Assembly Hall

Edit: Proposal is in 2nd post, Discussion is in this post.


Yes this is another thread about mining. While I will be including my propositions in the discussion as well as discussing other player’s ideas I want you to know, that this is more of a [Research] than a [Proposition]. I simply want to summarize the facts whether eve related, or real life. And then elaborate on current design I think fits most.

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Let me start by figuring out the asteroid belt behavior in real life:

• Asteroid belts usually form not around the planets but around the star, whether it is due to the destruction of the planet, removal of the planet embryos, or lack of accretion from nearby plants.


• Here is the solar asteroid belt from NASA. As visible from the picture the asteroid belts are usually very scarce by our standards. As such it is possible to “be” inside the asteroid belt and not see a single asteroid in sight.


• Asteroids themselves have separate classes that are defined by their brightness (albedo number) derived from their composition, which usually varies little as far as i remember.


• There are also very few asteroids with a significant mass. As such main problem in current world astronomy lies in ability to find them.

In eve we have vast abundance of asteroids that come with our own problems in game-play. Main problems in current mining are: boredom, bots, and fairly low reward ceiling. Many people also complain about safety compared to ratting. As such proper direction of mining should be:

- Elaborate enough to filter bots at least to some extent
- Not more boring towards the real miners. Preferably even more interesting

The actual reward ceiling should be handled separately from this discussion since it will fluctuate after mining rebalance and preemptive adjusting will be moot.

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Many people proposed specific modifications to asteroids: sweet spots, calibrations that increase yield etc. I personally have few problems about such solutions to this problem.

- These solutions force players to concentrate on single asteroid itself, while I think it is more viable to shift the concentration on how large the space can be.

- Pilots are flying huge specialized ships that are capable of mining huge amounts of minerals, I think it is petty to try to mine most lucrative chunk of a single asteroid, much more reasonable to find a better asteroid.

- Many of such ideas are unfortunately extremely “bot-friendly” while turning miner experience into something like “Mass Effect 2 mining”

- Overconcentration on the asteroids might force miners to pay even less attention to their safety. Imagine trying to increase your yield, while checking scanner for probes or local for enemies.

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As such most viable solution to the mining problem would be modification of the warp destinations of the belt similarly to the current gravimetric sites.

Another reason why I included gravimetric sites is scanning. Botting programs usually work in binary patterns ( “=” in local (1/0) asteroid presence etc) while having much harder time at pattern recognition.
That is the way captcha’s work. I know that adding simple captcha to the mining will ruin it, but scanning by itself is very viable alternative. Especially it will be hard to code for recognition of spheres\circles\dots. I know that bots would possibly emerge but for long time they would operate on random sampling while player is afk which would make them less effective, than real players.

Main problem with this approach lies in the longevity of the site. If the scanned location will feed a single miner for significant amount of time bots would simply proliferate again. As such I think most viable solution for this approach would be to add lifetime of the site. And it should be short – preferably around 1 hour.

Many people would complain, that it would be too cumbersome to mine and as such I think at this point it would be necessary to modify ore output so that amount mined in this approach would be equal or more to the amount mined using standard mining, so players will spend some time scanning (more actions from player) but increased yield will cover the time “lost” not mining.

I would also like to mention Shultz 2006, that this set up will result in better reward pattern formation, since the players will be more subjected to contiguous cycle of work (scanning) and reward (mining with ridiculous yield for few minutes) Thus theoretically resulting in higher dopamine output inside miners brains. And happy eve miners = awesome.

New players should be fine with this setup since there are pretty decent tutorial missions about scanning.

And at the same time – most major factor: Specialization! Want even more output per player? Create a fleet with dedicated scanners haulers miners and boosters, and roam the constellation. With proper spawn system similar to the WH generation it would be much more viable to have roaming mining fleets that would yield a lot of resources but require constant movement from one system to the other. I think this approach is the best fit for something so essential in eve.

Makes eve feel bigger.

Planetary rings could then be utilised for ring mining some developers already mentioned.

I love all these ideas! This would make mining more interesting and a bit more skilled as well as defeat most botting. I would probably extend the length of the site time from 1 hour to 4 hours as I believe this is the most time a miner spends on a site with or without assistance.

CCP is already looking into making something similar to this... but with the rock belts around planets. Look up some of the Fanfest 2012 videos on youtube. It looks promising.

I like the idea of scanning down mining sites for 2 reasons:
Firstly for the miner it gives a more interactive experience in mining as well as the stated a counter to bots.
Starts the griefers training those scanning skills to probe you out or using the D scan correctly rather than just warping to belt.
I can see further bonus's from a game design pov:
You are not going to have the same level of cans anchored in space - should cut down on bookmarks in highsec.
A number of pve combat sites that have asteroid belts / spawns can be reused (with or without the npc fleet) as scanned mining sites.

I know we already have grav sites and this is an extension of that... heck i'm just happy that after 5 years we are getting a decent look at industry as a whole

Thank you for your comments.

Unfortunately this project of mine was a bit rushed - i was about midway in finalizing it when I heard about upcoming summit. As such I've tried putting this on forums so CSM would be able to see this before they head out.


I did look at the link and only thing i slightly disagree with is on board scanner - since it will allow bots to continue working as they are now. Until the scanner would start to require precise direction to achieve results it will remain bot-friendly.

I would also like to stress out that the sites have to be large but despawn quickly - in such a way that single Hulk will not mine out the entire site before it despawns. Reason - it allows formation of mining fleets similar to incursion design - come in fast mine at incredible rates and move out. Even in hi-sec, that way the new players will have an incentive to actually form fleets and socialize more. They are not punished by going alone but rewarded while coming as a team.

Give the rorqual and orca a extra high slot for a probe launcher and enough bonus to reliably scan down grav sites and you got a winner.

Love the idea will make mining a bit more interesting.

Should add ice to this also.

also vary the belt composition ever once in a blue moon throw in a valuable belt