Ideas for changes to current belt tech to promote activity - // Hotspots

[Kap]

Few things first:

I think most people can agree that the current zones and ore availability in the belt is very predictive and boring (Want Arkanium? Fly X KM out into Zone 3)
The vastness of the belt and game area available doesn't help promote any organic pvp either. Ore hotspots were promised, but either doesn't exist or are not apparent enough to be noticed.

Here are ways to solve this and improve the game.

New Belt.
Instead of predictable zones, they're spread out randomly. Voronoi perhaps? I might find a large Zone 5 area just 75km from Origin.
I will get pirated there, because now that's a hotspot that pirates can frequent. Risk versus reward.
I can also put down a station there, and get sieged due to faction conflict/rivalry over mining rights for that area.
This gives people a reason to siege (Currently none exist)
Exploration becomes a thing again, exploring/prospecting for different zones in strategic areas, sell the coordinates, mine the stuff yourself.

New gameplay loop:
Asteroid Crystals.
Remove Xhalium, replace it with rare crystals that grow on asteroids in rare areas.
Again, pvp hotspot + exploration + alive world + reason to siege.
Perhaps it's dark as shit in those areas, making it a danger to be there. Perhaps the crystals glow. Ever played X4 Foundations? Crystals like those.
Perhaps it's hard to collect/transport, must be cooled with a lot of coolant/power/whatever. Make it a challenge. Ship designers gets more stuff to design around.

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I don't think the answer to Xhalium or equivalent is to stick it into a moon that's far away, you need to think real hard about if you truly want your diminishing playerbase to be spread out further than they already are.

 

[anton_stezhkin]

"Perhaps it's hard to collect/transport, must be cooled with a lot of coolant/power/whatever. Make it a challenge. Ship designers gets more stuff to design around. " - I like this particular idea.
The hotsopts also should exist. Let's see how the moon craters will work.

 

[LauriFB]

We'll reconfigure the Eos belt hotspots at some point, since current ones are so light that most people do not know they even exist. There's also coming even more obvious and dense hotspots, the mega asteroids. These indeed work pretty well together with exploration mechanics.

New challenges for new ores is a good idea.

 

[HardworkingSlacker]

I like this idea very much. +1 from me!
And by the way, if the belt became less dense and opaque (moonbelt-like or even more) and maybe a few hundred kilometers flatter, that would actually be great. Currently, it is pretty much impossible to spot potential targets more than a few kilometers away.

 

[anton_stezhkin]

New challenges for new ores is a good idea.

Once, there was a suggestion of interactive asteroids.
"The ores are dead rocks now. And laser is always better than pickaxe. My kid suggests that some ores blow up on laser impact, some blow up when being hit by the pickaxe. The coolest ore blows up both on laser and pickaxe impact, so you have to thransport the whole asteroid to prosess it. He also suggested asteroids that hit you and your ship with lightnings, unless you are protected by a layer of glass."
Hot ateroids, overheating the ship and high-radiation asteroids that make you shine like a christmas tree are also good challenges.