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Mining- Why it needs to be saved, and how to do it

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Drakarin
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#221 - 2012-06-04 06:30:52 UTC  |  Edited by: Drakarin
Kuroi Aurgnet wrote:
decent idea, but if only 5% of the asteroids had any ores then only really advanced miners would ever get anything. All those people who have trained for their precious hulks would get all the minerals, and the newer players wouldnt have a chance. great idea otherwise, but maybe that one thing should be changed to like, one third of the asteroids have ores, and there should be a LOT more asteroids. we dont need the amount of ores in the game to drop, it would cause some problems.


Actually no, it would fix them.

I'd rather losing a ship be the painful part of death instead of a negative mark on your KB ratio.

No one cares about losing ships when they have a thousand drakes stored across their account. People hoard, because ships are being created far far too quickly relative to how fast they are being destroyed.

This is an especially big problem for super capitals.

As for the OPs idea, I love it. I hate mining myself, it's boring beyond belief. This wouldn't really change that for me, as 99% of the time I'd still just be sitting there watching a module icon cycle; but at least it would make it a bit more interesting for people who somehow enjoy it now.

Covert Kitty wrote:
I love your general idea, however, the problem is that the best bots don't look at the screen at all, they hook python or read memory directly. It would not take long for them to hook in the new information and pick the right rocks directly.

Personally, I think that mining should be replaced with "small holding" you anchor fairly easy to kill structures at the belts, and they mine for you, you just have to do the hauling from time to time. Not unlike moon mining, though at a much smaller scale a tank of say 500dps omni, with about 2-3x the effective of a battleship. This would free up the player to defend it, and open them up as a nicer target for small gangs. Botting for mining becomes obsolete because there really isn't much of anything to automate.


A program complex enough to actively scan direct memory from EvE should be fairly easy to detect on a person's computer, no? CCP should routinely scan for these programs when people are playing their game.

Likely the only way to truly stop bots.
Drakarin
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#222 - 2012-06-04 07:19:09 UTC
Janus Nightmare wrote:
Etaoin Shrdxv wrote:
I support this thread.

TLDR for lazy devs and csms:

1. Convert rogue drones to pure bounties.
2. Convert mission drops to meta 1d4 bpc's.
3. Establish loot tables with rare drops for miners (for example, a high density refinable that procs about 0.0001 times per mining cycle.)
4. Change the structure of mining to make it fundamentally unbottable.
5. Move a large majority of belts to dynamic grav sites or similar that must be scanned down.

Of these, #1, #2, and #5 can definitely be implemented with existing technology, and by themselves would make EVE a better, more robust game. Gameplay for miners would be much improved.

Keep brainstorming, everyone!


I disagree with the underlined part for one reason, and perhaps it's a selfish one. I mine because it's something I can do casually while working on my laptop or another pc. I realize that's not necessarily the way it was intended, but I don't often have the time to completely, actively play and make enough ISK to buy PLEX. By mining while I'm working, I can make enough to buy PLEX for both of my accounts so that when I do get some free time to actually play the game, I can do it. Some of the suggestions, while not bad, would make it more difficult for casual players like me who can't devote every bit of attention to the screen while mining.

Now, I know people are going to ride my arse for my comments, and that's fine. Just for the record, I'm not saying that mining needs to be a perfectly safe carebear activity. Not at all, and I've been ganked several times while mining and realize it's likely going to happen again. I'm just pointing out that you don't want to "improve gameplay" for miners too much because it would make it far more difficult for casual players like me to keep playing the game at all.

All I'm saying is that there needs to be a balance, because let's face it, some of us like the boring aspect of mining. If I am going to spend more time scanning down grav sights (which I admit I'm not very good at) then I only ask that you make it worthwhile, and have enough ore in there that I can't deplete it with a couple of Hulks inside of an hour like I can some current asteroid belts. I'm not saying I disagree with the concept, just be careful to keep a good balance so it doesn't drive the casual player like me away.


