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First day - a little ice mining report

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Victoria Sin
Doomheim
#81 - 2013-06-05 18:56:33 UTC
Vaerah Vahrokha wrote:

I *was* in such a corp, then RL took over and now, no low or null sec adventures for me any more.


There are places in Eve, believe it or not, where you can have null sec adventures without being a member of a big corp. Eve mail me for details.
Brujo Loco
Brujeria Teologica
#82 - 2013-06-05 19:06:16 UTC  |  Edited by: Brujo Loco
Ahhhh now we need this VERY SAME MECHANIC FOR ALL ASTEROIDS in Null/Lo and Hi ...

Eve would be vastly different ...

Now to spice it up, place all fixed ice/mineral belts in WH space Twisted and make the barren wasteland pop thrice the usual numbers of WH´s

Why? Because the minerals I mine are free and I don´t know crap about anything, but know deep down EVERYONE would be pissed, severely. Smile

Weeeeeeeeeeee!!!!! °¬o/*

Inner Sayings of BrujoLoco: http://eve-files.com/sig/brujoloco
Algarion Getz
Aideron Corp
#83 - 2013-06-05 19:13:19 UTC  |  Edited by: Algarion Getz
Terrorfrodo wrote:
Seems to me that if people, who used to run one or more ice-mining accounts afk while doing other stuff, will now cease to mine because it requires activity, this will lead to more ice remaining for those who actively play.

Guess what, CCP prefers players who actively play, even though they have not been very good at designing their game for them. They are trying to change that, and that is commendable.

A pure ice-miner subscription is worthless to the community, it's just a ghost ship using server resources all day and contributing nothing, even if it's not a bot. If CCP loses some of those subs, they will gain others in exchange because EVE will appear more vibrant and active.

They were not useless.
* They generated cheap fuel for POSes and captials.
* Since the mining barge rebalancing last summer, ice mining was an accessible, timesaving and stable ISK source for casual players who dont have the time or the will to do the boring PvE grinding.


Baden Luskan wrote:
Many of you ice miners are looking at the spawn mechanics the wrong way. CCP wants to limit high sec to only 80% of the total population's ice needs. This means, if you are a miner and not finding belts, then you will need to maybe look somewhere else besides high sec.

Ice mining in lowsec? You could aswell trash your Hulk, that saves you time. All the PvPers in lowsec are craving for defenseless, expensive targets like mining barges.
Baden Luskan
Freeworlds Collective
#84 - 2013-06-05 20:02:26 UTC
Vaerah Vahrokha wrote:
Baden Luskan wrote:
Many of you ice miners are looking at the spawn mechanics the wrong way. CCP wants to limit high sec to only 80% of the total population's ice needs. This means, if you are a miner and not finding belts, then you will need to maybe look somewhere else besides high sec.


Blah blah I have done mining everywhere. Guess what, even just to go mine low sec you need to be part of a powerful corporation that can protect the miners (and only a minority of low sec corps want to do that), camp the gates and scount the WHs.

In case it was not clear enough, those who do pay $15 but can only play 1-2 hours a day, are not welcome to those corps, neither because of being industrialists (and not PvPers) nor because of doing so little in the corp.

I *was* in such a corp, then RL took over and now, no low or null sec adventures for me any more.

But keep harpying, I am sure you'll convince those RL work bosses to give bountiful additional hours to their workers so they can join what's needed to go mine low / null sec.


Maybe I was not clear enough either....Ill be blunt for the learning-impared.

THERE IS NOT ENOUGH ICE FOR ALL OF YOU TO MINE IN HIGH SEC.

I dont care how you do the math. You can divide it up into tiny tiny pieces that spawn every 5 minutes, or you can have one giant spaceberg that spawns once every 24 hours. No matter how you divide it up, its only ever going to equal 80% of the total ice needs of the game.

