I don't even know what this is try again please this time with brevity and soundness.

At least now I understand why you guys are jealous of our income levels. With Risk and Reward.

You guys built so many titans and SCs so fast, you increased the risk down there and none of the reward caught up to it.

No wonder people gank miners, that is easier then facing all the supers down in null.

I always wondered where the feck they got all the minerals from to build all dem super stuffz?

He means nullsec needs more nerfing, I think.

Bot-fleets. In hisec.

Bot-fleets. In hisec.

Okay!

Why is mining not profitable? Because it is overdone by bots. Why are there bots in first place? Because no human being likes the mental challenge of a brain dead robot slave, such as butt-numbing depressing grinding nature of mining.

If only human casual players were allowed to mine - minerals could be become precious and mining labour more rewarding.

One side of the problem lies in easy automated and long process of mining. It must be changed, total yield must be increased, ore capacity must be increased. But asteroids available for mining need to be scanned down, perhaps an expedition to distant place, or even an NPC force that may stand in your way. Rocks that sit in one place just ask for bots.

Human part would be prospecting - actually finding ASTEROID field, scanning it all - some rocks should be rich, others completely barren. This is where bots have less skill than human. If you are a bot and take every rock available - you get 0.001 Mineral yield. If you are a human, you get 0.5 mineral per M3 of ORE.

Mining could always be more tactical, just like probing system got a revamp, mining needs it too.

Other side is reward part - nobody wants to spend whole evening mining, is it a source of income - not the point of the game itself. Mine 30 minutes, make enough ore and hop into your combat ready ship, go out for a trip. Minerals should take less time to find, less time to extract, but some extra time to reprocess, to not over buff the profession.


So mining should be a high yield profession for humans, but one that requires skills and effort. So it can not be done by bots, and does not become effortless (like it is now). It should be exciting like complexes or wormholes. Perhaps cool mining can be moved to Unknown space. But it needs a complete revamp of the system.

~stuff that has been said before in this thread~

Instead, nearly ever miner I've seen sits still, present themselves as a target, complain that mining is boring because they don't have to do anything, and complain that mining boats need more EHP and, getting to the post above, somehow they need even more yield? All this because they, in general, refuse to pay attention to their surroundings and take a simple tactical precaution.

So that's my rationale behind the OP in a nutshell. Add value to mining by adding risk. Successful miners earn more ISK per mining cycle when there's legitimate risk. That makes the profession as a whole more valuable. Anything less is selling the profession short.

They could also solve this problem by enforcing their anti-AFK PvE stance when it comes to AFK miners but

What evidence do you have to suggest that they have issue with AFK mining?

The reason for the difference in rationale is inexplicable in my estimation.

Actually, all the quotes out there indicate they don't. Except all the other quotes indicate that they have a problem with AFK PVE of other types.

The reason for the difference in rationale is inexplicable in my estimation.

One could also wonder why the miner pays/PLEXes a sub in order to mine.

I've offered my input on that, but never get any feedback or counterpoints.

I missed it. Can you give me a quote/link?

Earlier in the thread:

"...as I understood the setup in question it was an exploit because it created a situation where no user inputs were needed while bounties continued to accumulate.

I'm not aware of a way to achieve the same while mining without using clearly EULA violating methods."

So if you leave your barge or exhumer AFK with drones out to fend off the NPCs you're not doing the exact same thing?

So then the issue is drones and the aggressive setting. This has nothing to do with mining specifically. So what is the issue if I choose to not engage the rats but I'm still AFK mining?

Let me be abundantly clear. It has everything to do with mining.

In no other scenario would you sit in a belt AFK and let your drones engage, unless the value of the rats were considerable.

In this case, the drones are enabling miners to earn income while AFK which they would not be able to earn otherwise.

That's because without a tank of some sort, they'll die to the belt rats. Especially if, as suggested in the OP, we were to inject legitimate risk into high-sec. Even now, though, the Mackinaw could not survive indefinitely untanked against a belt rat.

Sure, drones may be "the problem" but it's splitting hairs. Mining AFK should not be preferable to more risk and flying with tactical awareness.

I'd question your concept of what a barge/exhumer could tank. Pre-buff I would regularly ignore belt rats in a cargo fitted retriever as I was afraid of the aggressive setting getting me concorded (due to a poor understanding of aggression mechanics). There was tank in the mids but the rigs and lows were for cargo. I later did the save with a covetor.

Mind you I mostly mined in Grav sites so tank wasn't terribly high but 4 HS belt rats wasn't enough to get the shield alert yo go off when set to 75% HP with 1 IF fitted.

It's still doing the exact same thing. Except with even less risk.

If you can't acknowledge that, I'm not sure where our conversation can go from here.

I'm not asking if it incurs risk, I'm asking if it is an exploit and if so how? You stated the drones made it an exploit, but it's possible without the drones and always has been.

So the drones can't be the reason for calling it an exploit because the drones don't "enable" the AFK'ing, they at best mean you can do it with a more yield centric fit and at worse means the training shield management and shield operation paid off because you still can yield fit.

What I'm saying is it accomplishes the exact same thing to sit there and mine AFK as it does to log in and run a complex AFK in a Dominix. Let me tell you why I think this is really a problem.

Sites like The Maze, which are respawn-heavy and extremely difficult to clear, represent bad game design favored in the direction of automation for ISK. Obviously that's bad for the economy. The AFK Domi obviously exploited weak game design there.

Now let's look at the risk facing a miner utilizing a Mackinaw in high-sec against PVE opponents:

There is no risk to a Mackinaw in high-sec against PVE opponentes.

So what if it requires inputs? The drones are secondary. The point is this system is flawed in that it is both a materials faucet and encourages automation. It's a deflationary mechanism, which is good in theory. But runaway deflation is bad for the economy. That you can deploy drones and do the exact same thing is just splitting hairs.

Both elements are broken.