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New dev blog: Ship balancing summer update

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Maul555
Xen Investments
#521 - 2012-06-15 17:48:17 UTC  |  Edited by: Maul555
I would like to echo requests for a Hulk ore bay that can hold at least 2 full cycles + drones from a maxed out player recieving max boosts (including implants, please)

Our chosen profession should not become a pain to do just because we are "too good"... But I guess I could "live" with enough space for 1 cycle.

Keep in mind that a lot of miners are multiboxers, and I might be watching a Wormhole or scanning in another window...
Denidil
Cascades Mountain Operatives
#522 - 2012-06-15 17:48:36 UTC
CCP Ytterbium wrote:
....



Can you give us a summary of what the planned roles are for each Mining Barge and Exhumer, a relative comparison of their yield (ore and ice), and a relative comparison of their tank?

i know these won't be exact as you guys are just sketchin them out now - but a rough sketch is better than none at all.

Tedium and difficulty are not the same thing, if you don't realize this then STFU about game design.
Geksz
The Fountain
#523 - 2012-06-15 17:49:20 UTC
Shootin' Star wrote:
Geksz wrote:
Btw. if u don't mine in a hostile enviroment (sic) - for example High sec - why would u fit for tank?
Everything else you said may - or may not - make sense; but in the face of this, it's hard to care because this is so shockingly ignorant.

The answer to your question is: Because you're not an ignorant fool, and you actually realise that anytime you hit the undock button - whether you're in null, low or (yes!) high sec - you're entering "a hostile environment."

I have a completely carebear character who's fully qualified on all ORE ships through the Rorqual; and I don't care where in New Eden I am, I never undock any of those ships without at least a minimum reasonable tank. Why? Because even without the Goons continuing Hulkageddon, there's plenty of people - like me, on this character! - who'll gank you for some reason or for no reason whatsoever.

Bottom line: If you don't bother to tank at all - especially under so mistaken a believe as that there's some place in EvE that's not hostile - then you certainly deserve whatever happens. But who knows, maybe you'll get lucky and survive anyway. It's been known to happen ...

Roll


I was using the "not hostile enviroment" in the means that usually u don't have to worry about other players killing u (the rare suicide gankers aside) like in low sec.
So why tank ur ship more than the surrounding npcs' dps requires it? If u always tank for the worst from other players in high sec then u loose a lot of efficiency.
Why would i overtank for a suicid ganker in every mission site when it rarely happens? I loose efficiency.
In the same regard, why would i tank a Hulk to 32k EHP every time i undock from a station to go mine in high sec?
Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#524 - 2012-06-15 17:53:23 UTC
Infinite Force wrote:
Why? In a small gang, a hauler or Orca can sit around and handle the incoming ore - even if jetcanned. In a big fleet, it can be nearly if not impossible for the haulers to keep up with the miners. When a hostile group shows up, the miners can leave with the ore mined in their holds not needing to worry whether or not the haulers can scoop it all up before getting popped.
Scale the number of haulers and Orcas to match the amount of ore pulled in by the miners?

The problem rather sounds like the Orca could use a few more highslots to fit more tractor beams so it can handle the flow of cans being dumped at the end of every cycle…
Geksz
The Fountain
#525 - 2012-06-15 17:54:50 UTC
Tippia wrote:


Geksz wrote:
Btw. if u don't mine in a hostile enviroment - for example High sec - why would u fit for tank?
Because highsec is a hostile environment. In missions, you fit for sufficient tank to survive and being able to complete the mission without losing the ship. Same here: you fit your mining ship with sufficient tank to be able to survive an attack and bring back the ore. Outfitting a barge for maximum efficiency is like filling a mission ship with nothing but guns, weapon mods, tracking computers, drone mods and sensor boosters: not very clever, because it will not actually be efficient at all.

As with anything, it's a cost-benefit analysis: is the benefit of getting 200m³ more ore worth the cost of losing 300M ISK worth of assets?


