Player Features and Ideas Discussion

The reason I am creating this thread has a lot to do with the many threads/posts I have seen and read upon concerning one of the most intricate, yet rejected notion Eve has ever had. Their are quite literally SEVERAL threads concerning the topic of mines in the game. Discussed and Debated ever since CCP's involvement bringing them in and taking them out, with the notion that they would never bring them back ever again. Lag issues that have been seen with pilots using them (in the hundreds, sometimes well beyond 1000 in a system), as well as simultaneous explosions and proximity detections made this particular item deemed too much for CCP to handle.

The REAL problem to mines in EVE is not the item themselves. Its CCP's decision to not find a suitable solution implementing them to EVE's current evolution. Meaning they looked into them and decided it wasn't worth the effort to employing the device into the game (which translates in my head as "Completely & Totally Lazy"). They're has been many ideas talked about over the many years of how to nerf or reduce the issues they create to make them useable.

Ideas Suggested
Many ideas have been suggested but the ones below are the ones I believe CCP would more than likely decide upon, if any:

High-Sec Banned - All Mines would be banned from high security space because CONCORD deems it so.

Unclaimed or Owned Null-Sec Only - If CCP would like to further limit the uses of mines, only claimable space can have mines set up in them. An even further limitation would be that if the space has been claimed, only that alliance can deploy mines. Mines in wormholes are completely debatable.

Limit of 100 (Or Less) Mines Per System - Although this would be frustrating to many members trying to launch their mines in systems where they are full, this would allow for lag, explosion, and proximity detection issues to be reduced significantly, allowing the strain on CCP's servers to handle the load.

Limit of 10 (or Less) Mines Per Character - While this would not easily stop multi-box players from using multiple alts to place more than this limit, it would at least prevent a single character from placing the maximum allowed mines in a single system.

Ship-Specific - Only a specific group of ships (one for each of the major factions) can have "Mine Laying" ships. One such idea was a destroyer-class vessel with the role ability to do this job. This works well because there are not that many destroyer types, both in T1 and in T2 (around 3 ships per faction; two T1 and one T2). Destroyers would now get a second look before getting skipped like most non-tackle pilots have done in the past. Only 5 - 8 mines could possibly be held by a Destroyer.

Mine Sweeping - proposed by some players, this could be a module much like a data or relic analyzer made to disable mines in space and pull them into their cargo bays. The disabling process needs to be dangerous and hard to crack at inital skill levels and gradually easier (yet still dangerous and moderately hard) as they gain in skill and apply rigs/modules that give bonuses to the disabling process. This would have many applications: a money-making profession, a precursor attack or bait tactic, etc. Even the idea of a T2 Minesweeping Ship has been proposed.

Mine Nerfs

- Mines are relatively weak in effective hit points because they are meant to explode. However, to counter-balance, they are indestructible until their proximity detection is triggered and cause massive damage. Smartbomb & Defender Missile Technology works against detection-triggered mines if the player sets them off and activates the corresponding modules.

- Mines must be set at least 1km from each other. This allows covert pilots to carefully move between them, carefully staying 2500m away to keep cloak, but still hard for the pilot to weave in. Also helps prevent chain-reacting mines.

- Mines cannot be placed within 100km of Jump Gates, POS, Outposts, Stations, or Customs Offices (But CAN with Cynos).

- Mines cannot be deployed inside Warp Disruption bubbles due to interference with electronic-triggering mechanisms. Attempting to would surely be imminent death. This could be the message that pops up when attempting to as well.

- Mines would be hard to make, the blueprints would require much material, increasing the price on markets.

- Mines are removed every Downtime (DT), making pilots have to set them up again. For defending corps/alliances that do this often and miss a day would give the enemy an opportunist moment.

These are just some of the more prominent ideas for the problems that CCP has faced with mines. Making them useable and providing effective counter-balances, while allowing CCP's servers to handle the server load. I end with this: CCP become optimistic, open your minds to endless possibilities. Thats what EVE is about. A Sandbox. So imagine and create!

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10 Sources:
BoBoZoBo's Thread
Cutlass Claire's Thread
Raven DarkSouless' Thread
WeiChei McQuienn's Thread
Mr Cleann's Thread
stevenjackson007's Thread
Killde's Thread
Pyro Ninja's Thread
RIPPER OFU's Thread
Elaron's Thread
And many, many more...

Maybe NPCs should randomly seed space lanes with mines in low and null-sec.

Who hasn't secretly harbored a strong desire to mine the Jita undock?

To say that without reading all 10 sources would be like saying "I read the first two ammendments in th Constitution and there's nothing on women's suffrage!" very flawed response, bro.

The real point of the sources though, was the abundant number of people talking and STILL talking about mine explosives for EVE Online. There are more than just these threads too. A lot more.

Someone else commented on my point of CCPs Laziness. They aren't lazy in the aspect of maintaining and always supporting player needs in game and constantly coming out with new patches, hot fixes, balancing mechanics, etc. they are quite opposite. I was specifically pointing out the fact they ignore this specif topic with words like we will never return mines to EVE. It's a very non-objective way to deal with such an over-talked upon subject. And ignoring something that players tend to continue putting text to electronic paper, means that something's gotta give. Even if eve never comes out with mines again, this topic will continue to pop up. what will CCP do about it? Just my 2 cents.

Being an old homeworld complex player, I can tell that a destroyer class that can deploy mines can easily add some fun.

T1 mines - static, has a large proximity, cloaked. Can trigger other mines if they're in its proximity. When entered in proximity mine de-cloaks and 10 seconds countdown timer starts ticking, if you manage to go away, no problem. Similar with bomb mechanics.
T2 mines - vibrating in its place, has a lower trigger proximity, however larger activation proximity, cloaked. When entered in its activation proximity, mine de-cloaks and starts to accelerate towards your ship, blowing on impact. It is slow enough that you can turn and run away with small ships. When out-of proximity again, mine returns to its original location and cloaks.

A sonar-pulse device distorts cloaking routines and uncloaks mines (and yes, cloaked ships nearby) for a small amount of time. So there is the anti-way of cloaking.

Actually, eve game engine has already included this. Bombers and their bombs! Then destroyers with their mines! A mine, in simplest form, is a FoF bomb, floating in space for some specific time. Variants could be added easily s-m-l-xl mines. A mine deploying destroyer can have 10 s, 5m, 2l or 1xl bomb in its bay at a time. Give a mine something like 5 to 20 minutes of lifetime then you're good to go.

Edit: Mine Anchoring Device needs about 20 base - (mine deployment skill * 2) seconds to deploy a mine and mine itself needs 1 minute to arm. During mine deployment (not mine arming), destroyer cannot move. Let's say so... ;)

Edit 2: Mines can be targeted, and cloaking mechanics work for them. It should have health as similar amount as warp disruption probe. This way, it is easy to avoid them, it is easy to destroy them, but when careless, they hurt in the ass. I like mines :P Gimme mines! :P

Yeah, fair enough, I took a shortcut, but the point still stands - most ideas for mines are generally AFK gameplay, which CCP doesn't seem keen on supporting. If you had to be on-grid with them, and they had a very limited lifespan, that would be a different matter.

Shivanthar above has a few interesting ideas - in general, I don't like the concept of cloaked mines, as they're overpowered in favour of the aggressor, however his ones decloak in proximity, giving the victims at least a chance of avoiding them.

However, people would spam the lowsec or nullsec boundaries with these (depending on where they're allowed), meaning people are even less likely to venture into these areas.

(Edit: oops, forgot that one of your proposals was to keep them 100KM from a gate - that would refute my last statement)