EVE General Discussion

Just move the requirements for Mackinaw and Hulk up a bit; no need to drop the skill requirements for Covetor.

Skiff Exhumers 2
Mackinaw Exhumers 3 + Refining Efficiency 4
Hulk Exhumers 5 + Refinery Efficiency 5

Simple. Now you need to train a heck of a long time.

Drop Covetor Requirement to 4 in the 3 rank skill. Still requires Mining Barge 5.

I'd call it done at that, and leave Tech 3 Industrials to Tech 3 Industrials. Completely seperate thing.

And to point out the part of my OP that has fallen through the cracks:




-------How many of you would have stuck around if you had to train 2 higher rank skills to Level 5 just to get into an Osprey ??

Name me ANY other ship in-game that the T2 skill requirement beyond T1 is mearly HOURS away .------------

Let's examine this statement closer



Hmmm, a little closer...



Yup. We have found truth on the internets!

Mark the bloody calendars.

there's three tiers of barges in both tech 1 and tech 2. the problem of the barges is the absolute monofocus on one thing. I agree, there's gotta be something better to make mining more interesting to industrial players... But I think it needs to be a bit more involved than a ship that can simply MINE BETTAR!

Does it need to be a combat barge?

Nah.

But there's a serious gap between the barges that mine and can't take a hit, and the industrials that can take a hit but cannot do any mining output.

Freighters, and pure haulers need to be considered separately from ORE barges and Industrial Commands. they don't do the same thing or perform the same role. They have their own set of problems. those problems just aren't as obvious.

Personally, I don't think any new mining ships should out-mine a Hulk, they should have a similar yield if you ask me, though I think that they should have much more fitting flexibility/tank

All you are going to achieve by lowering the requirements; is making it easier to train up a bot for RMT and Cheaters. Lowering the requirements marginally is fine; but completely reducing them is not. Training skills to level 4 is childs play.

Aww so cute...

What part of my post is opinion? You said in the original post that the ice market is being flooded by bots. By the very nature of a bot they can only be programmed to perform a mindless repetitive task, and they happen to exceed at mining thus mining is a mindless and repetitive task. Mindless repetitive tasks are considered to be boring by humans.

It's also not an opinion, just an unfortunate fact, that you can do literally any other activity in this game and make more money and be safer while doing it than you can mining. Yes I'm in TEST, we've got a nullsec region full of ABC ores, why don't we mine there? Because it's easier to import minerals from empire. You can make more instant money by killing rats in the belts, why bother mining? You have to kill the rats anyway to mine in peace.

Don't take it too personally when I say that mining is boring and not worth a player's time and is easier to accompish with automated mindless robots, it is, but that goes for most other activities in this game. I've seen so many botting Tengus running sanctums out here in Vale and Geminate it's kinda depressing... Mainly because I can't catch them as easily as I can catch botting ravens due to them being interdiction nullified, and I can't just leave a bubble in a belt for them to get stuck in.

So yeah, just because the tutorial to the game gives you an ibis with a mining laser doesn't mean that mining is a legitimate career in Eve. CCP should just accept what the botters have shown them, that it should be passive and automated like moon mining and PI. Make an anchorable structure you can leave in belts and grav sites to gather ore for you.

+1 to make the covetor easier to get.

Right first of all, OP your a **** and your attitude is worse than most of the trolls here. Manner Up.

Now thats out of the way, the serious stuff

Procurer
Mining Barges do have issues, its true the Procurer is pretty much entirely pointless, and as suggested freeing up the Scythe and Osprey would help somewhat in boosting its use, but that has to be balanced, as there are miners out there who are like day trippers and still mine in those boats every so often, by changing that Amarr and Gallente will still have great options to mine with, but Caldari and Minmatar Pilots will feel a bit short changed

I feel the biggest gain would be by dropping the industry skill requirement from 5 to 4, make it accessible that much faster and removed the problem of racial imbalance, noted above. a procurer would take only a few days to get with skills a budding industrialist would use. A little extra HP or slot would not hurt this ship either.

Covetor
This is a dangerous issue. Yes it is a ***** to skill up to, and is pretty much pointless as you can get a Hulk a few days later. BUT lower the skill requirements and suddenly you have people who only trained up to a retriever to help out on ops, or occasionally mine being able to ship up to a much larger yield, and if there is one thing the market needs right now, is more ore/minerals, Until the issue of the Drone regions is sorted and changed to bounties, I don't believe it should be touched. However once it has been, making this ship more accessible can only be a good thing.

Barges Survivability
Again another issue, they are paper thin but I don't think they should be buffed too much, the tech 1 barges can be insured nicely and only take a minimal isk hit making them perfect for use in riskier areas. Eve should not be risk free, and I feel this stretches out to mining. If you want to mine in the middle or around a hub so be it, take the risk, or go further out and avoid the masses if it means a lil more hauling.

Lowsec mining should never be a solo affair and with a good group, scouts and reactions lowsec mining is not only profitable it becomes more of a social activity. For those who are bitching you can't get out in time, co-ordination, fit each barge with a web in a midslot, and have your ships pointing to a safespot. Once hostile is spotted, hit align, and then web each other, hit warp boom, instant warp. Very easy to pull off.

Industry in general
It needs to receive more love, and I'm constantly surprised that the t1 manufacturing industry is never mentioned. It is the premier way for a new player to start industry but right now its entirely pointless. Rat drops have all but killed it, and Meta 1 and 2 are pretty much pointless. These drops need to stop and allow an opening for newer players to produce modules. Personally I'd be more than happy if NPC wrecks were empty and only salvageable and to make Meta items produced from reversed engineering and using PI and Salvage drops to produce.

I used to rant like you, then I took an arrow to the knee.