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Mining ships and EVE design philosophy.

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La Nariz
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#1 - 2013-02-11 00:33:51 UTC  |  Edited by: La Nariz
I found this hidden gem over in ships and modules:

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=2530257#post2530257

CCP Greyscale wrote:
tl;dr yes, this has been removed, because we felt that for a number of reasons it wasn't a function we wanted on active hardeners


This bonus came to the top of our work due to a defect, which prompted us to discuss whether we even wanted this feature in the first place. After fairly extensive discussion, we decided we would prefer to just remove it outright, for the following reasons:


  • We're not, in general and with exceptions, fans of multi-function modules. EVE fitting is about trade-offs, not about having your cake and eating it. In this particular case, it was making the decision to take an active hardener over a passive one easier than it otherwise would be, which isn't a particularly good thing.
  • The UX of this feature as implemented is pretty bad - there's two sets of resist attributes on the hardeners with very little explanation, the skill descriptions need to be unusually complicated to explain exactly what's going on, and it's not at all obvious from the modules that this feature even exists (see Liang's comment above).


First to state this thread is not about the hardener change, I couldn't care less about that and you shouldn't either. The bolded portion is one of the core concepts behind EVE. The idea is that your ship can specialize, that you must make trade offs to excel in a specific area. For example if you want to be an amazingly tough tank your damage will suffer and if you want to be a speed demon your tank will suffer. Perhaps you prefer to be a generalist in which you can do many things but you are also average, you don't do a lot of damage and you cannot absorb a lot of damage. This philosophy is followed fairly well through all ship types except for one, the mining ships. Why is that the case?

With the recent EHP changes to mining barges they no longer follow this philosophy. Miners are no longer required to fit a tank at the expense of other factors in order to ensure their safety. Miner's literally have the "having your cake and eating," something directly against a core concept of EVE, trade-offs. Miners do not have to choose between tank and yield anymore. Yet everyone else is expected to make these choices and should someone ask why they can't "have their cake and eat it too" they are shot down with as many HTFU variants as possible. Why are mining ships exempt from trade-offs?

To head off some dumb arguments before they arise(more to be added as the thread goes):

1. Miners have to fit tanks or they will be ganked.

Directly from the CSM minutes from December 2012 (http://community.eveonline.com/council/transcripts/2012/CSM_CCP_Meetings_December_2012.pdf) "For reasons that are left as an exercise to the reader, Exhumers are now blowing up at historically low rates."

2. You guys want to undo tiericide and make all mining ships terrible.

Functioning suggestion while retaining tiericide:
-Revert all EHP buffs.
-Set skiff tank at untanked BS level, set hulk tank at untanked cruiser level, and set mackinaw tank at untanked cruiser level.
-Set hulk yield to high, set mackinaw yield to low, and set skiff yield to low.
-Set mackinaw cargo hold to high, set hulk cargo hold to low, set skiff cargo hold to low.
-Allow enough fitting resources slots/pg/cpu to permit differing levels of compensation for these three factors. For example someone with no fitting skills will be able to increase one of the low stats to below average or specialize having one stat be extremely high at the expense of the others. A person with moderate fitting skills would be able to generalize including what a no fitting skills trained person could do. A person with amazing fitting skills would be able to the same as listed prior to a greater magnitude.
-All of this also applies to T1 stuff.
-Add rigs for gas mining.

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Charles the Miner
Amarr Empire
#2 - 2013-02-11 00:37:50 UTC
Now apply this to freighters.

Mind. Blown.
Frostys Virpio
State War Academy
Caldari State
#3 - 2013-02-11 01:03:45 UTC
La Nariz wrote:
I found this hidden gem over in ships and modules:

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=2530257#post2530257

CCP Greyscale wrote:
tl;dr yes, this has been removed, because we felt that for a number of reasons it wasn't a function we wanted on active hardeners


This bonus came to the top of our work due to a defect, which prompted us to discuss whether we even wanted this feature in the first place. After fairly extensive discussion, we decided we would prefer to just remove it outright, for the following reasons:


  • We're not, in general and with exceptions, fans of multi-function modules. EVE fitting is about trade-offs, not about having your cake and eating it. In this particular case, it was making the decision to take an active hardener over a passive one easier than it otherwise would be, which isn't a particularly good thing.
  • The UX of this feature as implemented is pretty bad - there's two sets of resist attributes on the hardeners with very little explanation, the skill descriptions need to be unusually complicated to explain exactly what's going on, and it's not at all obvious from the modules that this feature even exists (see Liang's comment above).


