Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Howdy folks! The changes outlined in the devblog are worthwhile. Any time a system gets stagnant like it is now, it becomes rife with abusers (gankers, bots). Needs to be shaken up to reflect CCP's increased perspective on/understanding of what players are doing with it.

I would like to see the following changes too!

MINING DRONES

I think beefing them up would bring a new aspect to the game. Gankers don't bother hitting your drones... they hit your ship. But rats habitually hit your drones. (that's the way it seems to me) Using mining drones is risky in a different way to worrying about gankers, but interest in them would go up if there was more reward.

• They don't mine that much, please increase the mining amount.
• They travel really slowly... please speed them up.
• They are able to deftly navigate around legions of small/medium-sized asteroids, but get trapped moving around very large rocks when trying to return to your ship (I think they're trying to fly straight back to you and are "colliding" kinda like when a ship is flying directly through asteroids) - please fix that.
• I like the fact that mining drones can a lot further away than your lasers. Don't change that!

USER INTERFACE

• When you examine the "Audio Alerts" section of the in-flight UI options (down there where you can hide inactive module slots, etc.), there are settings for Shield, Armor, and Hull. I would like to see an option to control when you get a warning sound for Cargo Capacity. This is to avoid cargo hold filling up and your mining lasers switching off. I know this could be complicated for Orcas that have 3 types of hold, and so on, but even a simple option would be better than what we have right now, which is no warnings at all. I think this would help Salvage players too, and anyone that picks up loot during missions I guess.
• Mining drones don't have the respect they need, check this out: when your mining lasers deplete an asteroid, you get this handy computer voice message "The Asteroid Has Been Depleted." Nice. When your mining drones deplete an asteroid, what you do get? Nothing. No warning or indication at all... whatsoever. The asteroid disappears from the overview and your list of locked targets, and your mining drones return to orbit and the Idle state. How about we get a computer voice message? Doesn't have to be anything as helpful as "Your Drones Depleted An Asteroid" but that would be great :) You can just use the regular computer voice message noted earlier.
• I would like to be able to know which mining laser is on which asteroid, so that if I want to turn one off, I won't accidentally turn the wrong one off. Right now you have no idea which laser is on which asteroid. Just a little 1, 2, 3 somehow fitted into the locked target UI graphics would be great, I know it's a tight fit but you can do it :)
• The problem of multiple miners mining the same asteroid, and only one miner will actually get the ore, could benefit from some attention. I suggest some change to the locked target UI. You see the difference if "someone else has a mining laser on this rock" so you know to avoid it - or, you know to mine it if you want to mess with them :) Perhaps you only see this indicator when you are using a mining ship? Perhaps you need a certain skill trained to see it? Perhaps the ability could be restricted to members of your fleet - i.e., you can tell which rocks are being mined by another fleet member, thus helping you to avoid it - but you can't tell when some other random miner is mining it. Up to CCP. I think the ultimate indication would be on the Overview. As with the little icons we see on attacking players when they are scramming/disrupting you, etc., you could see a little "being mined" icon on asteroids. Finally... you could ameliorate the whole problem of multiple miners mining asteroids by sharing ore among miners that are on the same rock. The current system causes a huge "grab" of ore to occur at the end of the mining cycle, and during the final throes of an asteroid's life, I find myself stopping & restarting my mining lasers in order to "grab" the final remnants of ore from it rather than let my competitors get it simply by whoever's mining cycle finishes at the right time! Just share it.

UNIFIED INVENTORY

Lastly, the beloved new Unified Inventory UI has a weird problem for miners looking into the Corporate Hangar of an Orca - when the Orca flies out of the grid. Prior to the Inferno update, the window would disappear when you're no longer in range of the Orca that has flown away. Now... the window stays open, but becomes a clone of your Cargo Hold! Typically you end up with two identical windows on-screen. This is totally counterproductive and requires player work to work around it. I can't think of any reason it's productive... can you inform? Or... if it is a bug... please restore the prior behaviour (Corporate hangar window closes when Orca flies out of grid)