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Mining Barges Redux
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Talon Kitsune
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#21 - 2012-06-17 08:39:30 UTC  |  Edited by: Talon Kitsune
Aside from: "Changing the mining frigates to have combat roles made us realize that we need something to replace them. Which lead us to realize how outdated mining barges are." Oh really it was only after you took away the mining frigate you realized they were outdated.. okay then.. assuming it was a joke, if not, yeah well they may be a little too focused on the pew pew :P

I like the changes. I personally doubt we'll see role bonuses for things like Ice and Mercx as the changes are all about redefining the roles. So role bonuses will likely be the enhanced tanking for Procurer/Skiff, enhanced cargo for Retriever/Mackinaw, and yield for the Covetors/Hulks. Basically to me its:

Procurer/Skiff - Anti-Gank Miner
Retriever/Mackinaw - AFK Miner Friendly
Covetor/Hulk - Min/Maxer

What will the result be?

Mineral Flow:
I'd say +10-25% at most. Without the yields actually going up the actual amount of minerals flowing in won't change all that much except for the lower skill requirements. Might produce some more casual miners, but there are already far more of them than people think.

Edit:
The yields are going up for the peeps still leveling up, but the majority of miners are already sporting hulks, so we'll see an increase but not as huge as some probably think unless the casual miner count goes through the roof, or we see a bunch of people saying "Oh mining looks cool now". It's chewing up rocks, come on, it's not a cool thing to do, it's either how you like playing or not.

Ship Sales:
I think we'll see a drop in Hulk prices and a rise in the other two, especially the Retriever/Mackinaw, as it'll be posed to become the new king of the hill. I scan a lot of fellow miners, and few are fit for min/maxing, the vast majority sport cargo extenders or tank. It's not about getting a little extra yield for the majority of miners, it's about not having to make a run back after a cycle. The fact that the Covetor/Hulk will now be the easiest to gank could offset the price a bit, but will make it the least desirable to those worried about survival and cycle times, so I say prices drop like a rock.

In the end:
My prediction is that the Hulk will become one of the least common of the three with the yields largely being brought up to near Hulk standards. Paranoids will take the Skiff/Procurer, the ones who like to spend a lot of time in other windows will take the Retreiver/Mackinaw, and only the die hards or Orca/Roq backed will bother with the Hulk.

Personally I don't know which way I'll go, right now I'm a min/maxer, but if the yields aren't all that different I could very easily see myself putting my Hulk in the garage for good in exchange for extra time between dumps - the survivability is meh, I mission mine - but the cargo is definitely very tempting.
Aurelius Valentius
Valentius Corporation
Valentius Corporation Alliance
#22 - 2012-06-17 11:46:21 UTC  |  Edited by: Aurelius Valentius
CCP should first do this:

1. intro the frigate.
2. change the T1 miner lasers to use T1 crystals.
3. Adjust the CPU and PG so that the ships can fit a proper tank with the existing slot layout .
- Allow for larger boosters, or more hardeners, and a DCU and you have more EHP, this would take care of ganking.
4. put a utility HS on these ships... all of them.
5. Allow GAS HARVESTERS on these ships...stop making them turret replacement and just make them into strip mountings... I am tired of using a HAC as a harvester or a whatever... combat ships are not harvesters and vice versa... bad enough we have miner-BS ships in the game still... *sigh*
Jelizza Arlath
Darkfall Helix
#23 - 2012-06-17 20:01:14 UTC
About time they do these changes.

Very frustrating how weak the mining barges are right now. Even a destroyer can suicide-gank a hulk before CONCORD reacts.

Definitely glad to hear we get more sturdy mining ships. Just hope they give them enough CPU/PG to actually fit plates or extenders. Right now you can't do nothing to increase survivability. Or rather, what little you can do makes almost no difference anyhow.

While I understand that EVE should never be a safe place, whether you are in highsec or nullsec, I do not understand why you should not be able to defend yourself if you decide to train the skills for it and use the slots on your ship for defense.

New changes I hope will address this properly.

As I said at first, when a 2 week alt with a destroyer can suicidegank ships worth 270-300mill, something is really wrong with the game.
Aurelius Valentius
Valentius Corporation
Valentius Corporation Alliance
#24 - 2012-06-17 20:52:29 UTC  |  Edited by: Aurelius Valentius
My two main concerns are that they 1.

