Something to boost mining?

[Hunbaba]

Although, to your point, what else would haulers use their weapon mounts for?

Pirate attacks could be different. Meaning you can defend against them if you are properly prepared. Higher level, tougher pirate to beat. When event is triggered, you are tagged as 'battle lost'. If you manage to beat them back, your tag is changed to 'battle won' before penalties/rewards are given at the end of event. This is to prevent terminating sessions to avoid such events. Or perhaps pirate strength is according to LL you are in, so lower LLs will be more difficult to tread in.

So there is a possible use of a gun/missile slot for a trader instead of a mining laser that gives cargo boost .

[mropso]

If something is needed to boost mining - and I am not sure it is, then it should be related to your Miners Rank not your level.

My concern with mining is that there seems to be a big step between "traditional mining" using conventional scanners and the "Rigal scanner mining". I would have liked a step by step approach where the standard of mining laser made a difference as one progressed.

By the way I love the idea of having to respond to pirate attacks with the configuration at the point of contact.