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More, meaner Hi-sec belt rats.
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Aphoxema G
Khushakor Clan
#1 - 2012-10-01 22:57:27 UTC
Current Hi-sec system belt rats lack teeth, even at .5. Thanks to the recent mining barge changes, any of them can easily tank these NPC spawns. I don't even have to carry damage drones; when NPCs appear I just have to wait for them to attack my Retriever and let my mining drones go on unmolested.

Even if they did start focusing together on my drones, they are still no threat at all. They're terribly uninteresting, easy to kill and spawn very slowly. This is fine for the greenest of the green, but new characters don't have a whole lot of reason to hang out in belts other than to play with new toys and they deserve a challenge.

Of course, making money is what missions and industry is for. These NPCs should be meaner, smarter and an occasional threat to people who AFK mine, without increasing the reward for destroying them.

And while I do understand that each region will have their own trends, it'd be nice to see the occasional rogue drone, foreign pirate or procedurally-generated troublemakers floating around in random ships.

Mmm... procedural generation... *salivates*
Alexa Coates
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#2 - 2012-10-02 00:50:58 UTC
go to .4 then, get molested by the battleships and battlecruisers there.

That's a Templar, an Amarr fighter used by carriers.
Nestara Aldent
Citimatics
#3 - 2012-10-02 05:13:59 UTC
Alexa Coates wrote:
go to .4 then, get molested by the battleships and battlecruisers there.


Its not a problem to add bigger rats to highsec belts too, while keeping their bounties low.
Nevyn Auscent
Broke Sauce
#4 - 2012-10-02 09:20:54 UTC
Well, I don't know what rats you are up against, but you can't tank Gurista's rats in a Retriever in a 0.5 system
Maybe in an Exhumer you can, but I've certainly seen them take out an AFK hulks drones and then almost punch through the hulks shield tank before the hulk warped off.
And the Procurer/Skiff is meant to be a tank, so if you're doing it in that, congratulations on using a ship exactly as intended.
LuckyQuarter
Eden Dominion Coalition
Scary Wormhole People
#5 - 2012-10-14 11:34:49 UTC
I'd have no problem with:
- Keeping normal easy rats in 0.7 and above (perfect for mining barges and new miners)
- Significantly increase difficultly of rats in 0.5/0.6, there should be some minor risk for hulks/macks in 0.5, safety focused miners can use skiffs instead. This helps balance out all three exhumer types.
- By difficulty, I mean rather than just 3-4 npc frigs being spawned together in 0.5 which is what I normally see, let's see 2-3 cruisers + 4-6 frigs
- Highsec mining can get quite boring, more dangerous rats in the less secure high sec systems would help liven things up.
Felsusguy
Panopticon Engineering
#6 - 2013-01-11 09:28:26 UTC
I disagree, LuckyQuarter. Rats don't make it less boring, they just make it more of a hassle. I can sit there and mine and get bored very quickly. Add some rats, I get bored just as quickly. In fact, it simply annoys me. Sometimes I'll send out my drones to fight off rats and forget to pick the drones back up, etc, etc.

The Caldari put business before pleasure. The Gallente put business in pleasure.
Ja'thaal Deathbringer
The Directionally Challenged
#7 - 2013-01-11 09:46:38 UTC
Felsusguy wrote:
I disagree, LuckyQuarter. Rats don't make it less boring, they just make it more of a hassle. I can sit there and mine and get bored very quickly. Add some rats, I get bored just as quickly. In fact, it simply annoys me. Sometimes I'll send out my drones to fight off rats and forget to pick the drones back up, etc, etc.


Hang on a sec, you hate belt rats? They actually add limited amount of danger and spontaneity to any mining fleet. I think that adding 2 - 3 Cruisers with 4 - 6 frigs/destroyers in 0.6 space would liven things up a LOT. And then when you get down to 0.5, you start getting Battlecruisers spawning in on you. Now, that would make high-sec belt ratting more profitable, not to mention make it much more interesting for miners. It might also make AFK/Bot mining harder. I mean, sure, an 8 - 10 ship spawn every 10 - 15 minutes is a bit excessive, but it would work to make it harder for botters and afk'ers to mine. Just a thought, but this thread has definite merit to it.
MainDrain
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#8 - 2013-01-11 10:19:57 UTC  |  Edited by: MainDrain
I like the idea of increasing the number of ships per spawn, even mixing up the spawns every now and then sounds like a good plan.

Could you not make the amount of ships scaleable? Say you have a full corp mining op, half a dozen hulks, orcas etd all in a belt. This could cause more ships to spawn when compared to a solo mack mining in a belt.

I would see this as something along the lines of

3-4 Frigates per Barge, 2-3 Cruisers per Exhumer, 1 BC per Orca

This could quickly escalate to the point of having almost 20 Rats spawning in a belt, this wouldnt be to hard to take on. To prevent people farming the belts more in this manner you would have to tie in the number, and type of spawn to the specific ship classes (as i believe works for wormhole sites if you bring in a carrier)

From a RP perspective it would make sense for the local pirates to send a bigger force to take out a large mining fleet

As an added thought, i wouldn't want to increase the bounties obtained from these rats massively, same goes with the loot drops
Dave Stark
#9 - 2013-01-11 10:28:40 UTC  |  Edited by: Dave Stark
as a miner, i don't see an issue with increasing the number of spawns in high sec. more isk/hour for me.
for new players etc, there are high sec systems with no rat spawns so it's fine.

edit: alternatively, massively increase the rate of grav site spawns and load them with tougher rats. i'll gladly take on battleship rats in order to be able to mine better ores.
nikon56
UnSkilleD Inc.
#10 - 2013-01-11 10:47:19 UTC
Ja'thaal Deathbringer wrote:
Felsusguy wrote:
I disagree, LuckyQuarter. Rats don't make it less boring, they just make it more of a hassle. I can sit there and mine and get bored very quickly. Add some rats, I get bored just as quickly. In fact, it simply annoys me. Sometimes I'll send out my drones to fight off rats and forget to pick the drones back up, etc, etc.


