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Why do people mine? Seriously.

Author
Roger Dew
TOILET'DUCK PRODUCTIONS
#1 - 2012-11-26 22:56:48 UTC
I've been playing Eve for about 2 and a half years now, time has flown by and it doesn't seem like that long ago that I would laugh at my mates for playing MMOs. That said, I'm here and still enjoying it (to a point!)

I have a few accounts and do what I need to play the game. I don't think it costs that much to get involved in PVP but the ethos of bigger=better is always there and of course you must have an X-type fitted Vindicator in amongst your PVP assets even if it's never undocked before.

However, to reach these goals we must either endure, running missions/plex/exploration/incursions and what not. Or we must buy plex. But there is the other side of Eve that enjoys Spreadsheets online. The miners/industrialists.

I have never understood why you would sit mining an asteroid belt solo making 10m per hour at the most (unless you're in 0.0 hidden belts) to fund your PVP activities. Just recently I did some belt ratting in a tier 3 BC to up my sec status, and actually made an average of 20m per hour, at which point I'm not even trying to get ISK, I'm just trying to repair SS.

I was curious to this mining thing. So made 3x buddy accounts to train for mining barges. I already had a guy that can fly an Orca, so I bought one of them along with a few covetors and now I'm 950m down. That's ok, they're assets and will be counted as such on a balance sheet.

I head to the highsec belts, knowing full well not to expect great fortune, however comforted in people telling me hi-sec ores are worth nearly as much as the null sec offerings.

So I start up a movie on my laptop (This is England) expecting to click a few buttons over the next 2 hours and end up with a bunch of rocks. Wrong. Mining requires micromanagement! The cycle time on my strippers being just under 2 minutes meant I had; at most, 2 minutes free at a time. But after a few cycles and some rocks getting eaten quicker it's to the point that you have to constantly be activating them, that's not even including jettisoning the ore and then tractoring it with the Orca.

So the movie finishes about 2 hours later and I check my items hanger. 39m worth of Ore. Holy ****. That is OREful.

Now I'm sure a professional rock eater must be able to increase the efficiency of what I was doing, however then you're at the point where you're constantly watching the screen, and you might aswell be doing something that rewards your concentration. A well fit battleship costs 1/2 that of an Orca, and in 0.0 you can do anomolies that will make you more than 60m per hour. I dread to think how many hulks you would need to generate that level of income from selling minerals.

Now that brings us to the next point, who sells minerals? Do the miners all build with the minerals? If you do, you might aswell go grab a battleship, do what I said and make 4x the income you would doing mining, use that isk to go and buy all the minerals you want.

Now if everyone did this, there would be no more minerals, people would pay more for them, and mining would appeal to more people.

And I guess this is my point, are we still in the point where individuals still have buckets of minerals from botting or do people just not realise what a waste of time it is ???

tldr; if you're mining you're doing it wrong.
Diamond Bull
Doomheim
#2 - 2012-11-26 23:00:16 UTC
Because someone has to provide the minerals for all those shiny explosions. I am glad to contribute my little bit to the PvP of Eve by turning rocks into ships and turning a slight profit doing so. You're welcome.
Kiteo Hatto
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#3 - 2012-11-26 23:00:19 UTC
People might actually enjoy mining you know :P.
Oraac Ensor
#4 - 2012-11-26 23:08:34 UTC
Roger Dew wrote:
Now if everyone did this, there would be no more minerals, people would pay more for them,

I see a slight flaw in your argument here. Why would people pay more for something that no longer exists?
Demolishar
United Aggression
#5 - 2012-11-26 23:08:44 UTC
You made the mistake of mining ore. mine Ice.
Kobal81
Domheimed
#6 - 2012-11-26 23:09:48 UTC
It's the same reasn we have sh*t posters like you,"Because they can"

"Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit"

Shamus O'Reilly
Candy Cabal
#7 - 2012-11-26 23:14:39 UTC  |  Edited by: Shamus O'Reilly
you mined for two hours with 3 characters and an orca buddy and only made 39mil?.... whatre u doing wrong exactly? my buddy semiafk mines while studying and makes an easy 300 an afternoon...

and over a billion a week easily...

So yeah... whatre u doing wrong? Lol

"I swear there are more people complaining over "nullsecers complaining" then actual nullsec people complaining."

Gogela
Epic Ganking Time
CODE.
#8 - 2012-11-26 23:20:29 UTC
Good question. I've never mined. It looks really boring... I have no idea why people do it.

Signatures should be used responsibly...

