There is no way we can read all the feedback here, but for spearheading the ship / mining barge rebalancing plans I will just reply to the thread as a whole.


What is the current problem with mining barges and exhumers?

ItGÇÖs pretty simple; they offer no role choice in any shape of form. As part of the tiericide effort, we want to promote usefulness of ships that are currently underpowered due to an arbitrary position in a tier system that doesnGÇÖt fit in a sandbox game. The current, TQ version of the mining barges and exhumers strongly encourage progression toward the Hulk, while skipping the others completely except for a few specialized niche roles: not only is the Hulk just plain better in most attributes next to the other versions, but the skill system itself is flawed as the Covetor requires Mining Barge skill at 5, only a few hours away from its Tech 2 counterpart.


Why are we doing this?

As explained in the Dev Blog, we wanted to encourage various choices depending on the role you want to fulfill.

GÇó Procurer / Skiff: supposed to be mainly aimed for protection, with great EHP to defend from assaults
GÇó Retriever / Mackinaw: designed for autonomy, with a cargohold at least equal with jet cans
GÇó Covetor / Hulk: aimed for group operations with the best yield of them all

However, while we looked at them it quickly became apparent that they were just too fragile as a whole. A properly fit Tornado delivers a volley of at least 9000 damage, which was far enough to destroy an untanked Hulk before it could react. We thus wanted to buff resilience on them a bit to make it less easy to do so, especially considering it was the most viable high-end ship available for mining.

And notice we said GÇ£less easyGÇ¥, not GÇ£impossibleGÇ¥. Suicide ganking was, is and will remain a proper endorsed activity in EVE. However, the idea behind the GÇ£risk versus rewardGÇ¥ motto so often used here is that it should apply to everyone GÇô including to the side suicide ganking for shiny loot. We do not contest the profitability of the profession, nor do we deny Hulk pilots had the option to fit a tank to protect themselves (which they often failed to do indeed), what we wanted to achieve here is to give more time for them to react if they donGÇÖt fit one.

GÇ£Is CCP trying to save stupid pigs from themselves?GÇ¥ We are attempting to give the pigs in question a chance to react and chose a path other that the one leading to the slaughterhouse. It doesnGÇÖt change the fact the slaughterhouse still exists, that there still a path to it, and that this path is very easy to fall into, even after the changes.

Because, once again, this has proven how dangerous it is to jump to conclusions from a work-in-progress Singularity build; Mining Barges and Exhumer numbers are still being adjusted as we speak. EHP, cargohold, ore bay values are still up in the air. What we can tell though, is that when we are done with the ship class there will still be targets to gank, even if it is more time consuming and more demanding to do so - as it should be.

And all of this is without to say our player base has proven many times it is capable of overcoming any change we throw at them and fill the sandbox with creative, new ingenuous solutions. Smart players in all concerned sides, should they be suicide ganker or miner, will eventually adapt and most likely profit from the situation.

Oh look, ANOTHER thread where Herr Wilkus whines about something.

Or you could realize that the other thread that was 200 pages long got locked and he wanted to have people discuss what the dev put into it.

CCP Ytterbium took the time to make a serious post about a serious topic - ongoing barge balancing.
Couldn't reply, because of madness. Madness and stupidity.
(though it suggests tactics that could be useful in finally ridding the forums of "Avatar above me" threads)

As Ytterbium said, changes are ongoing.
If Devs seem to be taking the game in a direction you don't want to it go, let them hear about it.

EVE might be plowing Full Steam Ahead towards the "Hello Kitty Online" iceberg, but perhaps we can do more than rearrange the deck chairs...

Ironic tears are the tastiest.

Or you could realize that the other thread that was 200 pages long got locked and he wanted to have people discuss what the dev put into it.

Herr Wilkus is so good at whining he whines about multiple things in one post.

Wilkus, officially worse than Tom Gerard, i hope your happy.

Tom at least is semi humorous.

And 99% of that thread was people laughing at the tears from the "Tears" guys for being unable to pvp against something that can fight back.

It is truly halarious that you kids are whining about not being able to solo a barge with a Dessy anymore. Grow a pair, and learn to fight things that fight back.

CCP is simply trying to make the game a bit more newbie friendly, so that they stop bleeding numbers. The fact that a few people are whining about it, shows that you simply want the game to remain on "easy mode" for you only.


/End Thread

And 99% of that thread was people laughing at the tears from the "Tears" guys for being unable to pvp against something that can fight back.

It is truly halarious that you kids are whining about not being able to solo a barge with a Dessy anymore. Grow a pair, and learn to fight things that fight back.

CCP is simply trying to make the game a bit more newbie friendly, so that they stop bleeding numbers. The fact that a few people are whining about it, shows that you simply want the game to remain on "easy mode" for you only.


/End Thread

It is truly halarious

If attacks at me are your only defense at this point when people in this thread are trying to put newbie and hulk in the same group? I am not a ganker so you can calm down a little. Hulks are infact not newbie ships and people that get into them as quickly as they can without training up and secondary skills like shield skills for example need to step back and calm down. there have been many post about how to fit a hulk to have a small tank. If these miners did so and still they were getting ganked I do not see the gankers being so upset about it getting a slight buff. All that is being argued is that mines refused to fit a tank and got there ship blown up. You can not fit a tank on a number of t2 cruisers and have the same EHP as a untanked hulk. I am not collecting any tears but seeing people attack others for a different point of view over a video game is damn childish.

