Player Features and Ideas Discussion

First, yes, I do like the mining barge buff, if I have anything to whine about, its that its too easy to get into a retreiver, which gives a yield too close to the max yield.
I now triple box, using a temporary 51 day alts flying retrievers. 2 loads of all my alts = 25 mill, not bad. 7 Days before my alts expire, I'll start new alts and transfer the retrievers...

The obvious problem is that one can get into a mining barge with the equivalent of 3 strip miners too fast.
There needs to be more progression, at the same time, the entry level ships need to not be useless.

The mining frigate is a good start, and they've mentioned that they may make mining barges need mining frigate skills to lvl 4.

Before, we had racial mining frigates-> racial mining cruiser -> make the jump to ORE, or just waste 7 days doing not much, and jump into a retriever.

I propose we have the training go like so:
Ore Frigate -> Ore Cruiser -> Ore Mining barges -> Orca -> Rorqual

Frigates:
Aside from a mining frigate, we could have a dedicated gas frigate (rather than combining both roles into 1 ship)
We can have a salvaging frigate (bonus to salvage range and chance?) perhaps useful for ninja salvagers
We could also have a scanning frigate with a bonus for finding gravimetric sites - have racial scanning frigates be the best for probing down plexes and ships, but the ORE scanning frigate be the best for finding a place to mine.

Cruisers:
Put the Noctis in this catagory, then give it 8 turret slots and allow it to mine or gas harvest, or make a dedicated mining cruiser

Mining cruiser: turret bonus to allow it to outmine BS's, warp strength and/or agility bonus for GTFO ability
Consider a cloak CPU/speed bonus, and splitting its role to make a dedicated gas harvesting cruiser


Summary, most expanded lineup proposal:

Frigates
Mineral mining frigate
Gas mining frigate
Grav site scanning frigate
Salvaging frigate

Cruiser:
Mineral mining cruiser
Gas mining cruiser
Noctis

Barges:
As is

Above barges:
As is, Orca+ rorq

The ORE frigate only has the equivalent of 5 mining lasers at max skills.

The current Mining cruisers (Osprey, Scythe) have the equivalent of 6 mining lasers

The old retreiver was comparable to a BS with 8 mining lasers, the new one has a roughly 50% better yield (loses a per skil level boost, gains cpu and lows to fit more MLUs), so I'm going to just guess its equivalent to 12 mining lasers

so frigs: 5 mining lasers
Cruisers: equivalent of 8-10 mining lasers,
Barges: 12-15 mining laser equivalent? (procuroro 12, hulk 15)

If you go and read the Ore Frig thread, they're talking about introducing a skill specifically for it. And with that, they're saying that in the future, it'll be a prereq for the barges at level 4.

One /massive/ difference with the ore frigate? It's got a 5000 m3 ore hold. so say goodbye to losing a bunch of cycles hauling in your original frigate. and in the cruiser. So it's actually pretty close to the cruiser in output.

Umm. you obviously edited it. Then hacked the forums to make it not show up. Yes, that has to be it. Not me being unable to read.

I really like this idea in general. I would like to see something between this new frig and a mining barge. if mining/industry were more profitable (as it should be) i would almost think it mandatory. as it stands going from new to best at mining possible takes far to little time, and like OP states, a retriever is far too quickly accessable. I also think the changes to the barges are a bit imbalanced still, but i will save that for another thread. anyways, here are my thoughts as far as mining ships should go

ORE frigate
current frige is good, i would tweak it a bit, but otherwise fine

a new hull would be great considering all other frigate skills in the game offer many choices. a scan frig would be cool, but with each other race having one, not really necessary and they get bonuses to salvage as well.

a better option i think would be to include a new frigate hull capable of handling PI in lowsec better with a PI bay similar to the Primae and cloaking abilities similar to a blackops (panther in particualr) that provides a speed bonus while using a normal cloak, but does not allow warping cloaked. Included should be the same +2 warp strength as the new frig and a bonus to cargo capacity and speed.

T2 versions
i think here is where the ninja miner/gas harvester should end up as well as a covops version of the PI frig if it ever gets developed

Industrial
already has the noctis which is good, and i think any other ships should fall under this skill instead of a cruiser. why add more skills to train...

they should include some sort of new mining type vessel in this category that is the middle ground between frigate and mining barges which are more similar to battleships of the mining world. T1 version should probabably have bonuses similar to the mining frig, just bigger with more turrets (5) and fewer role bonuses or lower ones. should be able to fit a decent shield tank but have limited low slots. should also have a similar PI ship like the frigate i spoke of earlier. should also follow suit with t2 versions of all ships, not sure what they would do, other than just be better at what they are already good at, but the idea is there

Mining barge

as far as mining barges, the retriever/mack are just way more functional than the other barges and exhumers unless you have multiple monitors and a pentient for boredom (mining needs to be more fun, but i do it anyways) there is another thread already on this though so i won't go into any more detail

as far as the Orca and rorqual go, i think they are fine, but i would like to see all industrial type ships have bonuses to cloaking or warp strength or the ability to flee in general. as it stands i won't use a rorqual outside of a POS which really nullifies the importance of capita tractor beams and such, and although i have flown my orca around nulsec like a maniac, most people won't field industrial ships if even the slightest hint of danger rears up because they aren't defensible. I would rather lose a hulk in an awesome game of cat and mouse because i had a fair chance of surviving than sit in a POS or station because my ship can't handle or escape PVP if it crops up

..not sure if sarcasm, or troll..

..because you couldn't possibly be serious.

The mining barges skill is not a trial skill, how can trial accounts fly a retriever?

No different than paying for an account activation. You can also get 30 days "free" play that way as well.

Why does this seem like a lie to me?

its not 7 remaining days, its 44 remaining days.

It goes like this:

I have 1 plex in my hangar
(bought with ISK, if it matters)

I send myself a buddy invite (21 day trial)

I give myself-"buddy" the plex

Myself-"buddy" activates plex, and now has 51 days remaining, no "trial" restrictions

This counts as an invited buddy subscribing, CCP deposits +1 plex (or 30 days game time) in my hangar

End results:
I still have 1 plex in my hangar

I have an alt with no trial restrictions that will last for 51 days.



Normally, its not worth abusing the system this way, since the 51 day alt will have low skill, and thus won't make much ISK, and your time is better spent playing your long term characters with more SP.


However, these mining barges are the exception - the massively increased ore bay means that it takes very little attention to manage the low SP alt - and the increased output and decreased requisit SP (you get near *old covetor* level output with mining barge 1 instead of 5, the retty needs mining barge 1, not 3), means - at least from my perspective - that abuse of the buddy system is therefore encouraged as an unintended consequence of these mining barge changes.

It seems the thing to do is to make the progression slower so you see less return from a 51 day "trial"

Attached you will see a pic of what I mean:

http://sphotos-b.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/527450_10101347066654453_921292516_n.jpg