to an oversized laser. i want the challenges associated with engineering to play a factor in pushing my gear to the absolute limit.
I can't wait for more mining options I have every mining vehicle and can't wait for the large and Cap ships to get in game. I would also like it if they could add map scanning all something if your in the mole the co-pilot should be doing the scanning and have a map of the belt as you scan so you you can keep track of the rocks your would like.
Yeah they definitely need the copilot station, and other stations, to be able to do other tasks
That new MFD UI is killing my soul.
Why? It looks great. Just needs some functionality fixes. At least it's building blocks. Makes it easier to improve
I think hand mining should be fleshed out with more variety and even refinables....speaking of...let's get refining hooked up and in game. Also make jennalite more attainable..
Agreed! FPS mining should definitely have more to mine and adding more depth to refining would be great too. But I think that's largely dependent on crafting and base building.
The last time I enjoyed mining was 3.16. Now, it’s overly complicated, you can’t crack many of the rocks you find, scanning still sucks, it takes too much time, the payout isn’t worth it and the poor server performance causes significant problems.
I think that will be adjusted in time. And they are working on scanning and radar improvements that will hopefully fix some of the issues with scanning. And maybe server meshing will help with server performance at some point.
I only mine for profit and because its relaxing so even if they added base building I would still mine for those reasons only. Its mining so you can't expect it not to be repetitive. Adding all that extra stuff is cool and all but I don't need it to become complicated to mine and sell when its still going to be a repetitive loop regardless.
I want my Arrastra and Orion.
Same! Two of my most anticipated mining ships by far.
Don't make everything about dangers. There seem to be quiet a few players that enjoy mining for the relaxing gameplay. There doesn't need to be a danger attacched to every single mining place and/or mineral. For some its realaxing and chill acitivity to gain profits. Yes it will be more tied into the economy, but it doesn't need to become a adrenalin pumping gameplay loop.
And don't try to force it into player driven economies. If they add the ability to safely trade with players, those players still need to have an eye on what each mineral is worth. Because NPC groups will sell them too. So as a player building a base i don't care if i can buy the materials needed from a player or an NPC. As long as i get the biggest bang for my buck.
Definitely not all about dangerous. There will be plenty of locations that will be safe and still lucrative. But it's important that there are dangers for high level resources in some way. None of this would be forced into player driven economies (or rather player markets, since the economy won't be very player-driven, but instead influenced.)
@@Hav0k that "high level resources in dangerous areas" is way to gamey. Naturally high value resources draw a lot of attention. But not only to pirates but also to legal companies.
There have been suggestions to move away quantanium from Stanton and put it in Pyro. That makes absolutely no sense, as big corporations settle where those resources are, they do not abbandoned those places.
Best way to describe it would be the Aaron Halo. Its a vast space out of anybodies control. And that is where the dofficulty factor comes in: you do not know what is out there. You could run into a meteorid shower, or a group of pirates, or a corporation mining operation. But the other thing is you could also fly a long time and run into nothing of those. Still, most valuable materiaös are valuable because they are rare and you have to be lucky to find them. And that alone is a very viable example of danger not being important when it comes to rare materials. Its not that when you need a specific rare mazerial, you just fly out there and get it. The time spend in search of rare materials is as much as a balancing factor as dangers are. Plus you have the dangers that do not involve others. You can still make fatal mistakes.
I am not agreeing on rare materiaös being gated by dangerous places or hostile entities. That is way to linear and one dimensional.
Given it up until real release.. prod
Im not sure about a quality system. Id be curious how many people would care about a HQ rifle they made, when they could just loot something just as deadly off a corpse? Not to mention, you go through the effort of getting all HQ gear just for some random player you hardly know just to shoot you in the back and take your stuff. And yeah, they'll probably misfire more, or whatever. Players are pretty squishy even with good armor on, and theres nothing stopping someone from being a jerk. At some point the toxicity is going to be so terrible in SC it'll be as bad as LoL or Helldivers 2.
It all depends. I'd say that crafted items should offer different bonuses than looted items you'd get from something like Contested Zones.
@@Hav0k idk, stats on gear might not be the right fit for SC. At the end of the day, i still think someone in mid gear should be able to down someone who is in "bis" gear. Maybe have crafted food, medicine and repair kits be HQ and give bonuses to what they do.
Might need to look for more inspiration from survival games than a traditional MMO.
But back to mining, i think one thing they could add is a calibration mechanic to scanning for resource gathering. Since scanners arent physicallized and god i hope they dont ever allow us to swap them out, but scanning on a certain planet/moon or gas anomaly in space slowly builds up scanner accuracy? LIke first scan on a planet theres a 5% chances to pick up all materials at an increased range, and step it up with each scan. The down side is each scan is like a big "Im over here" to anyone listening. Obviously if you leave or go somewhere else you'll need to "recalibrate". But thats all something they could do with MFDs and not have to create a component with. And it would carry over to something like the starfarer for fuel scooping. Cause when mining you should be doing more mining and less scanning.
@NormFC FWIW, I wasn't really arguing for stats. Just bonuses that give those with better gear a little bit of a leg up. A mid geared person should of course be able to take down someone with the best gear.
However, with the way this game is going more into the MMO realm, i wouldn't be surprised if we actually do see stats mattering at least in some way.
Ultimately what i want for mining are nodes where you'll literally be sitting there mining for hours on end, be able to mark the location and come back to it, or log out there and come back to it the next day. Mining needs something that keeps bringing us back and keeps us busy. Rather than just mining one node and having to find a new location.
Mining itself needs improvement. Something like needing to target cracks in the rock to give mining more depth.
Tracing certain parts of the rock to crack it further would be pretty entertaining. As long as they focus on making it as engaging as it is now, I think this would add a lot to it.