Alice Katsuko
Terra Incognita
Unclaimed.
222
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Posted - 2013.04.27 17:43:00 -
[1] - Quote
On the whole, I like these changes, but some I think are a mistake:
 Please do not add more slots to outposts, except perhaps for additional corporate office slots. Industry in null should take place in POSes, not in outposts. POS industry is better from a game design perspective than outpost industry. First, POSes require fuel, so increased POS use stimulates PI and ice mining; more POSes means more PvE, which means a more active economy, more ISK in player pockets, AND more targets in space to shoot at. Second, POSes are objectives to fight over. Third, a POS is a stake in the ground, and creates a sense of ownership. Fourth, POS industry encourages cooperation between corp members, and creates openings for corp thieves.
I've written extensively on why outpost slot availability is not a bottleneck in null industrial production. In brief -- the drone regions produced all of their T1 ship and ammo needs up until the removal of drone alloys, using POS industry slots. There's no reason to expand outpost slots, and doing so does not promote player interaction.
Please leave the random hidden belts as grav sites that must be probed down. These are the belts that spawn randomly, and are not tied to the industry index of a system. They should be better than regular belts, given the effort it takes to scan them down and then make use of them, especially in lowsec; better for a low/null miner means safer.
If I understand correctly, the new 'discovery' scanner will produce instant results. This is a mistake. Miners need the ten second window in order to (1) see the hostile pilot in local and (2) get into warp. Mining barges are very, very slow; this change risks turning mining in null, lowsec, and wh space into a turkey shoot. The stupid miners will go back to high-sec, and the smart miners will start mining while permanently aligned to a safe tower; both will result in reduced targets. If i-hub-spawned belts are moved to the new discovery/system scanner, then either they should not appear immediately on the scan results or, alternatively, the i-hub should spawn duplicate belts -- that is, it should spawn an additional belt or two at each level, instead of one belt, so that it is more difficult to drop in on the mining operation.
I have little experience with wormholes, but considering how easy mining barges are to kill, and how difficult it is to detect hostiles in wormholes even under the current probing/scan mechanic, grav sites in wormholes should remain part of the exploration system and should require probes to locate. Unless the discovery scanner also shows all ships within scan range, which renders this issue moot.
The addition of low-end minerals to high-end ore is awesome, and should make null industry possible, and should also increase the rewards of mining in null by a substantial degree. I am somewhat concerned about the risk of low-end minerals from null flooding into high-sec. Maybe it might make sense to increase the volume of high-end ore (and increase yield per unit proportionately in compensation), in order to make exporting raw high-end ore to high-sec less profitable. No sane person will normally move low-end minerals via jump freighter, so that should not be a substantial issue except in shallow null.
The ice mining changes are great. |