First to state this thread is not about the hardener change, I couldn't care less about that and you shouldn't either. The bolded portion is one of the core concepts behind EVE. The idea is that your ship can specialize, that you must make trade offs to excel in a specific area. For example if you want to be an amazingly tough tank your damage will suffer and if you want to be a speed demon your tank will suffer. Perhaps you prefer to be a generalist in which you can do many things but you are also average, you don't do a lot of damage and you cannot absorb a lot of damage. This philosophy is followed fairly well through all ship types except for one, the mining ships. Why is that the case?

With the recent EHP changes to mining barges they no longer follow this philosophy. Miners are no longer required to fit a tank at the expense of other factors in order to ensure their safety. Miner's literally have the "having your cake and eating," something directly against a core concept of EVE, trade-offs. Miners do not have to choose between tank and yield anymore. Yet everyone else is expected to make these choices and should someone ask why they can't "have their cake and eat it too" they are shot down with as many HTFU variants as possible. Why are mining ships exempt from trade-offs?

To head off some dumb arguments before they arise(more to be added as the thread goes):

1. Miners have to fit tanks or they will be ganked.

Directly from the CSM minutes from December 2012 (http://community.eveonline.com/council/transcripts/2012/CSM_CCP_Meetings_December_2012.pdf) "For reasons that are left as an exercise to the reader, Exhumers are now blowing up at historically low rates."


The problem si we don't know what CCP intend as being the base stats. Maybe they are actaully not meant to be killed by a destroyer. For all we know, CCP could say it's not broken even if it took a glass cannon fit talos to gank one in a 0.7 system. From that point, getting even more tank would cost a little bit of yield.

The trade off is there. The real question is where is the baseline intended to be.

Where the baseline SHOULD be is a totally different question.
NEONOVUS
Mindstar Technology
Goonswarm Federation
#4 - 2013-02-11 01:12:49 UTC
I like how the complaint isnt that they are ungankable but rather that they cant be ganked in a throwaway destroyer alt.
That you actually have to put time and effort into killing the ship.
Almost like you gankers grew fat on the glut of your success and have now been cast forth from your high killboards and made to crawl back up in bigger, better ships.
Abrazzar
Vardaugas Family
#5 - 2013-02-11 01:15:47 UTC
RubyPorto
RubysRhymes
#6 - 2013-02-11 01:42:09 UTC  |  Edited by: RubyPorto
NEONOVUS wrote:
I like how the complaint isnt that they are ungankable but rather that they cant be ganked in a throwaway destroyer alt.
That you actually have to put time and effort into killing the ship.
Almost like you gankers grew fat on the glut of your success and have now been cast forth from your high killboards and made to crawl back up in bigger, better ships.


Keep trying to mischaracterize the argument.

The problem is that, with no effort whatsoever by the miner, they are unprofitable to gank (and thus unlikely to be ganked). Unlike any other fitted T2 ship (fit with guns, damage mods, no tank, just like the average Mack).

Before the silly EHP buff, miners could actually put time and effort into keeping themselves safe, or put neither in and roll the dice.
Now there is no reason to put time or effort into keeping yourself safe because you cried to CCP and CCP did it for you.

"It's easy to speak for the silent majority. They rarely object to what you put into their mouths." -Abrazzar "the risk of having your day ruined by other people is the cornerstone with which EVE was built" -CCP Solomon
La Nariz
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#7 - 2013-02-11 01:42:10 UTC  |  Edited by: La Nariz
Frostys Virpio wrote:

The problem si we don't know what CCP intend as being the base stats. Maybe they are actaully not meant to be killed by a destroyer. For all we know, CCP could say it's not broken even if it took a glass cannon fit talos to gank one in a 0.7 system. From that point, getting even more tank would cost a little bit of yield.

The trade off is there. The real question is where is the baseline intended to be.

Where the baseline SHOULD be is a totally different question.


I think the baseline is the problem at this point. It basically makes it so miners do not have to make their trade-off choices, they can fit for max yield while still having adequate tank. The CSM quote affirms this because ganking is at "historic lows." Also with the ore bay change they completely removed one trade-off which is cargo space. So mining ships are currently ignoring one of the core concepts of EVE.

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NEONOVUS
Mindstar Technology
Goonswarm Federation
#8 - 2013-02-11 01:57:27 UTC  |  Edited by: ISD LackOfFaith
Snipped off topic insult-slinging. -- ISD LackOfFaith

Ooh hey my industrials are tanked to survive 10k alpha while having full load.
Does this make me ignoring core concepts as I can now survive a gank.
Also I salute you brave random Jita shooter for being willing to shoot at me and my 1 billion cargo.
Even if you may have done a spit take and ruined your keyboard.

