Player Features and Ideas Discussion

The rookie systems provide an area of EVE that is (almost) PVP-exempt, to let players learn the game interface in a sheltered environment. Various forms of PVP are expressly banned in these systems - invading missions to hold objectives hostage, suicide ganking, suspect games and the like.


However, this protection is routinely exploited by fleets of mining barges and exhumers (often with Orca support) who are not rookies and who engage in a (presently allowed) form of PVP against the actual rookies - competition for limited asteroid resources. This results in confusion for rookies who cannot find their 333 Veldspar for the tutorials and have to travel to surrounding systems, and is particularly evident during AU peak time (just before the downtime reset of asteroid fields).


My proposal is for a CCP policy change that removes this loophole, and allows only ships that rookies can fly (rookie ships, Ventures, and the other ships rookies use to mine because they do not know better - destroyers, frigates, Iterons and cruisers) to mine in these systems.


In particular, ships that require a week to train into (barges), a month (exhumers) or two months (Orca) would be disallowed from mining in those belts.


This would be in-line with the restrictions against other forms of PVP in those systems.

eh...

The rules say your not allowed to 'grief' rookies in the rookie systems. We can assume that people in orca's and exhumers are not rookies. My question then becomes, Are we allowed to suicide gank people in rookie systems that clearly aren't rookies? I've never seen anything concrete on this.

I would probably give the T1 mining barges a pass as they can be trained for under a week with the booster, but that's an edge case at best.

That other player wasn't a rookie, they were flying a ship that takes a full week to train into. (Edit: Historically some barges did not take that long to train into IIRC, but they all take a week now). There is a reason that newbie systems do not have level 3 security mission agents in them or DED 3/10 complexes (two other activities risk-averse players might take part in after a week of training).

I really don't care that much about the corner cases like that though, it's the whole fleets of multiboxed (or maybe botted) Mackinaws and Retrievers with Orca support that are the ones griefing rookies by preventing them learning the mining interface.

limit the exclusion to (all) T2 ships and the orca maybe?

Like the last dozen times this came up, I'm going to say this. You are trying the wrong solution.

The problem is nothing to do with the barges. It's to do with the tied to downtime mechanic of respawning asteroids.
Asteroid belts should simply be removed. We already have a great system in Null Industry respawning grav clusters of ores. This makes a lot more sense in grav clusters appearing at weak larange points randomly, rather than the once a day respawn and some time zones are at a disadvantage if they are late in the EVE day.

This then solves the multibox mining fleet issue since the newbie just has to wait a little while. While creating a more even experience regardless of timezone.

how about - players older than a month may not undock in or enter this system when piloting any of the following ships: mining barge, exhumer, industrial command ship
(covert ops, AF, 'ceptor, EA frig, bomber, 'dictor, HAC, HIC, recon, Strat cruiser, Command ship, BlOps, marauder)
note that Logistics cruisers are permitted, as are industrials, BR's and DST's
EDIT - how about you can undock in the bare/exhumer/orca, but become a suspect for doing so in a rookie sys? risk vs reward and all that

I'm good with this suggestion

Here's an out of the box idea on this, specifically in reponse to Rookies quitting because the bots have taken over.

I can mine like 10M units of veldspar on my own in Null-Sec in however long that takes. If my maths are correct, thats A FREAKING TON OF VELDSPAR.

I say take advantage (older/veteran players) of your own ability to mine for yourself, and give the newbies their Ore. Truck it in from wherever. I could single handedly supply the Veldspar needs of like 10000 newbies for this particular mission. This is a GREAT opportunity for corps/alliances to make an impact in a GOOD way on the New Player Experience. Its a great time for recruiters to explain some mechanics, and instead of this being a negative situation for the new player, it turns into a Great PR opportunity for corps/alliances and the best educational opportunity for new players.

On a certain level, I excited that the belts are mined out in an hour, that means for 22 hours of the day, I can brainwa...er..."educate" the new players!!!

Ced

You had a barge and you were unable to move out of your rookie system?

@OP: howabout disallow strip miner activation instead of disallowing mining barges. Maybe people want to show off their cool bigships to make the newbies swoon.

So Rookie systems are there primarily just for new players to learn the game, primarily through the tutorials etc right?

So why not just get rid of the ore. Make the missions requring mining use some "mission ore", which already exists for other missions anyhow. If a rookie wants to mine for isk they can easily fly one system over and do so.

Seems like an easier fix that all these wonky ship/module restrictions.