mining
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Roberts on Star Citizen's immersive mining and Squadron 42
Ho hum, Cloud Imperium collected another windfall this week for Star Citizen, pushing the crowdfunded space sim sandbox's total take north of $29 million. Chris Roberts returns with the obligatory chairman update, and there's plenty of interesting stuff in there relating to enhanced Squadron 42 functionality and more. The team at Foundry 42 has big plans for Squadron 42, and we're going to provide extra funding to make it a true spiritual successor to Wing Commander! Squadron 42 can go above and beyond anything you've seen before. From opening with an epic battle instead of a training patrol to missions that seamlessly combine boarding and space combat, we aim to put you right into the action! Additional funding will let the team realize this, with enhanced mission design and more resources and animations to enhance fidelity. If you're new to Star Citizen fandom, it's worth noting that Squadron 42 is the single-player story campaign that serves as an optional introduction prior to entering the SC persistent world. And speaking of that persistent world, Roberts also says that a resounding number of citizens asked for a mining ship. "We're happy to oblige," he writes, "but I'll go ahead and warn you that mining in Star Citizen is going to be a lot more immersive than what you've seen before; you won't be clicking on an asteroid until you've collected metal!" Click past the cut for a six-minute video featuring the Foundry 42 dev team.
Bitcoin mining motherboards promise huge profits (for your energy provider)
As Bitcoins have become more valuable, they've also become much harder to accumulate using the mathematical process known as "mining." This air of futility hasn't fazed ASRock, however, as the company has revealed two new motherboards that promise to help DIY-ers to "join the gold rush now!" The H61 Pro BTC and H81 Pro BTC are both Intel socket boards, with the latter being Haswell compatible, and their main party trick is to carry extra PCIe slots and power connectors so you can exploit the compute power of up to six graphics cards simultaneously. What ASRock doesn't specify, however, is how much profit one of its fully-loaded mining motherboards might deliver. So, although we're quite deliberately not experts at this stuff (aside from a bit of armchair interest), we plugged some numbers into the Bitcoin Profitability Calculator, based on six Radeon HD 7990 cards running in parallel, and discovered that this monster of a system might never actually break even, due to its ridiculously high energy costs. This could well explain why all the big boys use dedicated ASIC boards for mining these days, instead of consumer-grade hardware.
Star Trek Online challenges fleets to build better mines
Star Trek Online has a new special project for fleets, but instead of taking place on starbases or embassies, this will be exclusive to dilithium mines. Starting Thursday, October 3rd, player fleets can (ahem) engage in constructing a better mine. The goal is to improve the efficiency of the mine, and players can construct enhancements to the outside of mines to boost their productivity -- not to mention add a few visual flairs. This is the final special project for fleet dilithium mines, and fleets will need to at least start on it by October 17th in order to have a shot at completion.
WoW Archivist: WoW's first legendary quest line
WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? Who is etched into WoW's history? What secrets does the game still hold? Not every amazing weapon is legendary. WoW has seen plenty of great weapons come and go without a single orange letter in their tooltip. But let's face it: legendaries are the most interesting and coveted items in the game. In patch 5.4, many players who have never before been able to equip a legendary item will have their first opportunity, thanks to Wrathion's schemes. The quest line for our legendary cloaks has been the longest and most elaborate legendary quest line to date, spanning over multiple tiers of raiding. But how did it all begin? What was WoW's first legendary quest line? Let's take a look back to remember the legend of Thunderfury.
Researchers find 12 easily captured near-Earth asteroids
Both NASA and Planetary Resources dream of capturing asteroids, but they need viable targets -- many space rocks aren't easily moved. The University of Strathclyde just gave those organizations some help by identifying 12 near-Earth asteroids that are relatively easy to catch. All of them would require velocity changes of less than 1,640 feet per second to fall into orbit around Earth's Lagrangian points, where the gravity balance would let miners and researchers get to work. Don't expect intercept missions anytime soon, though. One of the more accessible targets, 2006 RH120, would have to be nudged in February 2021 to reach orbit in 2026; it will be a long while before any of us sees an asteroid up close.