Every miner tanks their ships in the belts becouse of NPC rats. But to tank against destroyer gankers u sacrifice almost all of the Hulks bonus mining potential above the covetor. So why bother with a Hulk in the first place?
Infinite Force
#526 - 2012-06-15 17:58:08 UTC
Tippia wrote:
Scale the number of haulers and Orcas to match the amount of ore pulled in by the miners?

The problem rather sounds like the Orca could use a few more highslots to fit more tractor beams so it can handle the flow of cans being dumped at the end of every cycle…

Sorry, can't do that - those "extra" haulers/Orcas are supposed to be combat protection pilots. :)

And yes, the Orca needs a few more highslots - keep the 3 ganglink max, add 3 more slots for Tractors :)

HROLT CEO Live Free; Die Proud

http://tinyurl.com/95zmyzw - The only way to go!
Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#527 - 2012-06-15 18:06:51 UTC
Geksz wrote:
Every miner tanks their ships in the belts becouse of NPC rats. But to tank against destroyer gankers u sacrifice almost all of the Hulks bonus mining potential above the covetor. So why bother with a Hulk in the first place?
Because it lets you survive said ganks much better and because it still mines better than the Covetor.

…but that's how it is now. How that changes after the revamp remains to be seen until we get some numbers. Most likely, it'll be a matter of having higher yield, better protection, and requiring less effort to use than the Covetor.

Infinite Force wrote:
Sorry, can't do that - those "extra" haulers/Orcas are supposed to be combat protection pilots. :)
You already have more miners than you can handle, apparently, so turn one of those into an Orca or hauler and attack the problem from both ends: more logistics (in the classic sense) to deal with a reduced workload = more ore being collected more efficiently without backing up the production chain.
Geksz
The Fountain
#528 - 2012-06-15 18:10:45 UTC
Tippia wrote:
Geksz wrote:
Every miner tanks their ships in the belts becouse of NPC rats. But to tank against destroyer gankers u sacrifice almost all of the Hulks bonus mining potential above the covetor. So why bother with a Hulk in the first place?
Because it lets you survive said ganks much better and because it still mines better than the Covetor.


Yeah but then it ain't worth that 300M price tag...
Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#529 - 2012-06-15 18:12:57 UTC
Geksz wrote:
Yeah but then it ain't worth that 300M price tag...
That's for you and the market to decide, and isn't particularly relevant to the balancing of the two.
Infinite Force
#530 - 2012-06-15 18:13:50 UTC  |  Edited by: Infinite Force
Tippia wrote:
Infinite Force wrote:
Sorry, can't do that - those "extra" haulers/Orcas are supposed to be combat protection pilots. :)
You already have more miners than you can handle, apparently, so turn one of those into an Orca or hauler and attack the problem from both ends: more logistics (in the classic sense) to deal with a reduced workload = more ore being collected more efficiently without backing up the production chain.

Not everyone can or wants to fly an Orca. Not every fleet is "perfectly" balanced or sized (combat or otherwise).

HROLT CEO Live Free; Die Proud

http://tinyurl.com/95zmyzw - The only way to go!
Maul555
Xen Investments
#531 - 2012-06-15 18:16:06 UTC
Tippia, Where did you study for your degree in Monday Morning Quarterbacking?

I have someone who is looking for a good school...
Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#532 - 2012-06-15 18:16:32 UTC
Infinite Force wrote:
Not everyone can or wants to fly an Orca. Not every fleet is "perfectly" balanced or sized (combat or otherwise).
That's a personnel problem, not an issue with the ships in question.
Geksz
The Fountain
#533 - 2012-06-15 18:16:59 UTC  |  Edited by: Geksz
Tippia wrote:

Geksz wrote:
· The Hulk is the biggest of all the mining ships, it would be odd that it has the smallest cargohold/orehold and also the smallest EHP from the 6 ships. Something has to be changed there.
This also falls in to the “Hulk = best” mindset. The entire point of the tiercide effort is that this will no longer be true. The Hulk will be the best for some purposes; the others will be better for others. Also, consider how tiny a portion of the overall ship the bay is. A Mackinaw is 150,000m³ — the new ore bay accounts for 27,500m³ of that. The remaining 80% of the ship is taken up by whatever lore bits you'd want (engines, crew space, debris sorting etc). That give a lot of room for explaining why the Hulk is that much larger: maybe the sorting machinery that gives it that higher yield takes a whole lot of space — everything is tripple-scanned instead of the once-over it gets in, say, a Skiff, so the skiff discards a whole lot more potentially useful pieces of rock.

