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Barge Fairy Tale

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Jorma Morkkis
State War Academy
Caldari State
#3261 - 2012-09-04 17:19:50 UTC
baltec1 wrote:
The hulk would also be in a better position as people who want max yeild would pick that and not be tempted to get a mack because of the better tank.


Hulk/Covetor isn't for solo mining anymore...
betoli
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#3262 - 2012-09-04 17:21:21 UTC
baltec1 wrote:
betoli wrote:




They are still gankable, and they would still be gankable if you doubled their tanks again.


Ganking them isnt the problem, its just as simple, the problem is its not profitable to do so. Not being profitable to gank is the best tank of them all.


You said you were doing it for the good of humanity, to cripple the botting, and help educate the miners.... worth spending a few isk on if you ask me. Until your earlier post I was assuming it was all for the lulz!
baltec1
Bat Country
Pandemic Horde
#3263 - 2012-09-04 17:30:06 UTC  |  Edited by: baltec1
betoli wrote:
baltec1 wrote:
betoli wrote:




They are still gankable, and they would still be gankable if you doubled their tanks again.


Ganking them isnt the problem, its just as simple, the problem is its not profitable to do so. Not being profitable to gank is the best tank of them all.


You said you were doing it for the good of humanity, to cripple the botting, and help educate the miners.... worth spending a few isk on if you ask me. Until your earlier post I was assuming it was all for the lulz!


Not even our bank account is endless. The reason we could keep doing the interdiction for a month is because we were making money on it. As we went on the price of the ships we were using started to go up because our demand out stripped supply. These higher costs were met by the profits we made on the ganking.

In the end, we came out even discounting the isk we made on the market panic. A war on high sec miners is not cheap. Right now we are working out ways to kill macks as cheaply as possible but even so we are not breaking even.
baltec1
Bat Country
Pandemic Horde
#3264 - 2012-09-04 17:30:37 UTC  |  Edited by: baltec1
Jorma Morkkis wrote:
baltec1 wrote:
The hulk would also be in a better position as people who want max yeild would pick that and not be tempted to get a mack because of the better tank.


Hulk/Covetor isn't for solo mining anymore...


People dont just use them for solo mining. Hulks dont mine enough to justify losing the cargo hold and the tank of a mack which is why the bots are all going for Macks.
Jorma Morkkis
State War Academy
Caldari State
#3265 - 2012-09-04 17:48:40 UTC
baltec1 wrote:
Not even our bank account is endless. The reason we could keep doing the interdiction for a month is because we were making money on it. As we went on the price of the ships we were using started to go up because our demand out stripped supply. These higher costs were met by the profits we made on the ganking.

In the end, we came out even discounting the isk we made on the market panic. A war on high sec miners is not cheap. Right now we are working out ways to kill macks as cheaply as possible but even so we are not breaking even.


Bigger bounty maybe...

baltec1 wrote:
People dont just use them for solo mining. Hulks dont mine enough to justify losing the cargo hold and the tank of a mack which is why the bots are all going for Macks.


Are you saying miner in a Mack mining solo in hisec mines more than one Hulk in fleet boosted by Rorqual in nullsec?

Even with three MLUs it's not even close.
baltec1
Bat Country
Pandemic Horde
#3266 - 2012-09-04 17:52:58 UTC
Jorma Morkkis wrote:


Bigger bounty maybe...


There is no bounty. The funds don't magically appear from thin air, it must be a break even at least for it to work.

Quote:


Are you saying miner in a Mack mining solo in hisec mines more than one Hulk in fleet boosted by Rorqual in nullsec?

Even with three MLUs it's not even close.


Bolded the none relevant part.
Jorma Morkkis
State War Academy
Caldari State
#3267 - 2012-09-04 17:57:54 UTC
baltec1 wrote:
Bolded the none relevant part.


"The Covetor and Hulk cater to group mining operations due to their large mining capability, low EHP and storage, forcing them to rely on others to haul and resupply them with mining crystals."
http://community.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&nbid=73098
baltec1
Bat Country
Pandemic Horde
#3268 - 2012-09-04 18:01:07 UTC
Jorma Morkkis wrote:
baltec1 wrote:
Bolded the none relevant part.


"The Covetor and Hulk cater to group mining operations due to their large mining capability, low EHP and storage, forcing them to rely on others to haul and resupply them with mining crystals."
http://community.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&nbid=73098


Do you really need me to bullet point everything that was wrong with what you said?
stoicfaux
#3269 - 2012-09-04 18:19:18 UTC  |  Edited by: stoicfaux
baltec1 wrote:

CCP bans bots but untill then we kill them to cripple their cash flow. You should have seen the rage on the bot forums about us.

