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Why Is Ice Mostly Bot Mined?

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Calipygian State War Academy Caldari State 0	Posted - 2011.10.12 19:19:00 - [1] - Quote Disclaimer: I am not trying to debate who uses bots or whether or not it's ok (of course it isn't). Also, this has nothing to do with the currently Goonswarm campaign. Well, the campaign made me think about it, but this post doesn't take a stand on it. Given that: It is frequently asserted that a lot of bots are used to mine ice ( I have no actual reason to doubt this). Ice mining is numerically less profitable than ore mining. So why do bots go for ice? Do asteroids pose too much of a problem to bots? The ore gets depleted, so you often can't get a full cycle. And eventually the whole belt is gone and you have to move, possibly to another system. Are that many people really so dense on economics that they think mining their own fuel makes more sense than buying it? Or are there tons of ore bots that just aren't obvious? (this would require the previous one to be true too) My guess is that no bot is good enough at handling the way asteroids depelete to keep the yield high enough to beat the reliable yield of ice that doesn't ever deplete.
VaMei Meafi Corp 25	Posted - 2011.10.12 19:35:00 - [2] - Quote It's just my own suspicion with no basis in fact, but I would guess that a better part of the ice miners are actually dual box alts or semi-afk rather than bots. Ice is EASY to mine that way since you only need to check in evey 5-15mins depending on skills and fitting. Bots that are ice mining are playing the what I mine is free thing, since they'd do better to mine veld for sale & buy ice products than to mine ice.
Calipygian State War Academy Caldari State 0	Posted - 2011.10.12 19:42:00 - [3] - Quote VaMei wrote: Bots that are ice mining are playing the what I mine is free thing, since they'd do better to mine veld for sale & buy ice products than to mine ice. But this is such common knowledge, what kind of player needs such epic quantities of ice but doesn't have any consideration of opportunity cost (even if they don't know the term)? It's something I'd expect everyone involved in industry to suss out pretty quickly. If that was true, you could reduce ice botting with and education campaign.
VaMei Meafi Corp 25	Posted - 2011.10.12 19:48:00 - [4] - Quote Calipygian wrote: what kind of player needs such epic quantities of ice but doesn't have any consideration of opportunity cost (even if they don't know the term)? It's something I'd expect everyone involved in industry to suss out pretty quickly. You might think that would be the case, but the market is loaded with examples of manufacturers that just don't get it.
Skorpynekomimi E.A.D Alliance Omega Vector 1	Posted - 2011.10.12 19:58:00 - [5] - Quote You're paying for the alt account anyway, so you can light cynos and scout. No point training the cyno alt further, so you trained an ice miner toon on another slot, and just sit it in highsec mining ice whenever you're online. Your alliance buys the ice off you, or you sell it on the market. Either way, profit. From an account that'd be sitting around doing nothing anyway. That you're paying for anyway. Ice is better than ore because you can just sit there and check in every few minutes. Set a cycle going while you grab a drink, or take a shower. Log in before work, get a holdfull or three over breakfast.
Calipygian State War Academy Caldari State 0	Posted - 2011.10.12 20:03:00 - [6] - Quote Skorpynekomimi wrote: You're paying for the alt account anyway, so you can light cynos and scout. No point training the cyno alt further, so you trained an ice miner toon on another slot, and just sit it in highsec mining ice whenever you're online. Your alliance buys the ice off you, or you sell it on the market. Either way, profit. From an account that'd be sitting around doing nothing anyway. That you're paying for anyway. Ice is better than ore because you can just sit there and check in every few minutes. Set a cycle going while you grab a drink, or take a shower. Log in before work, get a holdfull or three over breakfast. That isn't botting. I can see ice mining if you can't devote the real time. It's something I do myself. That isn't the issue here. I want to know why people use automation to make less ISK mining ice than they could using the same automation elsewhere (ore).
Lord Amaterasu Carebears online 4	Posted - 2011.10.12 20:05:00 - [7] - Quote Ice has steady consumption unlike minerals which consumption is based on war . POS will always need ice.
