Test Server Feedback

Hello spacefriends!

Starting from today, we (Team Phenomenon) have now enabled the new Mining Operations on Singularity.
Some of you may have read the CSM minutes or perhaps have seen this teased on our Updates website, More Activity In Asteroid Belts.

This is a first stage at creating new procedural PvE content for EVE, to make the universe more exciting, vibrant and alive.

What you can expect to see across the universe, are NPCs mining asteroids inside asteroid belts. Due to the procedural way in which these spawn, it will be hard to recommend a specific system(s) to visit, so I would have to encourage exploration of the belts for now. These NPCs will appear in mining frigates, barges, and exhumers. Haulers will be coming to retrieve their ore when they are almost full, and the asteroids will deplete if mined out by the NPCs.

The mining NPCs will react to hostiles if you should attack them, and call in a fleet for assistance. They will also react according to your standings, should they be negative. This fleet will be composed of several roles, and will behave differently than you have seen before in the game. Expect to see their fleets made up of logistics, tacklers, and specialists in EWAR tactics.

All procedural mining NPCs will be flying ships denoted by a diamond (♦), for example you may see some of these in the overview:

Ducia Foundy Venture | ♦ Venture
Minedrill Retriever | ♦ Retriever
Astral Mining Inc. Iteron Mark V | ♦ Iteron Mark V
Minmatar Mining Corporation | ♦ Scythe

Additionally, your standings against the mining corporation will be reflected in the overview, you will see the icons color change through the following gradient depending on current standings:

Terrible - Red
Bad - Orange
Neutral - Blue
Good - Light Blue
Excellent - White

We will be conducting a mass test at a later date, to test the NPCs specifically. Please look forward to it!

There will be more information at this years EVE Vegas, which begins this Friday (28th October) at 11:00PM EVE time, I would recommend checking this out. http://vegas.eveonline.com/

Note:
Current Mining Operations are, Amarr, Caldari, Gallente, and Minmatar. There are three mining corporations running operations from each of these all over the universe. Pirate operations will be coming soon.

Thanks for reading, capsuleers.
-Team Phenomenon

Is this in all security class space? If so, will high sec spawns be smaller and less powerful, like belt rats?
Will they be attacked by belt rats?
Are you buffing the belts a bit to make up for the ore that will no longer be there due to the NPCs?

So what about whether you are going to buff the belts or no.

What about loot. Will they be mining items or just standard NPC drops?

You lose faction specific standings shooting them, yes ?

Hi

Interesting idea,

So Are these NPC miners going to be the local SOV holder NPC's or NPC's that are enemy to the NPC sov holders?

If attacking these NPC miners is going to affect your standings then in which way is this going to work, ie for or against your standing for the local space that you like to mine?

Also the idea of NPC miner stinks of a ccp ploy for yet another isk sink in eve which brings me to the one that your going to resist answering and that is, are the belts going to get buffed?

Fly Wonky :)

Will these appear in static belts only, or anomalies as well?

That's neat then, though I'd like to see sometime in the future some positive interactions with NPCs beyond just access to agents and lower station tax

For example, have a high standing with NPC pirates and they no longer target you unless you attack them, and maybe even gain standings and LP with them by killing their target and getting a killmail with npc pirates in it

Have a great standing with a mining NPC corp and their defense fleet might try to defend and repair you as well if you stick nearby, that kind of thing

Any definitive sightings? Can't find any. Also, bring back Hauler spawns on stations. They were cute.

sounds great, next generation of npcs. I am esp excited for the ability of npcs to see standings.

will they be capable of scanning down wormholes and mining ore in them?