Apple pushed to investigate source of tin used in iPhones
Apple is investigating claims that tin used in its products comes from mines on Bangka Island in Indonesia. This comes after environmental watchdog Friends of the Earth (FoE) pressured the tech giant to identify the source of the metal used for soldering components in iDevices. While the island region is one of the largest suppliers of tin in the world, mining conditions are far from ideal. Landslides consistently claim the lives of workers, and mining itself has had an adverse effect on the local environment. The group successfully pressured Samsung to admit its involvement with the area's tin supplies in April. For its part, Apple commissioned a fact-finding visit to learn more and is helping to fund a new study on mining in the region so they "can better understand the situation." Or maybe they could save some time and money by reading the one conducted by The Guardian and FoE from last November. You know, the one that found that unregulated tin mining leans heavily on child labor, destroys the environment and causes on average 100 - 150 miner fatalities every year. Cupertino has already vowed to not use conflict minerals and appointed a former EPA administrator to focus on its environmental efforts, so it at least looks responsible. Now to see if it can back up its actions.
Star Trek Online encourages fleets to pretty up their mines
Captains of Star Trek Online, we ask you -- is your fleet's Dilithium Mine nice and pretty? Of course not; it's a mine. You're digging up valuable minerals, not holding a nice dinner party. But you could still opt for a foyer that's at least a little more welcoming, put up some nice viewports... you get the idea. In fact, the next special fleet project will allow you to do just that, turning your entryway into something... not beautiful, but less miserable! As with other special projects, this project must be started during the designated event period (between July 11th and July 25th), but it can be continued even after the event ends. Completion removes some floor space for a nicer view, allows extra space to display environmental suits, and generally makes your mine's entryway less drab. So yes, the captain still needs to toil away at mining, but at least the path to mining can feel somewhat swanky.
Apple's 'destroying tropical forests, wrecking lives,' according to Friends of the Earth
If you were at certain Apple Stores last weekend, you may have seen some people picketing the company and leaving message tags next to display models of Macs, iPhones and iPads. The picketers are Friends of the Earth activists who are trying to raise awareness of the environmental impact tin mining is having on the islands of Indonesia. Tin is used in every electronics product on the planet, including Macs, iPads and iPhones. Macworld explains the reasoning behind the protest: Friends of the Earth claims that due to the "dangerous and unregulated" tin mining on Bangka, in 2011 an "average of one miner a week died in an accident." The activists also claim coral and sea life is threatened due to silt from tin mining, which they claim is "killing coral reefs and seagrass eaten by turtles, driving away fish and ruining fishermen's livelihoods." In addition soil has become acidic after the destruction of forests for tin mining, making conditions difficult for farmers. The average 650-gram iPad contains 1.3 grams of tin (used in soldering). While it may seem unfair that Friends of the Earth has only targeted Apple (when everyone who makes electronics uses tin), if you want your activism to be noticed and your message to reach the widest possible audience, you picket the company that gets the most press and that also happens to be the largest consumer technology company on the planet (both Apple). Friends of the Earth has written to Apple CEO Tim Cook regarding the issue, but as of yet, no return correspondence has been publicized. Image from Rachel Kennerley Twitter feed.
A beginner's guide to WoW's gathering professions
As soon as your character hits level 5, it's time to pick up a profession -- or two or three! Each character you have can take two primary professions -- herbalism, mining, skinning, alchemy, blacksmithing, enchanting, engineering, leatherworking, tailoring, jewelcrafting, or inscription -- as well as however many secondary professions -- cooking, fishing, first aid, and archaeology -- they want. Primary professions are typically categorized as "gathering" professions -- herbalism, mining, and skinning -- that allow you to collect materials and "crafting" professions -- alchemy, blacksmithing, enchanting, engineering, leather working, tailoring, jewel crafting, and inscription -- that allow you to create items. When choosing a primary profession, it's good to pick two that work well together: say, a crafting skill that uses the items you collect with a gathering skill. This means herbalism is typically paired with alchemy or inscription; mining is typically paired with blacksmithing, jewelcrafting, or engineering; skinning is usually paired with leatherworking; and enchanting and tailoring can be paired with anything (though often players will pair them together and use goods created by tailoring to level their enchanting). But if you aren't terribly interested in crafting or just want to give your character a leg up with money-making, you could pick up a pair of gathering professions and take whatever you gather while you're leveling to sell to crafters on the auction house. As to secondary professions, since you're not limited on the number you can take, you can really grab as many as interest you. Not sure where to start with all these choices? We'll walk you through it.
