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Sybron
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Posted - 2011.04.04 21:00:00 -
[1]
I think we can all agree that mining in EVE is like torture. It's completely boring and tedious. The simple repetitiveness of it that makes it so mind-numbing is also its weakness to macro/bots.
So my suggestion would be to scrap the current thought on mining and re-think it from a higher level. Just like you don't play the engine crew guy who greases the drive shaft in someone else's megathron then why should you be the lowly guy zapping at a rock with a laser like a mindless drone?
The system I always wanted to see would take a few cues from the real world where you have phases of discovery/development/extraction/depletion of resource deposits and you take the high level roles in these operations instead of actually "being the miner".
The system would be most closely similar to the PI system in the way it's got automated output (things produce other things for you whether you are there or not whether you are logging in or not) but it's not similar to PI in other ways.
The phases of this system (which in theory could all be done by the same character who devotes the time and skill training) would be:
1) Discovery: This aspect is where the explorer warps into an asteroid field but instead of finding this tightly packed semi-circle of asteroids staring at you waiting to be zapped you find empty space. This is because you now have to utilize either a spin-off of the existing scan probe system or perhaps something new where you use exploration skills and flying skills to actually find the asteroids. And depending on your luck and skill you will find asteroids which vary by it's ore type and deposit size. For each one you discover you get a special "claim" which materializes in your cargo hold. That asteroid now cannot be found by anyone else, it's basically yours because you found it and your claim is the title deed to it. Now you can either develop a mining operation with that claim or you can sell/trade that claim on to the market for developers.
2) Development. After obtaining a claim from a discovery outlined above, the develop steps in and plans a mining operation. Depending on the resource deposit size he can basically build a mining outpost on the asteroid using various mining outpost components purchased off the market. This includes drill modules, habitation modules, storage silos, logistics modules etc... Depending on the actual ore type (veldspar, omber, whatever) you will find that more expensive the ore the more complicated the setup and hence more expensive it is. Once your mining station is setup you are ready for the next phase:
3) Extraction. Now with your mining station set up, you flip the switch and as long as the station is supplied with a certain amount of materials (stuff like fuels, foodstuffs for your mining workforce, other things a POS might require, etc) then the mining station will produce x amount of ore per hour. Different asteroids produce different amounts of ore depending on how rich their deposit is - this would all be well spelled out in the actual claim itself so you'd know before you set up the station. And the amount of ore produced should be on average about as much as a single player would have produced mining in a hulk, with the possibility of getting even more with more specialized equipment, higher than average grade deposits and the owning character's mining skills.
4) Depletion. Alas all good things come to an end and so will the ore dry out in your resource deposit. In general it would take about 2-4 weeks to exhaust an asteroid's deposit running 24/7 operation in this way so you will occasionally need to find/purchase a new claim, develop it and begin operations there as you abandon this one. This keeps constant demand for people who explore for new claims, developers to build new mining stations which in turn creates consistent demand for manufacturers to build those mining station modules.
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F'elch
Wall Street Trading
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Posted - 2011.04.04 21:02:00 -
[2]
You're off to Features and Ideas.
Byeeeeeee!
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Desert Ice78
Gryphon River Industries R-I-P
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Posted - 2011.04.04 21:02:00 -
[3]
Down the corridor and first door on the left, Features and Ideas....
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cyndrogen
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Posted - 2011.04.04 21:02:00 -
[4]
I think you're right, we should just scrap mining altogether and focus on combat/missions play. More missions, more variety more fun.
Give ALL mining skills back to people to redistribute toward pvp.
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Sybron
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Posted - 2011.04.04 21:03:00 -
[5]
Now the obvious benefit of such a system is in one fell swoop you completely solve the bot miner problem. This is because we all have the same benefit as the bots did! We would all produce minerals from our automated mining stations whether we are logged in or not, whether we are in front of our PC or playing with our dog outside. Just like the bot users would have enjoyed. There is no tedious manual labor that a human would need to comete against a bot for. It just does not exist. So the bots have nothing to automate.
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LHA Tarawa
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Posted - 2011.04.04 21:06:00 -
[6]
I play with guys that actually enjoy mining. Convert mining into a I type activity, and they up and quit playing the game.
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Jon Taggart
State War Academy
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Posted - 2011.04.04 21:12:00 -
[7]
Edited by: Jon Taggart on 04/04/2011 21:12:46
I wholeheartedly agree that something needs to be done to revamp mining, but there are a few very important issues that need to be addressed if this were to be done.
