Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Yeh I think hulks have a decent tank and you dont even have to sacrifice much of your mining yield. DMG control and MLU upgrade in the low with buffer shield gives you 23k EHP and you only lose about 130m3/second compared to two MLU. Tank isnt quite as high but its a good compromise. With an orca with siege warfare link it give you 27k.

Like anything else in eve the best way to win is to have more intel than your opponent. Choose a quiet out of the way system Keep an eye on local and dscan, make friends with the local mining corps to find out who regular gankers are. If you blindly mine you deserve to get ganked.

to be fair the rapier vs hulk analogy isn't fair. pick a ship that is equal in market cost or material requirements. like a phobos is in both.

Hulk/Phobos
Atmospheric gases 500 / 500
cadmium 900 / 1500
caesium 200 / 200
chromium 300 / 600
cobalt 800 / 1400
dysprosium 100 / 200
evaporite deposites 900 / 1100
hafnium 100 / 100
hydrocarbons 900 / 1600
mercury 500 / 500
neodymium 500 / 500
platinium 800 / 1100
promethium 200 / 300
scandium -
silicates 1,200 / 2100
technium 600 / 600
thulium 100 / 100
titanium -
tungsten -
vandium 200 / 200

Hulk median price 225
Phobos median price 215
(eve-central)

Now i doubt that anyone would make the argument that a hulk can be tanked like a phobos, im not going to either. thats just stupid.

However, i would like to point out that the base stats for the phobos are quite a lot better. (oh wait you say, you are comparing a heavy brawler to an industrial ship! thats hardly a fair comparison, an armor tank to a shield at that! the claymore/onyx so vastly outclasses the hulk that comparing them even on paper is ridiculous. )

going back to rapier vs hulk, a more honest comparison would be between the Lachesis and the hulk, neither one trades tank for a cloak (cause neither one is bonused to warping cloaked) the lachesis can easily achieve a 30k buffer and doesn't sacrifice its bonused abilities. however, the lachesis costs somewhere in the realm of 120 million. not exactly a good cost comparison.

I would sacrifice cargo for buffer. since the introduction of the orca it isnt necessary for the hulk to be the solo mining king. even in line with the ORE origins lore, it should be better at tanking then it is.

lets drop the cargo capacity to say 3k or whatever the max yeild off a single strip II is (bonused mindlink implants whatever) + 200m/3 for spare crystals. and increase the buffer, either in its ability to fit LSE II or base resists or shield amounts whatever.

Id like a ship that can mine in nullsec tank the rat battleship spawns and be the best at what it does, the huge cargo doesnt do much for making people get into fleets.

Great post!

Industrials are supposed to be defenseless. You don't see 18 wheelers with machine guns mounted on them in modern times so I doubt ships meant to do similar functions would do the same in the future. If there is something that must be protected, other vehicles and sometimes aircraft will provide protection for the transport vehicle. As a result in EVE if you want to keep your industrials safe, you are going to need to play with others.

I feel that the suicide gankers are helping EVE. They are forcing miners to either accept the fact the game is an MMO or perish in the process. I honestly get rather annoyed when people want to nerf activities that can easily be countered.

Because I've noticed hi-sec miners lack creativity (only the most boring person can endure watching a laser shoot a rock for hours upon hours) here are some easy solutions to reducing your chances of getting suicide ganked.

1. Join an active (important!) player corp. If you don't want to do this then your pretty much just going to have to accept getting ganked.

2. Create a list of all the suicide bombers that frequent the corp's favorite systems to mine in. Always watch local for any unfriendly names. Give these people corp/alliance wide bad or terrible standings so you and your friends can identify them quickly

3. Hire mercenaries to war dec suicide gankers. You miners are rich anyway.

4. Create a char who's only purpose is to pull concord to your mining belt which is as easy as shooting something with a noob ship. This way if the gankers don't kill you on the first shot they will be dead.

5. Mine in groups with other miners, all in similarly priced ships. This way if a ganker shows up he has several expensive ships to attack rather than just one. The logic is that if the ganker showed up and you were the only one in the belt there is a 100% chance he is going to attack you. But if there are 4 people with the same ship in the same belt there is a 25% chance that you will be targeted.

See? 5 ways off the top of my head on how to reduce the threat of suicide gankers.

Says who? Read the description for a hulk.

" They are also far more resilient, better able to handle the dangers of deep space."



Ad Hominem arguments just waste everyone's time. No one is asking for hulks to have guns, try reading the title of this thread. We are asking that they have substantial defences. I point again to a typical example of a modern day armoured industrial. http://www.army.mod.uk/royalengineers/equipment/697.aspx This is one example of how wrong you are.