Interesting point, but that's no consolation to legitimate miners.

Quote:
Now, the problem is macks are doing the skiffs job which goes against the whole point of the barge update. The simple fact of life here is the only risk these people will ever face in highsec is people like us but we are hardly going to go around killing macks at a loss.

So... Macks are only over-tanked in a high-sec context. Maybe the Skiff's tank is more for null/low-sec? (Or would be, if null/low had delayed local or belts had tougher NPCs or if Ring Mining(tm) requires a tanky Skiff.)

Quote:
Macks being just about risk free is bad for this game in many ways and will end up hurting miners the most in the long run. Ganking has always been about proft, the tears are simply a bonus and a rather rare one at that and if you think that macks having a bigger tank somehow means we now face a bigger challange you are sadly mistaken. They are just as easy to kill, its simply a question of extra firepower.


So what you're saying is: High sec exhumer suicide-gankers need CCP's help to ensure that gankers can fly inexpensive ships with low-skill pilots (and low-skill players since macks are "easy to kill") to make a profit blowing up player ships that cost 200+ million isk, all in high security space.

Welfare/Socialism for gankers? Seriously?

We should make oil tankers easier to blow up so Somali pirates can destroy the ships with AK47s and RPGs so that they can sell a few scraps of salvage afterwards and buy more AK47s and RPGs!

Err... I mean, that's an interesting dynamic/paradigm. Have you considered applying for a business patent?


Quote:
Reducing the base tank on the mack to the same level of the hulk would mean you can still tank it to survive but the skiff would provide the better option. The hulk would also be in a better position as people who want max yeild would pick that and not be tempted to get a mack because of the better tank.

People get a Mack because of the large ore bay.

Anyway, it's apparent that CCP has sided with the miners on this one. Or at least miners bring in more revenue for CCP than high-sec suicide gankers do.


tl;dr - No longer being able to make a career of suicide ganking mining ships in high-sec is a problem that doesn't need fixing.


edit: grammer

Pon Farr Memorial: once every 7 years, all the carebears in high-sec must PvP or they will be temp-banned.
baltec1
Bat Country
Pandemic Horde
#3270 - 2012-09-04 18:37:34 UTC
stoicfaux wrote:
baltec1 wrote:


Interesting point, but that's no consolation to legitimate miners.
Higher mineral prices are something a miner would be very interested in.

Quote:

So... Macks are only over-tanked in a high-sec context. Maybe the Skiff's tank is more for null/low-sec? (Or would be, if null/low had delayed local or belts had tougher NPCs or if Ring Mining(tm) requires a tanky Skiff.)

All barges are balanced against eachother, no matter the sec status of the system. The skiff is ment to be the tanky one, a job the mack is also doing.

Quote:


So what you're saying is: High sec exhumer suicide-gankers need CCP's help ensure that gankers can fly inexpensive ships with low-skill pilots (and low-skill players since macks are "easy to kill") to make a profit blowing up player ships that cost 200+ million isk, all in high security space.

Welfare/Socialism for gankers? Seriously?

We should make oil tankers easier to blow up so Somali pirates can destroy the ships with AK47s and RPGs so that they can sell a few scraps of salvage afterwards and buy more AK47s and RPGs!

Err... I mean, that's an interesting dynamic/paradigm. Have you considered applying for a business patent?


They can blow up an oil tanker with a skiff full of explosives. Thats why when an LPG tanker puts into port in boston they shut down the entire river, port and access roads. It doesnt matter how much your ships costs or how much mine costs, you never blance ships that way. If we did then a 1 billion isk battleship should never die to a 15 million isk frigate.


[quote]
People get a Mack because of the large ore bay.

Anyway, it's apparent that CCP has sided with the miners on this one. Or at least miners bring in more revenue for CCP than high-sec suicide gankers do.


People get the mack because it offers a great bay, good yeild and good tank. The other two exhumers only offer either great yeild or great tank. Also CCP more or less ignored miners when they made these changes because gankers were the only ones to provide any feedback from testing them. Most of the changes were made to the sound of miner rage. CCP almost got it right, they only need to change the mack slightly to make the whole range of barges balanced against eachother.

Naturally miners do not want to lose their one size fits all ship.
Jorma Morkkis
State War Academy
Caldari State
#3271 - 2012-09-04 18:55:27 UTC
baltec1 wrote:
Higher mineral prices are something a miner would be very interested in.


Do you know what higher mineral prices do to price of your Catalyst/Tornado?
betoli
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#3272 - 2012-09-04 19:00:48 UTC
baltec1 wrote:

Naturally miners do not want to lose their one size fits all ship.