1. If going the PI route, it should not be as in-depth as the current system. This is because you want to encourage as many miners as possible to engage in this new activity for extended periods of time. When PI was first released, planets experienced a land rush as thousands of players laid claim, but this eventually died off as time progressed. There needs to be a HIGH retention rate with this new system.
2. If probes are to be a necessity to find new belts, they should be easy to find. If you make it too difficult to probe and discover quality belts and resources, less players will engage in this activity.
3. The amount of materials acquired from individual asteroids NEEDS to be less than what is currently harvested. This should only occur IF a player is able to lay down claims on multiple asteroids.
4. While I agree depletion needs to be considered, I feel 2-4 weeks is far too long when a single asteroid can be depleted in a handful of cycles from a Hulk, which goes back to point 3. Perhaps institute a little PVP in the venture where a player may be able to lay claim on a particular asteroid, but that rock can still be mined and depleted by ship-based mining ships. This forces the players who take the "lazier" approach to find out-of-the-way areas and systems to ensure consistent delivery.
5. As for "developing" a base on an asteroid, it MUST be cheap, or have the option of more expensive harvesting via mining crystals. If you make it expensive, coupled with the idea that it will be the ONLY way to acquire these materials, then prices will simply skyrocket as you are simply creating an effort barrier.
If a new system is implemented, it needs to be completely OPTIONAL. Otherwise, the mineral basket and even the economy itself to some extent, could go through rather extreme turbulence.
I'm not an alt |
Sybron
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Posted - 2011.04.04 21:45:00 -
[8]
Originally by: Jon Taggart Edited by: Jon Taggart on 04/04/2011 21:20:17
I wholeheartedly agree that something needs to be done to revamp mining, but there are a few very important issues that need to be addressed if this were to be done.
Thank you for your excellent feedback!
1. If going the PI route, it should not be as in-depth as the current system. This is because you want to encourage as many miners as possible to engage in this new activity for extended periods of time. When PI was first released, planets experienced a land rush as thousands of players laid claim, but this eventually died off as time progressed. There needs to be a HIGH retention rate with this new system.
Agreed. PI I feel still is a pain to setup (lots of clicks especially for the higher tech factory setups). Also PI resource extraction is far too mysterious and finicky. You have vague color maps and bar graphs to indicate resource output and its hard to determine how much you can get out of the planet until you actually build invest in and build the colony. Then you'll only found out too late if it was worthwhile or not.
2. If probes are to be a necessity to find new belts, they should be easy to find. If you make it too difficult to probe and discover quality belts and resources, less players will engage in this activity.
It should probably be scaled in a way such that it is easy to find veldspar roids, hard to find the higher end ones.
3. The amount of materials acquired from individual asteroids NEEDS to be less than what is currently harvested. This should only occur IF a player is able to lay down claims on multiple asteroids.
Perhaps, I was thinking from the perspective of replacing miners(players) on a one-to-one ratio. However I have a new idea I'd like to share in next post I am excited about.
4. While I agree depletion needs to be considered, I feel 2-4 weeks is far too long when a single asteroid can be depleted in a handful of cycles from a Hulk, which goes back to point 3. Perhaps institute a little PVP in the venture where a player may be able to lay claim on a particular asteroid, but that rock can still be mined and depleted by ship-based mining ships. This forces the players who take the "lazier" approach to find out-of-the-way areas and systems to ensure consistent delivery.
Yeah the depletion rate would probably have to be thought over more to fine tune it. I am not sure though if I like the idea of rogue mining ships mining your claims - it sounds frustrating. Instead I'm thinking of corp based ownership which can be fought over. More in next post.
5. As for "developing" a base on an asteroid, it MUST be cheap, or have the option of more expensive harvesting via mining crystals. If you make it expensive, coupled with the idea that it will be the ONLY way to acquire these materials, then prices will simply skyrocket as you are simply creating an effort barrier.
The setup cost would have to be well thought over, but in general cheap setup for cheap ores / or low output. Expensive setup for high end ore or high output. With expensive options like crystals to improve various aspects.
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Sybron
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Posted - 2011.04.04 21:54:00 -
[9]
Rethinking Extraction:
I was thinking about this idea on my way home from work:
What if mining stations like POS's were corporation based, meaning individuals cannot own mining stations. However, they can work at them, and in turn they make the station more productive. So let me imagine an example:
Corp A wants to produce minerals. It finds a suitable claim and buys it off an explorer and they setup a mining station.
Now once setup, this mining station by itself produces some basic amount of ore per hour. A relatively low number though.