Weaselior BUTTECORP INC Goonswarm Federation 552	Posted - 2011.10.12 20:09:00 - [8] - Quote because ice mining requires a less intelligent bot as it's never got to move
Calipygian State War Academy Caldari State 0	Posted - 2011.10.12 20:17:00 - [9] - Quote Weaselior wrote: because ice mining requires a less intelligent bot as it's never got to move That was my guess. But I do hear stories about people bot mining ore. Is it just a null-sec thing where there is less mining competition and some more vaulable ores?
Weaselior BUTTECORP INC Goonswarm Federation 552	Posted - 2011.10.12 20:21:00 - [10] - Quote ice botting also scales well: you can run 10 ice bots in the same system and it's never going to get full, while your veld bots may strip the system bare and go idle for a while plus it may just attract botters who are bad at math
Cipher Jones 89	Posted - 2011.10.12 20:38:00 - [11] - Quote its mostly AFK actually. Because you can get a half an hour fill time on a mack and an hour on a hulk. There are some bots, and surprisingly, some at keyboard ice miners. See what happens when fat neckbeards try to ride little ponies? The ponies die.
Calipygian State War Academy Caldari State 0	Posted - 2011.10.12 20:49:00 - [12] - Quote Weaselior wrote: ice botting also scales well: you can run 10 ice bots in the same system and it's never going to get full, while your veld bots may strip the system bare and go idle for a while plus it may just attract botters who are bad at math That is a good point (the scaling). I had not considered that. And it's worse than just having to change systems. Having a big pile of bots in an ore belt even further lowers the efficiency. They would all be competing for the same rocks without some decent communication.
Mortimer Civeri Federal Navy Academy Gallente Federation 16	Posted - 2011.10.12 20:51:00 - [13] - Quote Mining is such a repetitive task that it is easily automated. Ice mining is especially so. Also bots have become sophisticated to the point where they can scan the field and switch off the miner when the roid is depleted in the middle of the cycle, target another, and start mining that one. Ice is the easiest as the cycle time is long, and the roids never deplete. That which does not kill you, makes you stronger.-á Friedrich Nietzsche That which does not kill you, hurts like hell.-á UNKNOWN
Marcus Gideon Federal Defense Operations Gentlemen's Interstellar Nightclub 6	Posted - 2011.10.12 23:08:00 - [14] - Quote I'm pretty sure it's because a whole fleet of Macks could mine on a single Ice chunk and never pop it before downtime. Ice is always in demand. And mining ice is the single most boring event in the entire game. So... bots are making tons of profit for doing what no one else in their right mind wants to do. withholds making any sort of racist jokes =)
Epsilon Artiste Federal Navy Academy Gallente Federation 0	Posted - 2011.10.13 00:10:00 - [15] - Quote Somewhat off-topic but relevant is that high-sec ice is terrible isk. Even thick blue ice, for example, only returns 350 units of oxygen isotopes per ice block (plus a handful of other fuel). Even selling at 500 isk per oxygen isotope (if we ignore the current oxygen isotope market for the moment) that's 175000 isk per thick blue ice block with perfect refine. A well-skilled mack cycles in lets say, 5 minutes, producing 4 ice blocks. So in 1 hour of constant mining (doubtful, unless you have orca present or dodge can flippers otherwise you're making station runs to drop off your cargo, and you may need someone to tank the rats for you, depending) you'll make 8.4 million isk from the topes. Your p.o.v. might vary, but imo that's pretty terrible isk for an hours work. That hour ofnon-stop ice-mining produces 16800 isotopes. A large control tower consumes 450 isotopes per hour, so thats a pos fueled for 37.3 hours for your hours work. So something like 20 hours of mining a month just for the isotopes to fuel a single large control tower, blech =P
pussnheels Vintage heavy industries 100	Posted - 2011.10.13 07:37:00 - [16] - Quote basicly it is too easy , the rocks never move never deplete and the belts are always in the same place , all the ingriedients needed to make a relative easy macro Ice mining if you do it yourself solo is boring and slow, in a group however you can have a good time on vent or TS and you easy mine a months worth of isotope for a large tower in a few hours A good solution would be to place ice in a grav belt similair as the grav sites you find in nullsec when the idustrial upgrade goes up Each belt stays a few days and then dissapears to another position in the system and you WILL need to scan them out tho they should be relative easy to find Will have little or no effect on the ice fuel market and will defeat the icemining bots atleast most of them I do not agree with what you are saying , but i will defend to the death your right to say it...... Voltaire
