CSC's Mining Expedition Alpha - 1 Week In

aristo80 (52)in #crypto • 6 years ago (edited)

Crypto Space Commander’s first mini-game, dubbed Mining Expedition Alpha (MEA),has been live for less than a week now. The goal of this mini-game is to distribute game resources to participating players, in order to jumpstart the expansive CSC game economy. The mini-game map encompasses an area of roughly 30 light-years around Earth, planets within this space have been seeded with 100,000,000 total units of ore.

Ships are available in 3 weight classes: Intrepid (small), Corsair (medium) and Prometheus (large). During the MEA event, these ships have a resource payload of 10, 40 and 300 respectively. In addition to a ship’s base payload, there is also a multiplier factor called AIME (A.I. Mining Efficiency). Each time a ship is assigned a mining mission, it is awarded 1 more AIME point, the equivalent of +25% of it’s base payload. For instance, a Prometheus class ship with a base ore capacity of 300, after being sent on its first mission will now have an adjusted payload of 375 (300 + 25%). After it’s second mission it will have a payload of 450 (300 + 50%). As the MEA event progresses, players will be able to build up very significant AIME multipliers before the minigame’s 100 million ore balance is exhausted.
My travel screen 2b.png
MEA began last Thursday, May 10th, minutes afterward players from across the globe were dispatching their ships in all directions. Since then I have been doing my best to keep my fleet productive, while keeping an eye on fuel costs.

My experience so far has been fun. The interface is basically point, click and wait X-number of hours, but there is to think about than just MEA’s GUI. For example, I spend some time between missions planning my next move. There are dozens of minable star systems, each with it’s own cache of ore. Some planets are rich in one mineral and some with another, but they are all at different distances from Sol. The largest deposits of rare minerals are said to be found far from Earth, hence they take more time to mine.

Time is a big factor when considering your next move. A Corsair class ship, for example, is capable of traveling at 2.5 light-years per hour. If the planet you want to mine is 20ly away it will take 8 hours to get there, plus an hour of mining done by ship A.I., and another 8 hours to get back, that is 17 hours round trip. The same mission with a Prometheus class ship would take nearly 24 hours, an Intrepid class would only take 11.

Once a ship is sent out, it cannot be recalled or rerouted, you just have to wait for the A.I. to complete its mission. This can be a significant wait, therefore it is a good idea to calculate a schedule for your ships that will also work for you.
Aristo's Fleet.PNG
My fleet consists of one of each of the presale ships (check availability), so my issue is not ships, it’s gas. Choosing a ‘safe low’ has not proven safe this week. When I am not babysitting my transactions my ships are often left “pending” in their hangars. Now I wouldn’t say that I am cheap, well… OK fine, so I am cheap, I pinch pennies! And as luck would have it Ethereum network congestion is high and expected to stay high for another week. But despite the gas costs, I have done my best to keep my ships moving.

I have managed 6 trips in my harvester in as many days, netting me a 150% mining bonus and several thousand ore. On it’s fifth voyage, it came back with a very favorable mix of ore and I plan to return to that same planet a few more times.

My corsair has flown one more mission than my harvester, for a total of 7. Although not as fast as my Interceptor, it holds 4x as much ore, and is still way faster than a harvester. I have been sending it out with near standard gas rates (around 8 Gwei this week). With its increased speed, I target more distant stars and still make it back in about the same time.

My Interceptor has unfortunately only left the hangar once so far. I have been setting the gas to 3 and under, in hopes of squeezing into an underfilled block. It’s latest attempt has been pending for about 30 hours. It’s a shame I can’t afford to raise the gas, these little ships return with a disproportionate amount of the rarest ores.

Even before this MEA event started, a handful of CSC discord users banded together and formed what has become a guild. All members have agreed to set aside a portion of their collected ore to be used at a future date to secure ships, stations and whatever items are needed for the good (and profitability) of the guild. I don’t normally guild up this early, but given the potential possibilities and complexity of CSC’s economic system, I feel it would be a wise business move to do so. Feel free to give us a shout in the CSC Discord channel ‘Dark Horizon’. Another member took the liberty of creating a useful database to keep track of our mining hauls, which has been very helpful when choosing my next mission target.

It is not too late to jump in on CSC and this minigame, in fact it is super early. Alpha testing is not starting for several months, so if you want to join us “early adopters” please do. The more players, the better. Please enlist here using my referral : https://www.csc-game.com/enlist

CSC's Mining Expedition Alpha - 1 Week In

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