Falk vonTreskow
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Posted - 2010.07.11 13:04:00 -
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TL;DR version: (1) Killrights don't help miners. (2) are HG pilots sociopaths?
 Originally by: Mitchell Hagen
To encourage this, perhaps we should organize a competition, open only to those that lost mining barges and exhumers in Hulkageddon, in which they claim the killrights on those that destroyed their mining ship for prizes. And it should run until the killrights expire. A whole month when Hulkageddon participants will have to think twice before undocking their Navy battleships.
An excellent, albiet slightly flawed idea.
We will ignore for now that if the gankee enjoyed PvP, they'd probably have been tooling around null/lowsec looking for a scrap and not flying a barge.
Hypothetical case: I am a miner. My skillpoints are going to be pretty uniformly sunk into industrial skills. My spaceship command skills are probably going to be: some frigate points, Spaceship Command III, Barge V, Exumer V, and probably an industrial of some flavour or another.
I will probably have fewer points in gunnery than I have in learning.
We will also ignore for now that the toon who has just shot my barge out from under me is almost certainly a 9 hour old alt with just enough skills to pedal around in an 8-blaster/autocannon/whatever destroyer fit, and that after hulkageddon (or as soon as they can't fly the friendly skies of highsec), they're almost certainly bound for a 10 hour trip to the Soylent Green factory.
The people who participate in Hulkaggedon (well, OK, the people who participate in hulkaggedon as something other than targets) are not miners. They probably do not enjoy mining or industry, and as such are unlikely to have spent many points on Pyroxers Refining V. They're also likely to roll in gangs (because 1 on 1 PVP requires about a 4:1 KDR in a fair fight to break even), have the skills and ISK to fly T2 combat ships (and, when they aren't suicide ganking highsec newbs, probably do).
If we assume that the mining character trains at around 1600sp/hour (their attributes are unlikely to favour perception/willpower, i.e. ships & guns), and that they train for 3 weeks 6 days before they encounter their 'mark', that gives them 1,036,800 sp worth of pew pew skills. By my numbers, that will give them the skills for a tech 1 battleship at ~BSIII. (I'm assuming they start with shield tanking & core competencies and nothing else combat related). Being a miner, it may also have an, er, 'novel' fitting (artillery on a dominix because 1400mm > 425mm, and that better, right?).
A gang of 5-8 people (probably about average for roving PvP) who are genuinely good at PvP flying non failfitted faction battleships, probably in <0.4 sec versus a disgruntled carebear flying a tech 1, probably low-meta BS. I suspect I'd probably think twice about undocking, albeit only to check that fraps was running when I did.
At the end of they day, the argument against HG as articulated here is "I do not derive any fun from being killed from a position from which I cannot defend myself". That's fair enough. I've had a server bug force me to play a round of TF2 in "you have failed" mode, and can empathise.
The argument for HG as articulated here seems to be "I enjoy it, and everyone else can get stuffed".
Having heard the arguments, I side with the miners on this one. The devs don't agree with me? Well the devs are welcome to let me know how much I've hurt their feelings by expressing a contrary opinion.
Finally, the thought occurs that if CCP would just have asteroids send wounded-feelings smacktalk in local and/or by evemail, miners might start to understand the thrill and challenge facing combat pilots during HG.
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