Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I would like to suggest simplification of a system in order to streamline out some complexity which has no function. Right now, when we mine ore, every ore has a different volume per unit. Additionally, different ores require different numbers of units of ore in order to refine them, however, our mining lasers and drones mine ore based solely on volume and our ships carry ore solely based on volume.

There's built in confusion here that serves no purpose. I suspect that the complexity of the ore system is related to some sort of planned feature that never actually got implemented.

What I would suggest is that the entire ore measurement system get drastically simplified:

1) Instead of each single unit of ore being (x) cubic meters, make the standard measure of every ore 1m3.
2) Instead of each ore having a different volume requirement for refining, make the minimum refining volume 100m3 for all ores.
3) Keep the refining numbers per m3 of ore the same as they give per m3 now.

For example:

Veldspar is normally 0.1m3 per unit. It would instead be 1m3 per unit.
Veldspar normally requires 333 units to refine. It would instead require 100 unit. 100m3.
A refining unit of Veldspar is currently 333 units at 0.1m3 each, so 33.3m3. The output from 100m3 of refined Veldspar would be 3x of the output from an old 333 unit chunk of Veldspar.

You might ask: "Why make this change" The simple answer is that it's simply a pruning of unnecessary complexity. I have been around, off and on, for a long time. I cannot count the number of times I've heard miners grumbling about all the math we have to juggle in our head when we are trying to estimate the values of our mixed yield mining. I cannot even begin to count the number of times I've had to explain to new players how the ore volume / refining process works.

Don't change ANY of the functional output from miners. Simply change the way it's presented to the players. An Iteron V full of 33,000 m3 of Veldspar with current units should yield exactly the same as an Iteron V full of 33,000 m3 of Veldspar with proposed 1m3 units.

The difference, is elegance, efficiency, and clarity.

I edited this to change the minimum refining value to 100m3 because is does make sense to have some sort of rational limit on the volume of ore that a refiner would want to process.

There has been extensive complaining about how ugly a lookup table would be for this system, so I made a sample, which is decidedly NOT ugly. If fact it's cleaner and more elegant than any other EVE lookup table I've ever seen because it ignores the completely unnecessary oddball volumetric and refinery limitations junk and concentrates on meaningful data. I might have made some math errors. I used rough current mineral values in Domain on 18SEP2012

http://tinypic.com/m/ftfrrm/2

Paikis brought up a point that does need to be covered. The freakishness of ore volume contortions sometimes yields good opportunities for arbitrage. Some noob makes a wrong calculation and thinks that the open order for veldspar for *input stupid price here* is a great deal, and sells their whole day's yield at a quarter of the value.

This is great for the predator trader, and bad for the noob. Simplifying the ore system would have the side effect of making this sort of arbitrage on ore less likely. However, with all of the much more experienced miner/industrialists out there who know how to mine and know how to build, but have no clue how to price goods, well, the arbitrage market is not going away any time soon. It might shift a bit away from ore handling though.

I don't think that the loss of a few potential profits for traders at the expense of miner noobs is worth preserving the current system of ore handling. It is a valid concern worth considering though, so I wanted to at least mention it here.

I believe this does add unnecessary complexity to new miners, so I support this thread.

Kerradeph, while your method would certainly reduce some complexity, it also seems to keep some unnecessary complexity.

What is the purpose of requiring different volumes to refine?

If you think that 1m3 to refine is too little, then maybe make it 100m3, or 1000m3?

I'd still argue to keep the m3 for refining the same for every ore.

It doesn't change game mechanics and increases the gaming experience! + "this is a job for the papercut team"

although the change on refining must be studied!

Arkonor produces
.09375 Tritanium per 1 m3
.051875 Zydrine per 1 m3
.1040625 Megacyte per 1 m3

Mercoxit produces
.053 Morphite per 1 m3

To show that I'm not picking on the high end ores,

Kernite produces
.804166(repeating) Tritanium per 1 m3
1.6104166(repeating) Mexallon per 1 m3
.804166(repeating) Isogen per 1 m3

How do you propose to deal with ores that produce less than 1 unit of mineral per m3 of ore? If we ignore the 1 m3 proposal, how do you propose to deal with ores that produce less than 1 unit of mineral per unit of ore (like Ark with Zydrine)?

If you round down, you'll cause many people to have to calculate how many units to put in the stack they want to refine to avoid losing material. If you round up, you'll allow people to generate a vast amount of extra minerals simply by refining one unit at a time.

Given that the refining interface does all the math for you, the average user is entirely unaffected by the minimums and such (besides the small stacks of ore that remain after a refining job).

Now for a short history lesson to explain why Ore Sizes and Batch Sizes exist:

When the world was young *ahem* When EVE was released, there were no strip miners, only various flavors of Miner modules. Harder to acquire ores were designed to be extracted less efficiently (or not at all) by the miners of lower skilled pilots (if your yield is 79m3 per cycle and the ore's block size is 40m3 you only get 1 block per cycle, if your yield is 32m3 per cycle and the ore's block size is 40m3 you get squat). The problem with this is that CCP didn't necessarily want the minerals yielded by the ore to have the relationship with the size of the ore that a whole number relationship between ore units and mineral units would entail (see above about rounding and the problems that causes). So CCP decided on a ratio of minerals to ore that they liked and found some common multiplier to allow a batch of ore to always produce a whole number of minerals(including 5% and 10% ores).


PS: Take a look at your mining module's yield per cycle. It's almost certainly not a whole number. If CCP implemented this change, you'd produce less ore than you do now for any ore with a non-whole number size, as any amount of yield that doesn't produce a full block is wasted.

It's two (maybe 3, I forget if there's a confirm button) mouse clicks. What could be more simple or elegant?

The interface does all the math for you. You don't have to do any.

As for deciding which Ore to mine to maximize your income, if you're unwilling to do some arithmetic (or look at a simple 3rd party chart) to maximize your income, maybe EVE Online: Spredsheets In Space isn't the right game for you.



That's ignoring the reason that ores have sizes in the first place. You're supposed to only get 1 block of Mercoxit when you're running a Miner 1 with a nominal yield of 79m3/cycle. Your drones are supposed to have the same issues with regards to larger ores. I grant that, with the introduction of Mining Barges and their Strip miners, that concern has faded in importance, but the same thing applies to them. You will mine fewer M3 of a large ore than you would of Veldspar because the size results in wasted capacity. This is intentional.

youre forgetting that the complexity does serve a purpose.

Since the lasers round down to the nearest whole unit of ore, it changes the efficiency of different lasers against different rocks.

For instance, 3 miner 2s mine the same amount as one strip miner 1 on paper, but when mining arkonor, which is 16 m^3, the miner 2s would pull in 9 every minute for a total of 27 every 3 minutes The strip miner on the other hand would pull in 540 / 16 = 33 units every three minutes.

This also gets extrapolated into drone yield etc etc etc.

This also means that in some cases, the 3% bonus the hulk gets for training exhumer level 4 to 5 is actually more than 3% because it may be just enough to get you an additional unit of ore.

Its funny, I was actually thinking it would be interesting if they made it more complex

Isn't industry mostly a mind game? You know, offering challenge and rewards to those who are good with numbers. The fundamental process of mining, extracting and manufacturing are so simple, that if you simplify the system too much it might become just too easy and boring?

Trade is a gut game, industry requires more math :)

Are differences in ore material content really that artificial, or are they in a way realistic, in the RL sense?

The system of variable sizes for ore recovery is much less complicated than having mining lasers that operate differently based on ore type. If you don't want to bother with the maths, just point lasers at rocks and wait for the magic to happen.