EVE General Discussion

I dont know the exact place to put this post, but seriously it would be nice if player corps could hire NPC miners to collect ore for us. We could pay a set amount of ISK for a set amount of NPC miners, ISK wages for the miners could vary by the NPC miners ship type and number of NPC miners wanted. And we could get standings from whatever NPC corporations miners we are hiring to mine for us for a set period of time. They could haul and drop the ore in the players hanger at the station the NPC miners belong to. Players in NPC corps would not have the option of hiring NPC's. Like seriously these NPC miners are good at their job they dont have to log on, go AFK, or turn their head away from eve. I dont know how CCP would work it out about rats and the NPC miners backup fleet but I know CCP could think of something. it would be nice to see NPC's duking it out at a players expense. or the rats could not target the NPC miners because they are hired i dont know. Please CCP think about this seriously

well mabe hiring NPC miners spawn more rats and people would have to defend them or something there has to be a way to work with it

If you hire NPC miners then you will have to defend them if they die you lose your ISK and ore and get a negitive hit on your standings if to many NPC miners die under your watch then that NPC corp wont deal with you whatsoever untill you raise your standing I dont know how but something like that

OP... you still run into the issue that I posed; it detracts from player interaction.

People have asked for everything from NPC mercs, to NPC explorers, to NPC haulers... the simple fact of the matter is that the gameplay here is centered around players playing with or against other players.

Having NPCs do stuff for players moves players away from other players.


It also puts pressure on actual player miners... as they will not be able to compete with NPC miners.
This decreases ore and mineral prices, which makes things less profitable for player miners overall.


Now let's run through this logically:

- Sure... things can be balanced so that a player who mines gets more ore... but the NPC miners do not feel fatigue, hunger, or have any real time constraints. They can simply keep going indefinitely.

- Sure... you can set time limits for using NPC miners. Players can then get alt characters to hire miners as well. When they get tired, have other players / characters repeat the same process.

- Adding the points above, you and a couple of friends (or alts) can hire a whole fleet of NPC miners to quickly and efficiently strip whole belts before any time limit is reached and before any actual players can "compete" against you.

- Your idea of having more hostile NPCs show up if NPC miners are around? Easy. Get a friend or alt in a logistics ship. Keep the NPCs alive while you, in your combat ship, nuke them. Or combine the best of all worlds and use a Nestor or some other drone ship! Remote Rep while you nuke hostiles.
And most hostile NPCs can be easily nuked with the right equipment in the right configurations.

damn

Just sit and watch a group of NPC miners. When the hauler shows up and grabs all the ore, shoot it and bam. Free ore pinata.

Can we shoot them with only a suspect flag?

The other issue to this is that the cost in isk/hr of ore sets a bottom floor for ore and mineral prices. If you are under this floor as a miner, particularly a new one into the game, you cannot even compete and must buy the ore from the NPCs. It also means that tossing isk at the game by hiring NPC miners will force the prices to STAY at that floor. In fact it would be one of the easiest ways of using isk stores to crash the market to the floor and keep it there for as long as you can pay for it. There are a lot of people with a LOT of money in game that would do this.

The net effect of the suggestion is as others have pointed out a decidedly negative one for the entire mining profession.

I too believe that CCP has some interesting plans for mining. I think the build requirements for the new faction capitals as well as the T2 capital modules and fighters to go along with them is a clue as to where mining will sit in the near future with some tweaks to the moon goo production as well as any game play changes like Sleeper uprisings and such it could get very interesting market wise.

You'll be wanting to automate PVE next.

I could just pay someone to play Eve for me...