If the visuals bother you, it's easily fixed by switching the hulls around.


What *will* bother me if it's stats(mass, volume) and visuals will remain the same.
Something has to justify that more mass and volume, but i doubt that any lore will be written to make it sensible...:(
There are a lot of ships in EVE that are not consitent with their stats. And personally that can drive me mad, if i let it... :)
Maul555
Xen Investments
#534 - 2012-06-15 18:23:17 UTC
Geksz wrote:
Tippia wrote:

Geksz wrote:
· The Hulk is the biggest of all the mining ships, it would be odd that it has the smallest cargohold/orehold and also the smallest EHP from the 6 ships. Something has to be changed there.
This also falls in to the “Hulk = best” mindset. The entire point of the tiercide effort is that this will no longer be true. The Hulk will be the best for some purposes; the others will be better for others. Also, consider how tiny a portion of the overall ship the bay is. A Mackinaw is 150,000m³ — the new ore bay accounts for 27,500m³ of that. The remaining 80% of the ship is taken up by whatever lore bits you'd want (engines, crew space, debris sorting etc). That give a lot of room for explaining why the Hulk is that much larger: maybe the sorting machinery that gives it that higher yield takes a whole lot of space — everything is tripple-scanned instead of the once-over it gets in, say, a Skiff, so the skiff discards a whole lot more potentially useful pieces of rock.

If the visuals bother you, it's easily fixed by switching the hulls around.


What *will* bother me if it's stats(mass, volume) and visuals will remain the same.
Something has to justify that more mass and volume, but i doubt that any lore will be written to make it sensible...:(
There are a lot of ships in EVE that are not consitent with their stats. And personally that can drive me mad, if i let it... :)


I agree. considering the drastic changes to the lower ships, Battleship sized tank on the little guy, and humungo sized bay on the medium one, with much less space on the big one, I would like to see a ship redesign along with the winter expansion. Something to physically reflect these changes. It will look a bit wonky as is.
Geksz
The Fountain
#535 - 2012-06-15 18:26:17 UTC
Tippia wrote:
Geksz wrote:
Yeah but then it ain't worth that 300M price tag...
That's for you and the market to decide, and isn't particularly relevant to the balancing of the two.


Yes, and no. I think that in it's current form it's too expensive a ship for it's fargility. If it were cheaper to build, it will be sold for less ISK and with it's current tanking cabalitities it might worth it's price.

I just hope that after the balancing/refactoring/wathever, it will have a better price/survival/efficiency balance that it has now.
Infinite Force
#536 - 2012-06-15 18:32:21 UTC  |  Edited by: Infinite Force
Would also like to make sure that the "mining [insert battleship name]" can NOT out min a ship specially designed for this.

Battleships are not mining vessels, they are for combat.

Maybe a progression like this:

Mining Frig --> Mining BS --> Barges --> Exhumers


Tippia wrote:
Infinite Force wrote:
Not everyone can or wants to fly an Orca. Not every fleet is "perfectly" balanced or sized (combat or otherwise).
That's a personnel problem, not an issue with the ships in question.

No, not an issue with the ships, just fleet composition. By your argument, if the fleet isn't balanced (in terms of haulers & miners), then you don't add more to it. That's a bit short sighted as in some cases, you'll have more haulers than miners and in other cases, more miners than haulers - it's just the nature of the game.

/throwing the football back at you

HROLT CEO Live Free; Die Proud

http://tinyurl.com/95zmyzw - The only way to go!
Geksz
The Fountain
#537 - 2012-06-15 18:36:13 UTC
CCP Ytterbium wrote:
Hey folks, thanks for the feedback, here are some answers for you.


