Player Features and Ideas Discussion

New module to help encourage guarding miners in belt.

Short (TL;DR) version:

-“Pirate Radio Transmitter”
*low slot
*only ORE ships
*can only fit one per a ship
*need to be mining / locked on an asteroid
*is an active state module. Has a cycle time (~5-15 minutes). Calls for a group of high bounty semi-adaptive dangerous NPC pirates at beginning of cycle.
*All NPCs summoned by the module must be destroyed before activating the module again.
*NPC pirate’s bounty gets a bonus for the more ore/ore value is in the ship's ore hold when is activated.


(Too) Long version:

I have an idea to make protecting miners (even possibly in lowsec) a worthwhile activity for all kinds of players.

I know what you might be thinking, how would you do that? Most people by default make a common mistake to suggest that CCP should buff mineral value to make it more valuable, so miners make an excess amount of ISK to pay for their protection.

That would be a bad idea. Economically, that would just make ships more expensive, but that isn’t the only reason it won’t work. Miners (and EVE players in general) are selfish.

If there was an increase of value in ore, miners would only keep the profit themselves to maximize their ISK/per hour. And you would need to buff the value enough to be comparable to pay more than highsec mining and ratting combined.

Plus waiting in belt for possible enemies to arrive isn’t fun. So again, how do you make protecting pilots worthwhile? Easy, make miners bring the content to the protectors!

---

Miners bringing the content? You mean like PVP bait? Well you're halfway right. The PVP reason is already kind of there, piracy.

For PVE I suggest a new new module, a “Pirate Radio Transmitter. It could players can earn ISK while ratting NPC pirates. But not normal NPC pirates, but high bounty, semi-organized NPC pirates.

The “Pirate Radio Transmitter” would be like the “Damage Control “, only able to fit one per a ship and taking up a low slot.

The “Pirate Radio Transmitter” (which I will now to refer as PRT) can only be activated while a mining module is active (either mining an asteroid, ice, or huffing gas). This is to create an incentive to really mine, and not just pull up an AFK alt in belt.

The module when active works on a cycle (like a shield booster). For sake of an example let say the cycle is five minutes. When first activated a pack of NPC pirates will warp to belt. Let’s say this is high sec, and a fleet of five NPC pirate frigates warp to belt. The fleet will be slightly more dangerous than standard pirates and be semi adaptive to the player's’ current fleet composition. So they would provide some interesting PVE gameplay along with monetary reward.

The PRT would also increase the bounty based on the value of ore in the ship’s ore hold at the moment the module is activated. So ships like the Retriever and Mackinaw are useful in a mining fleet as NPC pirate bait for those protecting the miners.

A lore reason for this could be that the “Pirate Radio Transmitter” sends signals to pirate radio stations with real time information on the ship's cargo and location, enticing highly dangerous and high bounty pirates to come to the belt to try to kill the miners to get their precious cargo.

This module should also stack, but not based on how many are fit to a ship (as I stated before, only one max can be fitted to a ship). If there are two miners in the fleet with the modules fitted, they could spawn a total of ten NPC frigates (assuming highsec), two fleets of five (in lower security systems not just frigates would spawn).

Also the module can’t send more NPC pirates until the current amount of NPC pirates sent from that module, are dealt with.

This stacking would enable scalability to these mining operations. More miners need more protection, which means more rats to kill, which is more ISK and fun for everyone. For players who like piracy, these mining operations are huge treasure chests. On top of the ore from the miners, they could also get the wreckage and loot from the NPC rats.

What do you think? Link to my old unrefined post: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=517217&find=unread

"The “Pirate Radio Transmitter” (which I will now to refer as PRT) can only be activated while a mining module is active (either mining an asteroid, ice, or huffing gas). This is to create an incentive to really mine, and not just pull up an AFK alt in belt."

The idea still needs some tweaking and balancing. Because you could just bring a mining barge already full of ore. Maybe if your ore hold is full you can't lock on new asteroids or force turn on your strip miner?

