Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Give the Venture a special cloak which allows use of mining lasers, (each needing a special targeting prompt to engage passively while cloaked).

No hostile present? Activity as normal, use the mining drones for additional yield.
Hostiles in system? Recall the drones, and go cloaked.

For the targeting of asteroids, just click on the mining laser with nothing locked, it already does this by default.

The hostile, warping to the belt, looks for the tell tale of lasers hitting rocks, and heads over to get closer.

This is the good part, follow carefully here.

The miner, KNOWING they are cloaked and cannot be targeted, has no reason to run.
The hunter, seeing the laser, gets closer to the miner.

The hunter needs to decloak, in order to do ANYTHING offensive.
By decloaking, they immediately alert the miner, who kills the mining laser, effectively removing the only clue to their whereabouts.

Now, IF the hostile is decloaked and has smart bombs, they can set them off, and hope their target is in range.
The mining ship should be trying to back away, out of such range.
(Time to call friends, if applicable)

It kind of reminds me of the old grid and peg game, battleship, where players try to guess each others location for combat.

I would love to test out encounters using these details.

NOTES:
Venture yield stats according to EFT, for reference:
(Using Veldspar ore for these numbers)
With drones: 909 per minute
Without drones: 596 per minute

Reference Fitting:
[Venture, Nikk Venture 1]
Mining Laser Upgrade II

Small C5-L Emergency Shield Overload I
Medium Shield Extender II
Survey Scanner II

Modulated Deep Core Miner II, Veldspar Mining Crystal II
Modulated Deep Core Miner II, Veldspar Mining Crystal II
Improved Cloaking Device II

Small Processor Overclocking Unit I
Small Processor Overclocking Unit I
Small Core Defense Field Extender I

Mining Drone II x2

That is the beauty of it.

One big issue, in sov null in particular, is that hunters are too often not being rewarded for looking.

This, would create an opportunity for that miner to quietly work, under the radar, and keep piling up ore so they could make that ISK.

The hunter, in exchange, is given the opportunity to actually find another player, rather than deserted belts and empty sites.

Who wouldn't like to mine, and competitively be able to maintain activity, in areas not secured by a blue donut, or in space not secured at all?

There is ore in those belts, for the players using the right strategy.

Local is telling BOTH sides that the other is present. Since no competition is possible to learn this detail, at least it can sponsor a competition of hide and seek for ISK.

I posted one of my own fits above, which would work with this quite well.

Meh...could be interesting I guess.

Appearance for this could be certainly unique, such as you described.

LOL, no other ship in Eve allows cloaking to be active AND 1) Target anything or 2) use any other Active module, but Hey Miners should have the best Tech available so they can just Mine in peace... Not show up on D-scan or Combat Probes so they can continue to mine. Afterall a pesky PvPer should have to comb every site and belt location without knowing what your in... And turn up the volume on the speakers and adjust your glasses to spot any tell tale mining activity,

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And as an added bonus, RMTers will rejoice with the added ease of their operations using bots with impunity.

Bravo!

Seriously... You must be new to Eve... The staggering level of stupid screams WOW Carebear.

I doubt you mine in sov null.

That's ok, your half ranting diatribe has impressed me. Just not very strongly in favor of your objective judgment capabilities.

Do you have any idea regarding the dynamic surrounding the cloaking vs mining issue, (or really, many versions of PvE similarly affected)? Rhetorical question, forgive me.

Think carefully about the yield being possible, while under cloak.
596 with Veldspar.

Now, on a solidly tanked Hulk, I can get 1,308 yield. That includes combat drones which aren't helping the yield.
I can toss out the Power Diag, plug in another mining laser upgrade, field mining drones, and bring that up to 1,738 yield.
Heck, on a yield hungry Mack, I can bring in 1,505....

Unless you are in high sec under a war dec, or sov null with a hostile in system, the Venture's 596 is not going to be satisfying a serious miner.
It is a last resort, which only looks good when compared to staying docked or behind POS shields, which we see too many complaints about to pretend there is no interest in having more options.

