Added a comment on a SaltEMike video, got no answer to it (posted too late I guess) what are you thoughts about some ideas I have here ?
I edited the comment a little to remove unnecessary parts. What do you think of it ?
“I mostly agree with you except specifically one thing : mining head size. I agree it’s a way for cig to make you buy bigger and expensive ships, but there is another aspect to it : progression.
Assuming that all ships can be bought with auec, if the prospector is the best solo ship for mining and you can absolutely mine everything like you suggest, why would I grind auec to take something else ? You already have finished the mining loop. Should I continue with the same ship all my miner life ?
I want solo mining ship with size 2 and 3 heads ! Multi crew ships can have others advantage than just the head size : refinery, storage, multi head to change on the spot maybe like in salvage on the vulture ?
I’ll talk about rock size this way : a rock which can be mined with a s1 head will be a t1, s2/t2 and so on.
The annoying “impossible” should be balanced by something else which is cluster and rock size. Several s1 laser should allow you to do t2 rocks, same thing for s2 and t3 rocks.
We should have more variety in cluster with a main rock, which is obviously the biggest, and smaller rocks around it. On a planet surface, the majority of the cluster should be t1/t2 or t1/t2/t3 with less common clusters t2/t3 and exceptional only t3 rock clusters.
One other thing we need to talk about : builds ! I don't want a unique build which can do everything (hello Helix 2 and 3*surges, i'm talking about you !). I want to have several builds that fits different scenario. Maybe accentuate each strengh of each head ?
We need to add another stat : extract power and extract speed.
The last one is obvious and already present, the first one should allow you to "eat" bigger rocks without having to break them, with higher standard base values on the bigger size head of course. Which will allow your ship with s2 laser to directly eat the t1, breaks the t2 and eventually the t3 if multicrew or another ship is here.
With solo mining ships equipped with higher laser size like mentionned before, you have a reason to go buy your new ship !
About the quality, i saw comments that suggest that the rarity should only come out when you refine them. It shouldn't be visible from the get go. I agree with that and it should reduce the time to hunt a rock that satisfies your standard and create more economy by increasing volumes done.
One last hot take from me : the highest reward should only be done with several players, not alone. Should it be a random encounter, or you org mates.”
Thanks for reading me !