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Mining Barge "Game Balance"
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Idris Helion

Doomheim

Likes received: 230

#21 - 2012-08-10 03:01:14 UTC

Cyn Durella wrote:

The T2 Mack mines 2 units of ice in 196 seconds. The T1 Procurer mines 2 units of ice (two cycles) in 180 seconds.
Why can a T1 single harvester ship out mine a T2 dual harvester ship. (and sport more than 2x the amount of shields)

That is my point. I am perfectly happy to switch to my T1 harvester that will be nearly impossible to gank in high sec and is cheap as heck to buy; BUT IS IT GAME BALANCE? Why would anyone buy the Mackinaw now?

I think this simply illustrates how unbalanced the mining ships were before the patch. Two T1 ships -- Procurer and Covetor -- were essentially worthless to use, and a Hulk was so far in front of any other exhumer that it didn't make sense for about 90% of miners to use anything else unless they were going after ice or Mercoxit. The Hulk was always intended to be a fleet mining vessel, but the other ships were so weak compared to it that the other ships became irrelevant.

It's not so much that the Hulk got worse as that the other barges/exhumers got better. A Hulk is still the king of yield (properly fitted), but it's no longer the "endgame ship" for a miner. For me -- hisec mining in small gangs, or ad hoc mining ops out in null -- it's either a Mack or a Skiff, depending. Or if I want to try out an unknown belt without risking an expensive ship, I'll fly a Retriever out there.

I've been doing a lot of mining since the patch came out, and I'm very pleased. It's hard to know yet if the Mack's cavernous ore bay is going to have an impact on the game. When I flew a Hulk, I jetcanned anyway -- I rarely kept more than one cycle of ore in my hold anyhow. (And the whining about crystals...good Lord. I can carry two full sets of hisec-ore crystals in a Mack; for losec/null, I'd only keep one spare set in the hold anyhow. The rest would be on an Orca or delivered in a hauler as needed. This is a complete non-issue.)

CCP didn't "nerf" the Hulk; they made the other barges/exhumers viable for more players.

Perkone Caldari State 206
Dersk Perkone Caldari State Likes received: 206	#22 - 2012-08-10 03:05:00 UTC \| Edited by: Dersk Sell a mackinaw. Buy a procuror. Enjoy the 285 million isk you just made. There see to be plenty of people willing to snatch up your mack if it doesn't meet your standards.

Natsett Amuinn

Caldari Provisions

Caldari State

Likes received: 2,232

#23 - 2012-08-10 03:06:19 UTC | Edited by: Natsett Amuinn

Cyn Durella wrote:

The Mack has two harvesters and 2 Mining upgrades.

The Procurer has one harvester and 2 mining upgrades. It also has the ice rig and 2 shield extender rigs. The Mack at this time still has the Cargo rigs on it. I know if I put the ice mining rig on it will start to our mine the Procurer by seconds and the shield will increase between 20k and 30 k. (I am cheap and cringe at the thought of losing 9 Million ISK on rigs; if the Devs view this as unbalance might consider making another change I dont want to destroy them yet. I can park it technically and use my GOD-LIKE T1 barge.)

BUT it is STILL a T2 Mining barge being schooled by a half sized T1 Mining barge.

Mining upgrade? MLU's?
They get split between each of the lasers?

The proc gets a 33% increase in minging speed, but only has a single laser. I see nothing else outside of plugging in the exact same low upgrades and rigs on each ship. The fittings bonuses should be exactly the same, but applied to two lasers instead of one.

Two lasers, even at 33% less speed, shouldn't be less in a 90s cycle then one laser.

90s on one laser should not be producing more ice then 196 seconds on 2 lasers.
Shouldn't the Proc be mining at a slightly even pace if you only fit 2 upgrades in the low slots on a Mack?

Or is there some hidden bonus on the Proc, and I'm really bad at math?

Mors Sanctitatis

Death of Virtue

Likes received: 965

#24 - 2012-08-10 03:07:05 UTC

Cyn Durella wrote:

Hello,

I have been playing this game for three years and have felt I never needed to make a post until now.

I have always disagreed with the gankers and griefer posts about ship kills. I disagreed that a moderately armed destroyer could easily take out my T2 mining barge in seconds. Now after this new update I feel it might be time to speak up.

The new mining ship game "balance" has just recently gone into effect. Many people I know have been talking about this "Nerf" they call it for weeks.