Hang on a sec, you hate belt rats? They actually add limited amount of danger and spontaneity to any mining fleet. I think that adding 2 - 3 Cruisers with 4 - 6 frigs/destroyers in 0.6 space would liven things up a LOT. And then when you get down to 0.5, you start getting Battlecruisers spawning in on you. Now, that would make high-sec belt ratting more profitable, not to mention make it much more interesting for miners. It might also make AFK/Bot mining harder. I mean, sure, an 8 - 10 ship spawn every 10 - 15 minutes is a bit excessive, but it would work to make it harder for botters and afk'ers to mine. Just a thought, but this thread has definite merit to it.

not sure about the effect on bot.

a bot could still detect rats appearance on a belt and change belt (and even do it a clever way, according to the spawn), since in hig, rat doesn't point anyway
nikon56
UnSkilleD Inc.
#11 - 2013-01-11 10:49:42 UTC
MainDrain wrote:
I like the idea of increasing the number of ships per spawn, even mixing up the spawns every now and then sounds like a good plan.

Could you not make the amount of ships scaleable? Say you have a full corp mining op, half a dozen hulks, orcas etd all in a belt. This could cause more ships to spawn when compared to a solo mack mining in a belt.

I would see this as something along the lines of

3-4 Frigates per Barge, 2-3 Cruisers per Exhumer, 1 BC per Orca

This could quickly escalate to the point of having almost 20 Rats spawning in a belt, this wouldnt be to hard to take on. To prevent people farming the belts more in this manner you would have to tie in the number, and type of spawn to the specific ship classes (as i believe works for wormhole sites if you bring in a carrier)

From a RP perspective it would make sense for the local pirates to send a bigger force to take out a large mining fleet

As an added thought, i wouldn't want to increase the bounties obtained from these rats massively, same goes with the loot drops

easy to counter, take a drake with the fleet and you are done with the rats, and this is no problem at all for a 5-6 man mining fleet to have a drake or myrm sitting in belt for safety, like when mining in low
Meytal
Doomheim
#12 - 2013-01-14 16:02:39 UTC
It would be pretty cool if you could warp to a belt in hisec and occasionally/rarely see pirate mining ships warp in with guarded escort. If you warp an industrial type ship, and only release mining drones (if any), and stay a certain distance away, they leave you alone. Meanwhile, they shoot lasers at the most valuable rocks and store the ore in their holds. When their holds fill, they warp off.

If you warp a non-industrial type ship to the belt, including a shuttle, or if your industrial type ship releases combat drones, or if you land too close to the pirate mining group, the pirate mining vessels try to warp off and the escorts attack you.

Maybe if the pirates get enough ore out of the belt, they could warp in something a little beefier, that could definitely take out a Retriever or a Covetor, and cause a tanked Hulk to sweat a little. The trade-off is that they would take some of the ore that the average miner would want to mine first. If you shoot them, you can loot whatever ore they mined during that trip.

You could get free ore maybe, or the rats could take ore that players can then never mine. Keep the belts clean, and keep all the ore for yourself. There are rats roaming the belts looking for players. Why not have rats in the belts mining too, in addition to random hauler spawns?
Donnero
Arliuhtan
#13 - 2013-01-14 17:12:58 UTC
+1
Griffin Omanid
Knights of the Zodiac
#14 - 2013-01-14 21:38:56 UTC
nikon56 wrote:
MainDrain wrote:
I like the idea of increasing the number of ships per spawn, even mixing up the spawns every now and then sounds like a good plan.

Could you not make the amount of ships scaleable? Say you have a full corp mining op, half a dozen hulks, orcas etd all in a belt. This could cause more ships to spawn when compared to a solo mack mining in a belt.

I would see this as something along the lines of

3-4 Frigates per Barge, 2-3 Cruisers per Exhumer, 1 BC per Orca

This could quickly escalate to the point of having almost 20 Rats spawning in a belt, this wouldnt be to hard to take on. To prevent people farming the belts more in this manner you would have to tie in the number, and type of spawn to the specific ship classes (as i believe works for wormhole sites if you bring in a carrier)

From a RP perspective it would make sense for the local pirates to send a bigger force to take out a large mining fleet

As an added thought, i wouldn't want to increase the bounties obtained from these rats massively, same goes with the loot drops

easy to counter, take a drake with the fleet and you are done with the rats, and this is no problem at all for a 5-6 man mining fleet to have a drake or myrm sitting in belt for safety, like when mining in low


So?

But I would then prefer a Vulture with in a mining fleet, in combination with an Orca you get mining and shield boosts and the four turrets on the vulture are enough to deal with any rat. And this also gives you a little more safety of gankers.

Proposal T2 BS Class Juggernaut
Zan Shiro
Doomheim
#15 - 2013-01-14 23:12:15 UTC  |  Edited by: Zan Shiro
Nestara Aldent wrote:
Alexa Coates wrote:
go to .4 then, get molested by the battleships and battlecruisers there.


Its not a problem to add bigger rats to highsec belts too, while keeping their bounties low.



the rats are pulled from a database. they have stats and bounty set in stone. CCP does not want people chaining empire belts for easy 1.5 mil hits (500K seems to be the lowest i recall, and they usually travel in 3's).

While not great money you get 3 or 4 of these across a large belt system (say 8 belts at least) and its an easy isk injection. I know from lots of cleaning out crap spawns to do some chaining in 0.0 they clear out fast as well.