EVE Evolved: Fanfest 2013 video roundup
Last month saw the huge tenth anniversary EVE Online Fanfest, a three-day convention packed full of exclusive reveals, behind-the-scenes talks, and community events. This year's Fanfest was the biggest one yet, celebrating EVE's tenth anniversary with special guest speakers from the scientific community, the reveal of a new virtual reality dogfighter, DUST 514's launch, and details of the upcoming Odyssey expansion. Massively was there to bring you coverage of the big news as it happened, and CCP streamed some of the key talks and events live to viewers at home. This year's Fanfest sold out so quickly that many people who wanted to go didn't get a chance to, and only a select few talks were shown on the public livestream. With such a packed event schedule, even players in attendance couldn't be there for every interesting talk. Thankfully, CCP recorded over 30 of the most anticipated events and has now uploaded the videos to YouTube. Highlights include the Make EVE Real videos, the EVE keynote, the CCP Presents Keynote, and the talks on how DUST 514 integrates with the EVE economy. In this week's EVE Evolved, I round up all of the EVE Fanfest videos in a handy list.
Patch 5.3: Mining and herbalism able to be leveled exclusively in Pandaria
A fair while back, Blizzard Lead Systems Designer Greg " Ghostcrawler" Street tweeted that the development team would be looking to implement catch-up mechanics, similar to those in place for cooking, to other professions. Blacksmithing had its changes, and now Mining and Herbalism are next on the agenda. MMO-Champion reported today on some changes on the patch 5.3 PTR, that make the grind to level these professions a whole lot easier. I went onto the PTR, with a pre-made level 90, and learned apprentice herbalism and mining, then went and found some nodes. The tooltip shows the nodes as orange and they can be mined by characters who have only just learned the profession, with a skill level of 1, as can be seen from the image after the break.
EVE Fanfest 2013 day two: World of Darkness, Odyssey, and EVE Virtual Reality with the Oculus Rift
EVE Online's tenth anniversary Fanfest promised to be its biggest yet, with over 1,400 players packed into Iceland's Harpa convention centre to find out the latest on EVE Online, DUST 514, and World of Darkness. The first day focused mainly on DUST and its link with the EVE universe, but today the focus largely switched back to internet spaceships. There were plenty of roundtable discussions, and the CSM and Alliance panels were as awesome as ever, but it was the EVE Keynote that really blew the crowd away. The day got off to a good start with the highly anticipated World of Darkness talk. Most fans were probably expecting to see more airy game design ideas and another shiny trailer, but this year CCP just came out and put all its cards on the table. We saw that the game is still firmly in pre-production, with much of the previous work going into developing the engine and cool content creation tools and shaders. While I was initially disappointed at the lack of gameplay progress or shiny cinematics, I found this approach of being open and direct with fans very refreshing. As I told WoD art director Thomas Holt, honest beats shiny every time. Read on for a full run-down of the EVE reveals from the second day of EVE's tenth anniversary Fanfest, including in-depth details of the Odyssey expansion's features.
EVE Online plans major mining and industry revamp for Odyssey
Details of EVE Online's exploration-focused Odyssey expansion have been floating around since PAX East, but it seems the company saved some pretty huge changes to reveal at this year's tenth anniversary Fanfest. In two massive devblogs accompanying today's EVE Online Keynote speech, CCP Fozzie discussed plans to overhaul EVE's entire resource distribution system. Everything from asteroid and ice mining to moon harvesting and nullsec industry will be affected by the revamp. Miners will find their ice belts have been moved from static locations to hidden exploration sites that have to be scanned down, but to compensate it will now mine at double the normal rate. Normal asteroid mining in lowsec and nullsec is also due for a buff with the addition of large quantities of low-end minerals. Hidden asteroid belts will no longer need to be probed down but can be quickly located with the new Discovery scanner, and to top it off there'll even be new high quality ore sites that can only be found in prime areas of nullsec. Outpost industrial infrastructure is due for an update with new purchaseable upgrade paths expanding factory, office and research lab capabilities to the same level as fully-fledged empire stations. Lastly, moon minerals are finally being addressed with a redistribution of rare materials and several new reaction paths to bypass current bottlenecks. A lot of value will be moved from Technetium back to rarer materials like Thulium, Neodymium, Promethium and Dysprosium, and new supplies of all four will be distributed randomly into moons across the universe. Re-scan all of your nearby moons when Odyssey lands because it could suddenly be worth a fortune! Whether you're a die-hard fan of internet spaceships or just a gawker on the sidelines, EVE Fanfest is the EVE Online event of the year (and the key source of new DUST 514 and World of Darkness scoops!). Follow Massively's Brendan Drain as he reports back on this year's Fanfest starpower, scheming, and spoilers from exotic Reykjavik, Iceland.