paloma1 Hedion University Amarr Empire 0	Posted - 2011.10.13 08:18:00 - [17] - Quote pussnheels wrote: basicly it is too easy , the rocks never move never deplete and the belts are always in the same place , all the ingriedients needed to make a relative easy macro Ice mining if you do it yourself solo is boring and slow, in a group however you can have a good time on vent or TS and you easy mine a months worth of isotope for a large tower in a few hours A good solution would be to place ice in a grav belt similair as the grav sites you find in nullsec when the idustrial upgrade goes up Each belt stays a few days and then dissapears to another position in the system and you WILL need to scan them out tho they should be relative easy to find Will have little or no effect on the ice fuel market and will defeat the icemining bots atleast most of them Placeing ice in grav belt wouldn't prevent botting. Botter would just scan the system for new grav belt every time last one disapear, then put bot again. It would be like we have now. Only difference is having to scan every few days. Ice mining is most boring thing you have in this game. Even in a group. Of course you have bots to mine ice. I do it with this character. But I'm not bot. I do it afk while doing sleeper sites with my main or watch TV or something.
Woo Glin GoonWaffe Goonswarm Federation 77	Posted - 2011.10.13 13:17:00 - [18] - Quote Calipygian wrote: Weaselior wrote: because ice mining requires a less intelligent bot as it's never got to move That was my guess. But I do hear stories about people bot mining ore. Is it just a null-sec thing where there is less mining competition and some more vaulable ores? Hardly anyone mines in 0.0, bots or otherwise despite the availability of high-end ores because there are more profitable ventures. The vast majority of both ice and low-ends are mined by bots in hisec. The gaggle of miners that pop up in threads are only a tiny percentage of the total mining force. You see bots doing this because, as others have stated, it's generally a low/zero risk venture that's easily automated and scales well over virtually any number of accounts. The lack of any significant skill/complexity requirements also reduces the barrier to entry, as anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of programming could write a capable bot of their own in a short period of time.
Adunh Slavy Ammatar Trade Syndicate 14	Posted - 2011.10.13 13:33:00 - [19] - Quote Two simple reasons why Bots like ice. First mining is boring. Secondly, Ice is always in the same place.
Tanya Powers Science and Trade Institute Caldari State 18	Posted - 2011.10.13 20:07:00 - [20] - Quote Weaselior wrote: ice botting also scales well: you can run 10 ice bots in the same system and it's never going to get full, while your veld bots may strip the system bare and go idle for a while plus it may just attract botters who are bad at math Assumptions. Most high sec ice miners I've crossed are null sec/low sec alts doing some isk to sustain the pvp toon since ice mining doesn't require that much attention. If you were really after bots then you should start by your own systems and encourage the report of those instead of black list any corp or char in your alliance suspected of repport. Thankful for us humility doesn't pay taxes yet, well you wouldn't care any way, you'd be exempt
Dynast Osirians Of Eve Curatores Veritatis Alliance 1	Posted - 2011.10.13 20:08:00 - [21] - Quote There are strong incentives to bot it, and strong disincentives to active mine it. Ice mining is just about the most boring thing you can do in EVE, with player interaction required at the very most every ten minutes. Further, the ISK/hour is less than mining Veldspar. So if you're of a mind to active mine in high sec there's really no good reason not to go mine veld. On the other hand, botting ice is easy, you can move from point A to B and back to A over and over, mining the same asteroid, for months at a time. Pretty much anyone with a room temperature IQ can macro that with one of the hundreds of free macro/scripting programs you can download. The belt rats in 0.5-0.7 cannot break the tank of a mackinaw with even just a couple resist amps, so they're no threat. And that terrible per-hour income doesn't seem so shabby if it's being earned ten hours a day while you're at work, or twenty hours a day on a second account on an older PC.