Do not just push more minerals in the game with buffs to yield per ship ( this is not needed at all, in fact we could use less minerals in the game to keep the price within something profitable, and that will mean more people will mine but the price will be stable.

and 2.
They do take into account active play as a means of buffing the ships defensive sustems... this is why I suggested a cloak and a WCStr buff over raw EHP (though I would def like more PG and CPU on these to have say a med or even large booster and 2x invuls on my hulk and still be able to mount something in the HS and lows...

The point on this though is that if they simply make these ships more yield and more EHP - welcome back bot mania... where IF they do it so that a player HAS to be actively controlling and managing the ships functions then bots will be very bad at this kind of active defensive "thinking" activity and will fall to the "gankers" while the active players will not be so due to that they are actually there and paying attention.

The biggest issue with ganking (imho) is that players take a "feet up and mind in neutral" approach to the whole thing (and that now there is a one-shot issue on top of that to a degree).... but the person that mines, watches local, has the DSCAN up and running - keeps tabs on what ships and people are not normally around and watches for things like "Oh what is Hulkageddon... toddles off to mine" or "what is burn jita, what's a Goon? toddles off the jita..." types, we can prob do well with some intelligent changes to things.

CCP do not put in mindless buffs to yield, give use gas harvesters on these ships just like ice and ore strips, and increase our PG and CPU, the rest will take care of it's self...

Imagine this:
3x gas harvesters II, Ice Harvesters II, or Ore Strips II
1x Tractor II (-or- Salvager, or cloak or whatever) [added utility HS]
1x L Booster II
2x Invulnerability Fields II
1x Ore Scanner II (-or- a lock breaker module, or a drone augment, or whatever)
1x DCU II - or MLUs here and below
1x Bulkheads II
25,000 Ore bay
1000m3 Cargo (for crystals when in ore mode)
25/50/75m Drone bay for sml/med/large ships - so that the small can use miners or drones, the med set of lights and miners, and the large can use med and miners.


That would be a nice hulk and the others could be similar, then simply add in a custom roll - gas bonus, ice bonus, ore bonus like they have now with some changes, and make the HS versions standard and give the exhumers (low/null) a +2 WCStr bonus like the skiff. - case closed, job done, all will be good.
IIshira
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#25 - 2012-06-17 22:39:19 UTC
Give the Hulk a huge ore bay. Just what we need... More AFK miners! I guess it will give suicide gankers plenty of fun Big smile
Aurelius Valentius
Valentius Corporation
Valentius Corporation Alliance
#26 - 2012-06-18 00:05:29 UTC  |  Edited by: Aurelius Valentius
IIshira wrote:
Give the Hulk a huge ore bay. Just what we need... More AFK miners! I guess it will give suicide gankers plenty of fun Big smile


Yes, ore ships should not have ore bays.... that would make sense...?!?! Shocked

...please apply to Goons, then get scammed then return to your osprey or you ganker cats - we shall be happy to build them in quanitity - for a price of course.

Edit:

The Hulk is the largest craft in the second generation of mining vessels created by the ORE Syndicate. Exhumers, like their mining barge cousins, are equipped with electronic subsystems specifically designed to accommodate Strip Mining modules. They are also far more resilient, better able to handle the dangers of deep space. The Hulk is, bar none, the most efficient mining vessel available.

*Cough Cough*...ok, this should be good...
Ezra Tair
Doomheim
#27 - 2012-06-18 17:09:53 UTC
Dave stark wrote:
Alara IonStorm wrote:
The trick is to use the right one in the right situation.

which makes the mackinaw useless!

i appreciate CCP trying to reduce the need to swap ships to haul ore but it's futile. unless the mack and hulk end up having identical yields it's still going to be more m3/hour to mine several jet cans worth of ore, then haul them all at once.

sure it's an extra trip to the station to change ship, however i doubt the mack will mine fast enough to catch up to the hulk to make it worth using. let's say that we lose 1 cycle of mining changing ships, 3 mins to warp, dock, reship, undock, warp back out isn't unreasonable imo. the mackinaw can basically lose 1 cycle per hour vs the hulk, that's erm, early morning maths... 1 cycle in 20 (if we're hauling every hour for the sake of argument), 5%? so if the mackinaw has more than 5% less yield than the hulk it's effectively a pointless ship.

as far as i see, the mackinaw is the new bastard child of the exhumer family. the only way people will use a mackinaw is if it's A) substantially cheaper than a hulk. or B) they're a low sp character and/or have no skillpoints in industrial ships (minmatar industrial IV/gallente industrial V for example).

the skiff will be the wise choice for any empire miner in the current "lets gank all the mining ship" climate of empire space as of late, and the hulk will still be the king of mining.

also, due to the changes, i think it's safe to say that all ships will be losing their "speciality" bonuses, eg no ice or mercoxit bonuses any more thus the mack doesn't even have an ice bonus to fall back on and ensuring it's place as the bastard child of the exhumer family.