If attacks at me are your only defense at this point when people in this thread are trying to put newbie and hulk in the same group? I am not a ganker so you can calm down a little. Hulks are infact not newbie ships and people that get into them as quickly as they can without training up and secondary skills like shield skills for example need to step back and calm down. there have been many post about how to fit a hulk to have a small tank. If these miners did so and still they were getting ganked I do not see the gankers being so upset about it getting a slight buff. All that is being argued is that mines refused to fit a tank and got there ship blown up. You can not fit a tank on a number of t2 cruisers and have the same EHP as a untanked hulk. I am not collecting any tears but seeing people attack others for a different point of view over a video game is damn childish.

I fitted a tank to my Hulk (2x Shield extender rigs, 1x Small shield extender, 2x Invul, 1x DCU) i'll admit it's not an impressive tank (remaining modules are 1x MLU, 1x Survey Scanner and 3x Strip miner) and all it achieved was instead of 1 Dessy being able to kill me, it would take 3-4, so yeah.... fitting tanks on hulks (unless they are ridiculously expensive officer fits Which actually encourage ganking for the modules)) was relatively pointless.

After you fitted the tank and mined in this ship were you ganked?

I guess the bacon was a lie...


Damnit... Got drawn into another thread with a misleading title...

I want bacon and retrievers.

I fitted a tank to my Hulk (2x Shield extender rigs, 1x Small shield extender, 2x Invul, 1x DCU) i'll admit it's not an impressive tank (remaining modules are 1x MLU, 1x Survey Scanner and 3x Strip miner) and all it achieved was instead of 1 Dessy being able to kill me, it would take 3-4, so yeah.... fitting tanks on hulks (unless they are ridiculously expensive officer fits Which actually encourage ganking for the modules)) was relatively pointless.

I am not going to argue that 4 Cat is hard or expensive but I will say that those 4 Cats would rather find 4 Hulks that are not tanked and kill 4 ships vs just your one ship. That is the beauty of fitting a tank its making your ship not worth the effort when there are other people out there that fit zero tank. I really wish all the miners would have truely fitted tanks to there ships. It would be interesting to see the numbers from that. On the other hand the Mak prepatch needed some love you couldn't fit any sort of tank on that ship with the CPU PG it had.

4 Catalysts for 1 Hulk is still very much worth it.

It is but what I am saying is look at the killboards most hulks are solo or 2 ship killed after you make you ship take 4 ships to bring you down the number of ganked ships falls off quickly.

Strong point, because there is more than ISK at play - getting that many Cats together isn't always possible. BCs (Tornados, Talos) tended to compensate for lack of numbers - at a steep cost, but EHP numbers I am seeing make BCs highly inefficient for ganking these new Exhumers - as in, you spend far more than the cost of the Exhumer to kill it.

Net result: far less ganking due to individuals not having large enough groups to gank , suicide BCs are forced off of the field due to inefficiency. Less ganking = much safer high sec, because, sadly, ganking was the ONLY real threat left in highsec.

And did highsec REALLY need to become safer?

-Mackinaw: Unfortunately, miners are already theorycrafting the 'AFK/bot miner' of their dreams - the 'max yield Mackinaw'. Its ridiculously buffed base EHP stats mean it will be safe from all but the most dedicated gankers. I don't believe that CCP wants to reward 'AFK play' - but that is exactly what the current Mackinaw iteration does. So give it a weakest natural tank. Allow gankers to regulate AFK abuse.

That could work if miner has logi tanking those gankers.
It's mean for solo miners. Solo. No logis. Comprende?

I guess the bacon was a lie...


Damnit... Got drawn into another thread with a misleading title...

I want bacon and retrievers.

There is no problem with AFK playing, but there is one with ganking exhumers that needs to be regulated. Just change your targets for T1 haulers, and please start doing it massively. CCP might finally figure out those needs some buffs too.

Strong point, because there is more than ISK at play - getting that many Cats together isn't always possible. BCs (Tornados, Talos) tended to compensate for lack of numbers - at a steep cost, but EHP numbers I am seeing make BCs highly inefficient for ganking these new Exhumers - as in, you spend far more than the cost of the Exhumer to kill it.

Net result: far less ganking due to individuals not having large enough groups to gank , suicide BCs are forced off of the field due to inefficiency. Less ganking = much safer high sec, because, sadly, ganking was the ONLY real threat left in highsec.

And did highsec REALLY need to become safer?

There is no problem with AFK playing, but there is one with ganking exhumers that needs to be regulated. Just change your targets for T1 haulers, and please start doing it massively. CCP might finally figure out those needs some buffs too.

Mining barges are meant to A. mine stuff and B. survive.

Sure PG, CPU, and more slots could increase potential tank, but it increases potential EVERYTHING ELSE. Could you imagine mining barge misuse worse than a cyno-bait procurer? Level 3 mission drone Procurers? MWD Hulks tackling other Hulks?

The intent is clearly for them to mine and survive, requiring only a handful of mining skills, NOT requiring some couple million points in fitting and combat tanking skills that for some reason you all think every week-old character should have.

Hulks Mak and Skiffs are Tech 2 ships ment to be flown by skills pilots. If your a week old toon fly a T1 mining barge

T1 cruisers with T1 resists.