Science & Industry

I dont think I see the problem either, but I do admit that I only mine in 2 vastly diffferent scenarios. Scenario one is ice mining with a Mackinaw, in which case I do have orca support but I'm semi afk the entire time due to the ungodly long recycle time on Ice Strip Miners. The second scenario is mining in a hulk in a wormhole, in which case I have plenty of combat support and I'm punching d-scan every few seconds (and therefore not going AFK). In the event that these ship changes go live, I'll prolly start mining with a mack in the WH as well, just so if I have to bug out I'm taking most of my hard-won polymer reactant (IE Megacyte/Zyd ore) with me and its not getting popped by some retread with a dessie. I wouldn't say its a straight up nerf to the hulk, more of an adjustment to account for how the ship is actually used in greater than 80% of cases - IE mining with fleet support and dedicated haulers/orcas/rorquals.

TL;DR: its balancing out the rest of 2 ship classes, 3-4 of which are barely used. Cry NERF if you like, but it'll be better for the game.

what's wrong with helping new players? i hardly think they will be able to keep up with a veteran miner, SP goes into much more than just exhumers. lots of skills that don't directly affect your mining yiled still indirectly affect your mining capabilities. there's a lot of skills not even in the industry family (drone skills for example) that are still important to mining.

mining in a ship that costs less than a hulk will always be reasonable, especially in ones like the wormhole example you brought up. it's not always about maximizing yield, i don't know what it will take for some people to understand this key concept.

i do think you fear of botters exploiting the new barges is not unwarranted but we will just have to see about that.

1. your post still seemed to show a dislike for newbies, or at least a "i had to put up with it so they should too"sort of element.

2. hull cost and utility is being reworked, i look at the new ships with regards to low sec, ninja mining sov space etc. you are looking at straight yield. still. did you ever think of putting a cloaking device in that third hi slot of a covetor?

3. why bring it up if it doesn't bother you?

@Breezly

Please just stop to interpret my answers in a wrong way (1. + 3.). That's senseless just for the reason you like to have a meaning that way! My corp and our newbies benefit from it. I just was writing my opinion about what will really happen / what it will really change. The way it is announced now I don't see any point where this changes will notably change anything in WH, lowsec, 0.0 or HiSec mining. It just have some influence on new miner and a little influence on the market as new players can mine now much earlier with 3 Strip Miners instead of mining with just 2 for nearly a month!

2. What do miners look at? Profit. What determines profit in the mining profession? Yield!
Seriously - Covops on a Covetor? You must be joking. Of course I thought of it and others do as well, but this idea is just useless or better a waste of ressources!

Edit: Who said Hulk can't be tanked after nerf? Nobody. it's just a question how they determine little-average EHP. For my understanding this is what they have now already! I don't expect a change here!

Then maybe a Probe Launcher in the second slot for scanning down your own gravimetric sites and a Smart Bomb int the third one for attacking the opponent. If now somebody is asking how to mine, you still can do it with your mining drones.

CovOps won't protect you. But yeah, try it and reduce your income by 30%, letting you pay for a new Covetor in less than 3 hours! Looking forward to the killmail.

Doesn't seem like a nerf for hulks at all.

If you want to afk mine then why the hell should you have the highest yeld and tank?
Things are right, if you want to afk in something not worthy gank then take a procurer, battleship ehp fit it and leave it at the belt until the 20K M3 can is full.

This seems right.

If you want highest yeld then you'll fit an hulk with friends and orca boost, however Hulk is still in need of more pg/cpu/cap recharge/base EHP

Nothing wrong here.

I have only read the dev blog once and need to read it a few more times and dissect what CCP intends to do. I am personally very concerned and angry at this probable nerf to Hulks when CCP were supposedly out to improve the lot of the professional mining community. CCP has said they wish to make the mining profession more profitable and a more attractive career option. For many months now mining has become much more profitable without any actions on their part directly. Although admittedly side effects of other actions and new game features along with the inevitable speculation that comes with the capitalist system have increased mineral prices.
CCP probably would like mineral prices to be lower hence the new mining dev blog ideas dressed up as something else. But they can't have their cake and eat it ! Potentially I see their little plan backfiring on them if professional miners decide to switch career or leave the game then prices will stay 'high' or rise further. Far better for them to leave mining alone and ignore the oft spewed out forum posts asking for more tank/yield/T3 mining vessels etc. Mining is not 'broken' despite what some pilots may say. There are broken elements of the game that need fixing such as corporation & alliance/ POS roles and permissions.
Another problem with the mining element of the latest ships dev blog is that by lowering skill requirements it is dumbing down the game. EVE Online is known for being a complicated game and to my view it should remain so. Lowering skill requirements is a slippery slope we should not be going down.

Hey, moron. Read the Dev Blog. They're BUFFING the yield of the other ships. It is not going to be a 33% loss.

2012-21-12

it's coming

Winter is coming.