To really utilize this station, they need high quality mining executives, and this is where other players come in. The corp lets its employees know the mining station is up and running, and they in turn can "bind" to that station. By binding to the station it is like their character becomes employed there. And once bound to the station the output of the mine increases. This output is a significant improvement over a basic, empty station. And it also depends on the characters mining skills. So if your corp has particularly gifted miner characters they add huge boosts to the output of the mining station.
Now, for ownership.
Mining stations are owned by the corporation who built them. And when they are built they appear in the asteroid belt where the roid was discovered. Now, this mining station is a potential target. If you are in 0.0 it's really up for grabs by anyone, so you need to defend your resource assets well. If you are in high sec you only have to worry about other corps which war decced you. They can attack your station and take control over, in turn adding another layer to wars over strategic resources.
When a station is conquered, any bound or employed players are automatically unbound and the station goes back to basic output waiting for the conquering corp to have their players bind to it.
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LHA Tarawa
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Posted - 2011.04.04 21:54:00 -
[10]
I know this will be hard for some to understand, but not everyone enjoys PVP or even PVE.
I have come across many people that just like to sit in a belt and watch rocks pop, their cargo holds fill up, and then refine those ores into minerals that they use to make stuff for the sake of making stuff.
Call it farmville in space if you like, but they enjoy it.
They PI, but that only takes a few hours a week. They invent and manufacture, but again that only takes a few minutes to kick off jobs.
Mining is what they do 90+% of their logged in time because it is not a "set up and watch run" type activity. Turn mining into another PI, mostly passive activity, and they pretty much have no reason to play any more.
No seeing belts go away? No reason to even log in.
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Sybron
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Posted - 2011.04.04 21:59:00 -
[11]
Originally by: LHA Tarawa I know this will be hard for some to understand, but not everyone enjoys PVP or even PVE.
I have come across many people that just like to sit in a belt and watch rocks pop, their cargo holds fill up, and then refine those ores into minerals that they use to make stuff for the sake of making stuff.
Call it farmville in space if you like, but they enjoy it.
They PI, but that only takes a few hours a week. They invent and manufacture, but again that only takes a few minutes to kick off jobs.
Mining is what they do 90+% of their logged in time because it is not a "set up and watch run" type activity. Turn mining into another PI, mostly passive activity, and they pretty much have no reason to play any more.
No seeing belts go away? No reason to even log in.
Yes, this is quite hard for me to imagine but I would not be surprised. Just as there are masochists in real life who enjoy pain being delivered to them!
But think of it this way - how many players now are almost fed up with the current system they want to quit? How many players have already quit because of the mining system (macro/bots) and might consider returning to EVE if it was completely resolved? Do they outnumber the number of people who honestly enjoy mining?
And another thing to consider is:
How many mining/botters are going to say they love the way mining currently is and tell their friends how much they enjoy it while they actually leave their PC on all day with the macro and go watch movies?
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LHA Tarawa
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Posted - 2011.04.04 22:16:00 -
[12]
Originally by: Sybron Yes, this is quite hard for me to imagine but I would not be surprised. Just as there are masochists in real life who enjoy pain being delivered to them!
But think of it this way - how many players now are almost fed up with the current system they want to quit? How many players have already quit because of the mining system (macro/bots) and might consider returning to EVE if it was completely resolved? Do they outnumber the number of people who honestly enjoy mining?
And another thing to consider is:
How many mining/botters are going to say they love the way mining currently is and tell their friends how much they enjoy it while they actually leave their PC on all day with the macro and go watch movies?
Personally, I'd rather mission on one account for 20-30 million ISK an hour than mine on 3.
Others do not understand how I could possibly sit and run missions 8-10 or more hours on a weekend. They may even call me a masochist for missioning as much as I do.
I don't understand the "fun" of sitting in low sec on a gate to high sec, popping the occasional newb or PIer jumping into system.
I've done POS bashes... that is a whole other kind of masochism.
1000 v 1000 lagfests? Ouch. Hurt me baby.
One person's pain is another person's chillaxation time, watching TV while listening the the drone of minng lasers, and chatting with friends on Vent, running research jobs, baby sitting market orders, all to get a couple billion ISK to buy another capital component BPO to improve the porfitability of their capital ship manufacturing activities.
And, yes, I'm sure there are botters that mine. But there are also botters for market order penny wars, to kick of research jobs, to run curior missions, to belt rat, to run transportation contracts, heck, I'll bet there are even bots to fine tune PI infrastructures and production processes.
