Science & Industry

so it has been discussed in previous topics that a tech III mining barge would not be beneficial to the industry sector in EVE. but i have a new proposal. atm, ore processing skills beyond level IV are in question. they take around 8 days to train for each ore, and as tech II mining crystals are achieved at level IV, not many are willing to train up ore processing skills to V. but what if a level V ore skill gained you access to the tech III mining crystal variation for that ore?

now the mining crystal would not give any additional bonus to yield, it would be on par with the tech II variation. what it would do is also compress the mined ore to an extent on-site. this would not be as much as the rorqual would be able to compress (i.e. whereas the rorq can compress veld to a block containing 166,500 units, the tech III crystal would compress, say, a quarter the amount into a block).

this would i) bring tech III into the industry sector and give miners a new goal beyond just the hulk, ii) make hauling for advanced/exhumer fleets less of a chore (think orca's) iii) make ore processing skills to level V relevant.

right now this is just a brainstorm, and i want to hear feedback and criticism. fly safe o/

How about t3 crystals yield is same at t2 but the t3 has increased range

I'm not a miner or anything, but I really like this idea.

I like this idea, but it seems overpowered, and not in line with the modular basis of tech 3 cruisers. (Not to mention illogical; how would a laser refracting crystal compress ore, unless it somehow doesn't mine excess rock or impure ore?)

What I might suggest as an alternative is to have them be adaptive, which could be something like continually increasing yield as you mine, perhaps limited to adapting to ores you have the level 5 refining skills for.

It could even be a special tech 3 miner that adapts to the ore you use it on, possibly even including ice.

i understand that tech III technology currently has connotations with modular functionality, this is due to the fact that the technology is limited only to ship hulls. as said, a tech III mining barge would not be of any benefit to the industrial sector. they are such bespoke ships with such a linear purpose that modularising them would be irrelevant.

we must also remember where tech III comes from. the sleepers are the catalyst for the technology currently employed in tech III, and this is due to their advanced alloys. in light of this, an advanced crystal method for mining and partially-compressing ore would not be such a far-fetched concept regarding the root of this technology.

Hasn't CCP already said that in retrospect they don't really like the skillpoint loss when you get blown up and are getting rid of it with tech III frigates?

If people are to use tech III for anything other than overpimped mission Tengu's and/or Incursions the SP loss on destruction needs to go.

so ... less than you can get now?

It's already in the game, goes by the name of Rorqual.

Yes, it's stuck in low/null ... but there is no reason that hisec should get compressed ores (well, without taking them from low).