Player Features and Ideas Discussion

UPDATE --- MY PROPOSAL HAS CHANGED DUE TO FEEDBACK BELOW:


/Backstory stuff:
I don't mine too much as I get bored easily, but I have thought of a potential idea to improve the mining experience slightly (not by much.. but it will be a small improvement). Also it will give gankers all over New Eden something to hunt for since there will be nice payout for looting the following module (keep reading..)


Anyway the problem with mining these days is mining something I like to refer to as 'dead ore'.
What is dead ore? -- I like to explain it simply with the following example:
You're mining veldspar... (I'm using veldspar for this example because it best represents my idea numerically) and you have a yield of 3,000m3 per cycle on your strip miner.
Now any experienced player knows that 1 unit of veldspar = 0.1m3 -- Therefore per cycle one can expect to ming 30,000 units of veldspar per cycle. This makes sense and we all know this.
Now this 30,000 per cycle only happens, assuming the asteroid being mined has 30,000 units or more left to mine... but if the asteroid has LESS than 30,000, then you will be mining 'dead ore' since you're wasting time with your strip miner still being active and thus this is ineffecient. Think if you have a veldspar asteroid with 500 units of veldspar in it. At 3,000 m3 per cycle, you can pop this asteroid almost immediately and move onto the next asteroid to improve efficiency and of course isk/hr.
/End of Backstory stuff


Now with the problem outlined... this is my actual proposal:
The survey scanner is not used as often by miners who have a firm grasp on what they are doing. Also there is a large problem with AFK mining and generally not being at the keyboard whilst 'playing?' the game.
Originally I thought maybe a new strip miner would work, but I have since been convinced otherwise.
Instead maybe a big rework on how the survey scanners work in the game would be beneficial.
If you use your survey scanner whilst mining an asteroid, it still pops up with the amount of units left in the asteroid you are mining (like it does already.. this function does not change), but it also adds a 'line'? (refer to the picture below) or some sort of indication when it is appropriate to disengage your mining laser to avoid mining 'dead ore'.
This will give miners an INCENTIVE to not be AFK whilst mining, and will improve their efficiency overall, if mining with a survey scanner and disengaging their mining lasers at the right time.

Picture of what this may look like after activating a survey scanner AFTER the mining laser is active on an asteroid (refer to the blue line on the spin cycle)
http://i.imgur.com/NOtrMEq.png


Hopefully a change like this will increase the use of the survey scanner modules, which will decrease the EHP on mining ships (making them easier to gank... because we know some players are into that..)
But also this change will hopefully reduce the amount of AFK playing in the game



I would appreciate any mature critisism and feedback

When you have mined for quite a while, you will simply look at the radius of the rock to see if it is worth mining.

Otherwise use a Survey scanner.

How about as a compromise, they dont change the spintime of the module automatically, but it gives an estimated time for when it would be appropriate to deactivate your strip miner (this stops people from afk mining but infact encourages them to be more active in order to maintain 95-100% efficiency)
Maybe they could implement this on the spintime of the module button itself -- there could be a bar on the module spintime that indicates when best to turn off the strip miner and move onto the next asteroid?

[url] http://i.imgur.com/NOtrMEq.png [/url]

This for example.... (refering to the blue line on the spin cycle) is the recommended time to disengage your mining laser, when the 'spin' reaches that point.
If left unmaintained, the cycle will continue past the line and to its full cycle and then deplete the asteroid... so for the miner who is lazy and non attentive, this will yield less ore/hr than the miner who is active, at his keyboard, NOT AFK MINING and who is paying attention to what is going on.
Due to the larger payouts, this will give miners an incentive to NOT be afk, and to actually be playing the game.. if they wish to gather more resources at a slightly more efficient rate

I would love that also... maybe just a small improvement to survey scanners is needed. They seem a little old, underused (due to always having to make consistant calculations) and could do with a good rework
Thanks for your positive feedback

bumpy

The "dead ore" left within the belt ,or created was done so purposely by other miners who have calculated the optimal time to deactivate lasers. By fully understanding your mining skills, boosts, implants, hull bonus, ore sizes and your initial scanning data you too will reduce wasted cycles by knowing when to stop or call off your drones.

This feature is not needed, but I don't see how it will hurt. I don't think that afk mining should be discouraged. If players want to afk mine and expose themselves to all the risks that come with that, whether they are aware of those risks or not, then they should not be encouraged to do otherwise. To me, the most beautiful thing about Eve is its Darwinian nature.

That said, I don't think that this feature will effect afk mining as much as you think it will. Even with a little blue line on the cycle spin to tell you when to deactivate your laser, the reason which motivates people to afk mine will remain the same - it is a tedious and boring pass-time and miners are still going to want to tab out of Eve and watch netflix or go cook dinner or whatever it is they do when they go afk.

So now, instead of players having to choose between going afk and watching their lasers cycle, they now get to choose between going afk and watching their lasers cycle until a blue line appears. Yeah...if I'm gonna go make myself a sandwich in the first scenario, I'm probably still going to go make myself a sandwich in the second scenario. But this problem can be sidestepped entirely by taking advantage of features that already exist in the game. If CCP decides to entertain this idea, so be it, but I'd rather see the devs working on something a little more meaningful.

Nifty idea, but I have to give it a -1.

Bump

I thought this was already established.

I don't see it as being ganker-centric to require the scanner being fit. It takes up a mid slot for a reason. You can tank your barge pretty well even with a scanner fit, anyway. I'd still use it on some barges, especially if I am mining in highsec. In nullsec I wouldn't bother using it since most asteroids take many cycles to deplete anyway.