I don't feel like a game feature that allows one to AFK at work and yet still make a billion isk a month is good at all.
Barbara Nichole
Royal Amarr Institute
Amarr Empire
#223 - 2012-06-05 15:34:33 UTC  |  Edited by: Barbara Nichole
Mors Sanctitatis wrote:
Barbara Nichole wrote:
your intuition idea was at least interesting. but no go.. bots can just use the survey scanner to find the roid with the ore in it.

captcha or what ever it;s called is just a bad idea.. it would make life harder for the miners who don't bot ... right now.. making things tougher on miners would be a stupid idea. With the new inventory system bloat, with the orca hanger nerf disallowing alliance mates from using orca hangers, with the rorq no longer providing it's booster off grid, with the longer hulkageddon, and still no dedicated gas harvesting ship, miners are not feeling much love from anyone right now.

The rare drop thing is nice.. it works on the pavlovian principle of conditioning to make us addicts though.. If it never drops anything good you won't do it.. If it drops every time you hit a rock you won't do it. If it drops occasionally you'll mine all day to get the rare drops.


Small minds... lol. Of course, details like survey scanners would be modified to accommodate the new design. Clearly, bots wouldn't simply be able to use a survey scanner to bypass the game design.



how clearly? So survey scanners would have to be crippled? I'm not sure I'm understanding you. if a player can use a modiified scanner wouldn't a bot be able to?

Quote:
Small minds... lol.
Roll

  - remove the cloaked from local; free intel is the real problem, not  "afk" cloaking -

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Kimmi Chan
Tastes Like Purple
#224 - 2012-06-29 03:20:20 UTC
Mors,

I've read the OP and will start reading the rest but I wanted to run this by you and get your thoughts in terms of making mining less boring and removing the AFK miner.

Mining Lasers have a max range AND a minimum range - say 5k min and 15k max. As you mine, the asteroid moves closer to your ship. If it comes too close the mining laser shuts down and the asteroid drifts back towards it's starting position. So essentially, mining becomes about "juggling" asteroids.

A narrative:

I land on grid in an asteroid belt. Do a little surveying and pick out 1 or 2 rocks to mine. I target them once I am inside my 15km range and fire up the miners. As I continue to mine the rocks drift towards my ship. Knowing that once they get inside 5km my lasers will shut off and I will lose a cycle I lock up two other rocks and once the first targets are getting close to 5km, I train the lasers on the new targets and mine those while the original rocks drift back to their original position.

Another thought might be heat.

As I mine an asteroid, heat builds up and if not allowed to cool off the asteroid could break apart releasing harmful explosive gases that damage my ship.

I think these types of things could really make mining a more engaging activity and would do much to eliminate the AFK miner who pays or plexes to not play the game.

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Deckard BladeRun
Doomheim
#225 - 2012-06-29 06:19:39 UTC
WARNING!!! Noobs prospective providing noob input.

How about having mining be very in depth. Where asteroids have different spots that require different amounts of power used from the laser. As you drill into it you might hit a rough spot and have to increase the mining lasers power then hit a soft spot and have to decrease the power of the lasers. If you do not actively control the lasers they overheat and stop working. Some cool probing style analysis of an asteroid showing the different angles of the rock and maybe have to adjust different settings on your mining lasers.

I am a noob but I did the probing tutorial and it is AMAZINGLY in Depth. You can individually control all these different probes, and each probe can be moved anywhere in the entire freaking solar system in full 3 dimensions, and each individual probe has its own range that can be adjusted, such an incredible variety for something as simple as scanning and probing.

Yet when I have tried the mining it is lock onto asteroid, maybe scan it to see how much ore it contains, move ship into range, hit mining laser, wait for lasers to finish. Maybe transfer ore from a hold to a jetcan, maybe just fill up the hold. That is lame. Maybe get the person responsible for the awesome probing to do some awesome work on mining.

