CSC | Space MMO: How to Start Mining

• Travel to a star system
• Explore a solar system map to identify potential resource points (up to 100 resource points can exist in a system)
• Prospect the resource points for RAW ore types (e.g. Raw Trilite Ore, Raw Iron Ore, etc.)
• Target resource points (asteroids, gas clouds, etc.) and activate mining lasers
• Wait and fill up your ship’s cargo hold
• Transport raw ore back to a refinery
• Process the raw ore into the usable ERC-20 resource tokens (refined ore)

While the steps are relatively simple, commanders must consider many ancillary elements in order to become an effective resource miner. Commanders will have to consider: defending against NPCs and players, logistics of raw ore transportation, and efficiently processing ore.

Let’s start with defense. While mining in Core Space will be relatively safe from PVP attacks, players must be on guard for any NPCs looking for easy prey. It’s recommended that the solo miner come packed with strong defenses and some offensive capabilities. Clans and ad hoc mining groups can also be formed to increase the overall effectiveness of a mining operation.

Logistics is one of the most crucial aspects of any successful mining operation. Collecting ore is great, but getting it to a proper facility to secure and process it is just as important. Plan ahead for your operations by expanding your cargo hold to reduce trips, or bring a friend along to haul your goods away while you focus on ore extraction.

The quantity of raw tons to processed tons will vary between ore types, and the efficiency will also vary in relation to player skills and abilities. Since ore refining can vary greatly between trained and untrained players, the Galactic Federation will provide the ability to package raw ore into tradable items. These ore packages will use quantum folding technology to condense large quantities of raw ore into compact, tradable items that can be exchanged, sold, and refined from a player’s (or clan’s) blockchain inventory.

In CSC, scanning comes in two forms: are exploration beams (we will cover in the next section) and resource scanners. Resource scanners come in a variety of styles, each with their own advantages & disadvantages. You will have the choice of Directional Scanners, Semi-Directional / Arc Scanners, and Omni-Directional / Pulse Scanners. All scanners will have multiple varieties and quality levels. Differences found in quality levels will affect the quality of a scanner (accuracy of scan color), range (distance that an object can be to be scanned), and type (resource scanner only, or cargo scanner as well).

As seen in the above video, scanning results for resources are presented as a color of the light spectrum. Scanners show the color & spectral frequency on your target. Each resource in the game has its own spectral color. These colors WON’T be published by the Galactic Federation, but are revealed when you scan objects that contain resources. The accuracy of the color is dependent on the quality of your scanner. The higher the quality of the scanner, the more accurate the color will be. For example, in CSC, iron and aluminium have similar spectral colors, so a low quality scanner might show a similar color frequency for each.

Next lets consider what happens when multiple resources are in the same object. This is when scanning can be a little tricky, but rewarding to detail-oriented commanders. When multiple resources are present, the scanner returns the average spectral frequency of all resources found in a object. The intensity of a specific resource is dictated by the amount of that resource in the target object. For example, an object that has 1,000 units of Trilite ore and 10,000 units of Iron ore may look like mostly iron on initial glance. But a savvy commander would have kept records of the spectral frequency of previous iron rich objects and might notice a slight shift towards another color (red-ish pink in this instance). The amount of that shift can indicate both the concentration and the type of resources present. For an example of how this works, see the following video clip.

Notice the bright white rock at 0:26 in the video. This rock contains all iron ore, approximately 10,000 units of it. It returns a spectral frequency of EAEDF5. This frequency will shift slightly every time I scan because the scanner I have equipped provides a scan quality 95%, so I can expect a 5% variance on the resulting spectrum. Since 5% isn’t much, I’m not too worried about my results. At 0:31 the asteroid scanned returns a F4C9D8 frequency, white with some pinkish red in it. This is because this asteroid has 10,000 Iron Ore and about 2,500 Trilite Ore. At 0:37 you will see a asteroid with a F90E34 frequency, this has approximately 2,500 Trilite Ore. With 25 different resources currently in the CSC universe than can be harvested you can expect to see many different colors and frequency combination.

