These forums have been archived and are now read-only.

The new forums are live and can be found at https://forums.eveonline.com/

EVE General Discussion

 
  • Topic is locked indefinitely.
 

First day - a little ice mining report

First post First post
Author
Previous Topic Next Topic
Cherry Comfort
Science and Trade Institute
Caldari State
#201 - 2013-06-06 13:54:57 UTC
Here's my take on this.

I like that CCP is doing something about ice mining. In general, I like these changes. However, I have the luxury of being able to play immediately after downtime at least a few days of the week. That allows my single-ship ice mining "fleet" to know when Ice will be available, get quite a bit, and know when it will respawn on those days.

I feel sorry for the other players that log on mid-point in the day, need some ice for their POS, and have no idea when it will spawn. Jumping around from ice-system to ice-system seems ridiculous, and sitting around in a system waiting on a spawn seems pointless and boring.

My fear is that once the bots catch up, ice mining will be even MORE of a bot-driven activity. Bots don't mind sitting around waiting for a spawn. I picture a lot of bots that undock once a minute, check for an ice anomaly, then redock - or are simply smart enough to track the time that the post-downtime ice anomalies get depleted, wait 4 hours, then deploy en masse again.

I'm not sure what the best solution is, however. An indicator of when the next anomaly will spawn seems silly from a game-realism perspective.
Jason Xado
Doomheim
#202 - 2013-06-06 14:05:22 UTC
Mara Rinn wrote:
Johnnie Blue wrote:
Pak Narhoo wrote:
Eh, silly question but could you share that knowledge perhaps?
Been running around in Amarr space and I haven't got a clue where the ice belts are now. Oops



The complete list of high security systems that will contain Clear Icicle anomalies is: Afivad, Agal, Avada, Bashakru, Chanoun, Dantan, Dihra, Erkinen, Esteban, Gamis, Gelhan, Gosalav, Jarzalad, Jerma, Kothe, Manatirid, Miah, Moutid, Ordion, Raravoss, Riavayed, Seil, Talidal, Warouh.

http://community.eveonline.com/news/patch-notes/patch-notes-for


And as for when they will appear, it's 4 hours from the time they were depleted. I'm not 100% certain, but I think it's 4 hours to the minute. So as long as you're aware of when a previous instance of this system's ice field was seen, you should be able to reliably predict the time it will next appear.

And since the ice fields are reset at DT, you always know when the first one appeared :)


Do ice fields respawn at DT?

I was under the impression they did not, but I haven't had a chance to test.
Erotica 1
Krypteia Operations
#203 - 2013-06-06 14:13:01 UTC

Back the Final Solution for Ice Mining and everyone will be happy.

See Bio for isk doubling rules. If you didn't read bio, chances are you funded those who did.
March rabbit
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#204 - 2013-06-06 14:13:45 UTC
baltec1 wrote:
But nobody has taken away ice mining.

if you have like 1-2 hours to play and all ICE gravs are already depleted in this period of time then you can say "it was removed"

The Mittani: "the inappropriate drunked joke"
Mara Rinn
Cosmic Goo Convertor
#205 - 2013-06-06 14:17:26 UTC
Jason Xado wrote:
Do ice fields respawn at DT?

I was under the impression they did not, but I haven't had a chance to test.


Yes, two brand new ice fields that were not there just before DT. I'm still harvesting them because there are only 30-40 people in local.

Day 0 Advice for New Players
Dave Stark
#206 - 2013-06-06 14:20:14 UTC
March rabbit wrote:
baltec1 wrote:
But nobody has taken away ice mining.

if you have like 1-2 hours to play and all ICE gravs are already depleted in this period of time then you can say "it was removed"


no you can't.

because it wasn't.
Jason Xado
Doomheim
#207 - 2013-06-06 14:22:12 UTC
Mara Rinn wrote:
Jason Xado wrote:
Do ice fields respawn at DT?

I was under the impression they did not, but I haven't had a chance to test.


Yes, two brand new ice fields that were not there just before DT. I'm still harvesting them because there are only 30-40 people in local.


But what if the ice field wasn't depleted? Would it reset?
handige harrie
Vereenigde Handels Compagnie
#208 - 2013-06-06 14:23:49 UTC
March rabbit wrote:
baltec1 wrote:
But nobody has taken away ice mining.

if you have like 1-2 hours to play and all ICE gravs are already depleted in this period of time then you can say "it was removed"


Thats only a valid excuse for 2 or 3 year olds.