Now, you got a buddy, or an alt. Hulks jets into a can, and the mack scoops it while mining as well. Sounds like a good dynamic to me.
Dave stark
#28 - 2012-06-18 18:01:21 UTC  |  Edited by: Dave Stark
Ezra Tair wrote:

Now, you got a buddy, or an alt. Hulks jets into a can, and the mack scoops it while mining as well. Sounds like a good dynamic to me.



or just swap to a mammoth or ittyV, which will cost you about 1 cycle of strip miners, meaning 1/20 cycles per hour meaning if the difference in yield is greater than 5% (assuming you haul your cans every hour) the mack becomes a worse choice because you simply mine less per hour for no benefit.

the mackinaw's ore bay is a nice idea, but just give the 27500 ore bay to all the barges and give the mackinaw a useful bonus.
GreenSeed
#29 - 2012-06-18 18:19:17 UTC
Ezra Tair wrote:

Now, you got a buddy, or an alt. Hulks jets into a can, and the mack scoops it while mining as well. Sounds like a good dynamic to me.



I disagree, even when i don’t agree at all with the thing he’s saying about the macks becoming useless.

it will actually be the other way around.

Like i said already, the hulk is an overpriced piece of crap, and this barge rebalance won’t do a thing to boost it.


Even if someone says "well it currently has a potential +15% yield!"... That’s like saying a machariel should be used over a mael/tempest on blobs... because, look, its BETTER!

It isn’t. And it will never be.

Why? Because it’s 5 times as expensive and requires twice as much training. a real "min-maxer" won’t go for the best blindly when amortization is part of the equation, they will go for the best yield/cost. And the hulk is terrible at that.

So look at what happens to the hulk now, ppl insist on flying them, and they die horribly. but they don’t do it because the +15% yield makes amortizing the hulk possible, they do it due to some obscure obsession with inefficient shiny ships.

if the skiff is the tank miner, mack the solo/lazy miner and the hulk the fleet miner, it needs to be BETTER than the covetor! if the barge rebalance goes live without improving the hulk, the ship will slowly fall into oblivion, because as of now, the covetor is a much better fleet miner than the hulk, by far. Simply because it costs 30 millon as opposed to 270millon.

So i would change what you said to:
Ezra Tair wrote:

Now, you got a buddy, or an alt. Covetor jets into a can, and the mack scoops it while mining as well. Sounds like a good dynamic to me.
Dave stark
#30 - 2012-06-18 18:35:07 UTC
GreenSeed wrote:


Like i said already, the hulk is an overpriced piece of crap, and this barge rebalance won’t do a thing to boost it.


Even if someone says "well it currently has a potential +15% yield!"... That’s like saying a machariel should be used over a mael/tempest on blobs... because, look, its BETTER!

It isn’t. And it will never be.

Why? Because it’s 5 times as expensive and requires twice as much training. a real "min-maxer" won’t go for the best blindly when amortization is part of the equation, they will go for the best yield/cost. And the hulk is terrible at that.

So look at what happens to the hulk now, ppl insist on flying them, and they die horribly. but they don’t do it because the +15% yield makes amortizing the hulk possible, they do it due to some obscure obsession with inefficient shiny ships.



you put a combat ship in harms way, you expect to lose it. mining is totally different, it's far easier to keep a mining ship safe while mining than it is to keep a battleship safe while in a blob.
also there's no mining equivalent to a machariel, your analogy should be hurricane vs maelstrom.

nobody cares about yield/ship cost ratio, if that was the case i'm sure you'd probably actually see every one flying around in ospreys and bantams still.
pyfa gives me ~ 600m3 per min with an osprey at 6m per hull.
the covetor gives me ~1100m3 per min with a covetor at 30m per hull.