Ooh wait what of all my warships that are tanked in the mids and fitted for gank in the highs and lows does this violate your beleifs?
My bs are immune to your ganks even untanked and with all racks empty.

Really you just arent using the right tool for the job is the issue.
If you want to kill the miner go grab a brutix and use that instead of your elcheapo dessie.
Or just spin up alts and bring several dessies and gank that way.
Agnar Volta
State War Academy
Caldari State
#9 - 2013-02-11 01:57:57 UTC

Define "adequate tank".

As far as I see they are still being ganked, and for a profit in most cases.

Do you guys need more handouts from CCP? Tier 3 BC, cloak ships for warp ins, Orcas for reshipping of criminal characters in HS, especial events from the community and the profits from Tech as it comprises 90% of a hulks cost.

Is it not enough? Do you really need to have your cake and eat it as well?

You are like deer hunters complaining that they can't use silencers in their rifles. How much more of a edge do you need?

I assume the number of gankers killed by miners is equal of the hunters killed by dear in this fair fight of yours.
La Nariz
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#10 - 2013-02-11 02:20:13 UTC  |  Edited by: La Nariz
NEONOVUS wrote:

Ooh wait what of all my warships that are tanked in the mids and fitted for gank in the highs and lows does this violate your beleifs?


They sacrifice utility. They cannot web/warp interdict/ewar sufficiently. Of course you could go the generalist route but like I said in the op that will make you average at everything and possibly subpar in other areas. There is a trade-off whether you see it or not.

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NEONOVUS
Mindstar Technology
Goonswarm Federation
#11 - 2013-02-11 02:47:13 UTC
La Nariz wrote:
NEONOVUS wrote:

Ooh wait what of all my warships that are tanked in the mids and fitted for gank in the highs and lows does this violate your beleifs?


They sacrifice utility. They cannot web/warp interdict/ewar sufficiently. Of course you could go the generalist route but like I said in the op that will make you average at everything and possibly subpar in other areas. There is a trade-off whether you see it or not.

Yes so you fail to bring enough gun then whine.
As you so carefully excised my point that you can not kill ships with in the concord time limit you should upgrade your ship.
And yet you fail to do so and then whine.
Where is your hardness?
Your strength
Your man.. okay stopping this before I get some yaoi writing and an ISD on me.
La Nariz
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#12 - 2013-02-11 02:57:30 UTC
NEONOVUS wrote:

As you so carefully excised my point that you can not kill ships with in the concord time limit you should upgrade your ship.


One of the reasons for this threads existence is that the balance of mining ships is so off they do not have to make any trade offs for anything and are not gankable by an "upgraded" (see fitted with trade offs) ship.

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Mara Rinn
Cosmic Goo Convertor
#13 - 2013-02-11 03:06:24 UTC
The changes to exhumers were rather poorly thought out. I don't agree that miners now "have their cake and eat it too" since exhumers still get suicide ganked more than any combat ship in the game. Yes, exhumers still get ganked. Just not by the ISK/hr maximisers operating out of Brapelille (g'day Bob H).

Heck, the last Hulk I lost was left surrounded by the wrecks of the ganker's ships for twenty minutes before the Hulk pilot was able to get back to the site to continue mining.

The poor design decisions that led to the Mackinaw being the king of mining are as follows:

  1. Giving a battle-cruiser sized ship a cruiser-sized tank with cruiser-sized yield (contrast with the tier 3 BCs such as the Oracle, their 'yield' is heads and shoulders above any other ship in their class, the trade off is paper thin tank for incredible gank in an agile package)
  2. Giving a cruiser-sized ships a battleship-sized tank (this has been done with the Maller, for example, but the pilot has to sacrifice DPS, and a 300 DPS brick Maller certainly doesn't have 80% of the 1000 DPS of a gank Oracle)
  3. Giving a cruiser-sized ship the hauling capacity of a capital ship, to an extent not seen before (an Impel can almost equal the capacity of a Mackinaw, but sacrifices tank)


I was one of the people looking for 10PG more fittings for Hulks. Even then I thought I was perhaps looking to have my cake and eat it too, since 10PG on the hull would mean I can fit a tank without sacrificing a low slot for a MAPC. My choice would then be bulkheads for more structure to complement the DC II, or MLU for more yield with the same tank. Fitting armor plate was out of the question due to fitting restrictions.

