EVE General Discussion

You mean the NPC Miners are part of a CCP plan to create a realistic Drifter/Sansha/NPC invasion that uses the minerals to build up new NPC fleets and structures? Players would need need to destroy the fleets to inhibit the NPC invasion forces before they're too large to defeat.

Or maybe they're a precursor to some kind of automated NPCs that work for the player, i.e. player corp NPC convoys so the players don't have to deal with tedious hauling but at the risk of their enemies playing WWII style wolf-packs versus convoys as a means of economic/logistic warfare.

Or maybe the Empires (Gallente, Caldari, etc.) will need these NPC miners to increase their overall power in high-sec and players can influence their empire's status/benefits by helping or hindering a particular empire's NPC miners. E.g. after Galltente NPC miners bring in X minerals, all Gallente drones in Gallente space get a 5% damage buff.

Or Space Oprah gives every player a new (in-game) car once the NPC miners enough minerals to build said cars!


Meh, what else have other games done with NPC convoys and/or NPC resource accumulation?

carebears/miners have been asking for PVE content right?

what's wrong this time?

They may not offer direct on site competition, but unlike you they work 23/7 around the clock. Your favorite belt may be mostly depleted as a result of their existance before you arrive. Even if it isn't, you still have to deal with them. So yeah, they shake up mining a little bit, and that's good.

I've been attacking these fleets for a couple weeks now and have had varying successes and failures with killing them.

So far I've seen ventures, retrievers and skiffs and have attacked all 3 types multiple times.

To get anything good out of this you *must* wait for their NPC hauler to come in and kill that, the actual mining ships don't have squat on them and don't even salvage well.

The hauling ship will have the ore it collects from each ship as it does its rounds. To get the maximum ore you must wait until it has visited all of the ships. The amount of ore collected from this is pretty small, usually less than 2mil isk worth. Obviously you'll need a hauling/industrial ship to get it off the wreck, or be prepared to make alot of trips.

The hauling ship *may* have a venture or prospect skin on it (in my area). So far it's been a 50/50 chance of it. I've not seen anything better and would love to know if there's even a chance for something better.

Response fleets vary wildly. I've attacked skiffs and got frigate defenders and I've attacked ventures and got Battleship defenders.

I always attack them in the same ship, so the idea of the response fleet changing based on your ship is bogus.

The battleships are completely and horribly overpowered for PvE. I'm attacking in ships that I can mop even the hardest L4's with easily and these battleships can nuke them down in a matter of seconds.

At this stage the rewards are not worth the hassle. Waiting for the NPC hauler can take upwards of an hour (sometimes over) and a 40mil prospect skin or a 23mil venture skin isn't worth losing ships over. Defending a fleet of ventures with overpowered battleships in high sec is a complete fubar by CCP.

Was thinking about that, even if it's an old thread...

What if it makes ore belts more alive to see those npc's ? I do like them on belts, it's more coherent to the life of the game.

We only mine to produce ships to go pve or pvp or whatever you want to do.

But simulating npcs in a belt + haulers is a nice a idea.

Apart from that, I attacked a hauler and the response fleet went like that :
-2 stabber
-3 slasher
-2 scythe
-6 rupture
-2 bellicose
Thukker Mix Mammoth was the target.
Warped out in time, they also warped out, you can scan them down with combat probes for a while, only the response fleet & the hauler stays in the system.

Do go on...

Well, that could be the result of increasing high-sec ganking......

See if I got this: Mining a hi-sec belt with a couple Skiffs and a can chaser, NPC shows up and starts mining. I swap Skiffs for a couple battleships, kill all the NPC miners and their hauler and Concord doesn't even wake up?

This is so cute. Suddenly I realize why gankers and miners often die hilariously to even the most basic PVP-fit gankers. I've been wondering why miners, even after changing into a combat-fit, can't win even once. This post explains so much.

No, the ore mined by NPCs is not sold. That's not part of the AI.

They just mine it, dock with it if no one takes it from them and then the ore goes no further.

As to numbers of miners dwindling. People will sprout whatever they believe, but without validating their view. It might be true. It might not. Doesn't matter. If someone thinks it helps their argument, they'll say it anyway.