Dev Diary: Mining in Jumpgate Evolution

Steve Hartmeyer of NetDevil, Ltd., the makers of Jumpgate, Auto Assault, and upcoming titles Jumpgate Evolution and LEGO Universe joins us for the third in a series of developer diaries. His first two, covering the inspirations behind Jumpgate Evolution, and its ship development process, may be found here and here.

This week’s entry is…

Mining in Jumpgate Evolution

Mining was a major pastime for a large fraction of the Jumpgate Classic community, and formed the foundation of the game’s economy. While most players may not have mined as the mainstay of their careers, many did, and nearly everyone at least dabbled in mining at one time or another.

Mining formed the basis for many community events, and players could always deliberately benefit their faction, and pick up some extra cash, by mining needed commodities whenever convenient and delivering them to their faction’s stations.

In Jumpgate Evolution, mining is being completely revamped in terms of both process and graphical presentation.

Asteroid surfaces will be spawn points for objects representing exposed deposits or veins of useful ores. The ore objects will be destructible entities, and the act of mining them will remove them from the asteroid surface, necessitating that the active miner move on once an area has been cleared.

The individual ore objects will be mined out and eliminated, rather than the parent asteroid body itself being affected. Regeneration of ore deposits will be gradual, but the new ores may not be of the same type, nor in exactly the same spot, though there will be a mechanism acting to ensure a desired level of availability of each type of resource.

We plan to maintain a clear relationship between the physical asteroid type and the kinds of ore that may be present. This will help pilots know what to look for if they have something specific in mind.

Exploration of asteroid fields for desired ore deposits will involve a combination of pilot attention, a little luck, perhaps some social information gathering, and probably equipment choices that might make the searching task simpler.

The only mining equipment truly required, though, will be a basic piece to do the actual mining, whatever its final form may be, and the traditional Mark I eyeball.

Our intent with mining is to make the process a fun, exploratory treasure-hunting activity, something that can be done either casually or intensively by the player’s own choice, with a clear and satisfying reward when ores are found.

Mining, of course, is itself merely a beginning – a foundation for a player-driven and player-run manufacturing and trade economy that will include such activities as refining ores into raw materials, manufacturing commodities and useful equipment, and trading goods on public markets as well as hauling them for profit.

The mining system is just now entering our implementation pipeline, so it hasn’t yet been put through the iterative testing that we use to refine our game content. The details of mining in Jumpgate Evolution could end up somewhat different from the brief sketch provided here.

We’ll be able to make public a clearer picture as the gameplay for this feature is firmed up during upcoming weeks.