I want to explain what I have discovered.
I often fly a Mack and mine ice. The double bonus was removed and an ore hold was added. I will soon have to remove my 9 Million Isk cargo rigs from two of my ships as they are absolutely useless now. I can add shield rigs to it to make it better. As I was working through things I found something very unbalanced.

My T2 double harvester Mack is hard to fit stuff on, I need to buy really expensive things to fit what seems to be low CPU to get everything I want to fit. When i am done it has EHP around 20,000 and a mining time without fleet bonuses of 196.95.

On the other hand I also have a T1 Procurer. This thing must have been delivered from the GODS. There is so much CPU that I dont need to spend any money at all to pimp this thing out. I use basic trash items from Jita and this T1 ship has a whooping 55,195 EHP and I can mine ice nearly as fast as a T2 Mack that has double the ice harvesters on it. If I put two T2 ice harvestor upgrades I am mining one block of ice every 90 seconds with no fleet bonuses. It is LESS than half the ship the Mack is and is twice as nice.

Is that balance? I bought a Blue Print for this thing as they are going to become gold when others find out.
Should a pint sized T1 out perform a Medium sized T2 ship?

Please let me know if you are noticing the same unbalanced effect of this update, and if you are going to make changes.
I have begun to use this ship as a jita hauler as it will take a serious fleet to gank it.

Thanks

SWEET JESUS! YOU MUST HAVE FOUND AN EXPLOIT!

Don't share it. Keep it to yourself, otherwise the devs will fix it.

Intelligence shouldn't be free. Mining, reloaded. ADDICTED.

234
Herr Hammer Draken Likes received: 234	#25 - 2012-08-10 03:07:38 UTC More to the point James315 is going to be hard pressed to keep those procurers out of the ice fields he so claimed as his own. Without taking a hit on his stock price. Herr Hammer Draken "The Amarr Prophet"

Cyn Durella

Ascendance Rising

Ascendance..

Likes received: 5

#26 - 2012-08-10 03:08:27 UTC | Edited by: Cyn Durella

The T1 Procurer has 3 Rig slots, 1 High, 4 Medium and 2 Low

The T2 Mack has 2 Rig slots. 2 High, 4 Medium and 3 Low

The High slots on both ships are T2 Ice harvesters.
The Rig slots on the T1 are ice mining and 2 shield extenders. The T2 ship as I mentioned still has the 2 cargo rigs on it.

The T1 ship can fit 2 Medium shield extenders on it. The T2 ship can only fit small ones (CPU Issue) and has 3 small ones. The other slots are used for invulnerability fields. The T1 has 2 of them and the T2 has one (CPU Issue again).

When it comes to the low slots we are discussing two different fits. The EHP fit and the Fast mining fit. The one fit where I have rediculous UBER shields has a Dam Con unit and an Ice harvester upgrade. This ship gets 55,000 Plus EHP and mines 10 seconds slower than the Mack

The fast mining version has 2 upgrades and mines 10 seconds faster than the Mack. This version has roughly 35,000 EHP

The Mack has 2 harvester upgrades and a Dam Con unit.

It is the shield bonus that allows it to have so many more shields with fewer defensive items.

BUT REMEMBER we are still comparing a Medium sized T2 ship to a Small T1 ship. The T2 versions should smoke the T1's.
Should a T1 frigate own a T2 cruiser with similar fitted items?

Herr Hammer Draken

Likes received: 234

#27 - 2012-08-10 03:12:32 UTC

Cyn Durella wrote:

The T1 Procurer has 3 Rig slots, 1 High, 4 Medium and 2 Low

The T2 Mack has 2 Rig slots. 1 High, 4 Medium and 3 Low

The High slots on both ships are T2 Ice harvesters.
The Rig slots on the T1 are ice mining and 2 shield extenders. The T2 ship as I mentioned still has the 2 cargo rigs on it.

The T1 ship can fit 2 Medium shield extenders on it. The T2 ship can only fit small ones (CPU Issue) and has 3 small ones. The other slots are used for invulnerability fields. The T1 has 2 of them and the T2 has one (CPU Issue again).

When it comes to the low slots we are discussing two different fits. The EHP fit and the Fast mining fit. The one fit where I have rediculous UBER shields has a Dam Con unit and an Ice harvester upgrade. This ship gets 55,000 Plus EHP and mines 10 seconds slower than the Mack

The fast mining version has 2 upgrades and mines 10 seconds faster than the Mack. This version has roughly 35,000 EHP

The Mack has 2 harvester upgrades and a Dam Con unit.

