Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Hello there Features & Ideas Discussion forum. I propose now a more fleshed out and specified idea for making mining more engaging and interesting (and profitable for the active player), thus reducing the need to afk mine on multiple characters.

I call it Turbo Mining.
Essentially it's an expanded overheating mechanic specifically designed for mining. What it'll do is increase yield dramatically (potentially), but you will have to manage it carefully, lest dire consequence will befall you. This is partly to ensure you can only do it on one character at a time. It'll make it so one actively playing miner can be as effective as multiple ones being afk, thereby decreasing the gain of afk mining comparatively.

It's important to note it will still be possible to afk-mine as before if that is your drug, it is an added bonus for those who wish to actively play the game.

I have designed two mock-ups of the new interface.

Normal mining, only difference being an added button above the center console, which you're free to ignore:
- http://i.imgur.com/R2ySn5P.jpg

If you're an eager miner who wants to pay attention, you can hit the button to engage Turbo Mining, which will change the interface slightly and bring up the Turbo Mining Crystal Alignment Assistant element:
- http://i.imgur.com/rlO13O0.jpg

When overcharging the lasers like so, it's important to keep the internal focus crystals aligned correctly, otherwise it can cause severe damage.
Now what happens is that the crystal alignment indicator will start drifting towards the edges/sides of the arced alignment spectrum visualizer. If it goes too far to one side, bad things will happen. It is therefore the miners job to keep the indicator aligned in the middle, which in turn will give a boost to his mining.

The intensity meter is where the miner can adjust how Turbo he wants to go. The higher he puts it, the more violently the focus crystals will shake and thus make it harder to keep the indicator aligned. In turn however he will benefit from a greater mining boost.
I envision the consequences of failing to keep it aligned at higher intensity levels will be much more severe as well. At lower levels it may simply damage the laser modules as by conventional overheating.
At medium levels there is a risk of the modules exploding (become irreversibly wrecked), damaging the ship as well.
At maximum intensity the entire mining ship could explode if the miner fails completely to keep the indicator aligned.

This is to give it an element of risk/reward, as we all love in EvE.

The Flux Coil Anomaly you may see on the alignment spectrum visualizer (see previous screenshot) is a kind of random event that may occur. The miner can try to touch it with the alignment indicator by letting it drift sufficiently in direction of the anomaly. This is risky as he will have to go out of alignment and closer to the edges, but it may provide a temporary bonus if touched.
Alternatively it may give a debuff until it's touched and removed.

I think that covers the mechanics.



This will hopefully make it more exciting to mine and encourage people to do it actively and not go afk. If balanced right the influx of ore to the market would remain roughly the same, as the amount of multi-character afk miners will decline in turn.

Why do we want non-afk miners you ask? Well there's multiple reasons and it's a long post. I know however that we have many bad boys here and would like to highlight:
Afk miners do not mine in pirate land

So an increase in daring actively playing miners will most likely also mean an increase in miners who venture into dangerous space, which inevitably means more targets to the pirates.

It may hurt the high-sec ganking industry slightly, but I have a small cookie for them too.
They'll be able to easily spot the miners who are afk as they will not have the enhanced Turbo beam visuals, making target acquisition more convenient for the busy ganker.

I would add afk miners think they're a problem too themselves (I shall not speak for everyone of course). Many do it simply because it's so boring and there's no reason not to go afk. They would stick around if there was something to do.
This is the ideas and suggestions forum, so I suggest one possible way to change that, which will favor the miners for once. We have plenty already suggesting to just kill them to suppress the symptoms of lackluster gameplay.

Did someone just said passive Rattlesnake?

Everything that can be AFK'd is bad game design.

I don't blame CCP, it was a fairly small team with limited resources creating a very expansive game, they had to prioritize. It is however constantly evolving and improving and some of these things do get overhauled when they have the time to spare, such as exploration for instance which has become a lot more engaging now.
So just because something is the way it is now does not necessarily mean it's ideal gameplay, it's just how it had to be.

Mining should definitely be next on the list for getting an overhaul.

Also regarding unbalancing.. I hated when the exploration overhaul got real and the prices of all exploration goods dropped dramatically. I left exploration for many months. It has found a fairly sensible and stable point now though, and I actually enjoy exploration a whole lot more than I did in vanilla EVE. The gameplay is just a lot more polished and engaging, so it's actually fun to do, heavens forbid.

Okay, its close enough I reported as redundant. Please see rule 17 if you think that they "should keep coming" though.

isn't this the third post on this topic in the last two days?


there is nothing wrong with mining if you don't like it there are other things to do


but considering the number of people who do mine you can't really say it needs changing just that YOU want it changed because tis not what YOU like

So, how exactly do I control this turbo beam? Do I click and drag it back on target? Constantly click? Hold down left mouse button and keep refocusing it? What exactly is it that makes this more engaging?

For once, a idea with pictures ^^ I agree this turbo should damage/destroy the strip miners if badly used, but blow up the entire ship ? Having to repairs anything is a loss of money, and the point of this mode would be to gain a better yield, so this already compensate, as long the bad use of the mode counterbalance the bonus in yield.

But as asked by FT Diomedes, how do move the cursors for the turbo mode ? I wonder if keyboard could be used instead of clicking, because miners need to be able to click while they mine (d-scan, local, intel, etc.).

And yes I think mining as it is wrong in eve online, a video game, especially a constantly paid one, shouldn't be half-played while doing something else, there is already station trade if people still want that. Ok to let the actual mining to not wreck this important part of the game, but still, a second optionnal gameplay need to be, not only new mechanics like comet mining.

You know, we can generalize even more if you can't be bothered with specifics, ie. everything below the headline. It's about making eve more interesting just like all the other threads here. \o/

Sorry, but please let the mods do the modding and focus on the subject in the meantime. Otherwise ignore it, thanks.

Please see above reply for controls.
Simply put it will make it more engaging because you actually have to do something. :)