Im sorry to tell you, but when you put your hands in front of your eyes, the world does not disappear.

Baddest poster ever
xavier69
Stark Enterprises LLC
#209 - 2013-06-06 14:33:29 UTC
After 7 years playing this game

CCP should realistically expect to lose about 30% of its mining accounts with the current spawn rates.

People who mined ice did not want competition they wanted and easy steady flow of isk,
Changing that mechanic will sure make 30% of them quit.

Example, if you forced everyone into lowsec i bet you would lose 50% of your players in month. CCP needs to realize it cant keep forcing its players to play the game CCP way and differently every year and expect to retain accounts.
March rabbit
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#210 - 2013-06-06 14:42:50 UTC
handige harrie wrote:
March rabbit wrote:
baltec1 wrote:
But nobody has taken away ice mining.

if you have like 1-2 hours to play and all ICE gravs are already depleted in this period of time then you can say "it was removed"


Thats only a valid excuse for 2 or 3 year olds.

Im sorry to tell you, but when you put your hands in front of your eyes, the world does not disappear.

next time post something informative and not some nonsense

good luck

The Mittani: "the inappropriate drunked joke"
baltec1
Bat Country
Pandemic Horde
#211 - 2013-06-06 15:31:44 UTC
March rabbit wrote:
baltec1 wrote:
But nobody has taken away ice mining.

if you have like 1-2 hours to play and all ICE gravs are already depleted in this period of time then you can say "it was removed"


Kinda like exploration sites.

Highsec is busy, go to low sec and you will find more ice than you can throw at a titanic.
Mr Epeen
It's All About Me
#212 - 2013-06-06 16:18:34 UTC
Looking in the Character Bazaar, ice mining is not a hit. People are trying to sell entire fleets for barely over the cost of transfer.

That said, the 10,000 ice blocks I managed to hoard have already climbed by half a billion ISKies at the regional average, so I can't complain.

As to how I actually feel about the mechanic, I think it may need a little tweaking but over all a good move on CCP's part.

Mr Epeen Cool
Vaerah Vahrokha
Vahrokh Consulting
#213 - 2013-06-06 17:12:53 UTC
Felicity Love wrote:
Vaerah Vahrokha wrote:


What'll happen when those 222 - 17 subs will be about to expire? I don't want to EvE to slow down development / miss features because CCP trashed 20% of their playerbase overnight.


Some will wander off to actually discover another part of the game, and ASTONISHINGLY enough, they will have fun !

Some will discover how easy it is to make ISK in other parts of the game.

And a few will quit outright, because they have neither the interest nor the imagination to get past the "CCP screwed my ISK fountain" mentality. Roll

I'm not seeing any downsides to any of that. Cool


You seem to miss a quite vast number of people who (AFK) mined during the "low hours" and / or at some place where they can't do those other parts of the game to grind the ISK to play at home exactly those parts of the game.

I and many others grinded L4s to pay the low / null sec "fun times" with corpies, others did mining.

EvE Online portal | EvE markets tutorials
Zhade Lezte
#214 - 2013-06-06 17:28:09 UTC  |  Edited by: Zhade Lezte
Tyberius Franklin wrote:
Competitiveness is one thing, this is closer to partial exclusion. And not by lack of effort or coordination, but rather by playtime. That isn't something I can get behind as it leaves some with no means of being competitive.


Looking at your response and VV's elaborated response, I'd say that the problem with this mechanic is that it is so constant. The ice belts always spawning at the start of downtime and thus 4 hours after that, being controlled entirely by people whose only virtue is being able to play at these specific four hour increments, is dumb. If your playtime is 12:00-14:00 you should have the same chance as if your playtime is 14:00-16:00, instead of one of these playtimes always getting an ice spawn and the other never in practice.

Random ice belt spawn timers that only average once per four hours would give everyone a fair share of the pie.

But I disagree with people that want to bring back static, infinite ice belts to cater with people who want to literally not put in any commands for 45 minutes of "playtime". If you want semi-afk gameplay, mine ore in a very out of the way highsec system. It will give you just as much if not more ISK than old ice mining did, but yes from my own personal experience doing this you will have to deign to change your harvesters every 9 to 12 minutes, ~3 minutes shorter if you want to avoid wasted mining from partial cycles.

