I think an interesting note to make on this is that the people that usually ask for mining to be reworked are people that do not actually mine.

I think this proposal possibly is worth thinking about if it was only implemented in nullsec. Changes need to be made to encourage corporations to move into nullsec and this maybe could form part of that plan.

In terms of high sec and generally as a proposal there are a few problems with it.

a) It seems to make all the mining vessels bar the Orca & Rorqual nearly redundant especially if mining arrays form part of the mining platform installation.

b) Most people don't want to be suicide ganked or attacked in other ways but this does form an important part of gameplay. I imagine the mining platform would have to be wardecced before they could be attacked? Even if a wardec was not needed a bubble around the mining platform would probably have space to accommodate mining vessels if they were used in the proposal. This would be against CCP's core principles of risk & combat opportunities being available.

c) We do not need increased yield or supply of minerals/ore within the game. Prices for ore and minerals are currently at a sufficient level to make mining a reasonable career option although nowhere near as good as other options such as some exploration, missions, nullsec ratting, & Incursions. That I believe is where it should be. If we had increased yield prices would inevitably fall. Take for example the amount of Zydrine & Megacyte arriving at Jita for sale which has collapsed the price of Zydrine. Yet another reason to not have increased yield.

So on balance I give this proposal a -1.

Also shouldn't this OP be on the F & I board ?

frankly I think it's really bad that you can only achieve 50 mil per hour compared to everyone else who can make lvl 4 missions or Ratte or data site relic site wh we will sit here and work five times as hard to get earn one Plax and prodution is too pricey put in the time you wait 5-6 days to earn 50 mil on the market because the cost of putting it in operation + tax is too high for the head is worthwhile if you do not have multiple acounts I think not in order try low it a fair bit for us so we mines mines 50% faster compared to now .. just to make it a fair bit as we sit here staring into a screen exposed to pirates constantly just suicide ganker us .. we also have advice to switch our ships when they are killed and not going out and being forced to buy a plac from cpp every time we go bankrupt

I do however think that access to the mining platform should be restricted to both the corporation and to the members of any fleet headed by a member of that corporation, just like permissions for access to the various hangars on the Orca.

Mining isn't broken. If you think it's broken, you're doing it wrong - and there are a ton of solo toons doing it wrong.

Leave it alone. If you have to play solo and without alts, find something more engaging.

With the right amount and properly skilled alts or fleetmates, it's engaging and makes very decent Isk per hour, despite what those who don't know what they're talking about like to say.

Pass on this proposal.

LiquidDreams, fix your translator because what you post is like r2d2 on crack.

And you are wrong about CODE and their funny permits because only idiots pay for permits. Use your brain and dotlan to find nice and quiet system where all you have to worry about is how to crunch all those belts before DT (hint: you can't). Pro tip: you don't really need to have a station in system you mine in. Try it and suddenly not only no CODE but also much less competition.

And mining is not broken in terms of bugs or quirks like corp stuff, it's broken in terms of lacking gameplay and engagement it offers. People are saying "oh I love how I can mine and read my book in the same time". Seriously? You pay for a game that is so boring that you need to have sth else to do? How can anybody consider it a good game when it doesn't need your attention?

Alts is not a solution to a problem of very poor gameplay, it's just multiplication of actions in that gameplay so you don't have time to feel boredom creeping in. Alts shouldn't even be a subject of discussion when engagement is considered.

r2d2 on crack.

Can't agree more. Although I have to say that AFK mining does have a purpose. It allows for those who can't or don't want to pay for gametime to generate enough ore to trade for a PLEX.
This may sound boring (I'd rather jump off a cliff) but allows players to use the non-AFK time for some actual fun PvP, funded by their mining expeditions.

My proposal is more active, but less risky where modules can be used (low/nul/wspace) the base asteroid yield still needs to be addressed to offer a real incentive to goto nul/low exclusively to mine but I'm not addressing that here. Just mainly focused on the gameplay.

LiquidDreams, fix your translator because what you post is like r2d2 on crack.

And you are wrong about CODE and their funny permits because only idiots pay for permits. Use your brain and dotlan to find nice and quiet system where all you have to worry about is how to crunch all those belts before DT (hint: you can't). Pro tip: you don't really need to have a station in system you mine in. Try it and suddenly not only no CODE but also much less competition.

And mining is not broken in terms of bugs or quirks like corp stuff, it's broken in terms of lacking gameplay and engagement it offers. People are saying "oh I love how I can mine and read my book in the same time". Seriously? You pay for a game that is so boring that you need to have sth else to do? How can anybody consider it a good game when it doesn't need your attention?