"Trojan's high speed cross country mobility, its technologically advanced vehicle control systems and its enhanced remote CCTV camera systems keep it operating at peak performance whether bounding between cover in the urban environment or advancing towards the enemy in open countryside. With its enormously capable excavator arm, mine plough and dozer blade, it is easy to move around the battle field to perform complex obstacle clearance tasks without the crew having to leave the protection of the Tank."



Playing with others won't make hulks any less paper thin.



FFS are you stupid? Where have I said anywhere that suicide ganking should be nerfed? Stop making things up.

Couldn't be bothered to read any more stupidity.

If you came to EVE to be an Industrialist char, to mine? Cancel your sub.

I'm not saying it to be hatefull but if CCP want carrot and stick EVE, it's time to show CCP some stick. It isn't the first game to be cushed by griefers, it won't be the last.

Where did I say thyey should be impervious? Again, you seem to be making things up. I imagine the rest of your post is also full of BS, so I didn't bother to read it.

you do see armored transports in real life, you also see armored industrial equipment, but not really the point.

the basic problem is that while other ships get buffed and nerfed, the basic stats of the industrial ships havent been continually rebalanced to counter the growing tide of things that can kill them before concord arrives to help out.

1. this is no guarantee of not getting ganked. being in a corp does not mean anything to a ganker, only he may get more tears and possibly a wardec to play with. There was a time when my mining group was wardeced by a solo character, he could log on and decided if he wanted to come find us, we could have paid mercs to deal with him but he had the choice to afk cloak and attack when there wasnt one of the mercs around. in general being a miner and in a mining corp makes you more vulnerable in hisec to gankers not less

2. many gankers (not all , or even most, but many) are quick rolled alts that get recycled soon after they stop being useful. either through sec status loss, or simply getting too well known.

3. many merc groups work in tandem or have their own gank squads/alts to try to drum up this sort of business. kinda like the old mob protection rackets. while it may seem like a good and valueable profession in eve, (and the protection racket buisness is pretty good) mercs cannot pregank every potential ganker and the risk remains fairly close to the smae. as many gankers are not in player corps, wardecing is not a viable option

4. for a while this was considered by CCP to be an exploit. reportable and banable. im not sure if this has changed, but it came up when the goons were interdicting Gallente ice. CCP response is inconsistent as to the viability of this tacit

5. as a smartbombing bs driver, and a miner, this is what i look for when choosing my targets. or deciding if i want to mine in that system. several clustered hulks draws group attention. spread out hulks means that help is roughly the same as being solo. the logic is that he might attack only one of you? and thus your chances of diaf are diminished? more likely he will call some friends.

mining in coveters means less tank and yield.
the protection options are few and far between, if there are indeed actual viable options. the cost of the gank ship is dwarfed immensely by the cost of the hulk, the risk vs reward, (though i hate the over use of that term) just isnt really there when you consider how hard it is to kill a hulk

what is the risk to the ganker?

Uhh, you don't see that in the United States, Canada, Europe, or whatever other countries that aren't considered hostile territory.

Go to some place like Iraq, Afghanistan, lybia, etc. etc.. You'll not only see 18 wheelers with a 50 cal and/or MK19 (fully automatic grenade launcher) but they'll also have rediculous amount of armor on them.

My suggestion... Instead of reducing the hulk's other stats in order to give it better tank, either

a) make new t2 exhumers specifically designed for low/null/wh space. Not meant specifically to solo mine in hostile environments because they have limited cargo capacity. However, they can as long as things don't get too rough, and they don't mind flying back and forth a LOT.

Option

b) Make t1 mining barges the hostile environment miners. They already have the reduced cargo, reduced yield. The only thing you would have to change is giving the retriever ice mining capability and the procurer deep core mining.
As a relative bonus to the skiff, give it gas mining bonuses to counter the procurer being the primary for hostile systems.

Instead of buffing ships for hostile systems and getting them nerfed in high sec systems where they're primarily used, you can create another ship, or use the existing ships that serve no purpose once the next ship is trained for.

Again, stop whining that you can't carebear in high-sec while AFK

Only for that you deserve to be ganked.

If you take all preperations (aka watch your screen, stay aligned, warp out when yellowboxed) you should be more then fine against that ganking frigates/dessies.

If you can't cope with how EVE works, don't play it. EVE works as intended, EVE is...well...EVE and not some childish rollercoaster MMO some people want it to be. If you want safety, go play Hello Kitty Online.