You can still tank a hulk to be gank proof from a cost effectiveness perspective as you always could no? So miners buying macks of hulks on account of the tank buff is speculation.

I would say many miners are solo, and they've made the obvious choice for the solo barge.... you havn't presented much evidence that its because of the tank.

BTW - are you allowed to bot on SiSi, I'm rather curious as to whether were allowed to test how good ccp is at detection... out of curiosity you understand.
Buck Futz
Sebiestor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#3273 - 2012-09-04 19:11:38 UTC
stoicfaux wrote:
I'll bite, why is it important for mining ships to be suicide-gankable in high sec?




And its not just 'bots'. Personally, I don't really care about bots - they do far more damage to miner income than gankers ever will - forcing them to mine longer for less smaller rewards.

But ganking needs to be possible because wardecs are broken, and always will be.

Suppose you want to harass, inconvenience, or drive away your industrial competition in highsec?

How do you do this? Wardecs are less than useless because after you've wasted millions of ISK - industrial assets will drop to an NPC corp and continue operating as before.

Suicide ganking allows individuals to attack those assets despite wardec evasion.

If CCP decides to make ganking 'impossible' or just so impractical that nobody participates in the activity, it removes the last real threat to players in highsec. All warfare becomes consensual, and highsec becomes a great deal more boring.

Even for the the miners, ganking improves the game experience. At least, miners who consider EVE a game....not PVE 'ISK farmers'.

True story:

I terrorized the hell out of 6 Gallente Icebelts, starting with the introduction of the Tornado. I was boomeranging Exhumers, solo, on an industrial scale - (final tally was, I believe, around 1200+ Exhumers and pods.)

What developed though, was quite interesting: The miners actually got organized, called out when I showed up in local, and made active efforts to stop me, or at least discourage my attacks. At one point, they even declaring war on the POS I used for staging attacks.

Then I took a break for a few weeks. A couple of them actually convoed me and confessed that, now, mining in the belts was 'dull' without all the fireworks.... (of course, Hulkageddon V began a couple weeks later....)

There ARE miners out there I quite like. They have the right attitude, generally are aware enough to keep themselves from getting ganked. Sometimes they'll even work with gankers just to see their clueless competition explode.

They are the real gamers. As opposed to carebear 'farmers' grinding ISK, who tend to scream and throw tantrums when their greed or stupidity gets them killed.
baltec1
Bat Country
Pandemic Horde
#3274 - 2012-09-04 19:17:18 UTC
betoli wrote:
baltec1 wrote:

Naturally miners do not want to lose their one size fits all ship.


You can still tank a hulk to be gank proof from a cost effectiveness perspective as you always could no? So miners buying macks of hulks on account of the tank buff is speculation.

I would say many miners are solo, and they've made the obvious choice for the solo barge.... you havn't presented much evidence that its because of the tank.

BTW - are you allowed to bot on SiSi, I'm rather curious as to whether were allowed to test how good ccp is at detection... out of curiosity you understand.


You dont have to do anything to a mack to make it unprofitable in 0.7 space. The vast bulk of miners still fit no tank at all in these things. This means that the skiff is reduced to an all but pointless ship.

Also CCP have a very good anti bot toolset but they do still need the playerbase to report them. Do not try to bot to test their tools as CCP will most likely pick up on it and punish you, even on sisi. It simply is not worth it.
Belshazzar Babylon
Doomheim
#3275 - 2012-09-04 19:41:04 UTC
Corina Jarr wrote:
stoicfaux wrote:
I'll bite, why is it important for mining ships to be suicide-gankable in high sec?



Because if they are not suicide gankable, that means they are invincible/untargettable/protected by magic. And this woudl be very very bad for the game.



You should have phased your question as, why should they be reasonably suicide-gankable.

The answer is three fold.

1) because they are not combat ships and should not be used as such. They should however be able to be protected by a bodyguard... too bad not many folks want to sit and watch people mine just in case they are attacked.

2) because it is one of the only risks they face, other than missing a cycle and wasting a few minutes.

3) because one of the trailers from way back showed this (willfully ignores all the other trailers that depict things that do not happen in EVE).



Now you're just being silly. They are still suicide gankable. They don't have an infinite amount of HP you just have to bring friends and spend more. You will still lose your ship to concord. You say bring friends, but friends can't do anything against alpha. Now the gankers have to bring friends.
baltec1
Bat Country
Pandemic Horde
#3276 - 2012-09-04 19:44:32 UTC
Belshazzar Babylon wrote:



Now you're just being silly. They are still suicide gankable. They don't have an infinite amount of HP you just have to bring friends and spend more. You will still lose your ship to concord. You say bring friends, but friends can't do anything against alpha. Now the gankers have to bring friends.


