---
# System prepended metadata

title: Asteroid Mining

---

# Asteroid Mining

## Intro

Mining is a controversial system in SS13 that has seen many iterations, most of which end up relying on combat or very poorly integrated loops (Lavaland).

The issues we would like to address are as follows:
* Avoid loops that run too separate from the rest of the station.
* Ensure mining has content beyond the first 5 minutes while staying engaging.
* Do not make mining a job played for purely powergaming reasons but also because its fun.

To reach these issues there's some core rules for this design to ensure these issues are avoided
* The miners should always stay in reach of the station, so that they are not impossible to interact with.
* There should be healthy progression, avoiding giving players the best materials instantly.
* The core loop should be fleshed out further than it has been in previous mining jobs.

## Core loop

The core-loop of this concept in principle is very simple

![](https://i.imgur.com/Cyy8Pn1.png)

However, each of these steps will have more depth which I will go into in separate sections

### Finding Asteroids loop
![](https://i.imgur.com/L5h8hh4.png)

This part of the loop is one of the simplest. It serves the following purposes:
* It allows us to present the overall loops progression by allowing you to get different asteroid types, based on your progression
* It allows us to let players have some control over what kind of things they will be mining and what content they will be engaging with.

Asteroid types that can be found will be discussed in a different section.


### Finding the vein loop 
![](https://i.imgur.com/wvtp0oQ.png)

This part of the loop will also be relatively simple, and will feel relatively similar to normal mining. You will have to simply explore the asteroid and go around looking for specific objects on the floor, scanning enough of these results in you getting pointed to the vein. 

This allows us to force a player to traverse the asteroid for a while and engage with any content we put on it such as enemies or hazards.

### Mining & processing loop
![](https://i.imgur.com/D8gFGiX.png)

This part of the loop is the most complex, and is best explained with some examples. This section uses simple puzzle gameplay to require the player to weigh out what materials they want most.


The core concept is that a vein (and thus every boulder mined from it) has a specific composition. For example:
20% Sand, 30% plasma, 20% uranium and 50% iron.

In total this would represent 20k units of material, which can go up or down based on how its processed.

However, some materials have adverse effects to specific refinery processes. Putting the boulder through a rock burner might raise the amount of iron you'll get out of the final product, but that plasma in the boulder will cause it to explode.


***The below effects are placeholder and will probably require a lot of balancing***

| Refinery machine | Process description                                                                                   | Good effects                                                                                                          | Bad Effects                                                                                                                                                                 |
| ---------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Rock Cleaner     | High-pressure water spray                                                                             | +All materials but plasma and sediment                                                                                | If theres plasma in the rock, the rock is destroyed. If there's sediment, some of the sediment is removed.                                                                  |
| Rock Burner      | Burns rock with high temperature flames                                                               | +All materials but plasma and BS crystals   |   If there is plasma in the rock, it is blown up. If there is bluespace crystgals in the rock, the rock teleports away.                                                                                                                                                                          |
| Beamer           | Shoots lasers into the rock                                                                           | +BS crystals, Bananium ore, and titanium.                                                                                                                      | If there is uranium in the machine, there is a radiation pulse and destroys some of the uranium. If there is diamond in the rock, a ton of lasers are shot out of the rock. |
| Purifier         | Cleans the rock by spraying air onto it, this releases toxic gas.                                                               | +All, except sediment              | -Sediment, and toxic gas is created near the machine.           |
| Crusher          | Removes everything but rare ores                                                                      | +Diamond and BS crystals              | Destroys all other materials             |
| Ironizer         | Used to turn sediment into iron, but negatively affects gold and silver                               | +Iron              | - Gold, silver             |
| Electrifier      | Pulses electricity into the rock, exposing the plasma for better extraction                           |  + Plasma             | If there is BS crystals in the rock, teleport it away. If there is titanium, tesla zap the area, destroying part of the material.             |
| Alchemizer       | Uses bluespace crystal application to raise gold and silver in a product, but destroys a lot of other | +Gold, bananium and silver             | - Iron, titanium and diamond             |

In this situation, we would want to avoid the rock burner or washer, as we have plasma in our rock. However, a machine like the electrifier only has beneficial results for this type of boulder. By doing this each boulder based on its composition and depending on which materials the player needs, will need different processing.

### Progression loop
To keep this gameplay interesting through-out a round, a progression loop will be put into use that ensures that the early-game has easier to mine asteroids, but with less valuable materials. This means new users aren't instantly overwhelmed and that experienced players can't rush the end-game content within the first 10 minutes.

#### Scanner

This progression loop will revolve mainly around the scanner. The scanner in this case is the device that can be used to find the asteroids. At first the scanner will be a junky machine that can only find low-level asteroids. These asteroids will contain low value loot, and are less likely to contain important items.

The scanner can be upgraded to allow it to find higher quality asteroids, with more challenging content. 

The upgrade parts required for these upgrades will be found in asteroids and salvage ships of the same tier as the scanner currently is, ***this means players need to engage with the content of mining to progress to the next tier***

#### Asteroid tiers
As mentioned before, asteroids will be split up into different tiers to allow for a variety of skill challenges and rewards based on how far the player has progressed.

##### Tier 1
Asteroids with simple challenges, maybe some weak enemies to fight, but not great loot.

* Contains Iron, Glass/sand and rarely silver or plasma.
* Can contains parts to upgrade the scanner to tier 2


##### Tier 2
Asteroids with intermediate challenges, and improved materials

* Contains Iron, Glass/sand, silver, gold, uranium and rarely plasma or diamonds
* Can contains parts to upgrade the scanner to tier 3

##### Tier 3
Asteroids with more difficult challenges. But the best loot

* Contains all ore types. Some more commonly than others.


#### Salvage ships
WIP
