Science & Industry

To be clear first let me state, that this is only my opinion, and I do not really know if it came up in this form or not, or if this is the best solution. My intention is to see whether the community likes these ideas or not.

I have recently started a mining alt, just to see, what all the fuss is about around botting, and I just like gathering professions as such. Today my alt is around 3 days old, and have been mining in a Burst. Watching the cycles and jettisoning the minerals, then getting in an industrial to gather them is really boring. I could say it is even more boring then it is in World of Warcraft which at least give you the joy of searching and seeing the world around you through the process.

Since I have not the knowledge of strip, gas cloud and ice belt mining I cannot say anything about them, but I do not imagine they having a much more complicated process, they just have a different setting as I understand.

Manual tasks which require the user to do the same thing over and over are what makes smart people think about how to skip them. Since people are lazy, but like riches, why not make a bot for this job? It is that simple, they mean no harm, they just do not like sitting around for hours nothing more than watching cycles and dark objects in a spaceship game.

In its current form of the game there is no mechanic that would make mining a challenge, or even remotely enjoyable to the masses. To change it in any way may make more enemies than friends, but I still feel mining should be more challenging and rewarding. There should be wars over who can mine what field. There should be patrols which sit around systems looking for potential threats to their wealth. NPC corporation members should be able to be attacked in high sec if they are mining where they are messing with other miners.

My first idea for improving the mining experience is to make mining lasers manually controllable with a new interface representing the mined asteroid. There should be also a mineral scanner which would analyze the asteroid and the mining operation on the fly. So basically you would see the asteroid's image much like in planetary interaction when searching for resources on the surface with color coded intensity of materials. Then you would aim with your lasers and control them according to the second to second analysis of your scanner data. Your lasers would be then generating materials in your cargohold according to your efficiency on focusing your lasers on the best areas.

Also the analyzer would provide an integrity data on the asteroid which would indicate if your activity in mining the middle portions of the asteroid more dangerous then mining from the surface to the middle. If you mine too much on the same point you may destroy the asteroid making you unable to mine it any more or decrease your yield to 0.

This type of mining would be only tolerable if it would have more rewards then the current type of mining. Having someone watch the screen and caring for making the most of the belt asteroids is exhausting. Making it effective to mine effectively, or just to destroy the belts of others would make the mining game more challenging.

The second idea would be to make asteroid belts a place of mini battleground over the materials. Mining the same asteroid would make an agression action on the second mining party enabling the first mining party to attack the second even in high security space. This way if miners would have people around protecting their interests they could shoot the ninjaminer even in high sec. Avoiding the conflict would be more and more difficult if the other party would go to your ship and mine around your asteroid and follow you until you try to mine one of their asteroids making you the aggressor and a legitimate target.

Imagine yourself mining alone, and then a fleet of mining barges and some destroyers drop on your belt. They would start mining the belt around you or even your asteroid making you uneasy, you would call your corp members to assist you. Even in NPC corps where myriads of newbies are this would make an opportunity to participate in high sec pvp. They would arrive with a bigger fleet of frigates and the fighting or slaughtering may begin.

It would make griefing much more easy against miners I understand that. But would also introduce a much more interesting mining concept. You could make the same output of minerals in one hour as you do it now with a bot in 24 hours. Making your priority to effectively mine the asteroid and not just running the laser on one point and leaving it on until the asteroid is destroyed, or reducing your yield to 0, making it inefficient way to mine. Watching the asteroid and other miners around would make it more difficult to be botted. Your bot would not be able recognize if someone has already started mining an asteroid or not, thus making you a legitimate target whereever you are.

It would not be simple but I think this system would make mining a lot more challenging and rewarding in flat mining experience, and pvp opportunities as well. Big mining fleets would roam high sec with eager pvpers to assist them, and high sec corps would have the opportunity to crush mining operations of others. Effective miners would prosper, botting miners would suffer, and mining pvpers would have the most fun of them all.

Miners have to play the long game, not the short game. Mining in the short-term is boring, frustrating, and low-paid. In the long term, it is the essential foundation of any industrialist career path. You learn which ores to mine, how to refine efficiently, how to read the market for buy/sell orders, how to arrange logistics and transport, and how to conduct everything efficiently enough to make a profit.

In the beginning, mining is probably the worst-paid profession in the game, and it stays that way for quite awhile (especially if you mine solo). Once you are able to fly a barge and some of the bigger industrial ships, though, the calculus starts to turn the other way and the ISK starts to flow a little more freely. Lots of miners "graduate" into manufacturing and leave mining behind, while others mine the minerals, refine, and manufacture goods in a completely integrated operation. None of this stuff carries the immediate thrill of shooting NPCs or other players, of course, but I find a deeper and more satisfying pleasure in slowly building my industrial empire in EVE -- let the rocket jockeys get their fancy ships blowed up; I'll make money off them when they come to buy new ships from me, or buy the minerals to build them themselves.

But...it all requires patience, and a willingness to grind a bit early on. If you came into the game simply wanting to play spacewar and feel like you're playing a mining sim instead, you might be focusing on the wrong aspect of the game: join a PVP corp like Red Vs Blue and start pew-ing. If you like exploration more, just throw a probe launcher on a ship and head out for the hinterlands. But if you intend to make ISK by mining, remember that patience and efficiency are absolutely essential.

One more word about the mining mechanic: it's not going to change any time soon. Players have been bitching about mining being boring ever since EVE was first launched. CCP may have plans to change the mechanic at some point, but it won't happen soon. (They're even planning to introduce a new mining frigate in the Winter expansion, which should make the new miner's heart swell with anticipation as they labor over asteroids in a Bantam.)

Have you actually tested that system so that you use d-scan, check local and keep eye on PvP tab on overview?

Would it still work?

I understand that it would create even more stress to miners, but I think with simple tagging mechanics it would work. Like when someone starts to mine an asteroid it would be tagged. But only when your mining lasers are on. Also when you would want to really mess with people mining, you would start to actively mine their asteroid in order to destroy it as soon as possible, not waiting until the asteroid is depleted. If they pvp, they would call in their reinforcement and destroy you, but you would be probably waiting for that, since you know mining their asteroid is criminal activity.

Since mining is the basis of the game, it makes sense to not change the basic principles, if it works as of today, and that is maybe CCP is trying to introduce new concepts of mining like planetary belt mining which would be something else as they say.

I would like to ask you to somehow think outside the box and see if these ideas would be a working mechanic or not, and would it spur more action, or more griefing, or something that you would welcome. If it is just dumb way to do mining it is, I just thought these simple things, though may not be simple to implement, could change mining to be a more welcoming and interesting profession as it is today, for at least the new players.

I think times have changed and mining though an important part of New Eden is not really attracting new players, it would be nice to see some statistics, how much of the current materials in the market come from 3 months or younger characters. I do not say that players not interested in the long term goal of making a mining/industrial empire will or should keep mining. It is just that if they get to know mining, and active mining, with the real danger of aggressing and dealing with the consequences of pvp would be more welcoming.

Sorry if I am being too persistent on this.

This could be better indeed, but it's not broken, bigger fish to fry atm.

First idea: No .. making something a hassle doesent make it fun.

Second idea: Just ... No.


Personally I have noticed that making gamechanging "super" ideas after few days of activity X .. is generally a bad idea.

2 words for you

RING MINING

push idea's into that its planned and needs exactly this kind of enthusiasm and participation.