Reading one of the articles on bots, they said bots are even used in PVP. They play one toon executing fleet boradcasts like target calling, and all the bot PVP accounts follow the orders.
If we got rid of all activites because they can be botted, then there would be no EVE.
I think it better to just attack the bots directly.
If you imply that I bot, or that my friends bot mine, than I assure you that you could not be more wrong.
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Lt Angus
Caldari the united Negative Ten.
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Posted - 2011.04.04 22:29:00 -
[13]
I like where you are going with this, the mining outpost should be on a smaller timeline and activly worked by the ship that set it up or atleast similar to PI giving people working the outpost benefit over those who afk it.
Shhhh, Im hunting Badgers |
Cailais
Amarr Dawn of a new Empire The Initiative.
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Posted - 2011.04.04 22:31:00 -
[14]
The act of automated bots doesn't bother me so much - you'd almost expect a repetitive industrial process in a high tech universe to be automated. The bigger issue is that the bot is as efficient, maybe even more so, than the 'active' player.
If mining were to be changed, Id suggest that through actively directing the operation (aiming mining lasers at a specific part of a roid for example) would be a change for the better. This wouldn't remove mining from those who just want to zen out but for those who wanted to 'focus' more intensively on the act of mining they could do so - and make more ISK in the process.
C.
the hydrostatic capsule blog
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Jon Taggart
State War Academy
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Posted - 2011.04.04 23:27:00 -
[15]
Originally by: Cailais The act of automated bots doesn't bother me so much - you'd almost expect a repetitive industrial process in a high tech universe to be automated. The bigger issue is that the bot is as efficient, maybe even more so, than the 'active' player.
If mining were to be changed, Id suggest that through actively directing the operation (aiming mining lasers at a specific part of a roid for example) would be a change for the better. This wouldn't remove mining from those who just want to zen out but for those who wanted to 'focus' more intensively on the act of mining they could do so - and make more ISK in the process.
C.
I agree. Something completely optional, but one that provides better rewards for active involvement.
I'm not an alt |
T'Laar Bok
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Posted - 2011.04.05 00:03:00 -
[16]
I've been mining with very few missed days since 2004. Mining is all I've ever done (missions only to get 100% refine) and is all I want to do. I really enjoy it.
The only things that annoy me about the current mining system is that I cant continue to improve. I maxed out and reached 'end game' for a miner years ago. And of course the roids are way too small.
I don't know what direction mining will take in the future but if its anything like PI or some stupid little mini game that doesn't give you any sense of accomplishment then thats the day I say goodbye to Eve.
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Jon Taggart
State War Academy
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Posted - 2011.04.05 00:15:00 -
[17]
Originally by: T'Laar Bok I've been mining with very few missed days since 2004. Mining is all I've ever done (missions only to get 100% refine) and is all I want to do. I really enjoy it.
The only things that annoy me about the current mining system is that I cant continue to improve. I maxed out and reached 'end game' for a miner years ago. And of course the roids are way too small.
I don't know what direction mining will take in the future but if its anything like PI or some stupid little mini game that doesn't give you any sense of accomplishment then thats the day I say goodbye to Eve.
See, I'm the opposite. If they made it into some sort of mini-game like Bejeweled where the better you do the more ore you get, I don't think I'd be doing anything else but mining.
I'm not an alt |
Jojo Jackson
Caldari
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Posted - 2011.04.05 00:17:00 -
[18]
While I like the idear of some mining overhaul your idears don't work. There are realy Player, who like to mine without bots. I know at last 1 who runs a full fleet of 3 Hulks + 1 Orca ACTIVE played.
Second if you totaly rework the process of mining like you sugest it, what should happen to all the mining barks? (No, Hulkadon is no option *g*) And should all the barks get anohter high slot for scaning equip?
Altering the cycle times and yield would be one option to make mining more active. Moving asteroids might work too (so you can't just sit there but have to follow the roids). Wasn't it planed to remove all static belts anyway and implement more scaneble belts?
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J Kunjeh
Gallente
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Posted - 2011.04.05 00:21:00 -
[19]
The idea has some merit, but I don't like the idea of getting rid of the way mining is done today. So, maybe an idea like the OP's in addition to mining done the manual way. Some of us actually like to shoot mining lasers at rocks for hours on end and run complicated/large mining missions.
~Gnosis~ |
T'Laar Bok
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Posted - 2011.04.05 00:30:00 -
[20]
Originally by: Jojo Jackson Altering the cycle times and yield would be one option to make mining more active.
After 7 years of mining I should be able to pop a 32km roid in a cycle time of a few seconds. But no, I can still only mine as much as someone 6 months old.
