Market Discussions

Kind of a random question to you guys. I have a few friends I am getting into eve for the first time and they want to take a shot at the industry side, starting with mining as a group especially with the higher mineral prices these days. In the past when I have hosted group mining ops it has always been a pain to figure out exactly how to pay each person for their share of the mining. I was wondering if anyone who has done this before could share their methods for doing payouts or even how they manage their own group mining ops.

Years ago, when we did big mining ops, the way we did it was, everyone got an equal share based on how much time they participated rounded to the nearst quarter hour for each character - alts were covered as well. Noobs, vets, whatever.

Years ago there was a program called mining buddy. The program gave a list of ship types and each member would simply clock in click the ship they were using and a predetermined payout would begin. It paid everyone from the rorqual miner hualer down to security. It showed who mined what, a percentage of ore each person contributed to and isk values. The hualers simply told the program what they were hualing and how much.

Mining buddy died several years ago, but when i was doing the mining thing that was the ****. It would be neat to see it recreated. If you do some research on it you may find bits or pieces of it. And it was totally free.

In E-UNI, we strongly encourage flat time-shares. But our mining fleets are also not mandatory. All profits go to the pilots (except for the occasional charity op). Each pilot has to decide for themselves how much they are willing to sacrifice to help the younger corp members.

Flat time-share definitely benefits younger pilots over older pilots. But that encourages them to attend (they can make more then on their own). It gives them a leg-up, getting them into the more expensive ships like Covetors/Hulks faster. For the older players who have "enough", they usually get a kick out of seeing the young players squeal with joy at a big payout.

I would probably change it a little: give shares according to class of ship. Frigate (paid at the m3/hour of the best frigate), cruiser (paid at the m3/hour of the best cruiser), mining barge (possibly divide this into Retriever and Covetor/Hulk). Take the total ore at the end and divide it by A=(number of frigates)*(max frig rate)+(number of cruisers)*(max cruiser rate)+(number of barges)*(barge rate).

Then pay out to each frigate (max frig rate)/A, to each cruiser (max cruiser rate)/A and to each barge (barge rate)/A. This is easy enough to calculate, if everyone's there for the whole time, and should distribute the wealth reasonably well among different classes of ships, slightly favouring the smaller ships while still incentivizing the acquisition of larger ships.

A spread sheet makes this easy ...

Keep track of how much time each player/slt whatever spent in the operation. 'Man Hours'
At the end, gather up all the ore or minerals. 'All Loot'
Now divide the loot by the time.

Loot Per Hour = All Loot / Man Hours

Now you know how much each unit of time was worth (Loot per hour), and you know how much time each person participated. So multiply their individual time by the loot per hour and you know what to pay them.

You can divide the ore, divide the minerals, price it on the market and give them ISK right away. Up to you. I always did it by the minerals, some people want to build, some want to sell it, some want to sit on it for a rainy day or expect the market to move.

Im not stupid enough to mine in a hub big enough to attract their attention. Also mining in empire in a hulk is pretty silly unless you do it non-stop for months as it will take that long to recoup the cost.

The rest of the information is fantastic. I was actually browsing the EVE-Uni site as you linked that and going over your spreadsheet. I can't get the spreadsheet to work right as I am still at work and a lot of stuff is blocked here so going to take another look at it when I get home.

Thanks for the info guys/gals!