It is the shield bonus that allows it to have so many more shields with fewer defensive items.

BUT REMEMBER we are still comparing a Medium sized T2 ship to a Small T1 ship. The T2 versions should smoke the T1's.
Should a T1 frigate own a T2 cruiser with similar fitted items?

Time to edit that post and add a high slot to the mack.
It has 2 high slots.

Herr Hammer Draken "The Amarr Prophet"

Space Mutiny 1,972
Roll Sizzle Beef Space Mutiny Likes received: 1,972	#28 - 2012-08-10 03:14:13 UTC \| Edited by: Roll Sizzle Beef That rig is 12%, so that's a big cut from the mack. Were those harvester upgrades t2? as that's a 4% difference from t1. The mack also does not need to warp away nearly as often as the pro. So you wasted all those spare seconds in extra travel.

Natsett Amuinn

Caldari Provisions

Caldari State

Likes received: 2,232

#29 - 2012-08-10 03:14:48 UTC | Edited by: Natsett Amuinn

Cyn Durella wrote:

There are no Tiers. It's just exhumer or barge. It's not T1 or T2 anymore.

Mack
2 T2 harvesters
2 Hu2's
1 Ice rig

Proc
1 T2 Harvester (33% faster mining then the Mack)
2 Hu2's
1 Ice rig

Tank isn't relevant, the Proc is supposed to be tankier.

How are you mining more, faster, in a Proc with those fit?
You shouldn't be able to. It should be mathematically impossible. Or is there something I'm missing?

What is your exhumer and barge skills?
You didn't have the same things fit. You didn't have rigs on the Mack.

Herr Hammer Draken

Likes received: 234

#30 - 2012-08-10 03:24:36 UTC

The only part I think needs to be upgraded is the CPU and power grid. If the procurer one strip miner can mine as much as 3 strips on the hulk then it artifically gives it that much more cpu and power grid for free. Equal to 2 more strip miners.
To balance that out and to give the larger ships a few more fitting options the Mack and retriver should get at least the amount of cpu and power grid that one strip miner uses added to its base cpu and power grid. The covetor and hulk should get the amount of 2 strip miners cpu and power grid added to its base numbers. It would make those ships a little more usefull.

Herr Hammer Draken "The Amarr Prophet"

Mystic Lore Arcanium

Viziam

Amarr Empire

Likes received: 27

#31 - 2012-08-10 03:29:33 UTC | Edited by: Mystic Lore Arcanium

I just love my new Proc Barge, but I'm not using it for mining... no way.

I've fitted it out to run combat missions with, the tanky little critter is impressive.

I have a drone augmentor in the high slot, I've fitted a nice 56,000 hp tank with 75% resists across the board, and a MWD.
Now I'm testing it out on L3 combat missions, kiting the room and letting the 5 Drones do their thing at 50km range.

Not bad at all for less than 15 mil invested...

(pop a cyno into the high slot and it become "uber-bait")

I think I'll name it "Proc-Tology"

Jason Xado

Doomheim

Likes received: 208

#32 - 2012-08-10 03:30:10 UTC | Edited by: Jason Xado

Natsett Amuinn wrote:

I'd rather know what it is that she's putting on a barge, the Proc; not a skiff, that allows it to mine more ice in a shorter amount of time, with fewer slots to fit, than an Exhumer with two harvesters and more slots to fit.

Number of harversters/strip miners does not matter anymore. All the barges are balanced to behave as if they have 3 harvesters/strip miners fitted.

Tyberius Franklin

Federal Navy Academy

Gallente Federation

Likes received: 2,014

#33 - 2012-08-10 03:40:24 UTC | Edited by: Tyberius Franklin

Natsett Amuinn wrote:

Cyn Durella wrote:

I thought the Proc/Skiff got a 66% reduction as the unbonused yields were supposed to be the same across the ships. Since the rig isn't present on the Mack it makes sense that the skiff would have the better yield.

Edit: Additionally the yield bonus from going to a Mack over the Procurer is 5% @ Exhumers V. I'd guess the rig is more than that?