Persona Nongratus Science and Trade Institute Caldari State 0	Posted - 2011.10.14 02:27:00 - [22] - Quote Calipygian wrote: VaMei wrote: Bots that are ice mining are playing the what I mine is free thing, since they'd do better to mine veld for sale & buy ice products than to mine ice. But this is such common knowledge, what kind of player needs such epic quantities of ice but doesn't have any consideration of opportunity cost (even if they don't know the term)? It's something I'd expect everyone involved in industry to suss out pretty quickly. If that was true, you could reduce ice botting with and education campaign. What neither of you take into account is the Eveconomic theory, "what ever ice I mine while AFK is better than nothing at all" school of thought. Prior to the goons campaign I'd run a Mac alt when I had something RL to do on my computer, run EVE in the background and check in ever 10-15 minutes. I wouldn't run any other ship in this manner, too much of a distraction from the RL matters. But hey, I was getting ice I wouldn't have had otherwise because I wouldn't have been logged in.
Calipygian State War Academy Caldari State 0	Posted - 2011.10.14 03:44:00 - [23] - Quote Persona Nongratus wrote: Calipygian wrote: VaMei wrote: Bots that are ice mining are playing the what I mine is free thing, since they'd do better to mine veld for sale & buy ice products than to mine ice. But this is such common knowledge, what kind of player needs such epic quantities of ice but doesn't have any consideration of opportunity cost (even if they don't know the term)? It's something I'd expect everyone involved in industry to suss out pretty quickly. If that was true, you could reduce ice botting with and education campaign. What neither of you take into account is the Eveconomic theory, "what ever ice I mine while AFK is better than nothing at all" school of thought. Prior to the goons campaign I'd run a Mac alt when I had something RL to do on my computer, run EVE in the background and check in ever 10-15 minutes. I wouldn't run any other ship in this manner, too much of a distraction from the RL matters. But hey, I was getting ice I wouldn't have had otherwise because I wouldn't have been logged in. I'm not ignoring it at all. I understand why somebody would mine ice some. I've done it myself. A whole lot of generalizations and accusations get tossed around whenever ice comes up. Especially now. But that isn't the subject of this thread. I was curious about why people use bots when they could have used them to go after more valuable ores. Something that has been pretty well answered to my satisfaction.
VaMei Meafi Corp 28	Posted - 2011.10.14 10:05:00 - [24] - Quote Persona Nongratus wrote: Calipygian wrote: VaMei wrote: Bots that are ice mining are playing the what I mine is free thing, since they'd do better to mine veld for sale & buy ice products than to mine ice. But this is such common knowledge, what kind of player needs such epic quantities of ice but doesn't have any consideration of opportunity cost (even if they don't know the term)? It's something I'd expect everyone involved in industry to suss out pretty quickly. If that was true, you could reduce ice botting with and education campaign. What neither of you take into account is the Eveconomic theory, "what ever ice I mine while AFK is better than nothing at all" school of thought. Prior to the goons campaign I'd run a Mac alt when I had something RL to do on my computer, run EVE in the background and check in ever 10-15 minutes. I wouldn't run any other ship in this manner, too much of a distraction from the RL matters. But hey, I was getting ice I wouldn't have had otherwise because I wouldn't have been logged in. Reading only the quote takes my original statement a bit out of of context. I'd originally said that I believe that a good many of the ice miners are either dual boxing or semi-afk, rather than bots, for exactly the reasons you offered. Using a kitchen timer to 'macro' your ice miner isn't against the EULA, but is almost as effective as a live player.
drinking12many Nine Inch Ninja Corp The Blood Eagle 0	Posted - 2011.10.14 14:16:00 - [25] - Quote Persona Nongratus wrote: Calipygian wrote: VaMei wrote: Bots that are ice mining are playing the what I mine is free thing, since they'd do better to mine veld for sale & buy ice products than to mine ice. But this is such common knowledge, what kind of player needs such epic quantities of ice but doesn't have any consideration of opportunity cost (even if they don't know the term)? It's something I'd expect everyone involved in industry to suss out pretty quickly. If that was true, you could reduce ice botting with and education campaign. What neither of you take into account is the Eveconomic theory, "what ever ice I mine while AFK is better than nothing at all" school of thought. Prior to the goons campaign I'd run a Mac alt when I had something RL to do on my computer, run EVE in the background and check in ever 10-15 minutes. I wouldn't run any other ship in this manner, too much of a distraction from the RL matters. But hey, I was getting ice I wouldn't have had otherwise because I wouldn't have been logged in. Yep mined ice while writing papers for college as I hardly needed to pay attention. run eve on one screen, write papers and do research on the other.