Alts is not a solution to a problem of very poor gameplay, it's just multiplication of actions in that gameplay so you don't have time to feel boredom creeping in. Alts shouldn't even be a subject of discussion when engagement is considered.

That really shouldn't be a "purpose" of mining. If everyone AFK mined to buy PLEX, not only would mineral prices decline, but PLEX cost would sky rocket....

Make active mining more risky and require more effort (like the OP's proposal although I haven't really looked at in detail), and develop other, less lucrative (in highsec at least) passive income sources for those who treat AFK mining as such now.

Mining is in no way tied to PLEX prices. It does not produce any ISK, so indexing mining output vs PLEX price is nonsensical at best.

If you mine you run the risk of getting ganked. Moreso if you afk mine. Active mining already requires more effort than being afk, by definition, so I don't see what your problem with the process is. You should try mining yourself to educate yourself a bit.

Of course the ease of AFK activities is tied to PLEX accessibility. If you make valuable resources (or ISK) more easily available to one type of game play, those players will more easily afford the PLEX on the market. It's true that overproduction of ore will self-correct some as ore prices crash, but still these players who are gaining resources with no/low effort will distort the PLEX market, allowing them to buy the PLEX on the market, rather than people earning their ISK from other game activities.

And that doesn't change the fact you just crashed the ore market by making AFK highsec mining completely safe.

Mining is not balanced properly. First, I can fit a ship to mine nearly invulnerable to ganks while I am still AFK.

Second, something called "active mining" does not exists - you press a button and there is nothing you can do to improve your yield. I will concede that something like "active defense" does so I can fit slightly more yield if I forgo any tank and defend myself by paying attention which is something, but there is nothing I can do actively when I am in the belt to increase my yield. As a result, the best strategy is to multibox as many tanked ships as my hardware can handle, which I suggest is bad game design.

Adding a true active component would make this approach impossible, and put the emphasis back on profit flowing from player effort where it should be, not on who can afford the most accounts/computing power.

There's a single factor that's driving PLEX prices as of current: supply.

How? As long as you remain afk in space, people can take as much time as they please to get you off the field.

Ok, so pressing buttons, paying attention to local & dscan is being afk.

No, supply is the single factor that is driving the number of PLEX on the market (actually, that is the definition). The price is a complex function of various realities of the total economy (current wealth and earning potentials) of New Eden and the utility of PLEX. Clearly PLEX are desirable and useful for all types of players and thus the relative distribution of wealth in the greater economy will determine who ends up with this scarce resource.

If you make AFK highsec mining more lucrative (in terms of effort-to-earnings) than other more active play, more PLEX will end up in the hands of these players.



If you are unprofitable to gank, you are very, very safe even AFK in space. I can easily fit a ship to be unprofitable to gank. If you just sit there in space, no harm is done. But, if you can sit there AFK in space, invulnerable to a profitable gank but earning resources, something is broken.



I think you are missing the point friend, so let me try again. Your strategy to fit yield and use dscan is a good one, and it indeed active behaviour, but I am afraid if you are using it you are doing it wrong. If that were the "best strategy" then mining would be fine. However, the correct solution to making the most as a miner (earnings/effort), is to multibox as many tanked Skiffs as your hardware will handle. This is poor game design.

I have ganked hundreds of mining vessels and know exactly what gank ships are required, and what profit I can expect. If a ship requires me to bring in friends, or even worse, will not turn me a profit, it is essentially perfectly safe from me performing a gank, and is only vulnerable to bumping if I am feeling a little mischievous. From a game balance point of view, this could be fine (trade yield for safety), but when this is circumvented by the scalability of multiboxing, you have problem. The simplest way I see to fix this is to make mining more active so that earnings again scale with effort.

So if you want to characterize my post I guess it is really railing against ISboxer.

Look, the lower the PLEX volume on the market is, the higher the price, which lowers the volume even further. Granted, there's some speculation going on, but that's not as effective as you might thing. People that stockpile PLEX are a minority, just as those who use it and those who seed it within the economy.

And I do happen to enjoy the lower mineral prices that isboxing brings us. There's nothing wrong with flooding the market with cheap resources :)

I still maintain that setting up the game and the game economy so that one of the most profitable activities is to AFK multibox a solo and risk-free profession, rather than an active, dangerous and difficult activity, is a failure of game design.

But to each their own. :)

And what activity is that?

EvE lends itself to multiboxing, no way around that as of now.