The current Mackinaw is an insane combination of high storage capacity, huge tank and high yield. The Skiff and Mackinaw need to lose their bizarre yield bonuses, so the yields of the ships are in line: 1, 2 and 3 times the yield of the strip mining module. The skiff gets the huge tank, mackinaw gets the huge capacity, the hulk remains the king of yield but requires fleet support and alert pilots.

Miners should need to be aware of suicide gankers, just as mission runners need to be aware of suicide gankers. There are many ways to improve the lot of miners without taking everything away from gankers. Giving miners a ship with huge storage, high yield and incredible tank is not a sane option.

Of course rebalancing back to the point that Goons are happy gankers again is out of the question. Suicide ganking miners is a sport, not a factory line.

Day 0 Advice for New Players
Lors Dornick
Kallisti Industries
#14 - 2013-02-11 03:14:28 UTC
RubyPorto wrote:

The problem is that, with no effort whatsoever by the miner, they are unprofitable to gank (and thus unlikely to be ganked).


CCP has also stated (as part of the the design) that suicide ganks was never intended to be directly profitable.

Always possible, often profitable in terms of industrial interdiction or other secondary gains, but not profitable in it self.

CCP Greyscale: As to starbases, we agree it's pretty terrible, but we don't want to delay the entire release just for this one factor.
La Nariz
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#15 - 2013-02-11 03:16:02 UTC
Mara Rinn wrote:
The changes to exhumers were rather poorly thought out. I don't agree that miners now "have their cake and eat it too" since exhumers still get suicide ganked more than any combat ship in the game. Yes, exhumers still get ganked. Just not by the ISK/hr maximisers operating out of Brapelille (g'day Bob H).


I for the most part agree with your post aside from this part. How is the CCP Xahangen and the rest of the CSM noting that ganking is at historic lows not an acknowledgement that miners are getting a "free" tank due to the EHP changes? They don't have to choose between cargo/tank/yield anymore. Cargo was completely eliminated due to the ore bays. Tank is a non-issue because of the EHP buffs so now everyone goes full yield. There are literally no trade-offs to be made now.

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La Nariz
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#16 - 2013-02-11 03:18:50 UTC
Lors Dornick wrote:
RubyPorto wrote:

The problem is that, with no effort whatsoever by the miner, they are unprofitable to gank (and thus unlikely to be ganked).


CCP has also stated (as part of the the design) that suicide ganks was never intended to be directly profitable.

Always possible, often profitable in terms of industrial interdiction or other secondary gains, but not profitable in it self.


CCP Greyscale and CCP Soundwave are in conflict then. Soundwave stated that ganking is not intended to be profitable and Greyscale stated that there should be trade offs. So if they wanted to follow both of those view points they wouldn't have buffed mining barge EHP. As an idea they could have made it so only the owner could loot their own wreck when CONCORD intervenes as well as making it so CONCORD destroys wrecks of the criminals.

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Nevyn Auscent
Broke Sauce
#17 - 2013-02-11 03:25:58 UTC
La Nariz wrote:
Lors Dornick wrote:
RubyPorto wrote:

The problem is that, with no effort whatsoever by the miner, they are unprofitable to gank (and thus unlikely to be ganked).


CCP has also stated (as part of the the design) that suicide ganks was never intended to be directly profitable.

Always possible, often profitable in terms of industrial interdiction or other secondary gains, but not profitable in it self.


CCP Greyscale and CCP Soundwave are in conflict then. Soundwave stated that ganking is not intended to be profitable and Greyscale stated that there should be trade offs. So if they wanted to follow both of those view points they wouldn't have buffed mining barge EHP. As an idea they could have made it so only the owner could loot their own wreck when CONCORD intervenes as well as making it so CONCORD destroys wrecks of the criminals.

I take it you are in favour of Barges & Exhumers gaining decent fitting slots & PG/CPU in order to make said trade offs then?
As currently a barge gets.... 1 Medium on a Covetor/Retriever & 3 on a Procurer. And a massive 2/3/2 lows.
Exhumers I believe get 1 additional medium.
So a lot of their tank HAS to be be in the base stats, because they don't have the fittings in order to get any real tank.

To change this so they 'have to fit a tank' you have to give them enough fittings & slots to actually fit one.
La Nariz
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#18 - 2013-02-11 03:36:13 UTC
Nevyn Auscent wrote:

I take it you are in favour of Barges & Exhumers gaining decent fitting slots & PG/CPU in order to make said trade offs then?
As currently a barge gets.... 1 Medium on a Covetor/Retriever & 3 on a Procurer. And a massive 2/3/2 lows.
Exhumers I believe get 1 additional medium.
So a lot of their tank HAS to be be in the base stats, because they don't have the fittings in order to get any real tank.