No, we just bring a cruiser instead of a destroyer. What stops us from doing so is that you cannot make a profit.
Buck Futz
Sebiestor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#3277 - 2012-09-04 19:45:08 UTC
I've scanned thousands of Exhumers.
The old Hulk/Mack used to be fit 3 ways.

Max EHP (maybe 5% except during HG)
Yield (maybe 30%)
Cargo (65+%)

This tells us that Cargo is the most valued asset these ships have, not Yield.

The 3 'new' Exhumers are supposed to fit those roles.

Problem is simple.

Yield: Hulk > Mack > Skiff. (and the differences are relatively minor)
EHP: Skiff >>> Mack >> Hulk (the differences are quite large, assuming similar fits)
Cargo: Mack >> Skiff >> Hulk (the differences are quite large, as well.

See it?

Hulk = #1, #3 and #3 (with only a mild advantage in the Yield category)
Mackinaw = #2, #2, and #1. (#1 in the most important category, a comfortable second in the others)
Skiff = #3, #2, #1. (#1 in EHP - but only 5% of miners looked for EHP anyway - and the Mack has more than enough.)

Mackinaw isn't far behind the Hulk in Yield, while its average EHP is comfortably above the range of any 'solo' suicide ganker, and many small gangs. It FAR outstrips the other ships in the most important category, Cargo.

Is it really any surprise that the Mackinaw (and Retriever) has, by and large, replaced the others?

Easy solution is to make each ship #1, #2 and #3. Give the Mackinaw the worst EHP, at or below the current Hulk.
Perhaps reduce the Skiff's yield a touch to allow the Hulk to stand out more.

-Mackinaw benefits of the cargo bay and ease of AFK mining is tempered by risk of ganking losses.
-Hulk benefits of higher yield are tempered by the annoyingly small ore bay.
-Peace of mind granted by the Skiff, tempered by lower overall profits over time.

Sorted. Gankers get more targets, miners get real choices - and aren't rewarded for mining AFK in, as Baltec1 says - "the one size fits all" ship.
Belshazzar Babylon
Doomheim
#3278 - 2012-09-04 19:54:52 UTC
baltec1 wrote:
Belshazzar Babylon wrote:



Now you're just being silly. They are still suicide gankable. They don't have an infinite amount of HP you just have to bring friends and spend more. You will still lose your ship to concord. You say bring friends, but friends can't do anything against alpha. Now the gankers have to bring friends.


No, we just bring a cruiser instead of a destroyer. What stops us from doing so is that you cannot make a profit.



Okay then move onto another way of making ISK then and stop whining about it. Gank freighters, gank blingy Tengus at Dodixie. No one really cares about how you make your iskies.
baltec1
Bat Country
Pandemic Horde
#3279 - 2012-09-04 20:03:36 UTC
Belshazzar Babylon wrote:



Gank freighters


We are, on an industrial scale so expect some rather bitter hate filled topics to pop up soon.

However we will not give up on getting the balance right on mining ships.
Buck Futz
Sebiestor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#3280 - 2012-09-04 20:12:14 UTC
Belshazzar Babylon wrote:
baltec1 wrote:
Belshazzar Babylon wrote:



Now you're just being silly. They are still suicide gankable. They don't have an infinite amount of HP you just have to bring friends and spend more. You will still lose your ship to concord. You say bring friends, but friends can't do anything against alpha. Now the gankers have to bring friends.


No, we just bring a cruiser instead of a destroyer. What stops us from doing so is that you cannot make a profit.



Okay then move onto another way of making ISK then and stop whining about it. Gank freighters, gank blingy Tengus at Dodixie. No one really cares about how you make your iskies.


The point isn't whether or not it is profitable. I think plenty of gankers are willing to gank at a moderate loss. Breakeven point was killing 2 Mackinaws per Tornado. Anything over 3 was profit, 5-6 per Tornado was fantastic profit, but those days are long gone.

When CCP sets the game conditions to the point where gankers are spending 200M ISK to kill a a 280M ISK Exhumer that drops maybe 20M in loot/salvage, people just stop ganking.

If you force people to exclusively run in 5 man gangs just to kill Exhumers, people stop doing it.

And when ganking stops - only realistic threat to highsec miners in EVE disappears completely.

And I'm sure there are a lot of farmers out there who are good with that.
But these people - the Mack could have been given the best yield, the best cargo AND the best EHP, and they'd STILL defend it.

The Mackinaw clearly is unbalanced. Hell, even miners (the slowest of the slow learners) have picked on that surprisingly quickly and voted with their ISK.