that means that 100m3/mill for the osprey and less than 40m3/mill for the covetor.

look at what happens now to the hulk, people fit it with 2x mlu IIs in the lows instead of bulkheads/dcu II, then don't bother to watch local, or mine aligned, and then get ganked by some one in a thrasher or a catalyst.

people mine in hulks for the same reason people rat in faction fit machs/tengus. because it raises the isk/hr. with the new proposed mackinaw not increasing the isk/hour and not offering a reason to use it (like the bigger tank on the new skiff) it's going to be a redundant ship. saying "people can mine afk" is also pretty much utter folly, i've seldom seen an astroid that has more than about 10-15k m3 in it in terms of veldspar in empire space. yes, empire is the only place this afk mining argument is valid, nobody would dare afk mine in low or null sec.
Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#31 - 2012-06-18 18:40:30 UTC
GreenSeed wrote:
if the skiff is the tank miner, mack the solo/lazy miner and the hulk the fleet miner, it needs to be BETTER than the covetor!
…and it will be. Large hold = less frantic shuffling of ore. Better resists and base HP = better survivability (in particular, better ability to make use of remote reps). More fitting options = even better survivability and/or more options to support the gang.

It will be like any other decision to go T2 instead of T1: you will do things better, but as always in EVE, you will have to pay a premium (in skills and ISK) for that added ability.

The only problem I can see with this mining buff is that some people seem to be incredibly locked into the “hulk = best; must use hulk” mindset, and that will adamantly refuse to use other ships in the class that are far better suited for their purposes (and that this refusal will spawn a new generation of uninformed “buff hulk” threads).
kyrv
State Protectorate
Caldari State
#32 - 2012-06-19 17:19:43 UTC
We all mine too much? feel obliged to make isk mining filling hours of our own time working like workhorses?

As an idea I would like to see, mining barge quotas! offered from a player from a gui to a separate marketing system which has a unit by unit limit.

Tied into a specific region is your bid range up to a maximum bid range of up to a region for raw ore and the ore is linked to a specific system I would like to see that. And once a quota is filled it resides in that specific system a trade route is opened at cost to another station which incurs a fixed cost from a new authority call it the Galactic Ore-commerce foundry from each race.

The above idea is to create what is perfect except with a twist.

The barges? they are more efficient mining most to a reputable source, and so create a nice even mix across empire of such valued resources reputation would be valid from hauling/mining missions and through mining to quota with standings!


An even dispatch of empire specific resources.. come back to the mega moguls which must obtain and compete for them, the market traders and venture capitalists which must even just simply transport the ore or refine at there own costs?

The market would inflate and mining duties would be less of a chore.
Breezly Brewin
Vril Metaphysics Society
#33 - 2012-06-20 11:33:40 UTC  |  Edited by: Breezly Brewin
in a day of mining i could buy a fitted hulk with the isk i make or i could buy 5 fitted covetors. havent lost a ship in a while but konck on wood... i do fear they may take out all 3 of my on grid covetors, which in the very rare event this happens would still be HALF the price of a single lost hulk. Lol

go ahead and try to argue that 15% yield is worth it, you're wrong. or you could lie and say you watch the game like a hawk and align and d-scan...right... yeah we all do that Roll

oh and if you do lose a hulk you are also playing into the "goonspiracy"TM and supporting their technetium market HAG is as good as over i guess but they still run the tech, and there will always be gankers. so don't ever complain about losing a hulk - AND THEN GO BUY A NEW ONE Ugh
Dave stark
#34 - 2012-06-20 12:37:29 UTC
Breezly Brewin wrote:
in a day of mining i could buy a fitted hulk with the isk i make or i could buy 5 fitted covetors. havent lost a ship in a while but konck on wood... i do fear they may take out all 3 of my on grid covetors, which in the very rare event this happens would still be HALF the price of a single lost hulk. Lol

go ahead and try to argue that 15% yield is worth it, you're wrong. or you could lie and say you watch the game like a hawk and align and d-scan...right... yeah we all do that Roll

oh and if you do lose a hulk you are also playing into the "goonspiracy"TM and supporting their technetium market HAG is as good as over i guess but they still run the tech, and there will always be gankers. so don't ever complain about losing a hulk - AND THEN GO BUY A NEW ONE Ugh


i never lie, and i never watch the game like a hawk.

