EVE General Discussion

The rationale behind the current campaign is that they can make a crapton of money and have fun in the process.

But no, their thinking mining is boring does not mean the game isn't for them. If they thought that mining should not be allowed because they think it's boring, then you might be on to something, but that's not the case. They love that mining is allowed, because it allows them to have fun… with the miners.

That was indeed the skinny, now let me put some meat on it for you:

1. Directional scanner is of limited use in most systems where range becomes a huge factor. Cutting scan range also cuts response time to a point where a mining vessel has no hope in hell of escaping unless its active aligned 100% of the time.

2. Gank boats are also very commonly used for missions, carebearing and noob-joyrides .. cheap and effective. It is impossible to tell from scanner if the ship approaching is pvp or pve so a silly thing to say.

3. Being aligned has no impact on escape chance unless it is an active alignment. Mining lasers are not exactly known for their super range and the ships take a fortnight to turn/reset after active alignment took them out of range .. extremely bad advise!
Better to tell them that they should mine in a BS .. Rohk is pretty good I hear.

4. Watch for danger in high-sec where anyone can wield a gun and they are not actually considered criminals until after the fact?

*****WARNING: NEXT BIT NOT FOR REAL WORLD SOFTIES**********
What you are essentially saying is that the victims of a shooting like the Columbine massacre are partially to blame because they had all the tools available to prevent it themselves (report odd one out to cops, use body-armour, keeping everyone at arms reach etc.).
When the real culprits are laws that allow firearms in the general population and the atmosphere of "every man for himself/world is what you make it"
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In short: Not your best work Hans

…and staying aligned (no “active” — it's a meaningless distinction) is good practice regardless. You can also filter the scanner quite well.
Joyrides, maybe. Missions and carebearing? Not so much. The most popular mission/carebear ships are rather useless as gank boats because they have the wrong kind of damage delivery.
Again, “active” alignment does not exist. Either you're aligned, or you're not. There is no “active” distinction. Moreover, as previously mentioned, you have a 30km window for a strip miner, and in the time it takes to travel that distance, you will have filled up your cargo hold, so it's time to dump that cargo somewhere anyway.
Criminals are habitual creatures and quite easy to keep track of if you go on an intel hunting spree.

As for your silly Columbine Highschool analogy, yes, it would have been the victims' fault if it were located, not in Columbine, but it Murdertown, Killsalot County, in the proud state of StabYouInTheFace, where the national sport was blowing up your neighbour's house (and where your neighbour would get very upset and no longer invite you for his traditional Christmas poisonfest if you didn't blow him up). The difference in culture between Columbine, CO and Murdertown, SYITF would generate rather drastic differences in how accountability and guilt is determined.

What are you talking about? Of course there are supposed to be Brutixes and Thrasher gangs around mining belts, we keep the belts clean of... impurities.

Your inability to differentiate from the real world and a game is disturbing.

Yes people who suicide gank are sadistic and enjoy causing rage, tears, and other sorts of wonderful things however we are aware that a game is not real life. So while you might want to shoot that person in the face for constantly yammering about his irritating children, you pause because of the repercussions that would occur in life and the consequences your actions will take beyond some hurt feelings and angry tears. And it's so much fun!

Apples to bazookas.

I love you.

I as a active miner, and have been since day 1 I have only been ganked a few times and each time it was my own fault.

There is a lot a person can do to minimize the risks.

If you want to mine afk then you have to be prepared to lose your ship at some point.

When I mine the first thing I do is spend a few days scouting out each belt in system.

This allows me to spot anybody who is constantly mining in the same belt. These guys usually make the tastiest target for ganking so I stay away.

Once I have settled on 4 - 5 belts I create 2 BM for each. I never mine in the same belt twice in the row if alone as you are just asking for trouble.

1st BM is a spot away from the warp in spot and clear of any roids, the 2nd BM is 500km out from the belt.

When I arrive at the belt I immediately align to my 2nd BM spot so there is no obstacle in my way if I am required to warp.

I then open D-Scan and set a range of about 150,000km.. why

Any PvP ship in this radius would give strong indication that it is heading towards the belt.