Building the perfect fortress in Camelot Unchained [Updated]
The Camelot Unchained team has just released a new video dev blog for Kickstarter backers outlining some fairly ambitious plans for mining and construction in the upcoming PvE-free sandbox. The system will involve combinations of custom and prefab cells in which players so inclined can build up the empires and trading posts and fortifications of their dreams. And in a nod to games like Minecraft, the construction mechanics are built on a foundation of supplies procured through co-op mining gameplay. Ahead of the reveal, we asked City State Entertainment's Mark Jacobs a few questions about the systems he's proposing, from the influence of Mojang's popular sandbox to whether mining will become my new part-time job. Read on for the complete interview! [Update: As of Monday, CSE has also released the document form of the housing plans.]
EVE Evolved: Temporarily fixing starbases
With its exploration-focused Odyssey expansion on the way, EVE Online is about to be hit with a deluge of players (new and old) venturing into the unknown. The expansion will introduce the yet-to-be-revealed Discovery Scanner and will add a ton of new exploration content all across New Eden. Odyssey aims to follow the lead of 2009's Apocrypha expansion, which saw hundreds of corporations lead lucrative expeditions into uncharted wormhole systems. We don't yet know whether the expansion will open new systems for exploration, but when Odyssey goes live, the race will be on to find and lay claim to all the goodies hidden in deep space. With no stations to dock at in wormhole space, corps currently have to store everything in destructible starbases that aren't really up to the task. Player-owned starbases were released in 2004 as sandbox-style tools for tech 2 industry and alliance territorial warfare. They were never intended to be the sole base of operations for an entire corporation, so they suffer from some pretty severe security and usability flaws as a result. Theft from ship and item hangars in wormhole space is commonplace, setting up corp roles for them is a nightmare, and living exclusively in a starbase provides a daily dose of frustration players could seriously do without. CCP has been planning to completely overhaul player-owned starbases for years, but some of today's issues can't afford to wait any longer. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at some of the chronic problems faced by starbase-dwelling explorers and how CCP plans to temporarily fix some of them for Odyssey.
The Art of Wushu: Making silver through harvesting
I got a lot of backlash over the last installment of The Art of Wushu. While the issues over pay-to-win are understandable, an overwhelming number of you seemed to disbelieve the amount of silver I was able to produce daily. Some of you protested my 1D/daily figure (which is on the high side), while others questioned whether I could make even 500L per day. My email was flooded with people asking me to share some of my secrets. I was going to talk about movement and parkour this time, but because you guys asked, you'll get an answer. "How do I make money in Age of Wushu," you ask? Let's cover the easy ways to make money. These are methods that literally any player, regardless of subscription status or level, can take advantage of. This time we're going to cover harvesting -- what sells and what doesn't. Let's get started.
The Soapbox: Using MMOs to relax and unwind
Every now and then, everyone needs to take a break from the hustle and bustle of everyday life to relax and unwind. The outside world can be loud, and the stresses of work and home life can add up quickly, so it helps to be able to switch off for a while. Some of us find relaxation in sitting down in front of the TV, others in zoning out to their favourite music, and an increasing number of people now wind down with computer games. I've personally found MMOs to be incredibly effective refuges from stress and anxiety, but until now I've never really thought about why that might be. Any game can provide a few hours of escape from the daily grind, but there's something special about MMOs that seems to make them more comforting places to be. Certainly MMOs are manufactured to give a sense of solid progress as you play, a fairness that the unpredictability of real life often can't deliver, but there has to be more to it. Do the music and ambient sounds in EverQuest II's virtual forests and glens produce the same reaction as walking through a real life wood? Likewise, does EVE Online trick us into slowing down, and is spending time in a virtual world just more appealing than slogging along in the real one? In this opinion piece, I look at some of the most relaxing areas and activities I've found in MMOs and try to figure out what makes them tick.