Also, don't shoot the messenger. I'm not the one that thought up of this new ice mining feature. That means getting pissy with me is not gonna make this problem YOU have any better and it sure in the hell is not making you look intelligent.
Seniae 0n3
#85 - 2013-06-05 20:10:26 UTC
I think they did a great job making ice mining to be a little more effort. Not because of bots or what ... I just think it is healthy to make you play the game a little more instead of semi afk mining like some harvesting drone with a lousy excuse to do something usefull with their time.
Pipernelli Spacemitt
Doomheim
#86 - 2013-06-05 20:21:37 UTC
Vaerah Vahrokha wrote:

In case it was not clear enough, those who do pay $15 but can only play 1-2 hours a day, are not welcome to those corps, neither because of being industrialists (and not PvPers) nor because of doing so little in the corp.


Seems 1-2 hours a day at random won't be sufficient for you to casually afk ice anymore either.

Good luck searching for something else to do. This sandbox does not owe you an ice belt.
Vincent Athena
Photosynth
#87 - 2013-06-05 20:47:15 UTC
UKBigWolf wrote:
Felicity Love wrote:
3) Put a serious crimp in botting. Check.


I'd say hold off a while before declaring victory against botters, at least lets see how long until they update their programs P

CCP said many times this change had nothing to do with bots. The security team does bot work, not the content designers.

Besides who do you think can best sit and do nothing for 4 hours while waiting for a spawn, a human or a bot? Or warp from system to system, keeping track of the respawn timer? Human or bot?

Now what this really puts a crimp in is isboxer users. With the old system an isboxer user could issue could issue these commands to one client:

Undock
warp to top bookmark
target nearest roid
mine
(wait awhile)
dock
unload ore
(go to top)

And have every other client follow them, even when they are mining different belts in different solar systems. But now...there is no command "warp to the ice anomaly, but only if it exists" for isboxer to duplicate to the other clients. The entire isboxer method of mass ice mining is gone.

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Vincent Athena
Photosynth
#88 - 2013-06-05 20:57:19 UTC
silens vesica wrote:
Victoria Sin wrote:
silens vesica wrote:
It takes a large fleet of dedicated miners hours to strip-mine an ore belt to oblivion


Err, no. Two max skills Hulks and a skilled Orca can do it in a couple of hours.

Technically possible - I've personally never seen it happen.

Ive done it. But that's just one belt. The average is like 8 per system, so that's 16 hours for a 3 pilot fleet to clear a solar system.

(Actually 2 hours is a bit of a stretch. Normally if you clear a belt in 2 hours its because someone else has mined some of it before you got there, or its just a one day old belt, having been completely cleared the previous day).

Now those same three pilots mining an ice belt will clear it in around 12 hours. So it sounds close to the same. Except there are far fewer systems with ice than ore. As has been said, the current amount of ice in high sec can only support about 40% of the ice miners that were mining it pre-expansion.

Know a Frozen fan? Check this out

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Andski
Science and Trade Institute
Caldari State
#89 - 2013-06-05 20:58:03 UTC
glad to see ice bots get hit

Twitter: @EVEAndski

"It's easy to speak for the silent majority. They rarely object to what you put into their mouths."    - Abrazzar
Tyberius Franklin
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#90 - 2013-06-05 21:05:38 UTC
Andski wrote:
glad to see ice bots get hit

Considering bots can wait 23.5/7 for respawns doesn't scarcity and decreased real player activity through massive downtimes help bots by raising ice prices?
Vito Tattaglia
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#91 - 2013-06-05 21:16:40 UTC
Iosue wrote:
does anyone know what happens when you're already in system and the ice anom respawns? does the scanner sweep again, or does the ice anom just show up as a new site?


I would assume it works like combat sites, where the new site just shows up next time you do a scan.
Vaerah Vahrokha
Vahrokh Consulting
#92 - 2013-06-05 23:15:08 UTC
Pipernelli Spacemitt wrote:
Vaerah Vahrokha wrote:

In case it was not clear enough, those who do pay $15 but can only play 1-2 hours a day, are not welcome to those corps, neither because of being industrialists (and not PvPers) nor because of doing so little in the corp.


Seems 1-2 hours a day at random won't be sufficient for you to casually afk ice anymore either.