If you're not only having to change your harvesters every 9 to 12 minutes, you picked a system that is not out of the way. Protip: get out of caldari space, or try non-station systems.
Vaerah Vahrokha
Vahrokh Consulting
#215 - 2013-06-06 18:18:55 UTC
baltec1 wrote:
March rabbit wrote:
baltec1 wrote:
But nobody has taken away ice mining.

if you have like 1-2 hours to play and all ICE gravs are already depleted in this period of time then you can say "it was removed"


Kinda like exploration sites.

Highsec is busy, go to low sec and you will find more ice than you can throw at a titanic.


Quite sure the "1 hour to play a day" guy with his 1 ship and 1 account can just hop in low sec for some juicy fireworks. Oh wait, did you really mean, mining?

EvE Online portal | EvE markets tutorials
Vaerah Vahrokha
Vahrokh Consulting
#216 - 2013-06-06 18:20:51 UTC
baltec1 wrote:
Jowen Datloran wrote:
Borlag Crendraven wrote:
...

True, but taking away things for people to do is generally a bad design pattern. More to do = more sand, less to do = less sand. Telling people that they can always do something else is pretty moot, as that 'something else' might just as well be something not involving an Eve-O subscription. It is not everybody who want to pay a monthly subscription just to be able to troll the forums, and one subscription less should always be taken with a certain amount of attention (not a lot, but a bit).

And I understand the poke at Malcanis, as he has advocated that Eve-O expansions should thrive at adding new things for people to do. Seemingly he is pretty cool with people getting less to do too.

Though, let us do like CCP and look how things develop over the coming months. There is probably huge stockpiles of isotopes that needs to be sold before things stabilize.


But nobody has taken away ice mining.


Nobody has taken away gold either. You just have to manage to slip in a bank safe and get handfuls of it.

EvE Online portal | EvE markets tutorials
Seniae 0n3
#217 - 2013-06-06 18:24:27 UTC
Vaerah Vahrokha wrote:

Quite sure the "1 hour to play a day" guy with his 1 ship and 1 account can just hop in low sec for some juicy fireworks. Oh wait, did you really mean, mining?



Why the envy? You too can play 1 hour a day with 1 ship and 1 account in lowsec.
Nathalie LaPorte
Native Freshfood
Minmatar Republic
#218 - 2013-06-06 18:24:48 UTC
Vaerah Vahrokha wrote:
baltec1 wrote:


But nobody has taken away ice mining.


Nobody has taken away gold either. You just have to manage to slip in a bank safe and get handfuls of it.


Which has been the case for centuries, so you're agreeing that ice mining is still basically the same.
Vaerah Vahrokha
Vahrokh Consulting
#219 - 2013-06-06 18:25:17 UTC
Zhade Lezte wrote:

Looking at your response and VV's elaborated response, I'd say that the problem with this mechanic is that it is so constant. The ice belts always spawning at the start of downtime and thus 4 hours after that, being controlled entirely by people whose only virtue is being able to play at these specific four hour increments, is dumb. If your playtime is 12:00-14:00 you should have the same chance as if your playtime is 14:00-16:00, instead of one of these playtimes always getting an ice spawn and the other never in practice.

Random ice belt spawn timers that only average once per four hours would give everyone a fair share of the pie.


Yeah I don't want the old system back. I also happen to come home right after downtime and then back again 4 hours later so guess what, I always get 2 spawns minimum a day.

But is it alright for all the others? I know it's very good for me but is it good for the game finances?

People are starting to dump their alts on characters bazaar, does that ring *some* bell?

EvE Online portal | EvE markets tutorials
Vaerah Vahrokha
Vahrokh Consulting
#220 - 2013-06-06 18:27:40 UTC
Nathalie LaPorte wrote:
Vaerah Vahrokha wrote:
baltec1 wrote:


But nobody has taken away ice mining.


Nobody has taken away gold either. You just have to manage to slip in a bank safe and get handfuls of it.


Which has been the case for centuries, so you're agreeing that ice mining is still basically the same.


Ice mining became as accessible as gold in a safe. You can be the banker, that is an elite the "EvE gods" decided to enable to get it OR you can be one of many and be locked out.

Sure, it's still there to take... just behind a bullet proof glass formed by your personal play time availability.

EvE Online portal | EvE markets tutorials