EVE Evolved: Retribution is freaking awesome!
Shortly after the Retribution expansion's deployment, a thread popped up on the EVE Online forums that proved to me that the expansion had been a massive success. In the thread titled So that's what victory in this game feels like, miner Tiberius StarGazer explained that he has always felt like he had no way to get back at people who wronged him. After losing millions of ISK in ships to pirate attacks, he was almost ready to give up on EVE. But when Retribution landed, he was able to sell his kill rights to the public so that every player vigilante who crossed his attacker's path could try to take him down without warning. After just a few hours, Tiberius got a notification that put a smile on his face: He had his first taste of revenge. He'd dealt more damage back to his attacker by clicking a button than had ever been done to him, and the attacker wasn't happy about it. He threatened to find Tiberius and kill him again, and that simple miner's reply said all I needed to know about how successful Retribution has been: "I have deep pockets. Every kill you make on me, I will add as a bounty on your corp; every kill right, I will sell. I can't fight you but others can and you will have to lose five times my loss for wronging me." Retribution has finally given industrialists a reliable way to get revenge and use their wealth as a weapon! In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at the PvP that's springing up in empire space, how the new flagging mechanics affect baiting, and what the ship revamp means for new players.
Patch 5.1: Ore and herb spawn rates reduced by 50%
Since patch 5.1's release, players have noticed a peculiar absence of ore nodes and plants in Pandaria. This leads one to wonder -- was this an intentional change, or is this simply a result of far too many people picking posies and mining the continent's wealth away? The question was answered by Daxxarri yesterday, and it was a direct answer: Yes, those plants and ore nodes are spawning less rapidly, and yes, it was intended. Daxxarri Mining and Herb spawn rates in Pandaria have been reduced by approximately 50% in patch 5.1, and this is indeed an intended change. These are in addition to the hotfix that was applied in 5.0.5 to lower the spawn rate of Ghost Iron. In all of these cases, the reduction was prompted because the resources were too abundant, resulting in ore and herbs being undervalued, and also therefore the effort that our herbalists and miners put in to collect each node. We'll be monitoring the situation, though, and should the current rates prove to be too low then we'll make further adjustments as necessary. source Unfortunately, while having plentiful supplies is certainly useful, when you have too many supplies on hand there's little to no demand for them. This makes sense, but a 50% reduction sounds a little drastic. However, Blizzard will be monitoring the situation, so lest you be worried that prices are going to skyrocket overnight, rest assured that the spawn rate may be further adjusted in the future. Mists of Pandaria is here! The level cap has been raised to 90, many players have returned to Azeroth, and pet battles are taking the world by storm. Keep an eye out for all of the latest news, and check out our comprehensive guide to Mists of Pandaria for everything you'll ever need to know.
EVE Evolved: How would you build a sandbox?
Themepark MMOs and single-player games have long dominated the gaming landscape, a trend that currently seems to be giving way to a resurgence of sandbox titles. Though games like Fallout and the Elder Scrolls series have always championed sandbox gameplay, very few publishers seem willing to throw their weight behind open-world sci-fi games. Space simulator Elite was arguably the first open-world game in 1984, and EVE Online is currently closing in on a decade of runaway success, yet the gaming public's obsession with space exploration has remained relatively unsatisfied for years. Crowdsourced funding now allows gamers to cut the publishers out of the picture and fund game development directly. Space sandbox game Star Citizen is due to close up its crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter tomorrow night, adding over $1.6 million US to its privately crowdfunded $2.7 million. The creator of Elite has also launched his own campaign to fund a sequel, and even the practically vapourware sandbox MMO Infinity has announced plans to launch a campaign. While not all of these games will be MMOs, it may not be long before EVE Online has some serious competition. EVE can't really change much of its fundamental gameplay, but these new games are being built from scratch and can change all the rules. If you were making a new sandbox MMO from the ground up and could change anything at all, what would you do? In this week's EVE Evolved, I consider how I'd build a sandbox MMO from the ground up, what I'd take from EVE Online, and what I would change.