  • WHAT'S HAPPENING WITH THE HULK AFTER THE CHANGE? Exact modifications are still vague, but the plan is to quite reduce its cargo hold and add an ore bay of the same size than the removed cargo hold. That means cargo expanders and rigs won’t affect the ore bay at all, requiring players to unload ore more frequently. This is by design, as we want the Hulk to be moved into a fleet purpose that has to rely on others to make proper use of its best mining output. That also means we will not be introducing items that affect the ore bay size.



Hope that clears some confusion.


Since the modifications are still vague, pls make that ore hold big enough for 2 full cycles of ore to be held with maxed bonuses. It's for conviniance.
Anyone that has done any decent mining in fleet, alone with a timeframe of like more than 2 hours can tell u that sometimes u have to leave ur PC for more then 4 minutes or have something get ur attention ingame, or on the net that u forget to check ur miing barge between 2 cycles. I'm not a lazy miner, and never go AFK while mining. But sometimes i have to do some other stuff, and forget to check on the lasers for 4 minutes...

Is it that big of a request?
Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#538 - 2012-06-15 18:37:16 UTC
Geksz wrote:
Yes, and no. I think that in it's current form it's too expensive a ship for it's fargility. If it were cheaper to build, it will be sold for less ISK and with it's current tanking cabalitities it might worth it's price.
It used to just cost 100M, and the only thing that has changed since is the market. It's already cheaper to build (well… aside from OTEC gouging you, but that's still not a factor in the ship balance. Blink)
Shootin' Star
The Fancy Hats Corporation
#539 - 2012-06-15 18:42:49 UTC
Geksz wrote:
I was using the "not hostile enviroment" in the means that usually u don't have to worry about other players killing u (the rare suicide gankers aside) like in low sec.
So why tank ur ship more than the surrounding npcs' dps requires it? If u always tank for the worst from other players in high sec then u loose a lot of efficiency.
Why would i overtank for a suicid ganker in every mission site when it rarely happens? I loose efficiency.
In the same regard, why would i tank a Hulk to 32k EHP every time i undock from a station to go mine in high sec?
Have ya ever heard of a "happy medium," Geksz? Because I most certainly did not say "ZOMG YOU MUST TANK MAX FOR WORST CASE SCENARIO!!>!1!!11!!"

Turn that mighty intellect that strives for absolute efficiency - which is not a god, btw - toward finding and living in that area somewhere between "come shoot me, I r untanked Ugh]" and "try to kill my triple-tanked beast NOW mister ganker!! P" There's decent tanks in there that give you plenty of chance to survive ... without utterly slogging your efficiency as well. I know, I've seen 'em, they lived.

But whatever. It's your however many million isk ship that you and you alone are risking become a bright blue flash of plasma-pixels on the screen. If you think minimum to survive the rats is what it's worth, then like Tippia said, that's what it's worth to you. (She's a wise toon. Worth listening to.)

Listen, I can only try to help you not be a jackwagon ... but I can't make you. It's up to you. Roll
None ofthe Above
#540 - 2012-06-15 18:46:13 UTC
Would like to again, say great post. Really appreciate the opportunity to have the community and devs talk these issues out.

CCP Ytterbium wrote:
Hey folks, thanks for the feedback, here are some answers for you.

DRONES USUALLY DON'T MIX WELL WITH LONG RANGE COMBAT DUE TO TRAVEL TIME; HOW DO YOU PLAN TO TACKLE THIS? Again, this is quite a bit early to tell, but an option is to have drone frigates provide a bonus to drone speed and tracking instead of just raw damage. Not only it avoids making them too much overpowering next to other frigates, but also provides an appealing purpose next to the larger drone hulls.


Ah, I see. I was initially ytterbed by the comment about the navitas becoming a drone boat when we already have the Imicus, which has a decent drone bay and a drone range bonus.

One of these could be a drone brawler (probably prefer Navitas for that actually) with bonuses to damage and durability and the other a ranged drone platform, with bonuses to speed and range. Interesting.

I see you have the Imicus down as support, which I guess is its other role. That would actually mix well with a ranged drone capability. Hope you don't decide to take that away from the Imi. (And the new model we saw a while back would be nice, but that's off topic.)

References:
http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Imicus
http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Navitas
http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Ytterb

The only end-game content in EVE Online is the crap that makes you rage quit.