There was one guy who had an idea for a “thresher drone” that players would use for mining, but I don’t know if what he proposed there is a good idea or even feasible to implement.
Now with that said, I like the idea of mining beams being interactive rather than something you just turn on and wait to fill up your cargo hold. It would probably reduce the amount of multiboxing miners to zero, but I’m not sure if that would be good or bad for the game’s health.
As for mining drones, I prefer the idea of them being something you use to make mining from an asteroid easier to do instead of being able to mine on their own. That this would make Industrial Command and Capital ships unable to mine on their own is something that I think you would all like, if the complaining about them is anything to go by.