Sebiestor Tribe Minmatar Republic 259
Elvis Fett Sebiestor Tribe Minmatar Republic Likes received: 259	#34 - 2012-08-10 03:55:45 UTC Mining must really not pay the bills if you are complaining about having to pop a couple 9mil cargo rigs. If that be the case perhaps you should switch professions, if not then stop complaining about a huge buff your profession just got.

Natsett Amuinn

Caldari Provisions

Caldari State

Likes received: 2,232

#35 - 2012-08-10 04:04:17 UTC

Tyberius Franklin wrote:

Natsett Amuinn wrote:

Cyn Durella wrote:

Mack gets 33%, so the Proc should only mine 33% faster over ONE laser than the Mack. It's not 66% faster than the Mack.

With the same fittings, that isn't enough of an increase on a SINGLE laser, for it to mine more, faster, than the mack.

If the Proc is doing 90s cylces for 2 blocks and the Mack is doing 196s for the same amount, which is more then 50% faster mind you, then they should be mining at just about an even rate.

12% from rig

33% from ship

That's less than 50%, if you don't have the equivilant skill in exhumers (lvl 5), and no rig; wich she didn't.
It shouldn't be possible to mine more ice, faster, in a proc then a mack.

She wasn't talking about strip miners, she said minging ice.
The proc should be STRIP MINING much faster, it gets a 200% bonus, which is what it would need to mine like it had 3 strips fit.

The Mack on the other hand only strip mines like it's got 2.5 strips fit, but it's meant to sit around in a safe spot for longer periods. The proc should be strip mining in more hasardous locations, so it strip mines faster; with a lower hold to fill quickly so that you're not sitting around long. I guess the idea here is that with the added space in the low and rig slots, you should be able to fit more MLU's, rigs, and have the exhumer skills to increase yeild; making up that 50% icrease in yeild that the Proc gets. This is the only thing I don't understand or agree with.

The Proc shouldn't be STRIP MINING faster than a Mack. Even is one thing, but not faster. I guess CCP feels that the amount of time running back and forth to unooad will offset the yeild rate. I personally think the 200% to strips should be knocked down to 150%.

Jorma Morkkis

State War Academy

Caldari State

Likes received: 455

#36 - 2012-08-10 04:36:54 UTC

Natsett Amuinn wrote:

It's just exhumer or barge. It's not T1 or T2 anymore.

If exhumers aren't T2 ships anymore why you need Tech to build them? Why aren't BPOs seeded?

Natsett Amuinn wrote:

How are you mining more, faster, in a Proc with those fit?
You shouldn't be able to. It should be mathematically impossible. Or is there something I'm missing?

Proc is slower than Mack, Mack is slower than Skiff.

Tyberius Franklin

Federal Navy Academy

Gallente Federation

Likes received: 2,014

#37 - 2012-08-10 05:03:55 UTC | Edited by: Tyberius Franklin

Natsett Amuinn wrote:

I think there is something off with your math.
With Ice harvesters
Proc/Skiff = 66.66% cycle reduction
Ret/Mack = 33.33% Cycle reduction

Looking at it as effective harvesters
Proc/Skiff = 1/(1-0.6666) = 3.00
Ret/Mack = 2/(1-0.3333) = 3.00

Both ships have the same base number of effective harvesters.

Another way to look at it is the proc has a 1/3rd cycle while the mack has a 2/3rd cycle, thus the proc cycle is exactly half that of the mack before the 1% per level, making their output the same before per level bonuses.

To give the mack the greatest advantage we can assume lvl 5 exhumers thus raising the effective output to 3.15. The nuber of upgrades is the same on both ships so that is a wash, leaving the mack with only it's 5% lead. That being the case the rig on the procurer would have to be less that a 5% bonus to have the mack beat the procurer with the setups mentioned.


Tyberius Franklin Federal Navy Academy Gallente Federation Likes received: 2,014	#38 - 2012-08-10 05:16:00 UTC Jorma Morkkis wrote: Natsett Amuinn wrote: It's just exhumer or barge. It's not T1 or T2 anymore. If exhumers aren't T2 ships anymore why you need Tech to build them? Why aren't BPOs seeded? Referring to tiers, not tech levels, or so I read it.

Mea Culpa. Shadow Cartel 4,407
Roime Mea Culpa. Shadow Cartel Likes received: 4,407	#39 - 2012-08-10 05:17:20 UTC 1 My T1 Vexor does more DPS than the Ishtar! OMG Am I forced to update my rigs on the Ishtar? Is this balanced? CCP! Y u change things .