To change this so they 'have to fit a tank' you have to give them enough fittings & slots to actually fit one.


Yes I am in favor of doing that. I am not convinced that they need too much of a PG/CPU increase because the miner should be rewarded for training fitting skills. The same can be said of slot layout they are low so that trade-offs can be made. For the mids you have shield boosts/extenders/active hardeners/prop mod/survey scanner/passive hardeners. When considering the mids the miner has to choose between the utility of a scanner and the tank of speed or shield. For the lows you have MLU/DC/bulk heads/WCS/nanos/overdrives, the miner chooses between increased yield of the MLU, the structure of the DC/bulk heads, the evasion of the WCS or the speed tank of nanos/overdrives. I agree wholeheartedly that they should be given the same sort of "canvas" a combat pilot gets with their ship to work with.

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Mallak Azaria
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#19 - 2013-02-11 03:38:23 UTC
Nevyn Auscent wrote:
La Nariz wrote:
Lors Dornick wrote:
RubyPorto wrote:

The problem is that, with no effort whatsoever by the miner, they are unprofitable to gank (and thus unlikely to be ganked).


CCP has also stated (as part of the the design) that suicide ganks was never intended to be directly profitable.

Always possible, often profitable in terms of industrial interdiction or other secondary gains, but not profitable in it self.


CCP Greyscale and CCP Soundwave are in conflict then. Soundwave stated that ganking is not intended to be profitable and Greyscale stated that there should be trade offs. So if they wanted to follow both of those view points they wouldn't have buffed mining barge EHP. As an idea they could have made it so only the owner could loot their own wreck when CONCORD intervenes as well as making it so CONCORD destroys wrecks of the criminals.

I take it you are in favour of Barges & Exhumers gaining decent fitting slots & PG/CPU in order to make said trade offs then?
As currently a barge gets.... 1 Medium on a Covetor/Retriever & 3 on a Procurer. And a massive 2/3/2 lows.
Exhumers I believe get 1 additional medium.
So a lot of their tank HAS to be be in the base stats, because they don't have the fittings in order to get any real tank.

To change this so they 'have to fit a tank' you have to give them enough fittings & slots to actually fit one.


Before the barge buff you could fit a tank that made ganking you unprofitable. A lot of miners didn't want to do this because they had to trade their yield &/or for survivability. With the EHP & cargo buffs, they don't have to trade in anything. The Mack is now king because it has a huge cargo, a yield only slighty lower than a Hulk & a large base tank plus you can slap on a couple of invuln fields & extenders for even more. Still no drawbacks though.

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Frostys Virpio
State War Academy
Caldari State
#20 - 2013-02-11 03:41:10 UTC
La Nariz wrote:
Frostys Virpio wrote:

The problem si we don't know what CCP intend as being the base stats. Maybe they are actaully not meant to be killed by a destroyer. For all we know, CCP could say it's not broken even if it took a glass cannon fit talos to gank one in a 0.7 system. From that point, getting even more tank would cost a little bit of yield.

The trade off is there. The real question is where is the baseline intended to be.

Where the baseline SHOULD be is a totally different question.


I think the baseline is the problem at this point. It basically makes it so miners do not have to make their trade-off choices, they can fit for max yield while still having adequate tank. The CSM quote affirms this because ganking is at "historic lows." Also with the ore bay change they completely removed one trade-off which is cargo space. So mining ships are currently ignoring one of the core concepts of EVE.


It's only too high if it's intended to be hard to do with a catalyst. If the goal is to require at a minimum a cruiser to gank them, then it's not really at a bad point. The whole debate is entirely irrevelent until we know whats the goal of EHP of a barge/exhumer. Both side can cry rivers worth of tears and write bible worth of rambling about how it's broken for nothing because the goal was never said. We can't really say it's too much or too little until we know if they are supposed to be as hard as a cruiser to kill or a abttle ship or a titan.

My point of view of the mack being a little too hard is only that, an opinion based on my own set of idea and so is the generic "all exhumer are too tanky" view. The same can be said of the old "exhumer are too easy to gank" point of view.

The only solid point we can take as most likely to be a fact is that they were too easy to gank because thier EHP went up. The rest is pure opinion. The key is to get the point of view of the devs so we can then discuss what ships pay what exactly to get more tank/yield.
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