Player Features and Ideas Discussion

The title says it all. Just like drone poo, the loot from mission running and ratting undermines the entire profession of mining through reprocessing. Even if it doesn't make up 100% or 10% it still does have an impact on mining. Especially in high sec where high end minerals can be harvested through combat but not through mining. It also underminds production by generating modules out of thin air that out perform the standard production modules. Eve is supposed to be a sandbox where players make everything, not wow where u gotta go find the epic loots. Combat pilots already get instant isk payout for their profession, they also have salvaging as a secondary profession (because you have to generate wrecks to salvage now) why do they get to also generate minerals and/or modules that outperform the standard production modules.

Fixes have been made in the past to try and reduce the flood of minerals from combat. While these are great steps in the right direction, the only way to really fix the hole is to take minerals out of combat. There still should be loot drop from npc ships and there does need to be a way to acquire higher meta gear.


My solution to the mineral problem:

Npc ships no longer drop modules.

An easy fix, plain and simple. Though it might make some people/bittervets lose mandibular stability. The not so simple part would be what to replace the drops with. Well there are a couple of options that would make the drops very similar in scope but would no longer supplement the mineral supply.

Drop replacement:

An easy fix would be for the npc ships to drop items that would upgrade a specific module to a higher meta item. For instance, what would have originally dropped an 'arbalest' heavy missile launcher will now drop an 'arbalesr' heavy missile launcher upgrade. Then you could apply that upgrade to a heavy missile launcher I and it would then become the arbalest version.

First of all it seems like a simple enough change to change all the drops to upgrades of the same name. It then also prevents mission runners and ratters from flooding the market with better versions of production items. And not only that but it puts a demand on the very much unloved basic tech I player made modules. This then inturn adds another level of mineral demand because you will need the basic module built by a player to get your upgrade. Then almost all things in the game are created by players. Not just created out of thin air as they are now.

Alternatively, for added complexity for the sake of itself in the spirit of eve, you could do a system similar to the augmented and integrated drones where each faction drops parts and you use those parts, a tech I item and a BPC from a data site to create the high meta modules. But that's a much more indepth undertaking to implement. But could be a step 2 process after the first idea I gave.

But either way, this would change combat piloting from a supply source that underminds mining and production to a demand source that will utilize them. And potentially add a new upgrading line of production.

Let me know what anyone/everyone thinks!

I wouldn't mind that as long as you bump my L4 rewards and bounties x10 or more.

The containment field around General Discussion has had a leak for several days.

Hello WOW players. Just wanted to let you know about this little ideology we have here in EVE Online.

http://jestertrek.com/eve/blog/2012/balance-yes.png

"Free Loot from NPC's" doesn't seem to show up in that cycle. I'm trying to imagine how to relate killing NPCs to actual sandbox activities. Oh I know! *Stab random natural sand mound, obtain free sandcastle*

If you're opposed to this for whatever reason, then i suppose you wouldn't care if the mining and production professions just went away. Then you could just buy everything from an NPC or epic loots it from one!!

Or on second thought, why don't we just have Production randomly create High meta versions of items when you produce Tech I stuff. And killing asteroids gives you a bounty too!! Also mining missions will never have unusable versions of Ore/gas to go along with the extra bounty you get for killing the rocks. Then, when you have the wreck of an asteroid you can go salvage it for regular salvage loot!!!

Seriously though, if you have input then by all means throw it in there. If you're just here to flame then go to General Discussion. And if you want to farm mobs for epic loots, then go back to WOW.

It's a good idea. Eve has a division of labor problem and all these extra modules and minerals are a big part of it.

Missions generate too many things: ISK, Modules, Minerals, Salvage and LP, although LP doesn't impact the division of labor issue in quite the same way. Each singular activity should generate at the most two types of resources, pretty much every other activity in Eve generates one type of resource for the time and effort applied to it. Missions and ratting are broken in this regard.

Why is division of labor important?

It's important for a number of reasons. This first and most obvious is, the more activities there are, that do not generate ISK, the more balance there is with regards to growth of the money supply. The less people there are shooting rats, the less ISK there is entering the system. If mining veld gave as ISK/hr as running lvl 4 missions, there would be a lot more people mining and instead of shooting rats.

It encourages players to work with one another and trade with one another since no one activity can generate all the resources needed to accomplish a given task. It encourages players to compete for those resources both in space and in the market place. Yep, those are two contradictory statements, Welcome to Economics where scarcity is the grand mother of the concept we know as money.

My favorite part of this sort of thing are the arguments based on 'Sandbox'. Sandbox apparently means whatever the poster likes, Anti-sandbox is anything those that disagree with him like.


The basic premise is not unsound. I could even get behind the loss of minerals and resulting boost to mining income and miners in general for the trade off of a production chain for meta items that are not T2. The components that make up the meta production chain would no doubt make up for the bulk of ISK that reprocessed modules would have represented.

I'd also like to see room for more unique loot. Bookmarks to combat sites for extra reward, good for x hours from the time of loot. Blueprints to produce limited amounts of pirate faction ammo. Manifests asking for amounts of minerals and/or goods to be delivered to an agent somewhere, which may lead to Low Sec. Tons of things could be done

I do not get the impression that CCP is actually concerned about money supply.

Did we see the same economic presentation at fanfest this year?

Let me rephrase my comment: I did not get the impression that CCP was as concerned about money supply now as it was a year ago given the efficacy of past changes.

I am not saying that they are not open to new sinks, but, rather, that the urgency and priority of finding new sinks is much lower.

And why did they go after that ice? Because it was in a rather small area, it was controllable. Megacyte can be found all over the place, from low sec to null. They would have to control the entirety of null sec and low sec and in an environment of rising meg prices; which would encourage a lot of ninja mining. They would never be able to maintain monopoly.

"Gun mining" was already addressed when meta 0 modules were removed from rat loot. This had the secondary effect of also nerfing mission/ratting income even further, as the supply of modules and/or minerals yielded from PvE was decreased. Lately, between nerfed mission rewards, nerfed bounties and what loot does still drop, the only way for missions to be profitable is if you grind them for hours like some kind of bot.

I guess what you're trying to do here is remove all drops and give miners the absolute monopoly on mineral acquisition? Because fleets of botted retrievers don't already make plenty of ISK, right?

I'll ask you one other question: What about pirate faction, deadspace and officer modules? Should those cease to drop as well, simply because you want a totalitarian death-grip on the mineral trade?