EVE General Discussion

"We have mining....snicker....it is what it is" -CCP Soundwav

Why do you, and a large majority of players, look down on mining as the ginger stepchild of eve? I think there are four reasons:
1 Mining is an old profession that has changed little (added barges, exhumers, orcas, rorquals and hidden belts, what am I missing?) since the begining of eve. Vets remember when it was harder and more competitive with other income sources, and have at least a decent reason to look down on newer miners that "have it easy"

2 The additions that have come were dropped in the game, and have gotten little love since. Barges are next to useless other than mining while training for exhumers; have fun emptying that retriever twice per cycle. You seem to have forgotten the t2 industrial core when you added other t2 siege modules; ice miners would love an extra compression line or two. The devblog with the whiteboard of awsomeness for nullsec, said it's industry should be self sufficient; hidden belts could use some looking at with that in mind. The only miners happy with the current hidden belt system are people that dont understand or just dont care about the economics of the mineral basket, and high sec miners who benefit from it

3 The mechanics of mining are only part of the LOL factor. Alliances have no need for local industry, outside the final stage of supercap building. Miners and extra POSes are just more easy targets for bad guys to come after, and everything that most players can build is easily jump freightered from Jita to your home station. Goons and friends are perfect examples of this, as shown by the production map in fanfest

4 Since the alliances dont need the miners, we try to keep as low a profile as possible. Attention from outsiders (or that spy inside your alliance) is the death of a mining op. Keeping invisible leads to us having no voice in anything. I point to CCP asking the CSM about the current cloaking mechanics; how frequently do any them do any type of carebearing? Mittens hardly even logs into the game, and a goon's entire existence online is for the sole purpose of griefing. (yes, I know the CSM is not all goons) I have to post on a jita alt just to keep from being watchlisted by 800 afk cloaker alts


But wait, Mr Mays, we have a new mining feature coming out soon!!
If planetary ring mining follows the same path that ore mining has, it will quickly become just another part of the profession that players laugh at and shun. I like what was said about ring mining being a group activity similar to incursions, but that is not enough to prevent it from slipping into the same state as ore mining. With more resources available, prices will eventually fall to levels that make it pointless in the eyes of most players. If its not profitable enough, and the alliance doesn't need you there doing it, the only people that actually go out and mine will have to do so in silence and secrecy


Solutions? Two that I've seen on the forums frequently:
1 Increase jump freighter fuel requirements? This wouldn't be much change for alliances within 1-2 jumps of high sec, but it would be absurd for those poor souls that are 5-6 jumps out
2 Make null sec production faster and/or more mineral efficient? This would clearly help cause more production in null, but I doubt much else of the problem would change; it would also be the death of most high sec production (that's bad). I think most players, who built in null, would still wind up selling a large portion of their items to the larger customer base in Jita. This still has the problem of the alliance not needing your production


Would a better solution be SLIGHTLY (I really cannot emphasize that word enough, SLIGHTLY as in you would prefer to have it, it would be nice and helpful, but its not game breaking if you dont, and not overpowered to the point of being an IWIN button) improved quality items,that are only usable by your own corp or alliance, built from locally aquired minerals. So long as the item is in your corp or alliance, it has some SLIGHTLY improved stats.

Did I emphasize slightly enough?

What do I mean by improved? There are numerous ways this could be done, extra cpu/pg, more armor/shield buffer, 6% bonus per skill level in place of 5%, or some combination of these. Similar buffs could be added to modules and ammo stats.

-pros
--alliances would definately have stronger, active industry groups. What player, FC, alliance leader doesn't want to get the most out of what he's putting in the battle?
--mining operations and systems might actually become valuable enough that people want to help protect them
--massive isk sink, depending if this would require different blueprints...oh the humanity
--jita might drop below 1000 in local from time to time, doubtful

-cons
--programming this might suck; either adding new items or adding a tag to current items to differentiate locally acquired ore/minerals and regular v locally corp built items
--players, corps, and/or alliances would have to plan more in advance (is this really a con) in order to continually replace their improved items lost in battle
--players without access to these items would be at a disadvantage and cry on the forums for years to come. My response: you dont need this for running missions or incursions, if you really want it, join a null corp





TLDR--give alliances a reason to want local industry in their space

changing the mechanics of mining does nothing to make alliances want you mining/building in their space

Yeah, that was mostly just an idea to make botting more difficult and maybe more interesting for human players. The first points concern feasibility of mining and industry outside hisec.

I cant really see much wrong with the way things are for mining. I do look forward to the planetary rings mining alrite, but mining is what it is, a simple thing that you can do simply! Kinda hard to come up with different ways to chew through rocks.

I do like your ideas though, even though it more focuses on alliances rather than the small corps or single miners.

And the easy to do while you do other things is a huge factor for me, i would not of gotten nearly enough study done for my uni exams if i wasnt able to simply mine at the same time! I might of even failed my exams! You dont want me to fail my exams do you? :(