Good luck searching for something else to do. This sandbox does not owe you an ice belt.



1) I am not affected so keep your irony for yourself. I am digging the 4th belt, this time there's only 8 people as well.

2) The sandbox owes everyone a decent gameplay. Ice's just 80% of the demand? No problem, as long as many people can get a slice of that 80% without a NPC timer playing deus ex machina.

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Vaerah Vahrokha
Vahrokh Consulting
#93 - 2013-06-05 23:16:36 UTC
Tyberius Franklin wrote:
Andski wrote:
glad to see ice bots get hit

Considering bots can wait 23.5/7 for respawns doesn't scarcity and decreased real player activity through massive downtimes help bots by raising ice prices?


Don't make too much sense, Andski could explode.

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Jayrendo Karr
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#94 - 2013-06-06 00:01:30 UTC
I vote for unlimited fields to show up in low-sec, noone could ever say they don't have access to ice. or make it so there can be ice harvesters fitted on a venture.
Shin Theor
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#95 - 2013-06-06 00:11:05 UTC
I have to say that this new ice mechanic is decidedly not good at all.
I logged in my ice alts today to mine, and got a whopping 70 units of ice in 30 minutes. The roids melted so fast with about 50 pilots in the belt that it was gone in less than 90 minutes from when it spawned, according to those who were there when it spawned.

If i'd logged in at another time, i'd have gotten nothing. The other systems are all the same, so there is no point in moving my ice miners to another system just on the off chance the belt is still there.

I used to mine ice while doing other stuff - market, hauling, solo pvp, etc. While i can see that CCP wants ice mining to be more active, it has to be an activity that can be done reliably and persistently, not randomly. There is no way to support towers and such with the way the system is set up at the moment. No single pilot would be able to mine ice to support towers and other jump capable ships without the ability to log in and mine a sufficient amount.

I have to seriously consider whether I keep my mining fleet at all with this new mechanic.

I hope CCP is reading this.
Zhade Lezte
#96 - 2013-06-06 01:04:23 UTC
Vaerah Vahrokha wrote:
Hi sec Ice belts cannot be protected by sov.


Not really a protection they need or even really benefit from in nullsec (moon towers benefit from being protected by capitals while an isk-consuming cynojammer is up, ice fleets don't have the massive EHP that makes such protection useful), but yeah okay since we're comparing tech to ice as well as talking about the theory of an ice cartel. The biggest advantage I think to moons is that they are in a PVP free zone where an organized group can actually use force without being hindered, something that as you point out is difficult to unprofitable in highsec.

Vaerah Vahrokha wrote:
They are very easy to find (not even need to probe them down), a cartel will have people that will share information about where / when belts spawn but wait... the residents will have found them before you even arrive and now you are sharing the info with others who will mine off the same pool.


This just strikes me as throwing your hands up and quitting without really thinking this through. The residents have to deal with the exact same constraints as you do to find belts. If they found it out of blind luck, it's not like they magically had better odds to do so than you. If they're all at the belt because THEY teamed up, well...

Even then I certainly can't guarantee grouping up will beat going at it alone, and indeed with more accounts the incentive for being purely self-interested goes up for obvious enough reasons. I also can't guarantee it because quite a few people prioritize the collective growth of their organization over personal self-interest. Not that being self-interested or what degree you want to prioritize self-interest to collective interest is a personal choice you are free to make (and others are free to criticize) but they value something differently.

It will, however, probably be more fun, both from less tedium looking for belts and the chatting (well I think VV already has a community to chat with, but considering the average solo highsec miner at large here). I am glad you are providing feedback and recommend you try this out! Even if maintaining a corp is too high-maintenance for you, a private channel may be enough.