however, local is constantly on my screen [along with relevant intel channels], even while posting this my browser only takes up 60% of my screen and as soon as i catch local change i check if it's neutral. if it is, and they can scan me down, warp in, and tackle me before my hulk can align and warp to a safe, i'm not going to shed tears over my loss.

however i mine in the superduper safe 0.0 space, i will concede that in empire space where local is a nightmare to monitor and there pretty much are no intel channels, yeah a covetor might be a "better" option, however you're mining **** ore for **** isk/hour anyway so it doesn't matter.
Pinstar Colton
Sweet Asteroid Acres
#35 - 2012-06-20 13:30:46 UTC
The retriever is going to have a huge impact of all of this. If it remains at its current price point (and being that it is T1 and contains no tech I don't see why it would rise too sharply) ganking it may become too costly to be worth it. Will they be immune to ganks? Heck no, but when they are suicide ganked It will cost the ganker more in ship losses than it will the miner.

In the cat-and-mouse game that is low sec, there is no shame in learning to be a better mouse.

Dave stark
#36 - 2012-06-20 13:42:39 UTC
Pinstar Colton wrote:
The retriever is going to have a huge impact of all of this. If it remains at its current price point (and being that it is T1 and contains no tech I don't see why it would rise too sharply) ganking it may become too costly to be worth it. Will they be immune to ganks? Heck no, but when they are suicide ganked It will cost the ganker more in ship losses than it will the miner.

or you could just, y'know, fly a procurer and not get ganked at all because it'll have a huge tank.
Pinstar Colton
Sweet Asteroid Acres
#37 - 2012-06-20 14:16:25 UTC
Procurer: Avoid being ganked at all
Retriever: Reduce ganks due to economics of taking down that much EHP before concord shows up.

The reason why I state the retriever as the star of this update, rather than the procurer, is that it maintains the superior mining yield over the procurer AND a jet can sized ore hold so it guards against jet can thieves.

Of course this is all just guesses. Until they release the exact EHP the new retriever can sport, we won't know if suicide ganking them will become unprofitable.


Of course, the goons could just increase the bounties on T1 barges in response to this, which would fix the economic aspect of this and make retrievers just as vulnerable.

In the cat-and-mouse game that is low sec, there is no shame in learning to be a better mouse.

Dave stark
#38 - 2012-06-20 14:34:56 UTC
Pinstar Colton wrote:
Procurer: Avoid being ganked at all
Retriever: Reduce ganks due to economics of taking down that much EHP before concord shows up.

The reason why I state the retriever as the star of this update, rather than the procurer, is that it maintains the superior mining yield over the procurer AND a jet can sized ore hold so it guards against jet can thieves.

Of course this is all just guesses. Until they release the exact EHP the new retriever can sport, we won't know if suicide ganking them will become unprofitable.


Of course, the goons could just increase the bounties on T1 barges in response to this, which would fix the economic aspect of this and make retrievers just as vulnerable.



i think the mack will have roughly the same tank as the hulk. i still think the mackinaw is going to be the bastard child of the exhumer family but i've already said that several times so i won't go over that again.
kyrv
State Protectorate
Caldari State
#39 - 2012-06-21 09:19:50 UTC
Pinstar Colton wrote:
Procurer: Avoid being ganked at all
Retriever: Reduce ganks due to economics of taking down that much EHP before concord shows up.

The reason why I state the retriever as the star of this update, rather than the procurer, is that it maintains the superior mining yield over the procurer AND a jet can sized ore hold so it guards against jet can thieves.

Of course this is all just guesses. Until they release the exact EHP the new retriever can sport, we won't know if suicide ganking them will become unprofitable.


Of course, the goons could just increase the bounties on T1 barges in response to this, which would fix the economic aspect of this and make retrievers just as vulnerable.



You know, I think this is only a quick fix.. mining people will always lose out for the hard work they deal, they need something back for there hard efforts I mean I'd say total re-skin to battleship size vessels would be worth that. If they look the same well.. you can see the point of the ore frigate.
Jorma Morkkis
State War Academy
Caldari State
#40 - 2012-06-21 09:35:34 UTC
Dave stark wrote:
or you could just, y'know, fly a procurer and not get ganked at all because it'll have a huge tank.


Ever heard of Tornado or 1400mm Howitzer Artillery II?
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