Bane Necran
Appono Astos
#9 - 2012-11-26 23:24:11 UTC
They aren't sitting there staring at the beams the entire time. It's a good thing to do while you're doing other things, when you can't give the game your undivided attention.

"In the void is virtue, and no evil. Wisdom has existence, principle has existence, the Way has existence, spirit is nothingness." ~Miyamoto Musashi

Shalia Ripper
#10 - 2012-11-26 23:25:57 UTC
How much will you make in your rookie ships when there are no mins to make those shiny battleships?

Sig blah blah blah blah

SmilingVagrant
Doomheim
#11 - 2012-11-26 23:26:03 UTC
Gogela wrote:
Good question. I've never mined. It looks really boring... I have no idea why people do it.


The closest I've ever come is putting mining drones on that one incursion site and that told me everything I needed to know (Everything being mining is awful).
Lord LazyGhost
Sebiestor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#12 - 2012-11-26 23:26:48 UTC
Gogela wrote:
Good question. I've never mined. It looks really boring... I have no idea why people do it.


well like you said u started 3 buddy acounts. so your miners will be sup par to others no t2 crystals ships probs not fitted orca pilot givig boosts? hardwireings? to boost it faster. with orca boosting and a mind link in place evern more ore faster :). also if ya want to do it while wathing movies mine ice
Sentamon
Imperial Academy
Amarr Empire
#13 - 2012-11-26 23:32:59 UTC
Yes mining is horrible ISK generation. Everyone stop doing it. Cool

~ Professional Forum Alt  ~

Kiran
Sebiestor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#14 - 2012-11-26 23:49:05 UTC
90% of the items you buy are made by players. Now if they removed mining from the game how would you buy your ships and weapons ? Fly about killing rats till one of them dropped a hull ?

If this is the game you want then go play WoW.
Ra'Shyne Viper
Native Freshfood
#15 - 2012-11-26 23:52:40 UTC
i could see a group of dude from the same corp mining while bullshating on vent/TS/local.

i think of it more of a social activity: making isk while getting yucky with the bros, nomsayin?

solo mining serves no purpose, though you could just be mining and surfing the web ingame.

but, i could station trade, web surf and wayyyyyyyyyy more isk.

Also, mining could play a part in RPing if youre into that gay stuff.

DUST 514 player

Ingame name: Vin Vicious

Xercodo
Cruor Angelicus
#16 - 2012-11-26 23:55:14 UTC
For one you're doing 3 way multi-boxing, while it's common to think that anyone that mines must be multi boxing 5 accounts this isn't always true.

Personally, I enjoy mining as a relaxation element that still allows me to make money while I hang out and talk in my various channels or get other work done or even play a totally different game. It allows me to be slightly more productive than ship spinning and since I use a mack I can get a fairly decent yield without having to check on anything apart from roid depletion. And since I try to mine in quiet systems the roids tend to be large enough that this doesn't happen too often and I've yet to ever be ganked.

I also sometimes try to task myself with building a ship from scratch myself (aside from mega and zyd....that is until the Venture is out and I can ninja myself some ABCs :D) Yes I know that mining it myself doesn't make it free and 9 times otu fo 10 I could have bought ti cheaper instead of building it but it's just something I like to do to say I did. Made an orca that way fairly recently :D

The Drake is a Lie

Johan Civire
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#17 - 2012-11-26 23:57:56 UTC
Ok i ask that question my self to but here it comes. 2 weeks ago or more. I was a little borred with the pvp/pve content. Normal i play like i think 1 hour 2 or 3 at moost. So i friend of me say he you can use internet at work to right? i say yah. Why dont you mine and make some extra isk. I say no way man its borred. He say nah just give it a try,

So i had some basic skills and upgrade it to get a Retriever. And fit with mining strippers. And fly to a belt. Put out the lasers make a bookmark and let the boring game play go.............Shocked 5 hours laters i log off. I have never thought it was fun i can do whatever i like and making isk at the same time if you know what i mean here.

So here is my daily thing. I log in i mine and log out. Thats what i do now in eve some times i mine 3/4 belts for my own. in 1 day. I have no idea if it good or bad i dont care i like it.......... yah i was shock to when i found out that i love the relaxs and not 24hours adraline rush.

Now i play eve mining with my main display and my 2 display i have a movie running and my 3 display, roaming the internet. And using the ingame browser to forum reading all kinds of things *trying to learn some basic english and spelling/grammer that kinds of thinks.

Yes i like eve more because i never thought i like mining. This explane how eve is. And how you play a game. I love the pve content but i get borred very fast and iam not a pvp guy i just dont like it. I like to watch other people and reading there hero storys about it. But for me iam just a guy thats playing the eve pve content in this game. But i have never try a good corp that like to train me in pvp perhaps some day i will try it. But for now iam happy with the new job i have in eve.

