Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I would like to start with, i dont mind that mining ships can be ganked.
I just feel that the economic risk vs reward in ganking a mining ship especially exhumers needs to be balanced.

this is from the eve encyclopedia.

Exhumer

(The source of the majority of the minerals and ice in the galaxy, these are the ORE fleet of miners, known as Exhumers.
They pull in massive amounts of material for reprocessing while able to survive short exposure to enemy attack. )

also
Skiff

(They are also far more resilient, better able to handle the dangers of deep space)

I suggest that if a 300million+ ISK ship can get ganked by a single Catalyst at under 1million ISK, reliably,consistantly, and
within 20 seconds, i do not see how any of the Exhumer class of ships can meet the definition of what they are.

This effectively makes an exhumer a giant rock you can mine with a Catalyst for ISK, who wouldent risk a 1mil bet on a
huge payout in possible modules parts and ore.
You might as well be mining rocks in a ship made out of plex.

I realise that it most likely is just feature creep which made this happen.
I would suggest that the Exhumer line needs to be re-examined, to make them able to actually survive a player attack
for a short amount of time.
Maybe add additional skill requriement for additional protection, or add a T3 mining ship that is better at surviving, more slots
stats or something.

that is with a tank, also that is not the problem, the problem i propsed was risk vs reward.

even with a tank fit, it takes 3 catalysts to take it down in sub 20 seconds.
3 mil vs 300+?
The ship class needs balancing.

I would like CCP to compile statistics on just how many topics there are about miners QQing that they are not indestructable.

Understand this, YOU ARE IN AN INDUSTRIAL SHIP! You would not expect an HGV to stand up against a Tank in RL so why should eve be any different.

You do realise cost is irrelevant when it comes to ship balance, right?

I have to agree with all those people who say Exhumers are working as intended. They're not intended to be survivable even with a tank unless you use expensive faction and complex mods and even then in anything except rat fights or badly fitted 1v1 you're still going to die and lose it all. As an example take a look at the list of hulk kills. Even those who fit a tank died because they were attacked by more than one person. The fact is that high sec gankers will check out what's in your ship first a lot of the time and then bring what is needed to destroy it. What you fit, in most situations, is irrelevant

"Adapt or die" is a meme that's bandied around repeatedly for a very good reason; it's a truism. As an example I had a friend who rage-quit because he lost 3 Tengus in a row flying through nullsec because in his mind fitting a cov ops cloak and an interdiction nullifier should have made it invulnerable. He didn't adapt so he died repeatedly.

So the "Adapt" in this instance is to either:

1) Stop using Exhumers, start using either Retrievers or Coveters - Yes, I know this isn't ideal but it does mean the risk is lower (gankers will be more likely to ignore you over others using exhumers and when you do get ganked it costs a LOT less to replace it).

2) Stop mining altogether. These people who keep blowing up mining ships are, I'm sure, all very clever individuals. They're obviously all aware that now that mining is the predominant source of all minerals that killing all the miners will just make their gank ships more expensive along with everyone else. If enough people stop mining the game will implode do to inflation (supply and demand and all that)

3) join a WH mining corp and get a level of protection.

4) join a nullsec mining corp living in protected space. Safer than high sec.


Just so I make this clear, I'm a miner. I just don't think that CCP should buff ships because the players are making things difficult for other players. That is what this game is all about; player content. The players should sort these things out for themselves. You see, Hulks work just fine in WHs and Nullsec because you know you're not safe so you do everything you can to avoid other people and you don't (unless you're a moron) mine even semi-afk.

I would suggest people post fits that work on Hulks.

Killmails are a great source of fits or tactics, which by obvious virtue of being on a killmail, are shown to be fail.

This proves it can be done.

How about some of the fits that did the job?

3 and 4 can be combined into "move out of hisec".

quoting Nicolo da'Vicenza's listed hulkaggedon kills.

1st on board http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=13231197 <- No, no dcu, no tanking rigs
Loss to hulk pilot - 315 mil
Loss to gankers - 15 mil for catalyst, (rupture didn't appear to have a killmail) but if we assume it was killed and fitted like another rupture loss he had, then 17 mil = total of 32 mil

2nd: http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=13231177 <- pimp mods but empty mid + MLU II/cargo rig greed fit = not a tank
Hulk loss - 392 mil
Gank loss - 14 mil catalyst, 2 mil thrasher = total 16mil

3rd: http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=13231157 <- not even fully tanked, still took 4 to do it.
hulk - 324 mil
Gank - 1st catalyst 3mil, (no mail for thrasher) we'll assume the same as the last thrasher and raise it to 3 mil, (no killmail on second catalyst) assuming same as another catalyst loss this player had at 2 mil, 3rd catalyst at 2 mil = total 10 mil

4th: http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=13231054 <- No mods except MLUs and strip miners.
hulk - 313 mil
gank - catalyst unlisted we'll assume the worst at 15 mil