EDIT: OMG, just figured out what you meant. That sounds awesome! Could be a way to also get rid of other miners competing in your belt. Just don't defend them.

I actually do live in null currently. But this module is mainly aimed toward small corps/alliances in highsec/lowsec. Lowsec being player pirates and high sec gankers/wardecs.

Small corporations have a smaller standing fleet at hand if any, so encouragement for there to be both miners and combat ships on grid is great for engagements to be less one sided.

And it would be optional, you could replace the low slot with a mining upgrade instead. Fitting the module would just help create less hand sitting for people protecting the mining fleet.

Plus it kind of unifies PVE player and PVP players in an activity that everyone can earn ISK from. Makes attacking miners a way to disrupt corporations cash flow.

Plus the industrial command ships can provide command bursts of combat modules as well. So protecting miners could give a home team advantage to an attack.

Hope that clarifies my suggestion more. Thanks for the input!

How much of a difference is there in storage between a max-hold and, say, a max-tank mining ship?

I think you'll find it's about half of a poofteenth.

This really isn't meant to be a direct anti-ganking method. Anti-ganking could be a byproduct of having combat ships in belt, but it isn't going to outright prevent it. This just adds more roles to a mining operation than just miners. A mining operation should be something that makes money for the whole corporation, not just the industrialists. I'm trying to make a reason for a PVP only corporation to have miners.

Also lore wise it would make sense that NPC pirates would attack miners, they already show up in belt, just not as guaranteed than in sites/complexes.

I think this would add content to the game, not remove it.


Could you elaborate more? I do agree the implementation is still rough, but I think it could work. It only applies to ore belts and anoms, so no use for gate camps, protecting citadels, or gaining advantage in a battle. I could be wrong, but I think it is fine.

If the pirate ships warp away when the player using the module does, or even better, you cannot warp while the module is active (so you need to stay on grid for 5-15 minutes).


Again, thanks for your input. (Also I like your idea of reducing NPC stations. Defiantly would make war declarations more interesting.)

First problem of the PRT, it just adds income to the miners. It's never going to make it worth ratters while to sit in the belt with the miners unless it gives more isk/hour than lvl 4 missions in highsec or anoms in null. And that's just too much value if that's the case. If it doesn't give almost that much isk (per player mind you) then it's not worth their time and they won't sit in the belt anyway. Also taking the above mining vessels they can all kick out decent DPS, just not fast enough to deal with a gank, so what will really happen is the miners kill the rats they spawn for additional income.

Second problem was as mentioned, it's a way to gank other people on grid without shooting them yourself, even if you add in a warp out delay and make them auto target the ship running it (which then lets you super tank one barge knowing they will shoot it and nothing else) they still only have to last a cycle before leaving. And if you have to restrict something that much, you are probably doing something wrong with your design.

Thirdly the rats themselves unless locked on the target as above become defence against PvP, since they will target hostiles on grid as well.

So yeah, a pure PvP corp won't have a use for miners, and that's actually ok. Null alliances are most certainly not PvP only, and well, who cares if the odd corp is pure PvP. Highsec again, even if some corps are PvP only it's not an entire area of space being PvP only. So it's not an issue.

Forgot to address your other issue



Again another excerpt from my older longer post:



I do however go back on my ISK/hr. I think it should be equivalent to whatever running sites is in that security index. So highsec obviously pays the least. Plus RNG loot is always a plus. Could be more than the bounties, could be junk.

Ignore the combat boost part. It was a separate idea, but I realized industrial command ships can already do the equivalent.

The vaaaast majority of a barge/exhuner's ore capacity comes from its ore hold, not its cargohold.

Cargo-increasing mods/rigs only increase cargo space. They do not increase ore-space.

The total ore-carrying capacity that is ore-hold + cargo-hold will only increase by a few percent by fitting for max-hold.

Why would you need a logi alt when you have rorqs on the field?

Bearing in mind that they'll be ratting WHILE mining, they'll far outdo any standard ratter, assuming the module gives the kind of income the OP wants it to.