Try it if you playing eve more then 4 years with 24hours adraline rush i think you like to relaxs option in eve for sure. Trust me i was the same like you and i think all miners are. Some a born to relaxs.

Sorry for the bad spelling/grammer iam not english so keep it nice.
YoYo NickyYo
Doomheim
#18 - 2012-11-27 00:02:00 UTC
Roger Dew wrote:
I've been playing Eve for about 2 and a half years now, time has flown by and it doesn't seem like that long ago that I would laugh at my mates for playing MMOs. That said, I'm here and still enjoying it (to a point!)

I have a few accounts and do what I need to play the game. I don't think it costs that much to get involved in PVP but the ethos of bigger=better is always there and of course you must have an X-type fitted Vindicator in amongst your PVP assets even if it's never undocked before.

However, to reach these goals we must either endure, running missions/plex/exploration/incursions and what not. Or we must buy plex. But there is the other side of Eve that enjoys Spreadsheets online. The miners/industrialists.

I have never understood why you would sit mining an asteroid belt solo making 10m per hour at the most (unless you're in 0.0 hidden belts) to fund your PVP activities. Just recently I did some belt ratting in a tier 3 BC to up my sec status, and actually made an average of 20m per hour, at which point I'm not even trying to get ISK, I'm just trying to repair SS.

I was curious to this mining thing. So made 3x buddy accounts to train for mining barges. I already had a guy that can fly an Orca, so I bought one of them along with a few covetors and now I'm 950m down. That's ok, they're assets and will be counted as such on a balance sheet.

I head to the highsec belts, knowing full well not to expect great fortune, however comforted in people telling me hi-sec ores are worth nearly as much as the null sec offerings.

So I start up a movie on my laptop (This is England) expecting to click a few buttons over the next 2 hours and end up with a bunch of rocks. Wrong. Mining requires micromanagement! The cycle time on my strippers being just under 2 minutes meant I had; at most, 2 minutes free at a time. But after a few cycles and some rocks getting eaten quicker it's to the point that you have to constantly be activating them, that's not even including jettisoning the ore and then tractoring it with the Orca.

So the movie finishes about 2 hours later and I check my items hanger. 39m worth of Ore. Holy ****. That is OREful.

Now I'm sure a professional rock eater must be able to increase the efficiency of what I was doing, however then you're at the point where you're constantly watching the screen, and you might aswell be doing something that rewards your concentration. A well fit battleship costs 1/2 that of an Orca, and in 0.0 you can do anomolies that will make you more than 60m per hour. I dread to think how many hulks you would need to generate that level of income from selling minerals.

Now that brings us to the next point, who sells minerals? Do the miners all build with the minerals? If you do, you might aswell go grab a battleship, do what I said and make 4x the income you would doing mining, use that isk to go and buy all the minerals you want.

Now if everyone did this, there would be no more minerals, people would pay more for them, and mining would appeal to more people.

And I guess this is my point, are we still in the point where individuals still have buckets of minerals from botting or do people just not realise what a waste of time it is ???

tldr; if you're mining you're doing it wrong.



Without miners, you have no ships, modules, etc. Were you planning on pod bumping as your choice of future PvP? Roll





I am not, nor will I ever be...Nicky Yo.... The question you should ask is.....When will they release the NICKY!

Zoctrine
Doomheim
#19 - 2012-11-27 00:17:02 UTC
I play this and other games the way I like it, it has happen on a very few occasion's that I've asked others what they like doing and why just so I could get a perspective on something I don't (or didn't at the time) do in the game.

In short... What I like doing is my business, what everyone else does is their business, no one has any right over anyone about how to frak play a game.

Seems to me the OP (and countless others that post about other people play styles) don't really enjoy the game, what they really enjoy doing is spend their time wondering why is others not doing what “They” think is the right thing to do, either that or they are just plain ignorant egocentrics, or even a mix of both...
Mallak Azaria
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#20 - 2012-11-27 00:30:33 UTC  |  Edited by: Mallak Azaria
Demolishar wrote:
You made the mistake of mining ore. mine Ice.


Ice is even worse at 8mil an hour.

OP; People will play the way they want to play. The only issue I have with some profession (ice mining) is when they become an activity where you profit for not actually playing the game.

This post was lovingly crafted by a member of the Goonwaffe Posting Cabal, proud member of the popular gay hookup site somethingawful.com, Spelling Bee, Grammar Gestapo & #1 Official Gevlon Goblin Fanclub member.

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