Now let’s discuss the scanner types. In the video, I demo two of the 3 main resource scanners in CSC, direction and pulse scanners.

Direction scanners provide the longest range of any scanner type of equivalent quality levels. Directional scanners have almost no cool down allowing for quick scanning of objects dependent only on how quickly a Commander can soft lock targets. Directional scanners have the least amount of power draw leaving you plenty of power to mine and prospect your next targets (great for smaller ships).

Arc Scanners have a medium range per quality level and work similar to directional scanners (it uses a similar scan projectile fired from your ship as the directional scanner). Depending on quality, these type of scanners can scan objects within a 30–75 degree arc of the from of your ship. These scanners have to have line of sight and cannot scan objects occluded behind other objects.

Finally Pulse Scanners, these scanners have the shortest range but covers objects in a spherical radius of a ship. The pulse can propagate through objects allowing you to scan objects that are occluded from your line of sight. While pulse scanners are great for speedy prospecting they do come with a downside. Pulses require a lot of energy (would be difficult to mine and scan at the same time unless have you have a ship modded for power) and it increases your radar signature (easier for NPC and player to detect you and reduces their lock on time).

To sum up: scanning is a key game mechanic in CSC and players can gain proficiency at it in multiple ways (both in game via skill and tech, and out of the game via detailed record keeping and decoding color frequencies). A couple things to remember about scanning:

• One, scanners don’t take up hard-points so valuable weapon slots are not used to equip scanners.
• Two, resource signatures are just ONE type of frequency you can discover (look out for really odd signatures or bright flares).
• Three, scanning results are ONLY shown to the commander that initiates it, while other commanders can see the beams and pulses, but won’t see the color blooms or results (groups or fleets will be able to share scanning info).

Exploration and discovery are key pillars we wanted to have in the CSC EtherVerse. How we execute exploration is still something our team is discussing / designing today. While the premise is as simple as letting players discover items, the execution requires a lot of thought and planning. We want our exploration mechanic to be rewarding, but not overly tedious. We also want exploration to stand on its own and be something Commanders can specialize in and not just be an offshoot of mining / resource collection.

To that extent I would like to introduce one of the first aspects of exploration we have implemented, exploration beams. Exploration beams are standard on all ships, while modules will exist that give your beams some enhanced abilities, the standard beam will be able to uncover any hidden objects (aka loot) in the game. Hidden objects can be found almost anywhere in CSC, you will tend to find them more often around wreckage, derelict structures or on/near asteroids and other stellar bodies. These objects are uncloaked after an exploration beam passes over them, once revealed you can access them to reveal the loot they hold. Loot found in these boxes can be virtually anything, from blueprint pieces, to refined resources and rare or unexpected items (see the following video). Exploration hidden object will be reseeded on a regular basis. We expect loot to shift location & items on a weekly or daily basis. Location of hidden items can be hinted at in station news, look for stories regarding strange readings or recent encounters.

Keep in mind this is just the first aspect of exploration we have implemented, a lot of these exploration mechanics are still being designed and developed. For example, we have yet to decide if exploration loot is instanced per user or globally persistence. There are good cases that can be made for both types but in the end we might just need to test this out in one of the Alpha and see which feel more balanced. The following video will demo exploration beam on one of my favorite ships the Reaper Interceptor. With fast Intrepid Class ships that is great for exploration, this size allows to navigate tight spaces and its exploration beam can be pivoted a full 360 degrees (Notice the Phoenix Carrier could not emit a beam from its rear).

In addition to exploration in the video you will see resource scanning being used by Reaper Interceptor as well. It is worthwhile to compare the two scanning videos in this blog to get a real sense of scale of our ships in the game. I made sure to scan the same golden asteroid as I did in the previous video to help illustrate the size and scale.