Esagila 20	Posted - 2011.10.14 20:03:00 - [26] - Quote drinking12many wrote: Persona Nongratus wrote: Calipygian wrote: VaMei wrote: Bots that are ice mining are playing the what I mine is free thing, since they'd do better to mine veld for sale & buy ice products than to mine ice. But this is such common knowledge, what kind of player needs such epic quantities of ice but doesn't have any consideration of opportunity cost (even if they don't know the term)? It's something I'd expect everyone involved in industry to suss out pretty quickly. If that was true, you could reduce ice botting with and education campaign. What neither of you take into account is the Eveconomic theory, "what ever ice I mine while AFK is better than nothing at all" school of thought. Prior to the goons campaign I'd run a Mac alt when I had something RL to do on my computer, run EVE in the background and check in ever 10-15 minutes. I wouldn't run any other ship in this manner, too much of a distraction from the RL matters. But hey, I was getting ice I wouldn't have had otherwise because I wouldn't have been logged in. Yep mined ice while writing papers for college as I hardly needed to pay attention. run eve on one screen, write papers and do research on the other. I also do this. I know there are a few miners that mine atk, I personally donGÇÖt see how they do it so I mine partially afk while IGÇÖm doing other activities. As far as botting ice? To me it doesnGÇÖt make any sense, because as other posters have posted the economics just works more in favor of botting ore (better prices) than ice. Plus if you have a program automating all the work you donGÇÖt have to deal with the annoying GÇ£the asteroid is depleted stuffGÇ¥ GÇô which can get very annoying if youGÇÖre running multiple accounts and doing it manually. I would like a definitive way in identifying bots. So far bumping before gank to see if it re-corrects back to the ice cube (I donGÇÖt know how accurate this is), and observing that itGÇÖs trying to mine in a pod after gank seem to be the only way. Are there others? I just donGÇÖt see it productive taking a whole population and labeling it as botters. I mean, I would genuinely like to help since IGÇÖm out in the belts and IGÇÖm pretty sure have run into (without knowing it) my fair handful of bots, if I can do my part without abusing their reporting system IGÇÖd be very happy :)
AureoLion Etoilles Mortant Ltd. Solyaris Chtonium 11	Posted - 2011.10.14 20:48:00 - [27] - Quote My alts are mining ice, and i'm not a bot. Nor are they.
Iwillbuystuff Deck of Cards 0	Posted - 2011.10.18 04:13:00 - [28] - Quote I also mine ice and am not a bot. Ice is really really easy to do while doing other things (either on your computer or not). I have a timer on my phone that just loops, every time it beeps I go move my ice. And while it's not as profitable per hour as mining ore...you can do it without as much effort and, therefore, for longer periods of time. I've managed to go entire days mining ice (14 hours or so, however long I stay awake for haha), but I could never do that mining ore, just requires too much more attention.
Krixtal Icefluxor Bison - Placid PI Thundering Herd 25	Posted - 2011.10.18 09:22:00 - [29] - Quote I used to mine Ice sometimes as a new player just for something different to do and some ISK. BUT, NEVER would I be AFK for even a second. I'd at least be sitting there staring at TV or something but always ready for 'a surprise'. So yes, it's down now to just mining strictly what I need for a Medium Elite Faction Tower and that's it for me anymore. But really being truly AFK and botting is just not correct. That's not even playing. AND it FLOODS THE MARKET....thereby FORCING it to be unprofitable with the overload in volume. God is simply-áthe very extraordinary power of the Universe to organize Itself as percieved. -á- Lee Smolin "Three Roads to Quantum Gravity"
Minta Contha Emergent Entity KONZERN 2	Posted - 2011.10.19 14:13:00 - [30] - Quote Marcus Gideon wrote: I'm pretty sure it's because a whole fleet of Macks could mine on a single Ice chunk and never pop it And mining ice is the single most boring event in the entire game. You, sir, have clearly never been subjected to the entertainment-fest of gas harvesting...

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