EVE General Discussion

I'm finding this discussion very interesting indeed.

But from my perspective alone, it makes no sense to design things around the fact it could be botted. Because *everything* can be botted. That's something we can't change.

As to the lines from earlier, they're just macro trends. They give you an idea of the overall trend, but don't read too much into it beyond that.

I think the idea that high sec mining ganking is a deterant to botting is partly based the idea that if you bot mining you are more likely to get ganked. While I don't believe this is true in as far as if a miner is targeted, it may be true with being able to survive an attempted gank. It'd be interesting to see the numbers of failed ganks from attentive miners verses botters.

The idea that ganking is a deterant to bot mining seems to be only as it's a deterant to all mining, as (to me) it doesn't seem that those to mine actively would be more willing to take a risk than those that bot.

As such, if ganking had a noticable effect on who mines, and the added tank and other improvements to mining barges and exhemers would increase all mining across the board, not merely botters.

TL;DR:
I'd think that ganking would effect all mining, bot or not, more or less equally.

One possible, if not probable, scenario why this trend is happening after recent changes is:
In high sec, mining bots and bot-aspirant AFK miners both exhibit the exact same playing patterns. These invulnerable non-players will sit in the belt, afk and empty their bays when they are full. Repeat forever. It is almost impossible to distinguish between these groups as the most rudimentary bots probably avoid mining 23/7 not to be too obvious, and at the same time the most foaming-from-mouth fanatic AFKbear will mine for longer than the average bot. From the outside it looks like some horrible Singularity event where you cannot tell where the human ends and the bot begins.

In null, the mining bots will still have to defend themselves from possible threats and have shown that they are pretty good at warping to safety at the first sign of trouble. This uncanny 0 sec reaction time is easy to detect, especially in hivemind situations where several of the bots warp off at the same time, if it happens a few times in a row.

What you have created with the increased ore bays and lower risk of ganking is a perfect camouflage for all the mining bots to do their economical damage while encouraging a group of people to think that they are entitled to profits by AFKing all day.

Indeed it does not make sense to design things around the fact an activity could be botted. It makes sense that the activity is designed not to BE botting, or close enough that no-one can tell the difference.

High-sec miners have made it quite clear that "excitement" for them can't come in the form of ship risk.

Failing that, I'm unsure what could be interesting or exciting about mining if we're being honest.

Which brings us to AFK bot aspiration and the current economic dilemma:

High-sec ice mining is getting less valuable every day so that eventually not all of the ice miners who subsist on PLEX to remain subbed will be able to do so, as they will be competing for PLEX purchases with individuals who earn ISK from a faucet directly at a fixed rate.

I guess it might be considered exciting to watch their buying power slowly evaporate as they and everyone like them further devalue their profession of choice.