I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to think of this, but open space resource mining could use just one more slight tweak: ore cores!
When mining asteroids, there should be a constant rare (<5%) chance that a “core” of a certain resource be dropped, being the equivalent of 5-10 normal ores of that type.
Getting a perfect extraction should guarantee a core, and “rich mineral” asteroids should also guarantee a core for the top two drop tiers. (4 and 5)
Essentially, mining the specific ore you need would be a lot more effective than just mining normal asteroids or rich asteroids. This would also reward players who dedicate the time and energy to mining in open space, and bring more pilots in to this mode.
The cores: Appear in the workshop and can either be left as a trophy or converted to their respective items.
-Crystal Core: converted to 10 crystal shards in the hangar.
-Osmium Core: converted to 10 osmium ore in the hangar.
-Graphite Core: converted to 10 graphite ore in the hangar.
-Silicon Core: converted to 10 silicon ore in the hangar.
-Vanadium Core: converted to 10 vanadium ore in the hangar.
-Valuable Core: converted to 5 million credits in the hangar. (Drops from rich asteroids)
-Iridium Core: converted to 150 iridium in the hangar. (Drops from rich asteroids)
-Glimmering Core: converted to 15 million credits in the hangar. (Drops from gold asteroids)