5th: http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=13231080 <- No mods except MLUs and strip miners.
hulk - 315 mil
gank - 14 mil catalyst, Thrasher not listed but found similar loss at 2mil = total 16 mil

6th: http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=13231107 <- No tanking mods but somehow it took RAZOR 4 thrashers and a nado to kill it
Hulk - 320 mil
Gank - tornado 77 mil, Thrasher no listed assuming 2 mil, Other thrasher not listed assuming 2 mil, Sevyn nine appeared to have been in a thrasher as well so 2mil, Enidan Lost was in a catalyst worth 17 mil = total 100mil (overkill but significantly less than cost of the hulk)

7th: http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=13231026 <- No tanking mods
hulk - 318 mil
Gank - Catalyst @ 15 mil, npc doesn't count

8th: http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=13230979 <- T2 cargo rigs, MLU IIs, no tanking mods
Hulk - Ouch t2 rigs...listed kill at 1.1 billion. I'll be conservative and say 600 mil though
Gank - Tornado not listed so we'll assume the same as the other one at 77mil

9th: http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=13230939 <- two T1 small shield extenders is not a tank
Hulk - 313 mil
Gank - First catalyst not listed but he lost several all at 2 mil, Only 1 of the 4 thrashers on the mail were shown, so we'll assume they wer all the same price at 3mil = total of 14mil

10th: http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=13230826 <- closest I've seen to a tanked hulk yet, but it would still die to nullsec rats, plus no DCU or shield rigs.
hulk - 374 mil
Gank - Catalyst not listed but several others lost by this pilot at 15mil each, 3 thrashers unlisted assuming 3 mil each = total 24mil

11th: http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=13230841 <- two T1 invulns is not a tank
Hulk - 321 mil
gank - 6 x thrashers assuming 3 mil each = total 18mil

12th: http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=13230642 <- no mods except 2 expanded cargoholds
Hulk - 310 mil
Gank - catalyst 14 mil

13th: http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=13230635 <- a nullsec carebear tries the above in 0.0, dies to a vigil
Hulk - 298 mil
Gank - Null sec kill, so no loss

14th: http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=13230710 <- two T1 invulns is not a tank
Hulk - 321 mil
Gank - Tornado @ Unlisted assuming 77 mil

15th: http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=13230551 <- no mods except for MLUs, strip miners and survey scanner
Hulk - 311 mil
gank - catalyst unlisted with similar losses at 15 mil, 3 trashers @ 3mil(unlisted) = total 24mil (same ppl as in #10)

16th: http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=13230501 <- this was a crappy 11M isk tank with no dcu or rigs and it still took 7 thrashers to gank it
hulk - 301 mil
Gank - 6 x thrashers @ 3 mil = total 18 mil (same gankers as in #11)

17th: http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=13230203 <- no mods fitted except for strip miners and expanded cargoholds
Hulk - 299 mil
Gank - thorax not listed market value of ship is 12 mil fitted we'll be nice and assume 20mil, Catalyst pilot 1 had similar losses at 2 mil, catalyst 2 @ 2 mil as well = Total 24 mil

So, I rounded down on the hulk losses to the nearest million, and up on the gank losses to the nearest million.. So the totals are actually more for the hulks and less for the gankers.

Overall totals are
Hulks - 5.745 billion however, if you factor the additional 500 mil from that t2 rig fitted hulk that I was consevative enough to not count, then it's 6.245 bil.

Gankers - 494 million.. We'll be nice and even say 550 mil in losses.

So, for less than the costs of 2 hulks these players were able to gank 17 hulks worth over 5 BILLION isk total with all but one of them being performed in high sec.

Which means we have an isk loss ratio of 10.44 to 1. So for every 1 isk the gankers spent, the hulk pilots spent 10.44.

Does this seem fair?
So for every loss on average, the gankers spent 32 milllion.

Well, with killing a hulk being that cheap, who wouldn't gank them?
Also there was an average of 10 mil dropped in loot(not including salvage) from the hulks alone. So some of these guys may have potentially made money on these ganks if they looted and salvaged everything.

Point still is that Hulks are extremely easy to gank with very little isk cost in comparison for the gankers and hulks will continue to be ganked all the time even if you fit them for pure tank because you can still pull off a gank for much cheaper than they spent on their ship and fit.

Take for instance the 4th kill where a single catalyst took down a hulk. The catalyst was worth less than 15 mil...The hulk was worth 313 mil. This means that for the cost of that hulk I can buy and fit 20 catalysts, which is way more than i'd need to take you down fully tanked.

This means that for the cost of that hulk I can buy and fit 20 catalysts

Reguardless of whether you fit your hulk with pure tank or not, they have up to 20 catalysts they can use before it would cost more than they destroyed.

Full tanked, how many would it take to destroy a hulk???? 3? Maybe 4?

Fail fit or not it's still way too easy to gank them