Player Features and Ideas Discussion

So, there's been a bunch of posts about the survivability of noncombat ships lately. All of these have been incredibly poorly-thought-out, but it got me thinking and reminded me of a similar thread I made years ago.


Despite what many people think, PVE in lowsec and especially nullsec is very much alive and well. Lowsec denizens run exploration plexes, faction warfare missions, non-FW missions, and sometimes even belt rat/cosmic anomalies (though often if they're only looking for a fight). However, no one in lowsec will ever be caught dead with a Hulk. Why is this?

Well, you'll notice that no one runs missions or plexes or whatnot in lowsec in triple-plated abaddons. Even though it's probably less efficient, everyone uses tengus, ishtars, drakes, or other ships. Ships that can align within 10 seconds incase trouble shows up.

Aligning in time is important for avoiding trouble. In fact, it is the MOST important factor in avoiding trouble. So, in order to survive in dangerous space, mining ships also need some decent agility.

So, what -is- the align time of a mining barge, one might ask? Glad you asked. The align time for both the Hulk and a Covetor is...16.7 seconds.

For comparison, an Abaddon with 3x 1600mm plates aligns in 14.6 seconds. Yes, that is correct, mining barges align noticeably slower than triple-plated battleships. What the ****, CCP?


The first step to making mining less awful for anything but deep alliance 0.0 or AFK hisec income is to make it so that it doesn't take them forever to align. Cut the align time to cruiser-level. Say, 8 seconds.

"tier 2" mining barges/exhumers right now align at ~12 seconds. Cut that to ~5-6.

Tier 1 barges should align in maybe 3-4 seconds. Yes, they should be comparable to frigates as far as agility goes. That's the least you can do for them with their utterly pathetic mining yield.

"Vulnerable" does not mean "Cannot do a goddamn thing to avoid dying in a fire the first time someone looks in his direction". "Vulnerable" means "Cannot match combat ships in direct fighting", which is already true.


Can you give a reason why mining boats should be nothing more than space pinatas other than "they should be vulnerable?"

Or, to rephrase this question: Do you believe that t2 transports should be removed from the game? After all, a hauler with a covert ops cloak is pretty much impossible to kill in lowsec and very hard to catch in nullsec. That's hardly "vulnerable". Deep space transports can be fitted out with a 50+K EHP tank for hisec (making them nigh invulnerable to ganks) and can use the cloak + MWD trick in lowsec to dodge gatecamps, which makes them pretty damn hard to kill...not counting their +2 warp core strength gives them immunity to any solo campers.

How about jump freighters? Being able to cyno around next to stations and POSes means they aren't too vulnerable. They're used widely by nullsec alliances and not ganked all that often.


Mechanics like that aren't fun or interesting for either the ganker or the gankee, it removes player skill from the game and relegates mining to its current pathetic state as something to do when AFK in hisec.

Oh, awesome! So instead of having about the worst align time of any subcapital ship in the game, it can have the align time of a tempest or a plated harbinger! And at the minor cost of both low slots and both rig slots. How silly of me.


...if filling your slots with agility mods was a substitute for **** base agility then everyone would be running around in istabbed battleships, and no one would bother with tier 3 BCs. It's not.

...Actually, that emphasizes my point more. Non-plated ships are more agile than plated ships. If people don't use non-plated BS for PVE because it isn't agile enough, then something that has even less agility is that much worse.

You can't be serious. People already get ISK in lowsec. They run exploration complexes and do FW missions and even regular missions, as I talked about in my OP. The same things you said apply equally well to other forms of ISK earning, but for some reason people still do them in lowsec/nullsec.

no one bothers to "lock down the system for awhile" when they want to run an exploration plex.

Both combat plexes and the longer level 4s take substantially longer than that.




Broad, sweeping generalizations are pretty sweet.




Firstly, the problem exists in nullsec as well, so that's no longer an excuse. 0.0 ores exist in lowsec grav sites, as well.


These risk/reward questions apply to other forms of PVE as well. Tons of people farm exploration plexes and missions in hisec. Yet there are still some that do them in lowsec/nullsec as well.

Only deep space transports (which can use cloak + MWD trick).

I'd be a little less hostile if you actually explained why it's a good thing that noncombat ships should be completely incapable of surviving, even when every other noncombat ship in the game is either dirt cheap or has some way of surviving in hostile space. I mean I apologize for the insulting nature of that quote but what you posted was in no way useful or constructive.

a mining battleship is both not any good at mining and aligns incredibly slowly.


I really don't understand the point of the rest of your post.

Why? They can already tank pretty hard and, with the changes I suggested, they would still tank harder than most cruisers while having roughly cruiser agility and still ~100 DPS from drones.

That's more than sufficient for a noncombat ship.