Wheres my reward for time served like PVPers get with forever increasing/new skills?
Originally by: Jojo Jackson Moving asteroids might work too (so you can't just sit there but have to follow the roids). Wasn't it planed to remove all static belts anyway and implement more scaneble belts?
Yeah I'm maxed out on scanning skills as well.
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Kyra Felann
Gallente The Scope
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Posted - 2011.04.05 02:33:00 -
[21]
I agree that mining needs to be more fun and interactive, but I think missions are about as boring as mining and they need an overhaul also. -----WARNING SIGNATURE BELOW-----
Bring back the NeoNeoCom! |
Dazram Two
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Posted - 2011.04.05 02:46:00 -
[22]
Edited by: Dazram Two on 05/04/2011 02:46:24
Originally by: Kyra Felann I agree that mining needs to be more fun and interactive, but I think missions are about as boring as mining and they need an overhaul also.
I agree. Missions, ratting and definetly mining is as tedious and boring as it can be. But I guess farming is a necessary evil in EVE just as it is in other MMO games, fantasy or sci-fi.
I wish CCP would do something about the current state of mining sooner rather than later. If not then atleast offer a refund of SPs in a patch or something.
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Jon Taggart
State War Academy
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Posted - 2011.04.05 02:56:00 -
[23]
Originally by: Dazram Two Edited by: Dazram Two on 05/04/2011 02:46:24
Originally by: Kyra Felann I agree that mining needs to be more fun and interactive, but I think missions are about as boring as mining and they need an overhaul also.
I agree. Missions, ratting and definetly mining is as tedious and boring as it can be. But I guess farming is a necessary evil in EVE just as it is in other MMO games, fantasy or sci-fi.
I wish CCP would do something about the current state of mining sooner rather than later. If not then atleast offer a refund of SPs in a patch or something.
While grinding is an inevitability of the genre, as a game won't make money if people don't keep on playing, there are many different ways developers can mask the grind altogether and make the content enjoyable. What will feel like a chore or work all of a sudden becomes an engaging and fun activity.
I'm not an alt |
Waaaaaagggh
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Posted - 2011.04.05 05:25:00 -
[24]
I think that one thing people need to understand about mining is that it's supposed to be a low-interaction career. If you have to afk a lot for whatever reason, mining is a great profession to do in high sec, or even null in groups.
It's supposed to be LOW INTERACTION.
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Julius Rigel
Sub-warp Racing Venture
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Posted - 2011.04.05 05:29:00 -
[25]
Hey-ho, hey-ho, it's off to FID we go!
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CCP Spitfire
C C P C C P Alliance
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Posted - 2011.04.05 05:30:00 -
[26]
Moved from 'EVE General Discussion'.
Spitfire Community Representative CCP Hf, EVE Online |
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Sharon Anne
Caldari
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Posted - 2011.04.05 05:36:00 -
[27]
Stronger rats at high sec belts, ya that would do. Sometimes I don't even send out the droids. I mean really STRONG rats. no extra bounties. Force player to pvp for the roids.
The general epidemic of rectal-cranial inversion |
Steve Thomas
Minmatar
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Posted - 2011.04.05 07:13:00 -
[28]
meh leave the existing rats in belts alone, just have them escelate. wave 1 "sneezeguns", if they dont pop any ship or get poped wave 2 gets a few more, and so on untill they get kills.
put more Grav sights in all sec. put better and escelating rats in thoes belts, ADD Rogue Drones and have NPC ships actual drones (suicide drones perferably, I e they self destruct if the npc ship controlling them gets poped) in use to make it more of a challeng without messing with the isk input.
Put more and better belts in missions that spawn based on the security of the system that have decent rats to contest them.
.end of line.
----
If you think your too paranoid to play EvE...
Then you clearly are not paranoid enough to play EvE
(Alt list) Rico Lobo |
Vak Keelin
Caldari
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Posted - 2011.04.05 07:51:00 -
[29]
A big point the op is missing is that mining is a good starter trade for true noobs. They can get at it on their first day and make some isk right away, even while they are still doing tutorials.
Also, as other posters have said many of us are not adrenaline junkies and enjoy the peace of mining. Your system would drive off such players. Prices would soar and in the long run that would be bad for everyone.
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Aquila Draco
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Posted - 2011.04.05 08:15:00 -
[30]
+1000 to better/stronger/more belt rats... :) it would help a lot...
and about new players... well... in 1.0 leave rats like this and in lower sec then 1.0 make it stronger and stronger...
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