Oh, and though highsec mechanics, especially the state of wardecs, make it difficult to interfere with other competition in these mining ops, there still are a couple ways for those of you who are interested in trying to do so (I suspect VV may not want to go through the effort in his limited time, which is a valid choice). Maybe take a trick from James315's playbook and bump with a stabber fleet issue :)
Zhade Lezte
#97 - 2013-06-06 01:11:54 UTC  |  Edited by: Zhade Lezte
Shin Theor wrote:
I have to say that this new ice mechanic is decidedly not good at all.
I logged in my ice alts today to mine, and got a whopping 70 units of ice in 30 minutes. The roids melted so fast with about 50 pilots in the belt that it was gone in less than 90 minutes from when it spawned, according to those who were there when it spawned.

If i'd logged in at another time, i'd have gotten nothing. The other systems are all the same, so there is no point in moving my ice miners to another system just on the off chance the belt is still there.

I used to mine ice while doing other stuff - market, hauling, solo pvp, etc. While i can see that CCP wants ice mining to be more active, it has to be an activity that can be done reliably and persistently, not randomly. There is no way to support towers and such with the way the system is set up at the moment. No single pilot would be able to mine ice to support towers and other jump capable ships without the ability to log in and mine a sufficient amount.

I have to seriously consider whether I keep my mining fleet at all with this new mechanic.

I hope CCP is reading this.


Yeah, folks like me like this because of how very iconic this is in the eve universe: you don't get much better than scarcity of resources breeding competition for that!

For "reliable", AFK gameplay...eh. I can't say it's something that Eve should cater towards, though you obviously disagree. If low-end prices go down (not sure if they will) lack of interest in ore belts might make them the new bastion of afk gameplay.

And there is enough ice in highsec to satiate 80% of the game's demand, and highsec's demand is only a small fraction of that. You may not be able to effortlessly fulfill your own portion of the demand and thus have to pay a price higher, in effort or ISK, than you might be willing to pay on the open market, but your last paragraph strikes me as rather poorly thought out in light of the glaringly objective evidence you are ignoring.
Enmesharra
Giggle Inc
#98 - 2013-06-06 01:22:25 UTC
Gotta say Belts popped way to quickly and was very frustrating. My tears are flowing freely over this timer business.
Ace Uoweme
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#99 - 2013-06-06 01:35:22 UTC
Vaerah Vahrokha wrote:
2) The sandbox owes everyone a decent gameplay. Ice's just 80% of the demand? No problem, as long as many people can get a slice of that 80% without a NPC timer playing deus ex machina.


But what do you expect CCP to do about the botters?

Botters exist because:

1. Cycle times for mining ice took forever even with the fancy links and bonuses.
2. Static ice fields.

If the ice fields remained static with the faster cycle times + bots. Ice mining and it's products would be worthless to harvest.

Anything in EvE has to be profitable to engage in, or people won't do it.

The main problem in all of the resource mess is: CCP wants a wholesale PvP game, when resource gathering is a PvE activity. Introduce PvP into the mix, resource gathering is lowered. Keep it unchecked, even less participate, and PvPers can't pewpewpew enough anymore.

EvE is broken due to all this, because the fun aspect of the game is PvP, but people are PvPing with the cheapest hulls to even justify it. Only major combat that exists is capturing territory, after that it's cheap hulls again.

Smart thing is to acknowledge the differences so gamers can enjoy the game. PvP now is about big fights. FPS games used to be 8v8, it's getting to be 64v64 (and coming soon 128v128)....every match. If EvE is about small gang in small ships doing small encounters it's at odds in the PvP/FPS trends. Even MMORPGs are going for large scale encounters in non-instances. It's fun. Remember how fun that New Caldari encounter was? Imagine that everyday, with all sizes of ships...and without breaking the bank to do so...nor just happening once in 6 months.

_"In a world of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." _ ~George Orwell
Bolow Santosi
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#100 - 2013-06-06 01:37:14 UTC
Vaerah Vahrokha wrote:
FloppieTheBanjoClown wrote:
Sounds like ice miners are getting a s.mall taste of what it's like to live in a wormhole, waiting for sites to randomly spawn.


.. and like in WHs they can make hundreds of millions a hou.... oh wait.


And like highsec they have almost complete safety with very little chance of being blown up and are known for being risk free... oh wait