Why can't mining have the amazing intricacy and depth of probing? Analyze the roid, which side would be best to drill from? I need to start out at 85% power because this is a thick tough spot to start drilling but will get me to the meat faster and more efficiently in the long run. Ok I am into the soft density. My meter is going int the blue zone time to drop the power down. 60%....still dropping....reduce power of drill 2 to 35%.....nice...perfect...good job crew.

Maybe people don't WANT mining to be more intricate and in depth. Maybe they like being lazy :( I for one subscribed to this game because I want a challenge. Mining just seems kind of bleh. Even hauling seems more exciting.
Zaltone
SkyDog Freight and Logistics
#226 - 2012-06-29 20:53:59 UTC
What if when you engage the lasers you get a close up of the asteroid and you manually have to move your mouse and cut the ore out. So a shape appears on the asteroid and you have trace it with your mouse if your trace it perfect you get a perfect yield if you don't you get a slightly less yield and if you don't trace it you get half normal yield or none. Make the shapes random and keep the 3 minute cycle and see how much ore you can cut out in that amount of time or till your cargo hold is full. This makes mining way more interactive and better performance would equals more yield.

i at least think this would be more entertaining.

Also maybe as you get to hard types of ore the shapes disappear leave you try and guess the best way to cut it or use like a sensor thing, like we do for pi to see where the best minerals and and have manually cut it out from the asteroid I think the key would be having the player manually cut the ore from the asteroids. I think removing the drone poo was a right step and this would remove the bots i think. Making the belts only easier to find grav sites could make things harder for bots so you have to scan to find a belt before you can start mining.

The Dominix is always, the answer the question doesnt matter!!!!!
Zaltone
SkyDog Freight and Logistics
#227 - 2012-06-29 20:55:35 UTC
Deckard BladeRun wrote:
WARNING!!! Noobs prospective providing noob input.

How about having mining be very in depth. Where asteroids have different spots that require different amounts of power used from the laser. As you drill into it you might hit a rough spot and have to increase the mining lasers power then hit a soft spot and have to decrease the power of the lasers. If you do not actively control the lasers they overheat and stop working. Some cool probing style analysis of an asteroid showing the different angles of the rock and maybe have to adjust different settings on your mining lasers.

I am a noob but I did the probing tutorial and it is AMAZINGLY in Depth. You can individually control all these different probes, and each probe can be moved anywhere in the entire freaking solar system in full 3 dimensions, and each individual probe has its own range that can be adjusted, such an incredible variety for something as simple as scanning and probing.

Yet when I have tried the mining it is lock onto asteroid, maybe scan it to see how much ore it contains, move ship into range, hit mining laser, wait for lasers to finish. Maybe transfer ore from a hold to a jetcan, maybe just fill up the hold. That is lame. Maybe get the person responsible for the awesome probing to do some awesome work on mining.

Why can't mining have the amazing intricacy and depth of probing? Analyze the roid, which side would be best to drill from? I need to start out at 85% power because this is a thick tough spot to start drilling but will get me to the meat faster and more efficiently in the long run. Ok I am into the soft density. My meter is going int the blue zone time to drop the power down. 60%....still dropping....reduce power of drill 2 to 35%.....nice...perfect...good job crew.

Maybe people don't WANT mining to be more intricate and in depth. Maybe they like being lazy :( I for one subscribed to this game because I want a challenge. Mining just seems kind of bleh. Even hauling seems more exciting.



Basically me and him had similar ideas I didnt read his post completely but I think this would make mining better.

The Dominix is always, the answer the question doesnt matter!!!!!
Nicolas Warrilow
Lux Illuminatus
#228 - 2012-06-29 21:24:46 UTC
When someone mentioned a Faction-equivalent mining ore, I thought that maybe they could go the route of placing such asteroids in Gravimetric sites and much like doing exploration to find rare mods, specific asteroids with these special rare ores could exist the the Gravimetric sites.