This is not opening the door for abuse. Noone would use this if they had the usually desired lower risk options.
But, make that ore be in a place not so friendly, where the exhumers fear to fly, and this suddenly starts to look shiny.

The big issue is that this sets a precedent for ships that can fire while cloaked. And, this is bad. Unlike in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, you can't just modify a photon torpedo.

If it can fire cloaked, you can't target it to fire back. So unless you want to close to smartbomb range you're out of luck.

You are over simplifying the context, and assuming a striking number of details in the process.

The ships in EVE already have specific and unique limitations. We have two distinct types of hard points, limiting you to being able to fit either turrets or launchers, in predetermined numbers.
I can field a Rokh with yield of up to 1,147 Veld per minute, using drones and the same modulated lasers.
(EHP at 74,359)

The Rokh can certainly fit weapons, in combination with these lasers, trading yield for a degree of DPS output.
See, the Rokh has hardpoints.

The Venture does not, nor is it expecting to target anything besides an asteroid.
(As explained, the ship itself is not locking the asteroid in this context, the Modulated Deep Core Miner II's are doing this... and they only lock onto a limited number of object types)

But, somehow you have made the amazing leap to being able to lock onto cloaked objects from yet another cloaked object.
While we have use of probes and directional scanning while cloaked, we can't actually lock onto an object with our ships directly.
Your attempt at a comparison has resulted in no more than a straw-man argument, creating a ridiculous means of winning fights against other players as a comparison to a functionally limited mining ability.

Your comparison fails because of the chasm between what I proposed, and what you suggested as an equivalent.

To even assume your argument has some merit, one must assume it requires CCP to enable your version along with this mining laser modification.
I see no reason to expect such a wild reaction from CCP, so I must logically dismiss your point as overly dramatic posturing.

Please, address the proposal, not exaggerated twists which have such absurd consequences.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around why a frigate with an already built in warp core strength should be able to do something not a single other ship in the game can do...... which is anything while cloaked.... :/

EDIT:

You've also been around long enough to know how these forums work Nikk, and how one bad Idea can lead to another. Your assertion that there is such a huge gap between what you're suggesting and what Cordo is saying is wrong. You have been around long enough to know Eve players have a unique talent for twisting everything..... See any of the hauler and venture fleet's for case in point example.

The most insulting part of your OP is that you don't even suggest increased skill requirements(outside of obvious for a cloak) or hull cost, you brazenly suggest all this on the t1 frigate hull which is already pretty powerful in the whole scheme of mining and accessibility/survivability. Don't get angry when someone goes as brazenly on the other side of what you're suggesting as you've gone on your side.

EDIT 2:

Yes, I hate editing things in, but yeah.....


Your idea is also pushing people into more and more cloaky crap. Cloaking has its uses. There are times it is the only way to go. There are also times it can be fun. But in general, anything that promotes the general population to be flying around cloaked all the time is bad.

I am actually about making a point with this.

My primary interest is about removing the evasion mechanic as the only option available for solo and small group mining.

In high sec, we have Concord, which makes it a timed competition: Can the ship survive long enough for Concord to arrive and explode the hostiles?
In other places, where other players are supporting, same timed competition, but substituting actual players for Concord.

I want the game to offer some means of practical operation where the miner can choose a diminished yet still respectable yield, and also continue operating on the basis that they can deal with a hostile landing on grid with them.

Option A, exhumer oriented: The mining ship is not concerned about being hot dropped, (either impossible to do or simply a bad idea).
The mining ship has fighting ability on par with a cloaked ship, which is the only type of shipping capable of passing gate camps.
(Noone is taking these on a roam, with their horrible align times and warp speeds)

Option B, Venture oriented: The mining ship duplicates the cloaked vessel's primary tactic, except the cloaked vessel knows to look for it in asteroid belts, knows the mining lasers have a telltale and easy to spot appearance, and local tells both that the other is present in the system. This is hide and seek for ISK, and neither side has a clear advantage.

It's one thing to choose evasion, but I want that to have an equally attractive other option to stand and continue operating, so we can once and for all put this stalemate to bed.

Either option A or B, I want to have the encounter, and play with the other person flying their space ship.