If any PvP ship does come into D-Scan range I hit max speed, if they do arrive in the belt I am already at max speed to warp.

I also tank my hulk to something like 22k EHP.

So yeah I can still be ganked but I know that the dude who is afk mining in the same belt hour upon hour with no tank is going to get hit longer before I will as he is the easier target.

First of all thanks to the OP for trying to educate miners.
Most of your points are accurate, but not easily applicable to the kind of mining many High Sec miners do.
But it has spawned a nice thread on this forum until it somehow derivated into something awf... eh... else again for a while.

I think you can divide miners into three groups - no matter where they are:

Botters: And the more of them die, the better because botting is just lame.
Mining Corps: Well, a corp solely made up of miners that only mine is kind of lame. Still, they can adjust.
Solo Miners in NPC corps.

Lately I have a feeling there are many many NPC corp solo miners who want to while their time away (r)isk free in the high sec belts.

This never has been and never should be possible. High sec is safer than low and 0-sec, but lets assume some people get their will and suicide ganks get forbidden, Concord will always be there to safe the poor lambs before harm comes to them.
You can take a bath, read a book, etc, while mining (especially ice mining). You can! But there should always be a risk to it!
Namely, you being blown up just like any mission runner can get careless or PVPer can be blown up or... you get it: Just any player.

Also, many are so used to their solo game style & their paranoia, that they don't see a chance when it hits them in their face.
Just an example: Before this Goons-"campaign" started, I was Ice Mining a bit myself, mostly because I was bored anyway, and was waiting for a buy order to fill up - which it rapidly did - so I could fill up my freighter with the ice the others were mining, reprocess at 100% and resell at a much higher rate in another system.

I had mis-calculated though and I still had room inside my freighter. Out of sheer goodness I asked some of those I had chatted with while looking at hypnotic beams, if they wanted to contract me their ice. I even gave them the resell rate I would get for the refined products. They would safe themselves a trip, would make far more income and would get their payout immediately. I didn't even plan in a profit for myself. There was a long silence and then one of them said: "Nice try... obvious scam!" At which point I thought: "OK, F-yourselves" placed a new buy order for another day and went off on my ways.
Of course, looking at EVEWalletAware later on, they had still sold me their ice...

So good luck anyone trying to unite that kind of miner!

Now, suicide ganking: As said before, it should not be 100% risk free to do anything in EVE. On the other hand I agree that suicide ganking in itself is a horrible game mechanic. They need to make some fundamental changes there.

It doesn't make sense lorewise. You have a non-capsuleer mostly human crew on board of anything larger than a frigate. While capsuleers might not care, I think there would be a true effort to stop him once his intentions became clear.

There should be no insurance for suicide ganking. If I roll my car down a cliff and cheer while doing so, no insurance would pay me for it. Much less so probably when I went on an amok spree.

Also, it makes it viable only for targets you especially hate or for those gankers who don't care anyway how many ships they lose, because they can replace them any time they want. Why should only the Goons have fun?

Lastly it is incredibly lame shooting sitting ducks for no reason. (Well, ok, there are reasons. But...)

I think the dangers for NPC miners should come from new mechanics for pirate players and/or FW.
People in NPC corps more or less work for their relative state anyway.

Now, just a quick brainstorming.

Let say at a certain rank in FW you can determine some valid "industrial targets". You get a selection of enemy systems and anything in NPC Corps (enemy industrial targets) in the system you pick will be a valid target for you and like five also-FW fleet members for the duration of say five hours or so time. I know, it will be interesting alone to get there, but the choice would be more or less random. And instead of concord warping to the rescue, it should be police forces. Still tough ones, but defeatable.
So more or less kind of a letter of marque. And lets say they are limited in number, so not every system becomes a war target at all times. But: There should also be no warning of course.

Something similar could be made for pirates. (Pirate FW would be fun anyway! "Ho, me mateys!")

Just an idea, probably not even a good one.

THEN one can also think about tougher mining ships. But never ever should anything in EVE be 100% safe.
/brainstorm

That actually sounds like fun, too. Unite to kill the madman! Bring tar, feathers, torches, pitchforks and a ship with guns on it!

The you were too slow. I logged in once with less than 100 on-line.