Note what I was talking about with the over-supply in this graph from the February MER. After the Rorqual changes the value mined shoots up to almost double before the Rorqual, and value destroyed only scoots up slightly in response.

The impact on drone mining is expected and we did our internal practical yield testing with the new asteroid sizes to make sure that the resulting m3/hour were something we'd be happy with.

On another quick note, we've added an increase to lock ranges for the Covetor and Exhumers. +5km for the Covetor, Skiff, and Mackinaw, and +10km for the Hulk.

hmm.
Are you sure you're happy with the results you're getting?

Getting ~50 mil an hour, munching on a spodu rock seems incredibly low.

TBH, these changes are really great. Good job, Fozzie!

Most rocks in the anom are close to the same size as before, and on those rocks, the only income reduction will likely be the expected 25% yield nerf. Only a few of the rocks are so big that yield will take a hit like that.

Also, mineral prices could easily rise after these prices, as demand remains high (caps + supers online) and supply plummets as people mine less and produce less ore when they do mine.

The mining line in that graph doesn't include rorqual mining, because drone mining amounts aren't reported in the tools used for the MER. The increase is only from more people using mining lasers.

Think about that: the graph you linked includes 0 ore mined by rorquals. Zero. None.

CCP does have that data though, imagine what it must look like...

I *believe* this is not correct, considering this is what the graph looked like when January's report was released and now there's suddenly a distinct spike right after that convenient note about drone mining metrics being bugged. CCP Fozzie or someone else will have to confirm if my suspicion about the report being fixed is correct.

Getting ~50 mil an hour, munching on a spodu rock seems incredibly low.

In fairness here we are talking about one of the lower end rocks and the largest cases of those rocks. So not every rock is going to have 60 seconds of travel to it. Also not every drone is going to end up out at that 15km point, some will end up right next to your ship.

That said, as much as I like the idea of ore belts no longer looking like feeble strings of marbles, I think it might be worth buffing the speed on the Excavators just a little to compensate for what is basically intended as a cosmetic change. Bumping the max speed by 25% would leave them still quite slow but reduce the frustration factor a little and make them slightly harder to 'boosh'.

This shows me how little you know of what you're talking about. Ark and Bistot are still the highest value (lowest amounts in belts too) and spod and crokite are the same price.

The impact on drone mining is expected and we did our internal practical yield testing with the new asteroid sizes to make sure that the resulting m3/hour were something we'd be happy with.

On another quick note, we've added an increase to lock ranges for the Covetor and Exhumers. +5km for the Covetor, Skiff, and Mackinaw, and +10km for the Hulk.

It depends on refining capabilities. Pretty sure Spoud is best for refining based on output

The impact on drone mining is expected and we did our internal practical yield testing with the new asteroid sizes to make sure that the resulting m3/hour were something we'd be happy with.

On another quick note, we've added an increase to lock ranges for the Covetor and Exhumers. +5km for the Covetor, Skiff, and Mackinaw, and +10km for the Hulk.

All you have to do is look at the Delve numbers. I guarantee you GSF isn't producing 20 trillion+++ but only mining 1-2 trillion. Drone mining is bugged, it's not included in the graph, it says so in the graph itself.

You still see a spike, IMO, because more people are doing mining of all kinds since all of the mechanics got changed and it's fresh. Also because people like me bring a few barges with their rorqual(s), since it's very little extra effort/SP required for more isk/hour.

This shows me how little you know of what you're talking about. Ark and Bistot are still the highest value (lowest amounts in belts too) and spod and crokite are the same price.

So can you confirm how you expect people to use rorqs?

I know you said earlier that you guys made the yield purposefully high to get people to use it. But I really don't know how you guys could have made such a HUGE mistake as to require it to be nerfed by 25% and then another 55% of that. So either, you guys changed your idea of what you want the rorq to be. OR you guys did it as a cash grab for all those that paid for injectors. In either case. I believe it's a shady practice.

Also dont worry ill figure out how to beat your dumb bullshit rocksize. God this is stupid.

I'm pretty sure this month's MER is including drone mining correctly, considering last month's shows January about half a trillion lower than this month.

Spod is only even with Crokite because there's a Mex shortage and the price of other minerals has dropped. Normally Spod is below the ABCs in value and is likely to return to that value after the Rorqual influx drops off.

Speculation is just that.. so don't present it as fact.

According to the MER, Delve was responsible for 1,658 billion isk worth of mining in February. Could that be true if drone mining data was included?

Speculation is just that.. so don't present it as fact.

I have to believe that the nerf is not going to fix the problem.

The real issue is the Mexallon bottleneck, the corp my main is in is flipping the belt at least once a day to build supers, yet a lot of our ore is shipped out because all we need is the mex, if it does not have mex then it really is not useful, thus flooding market with ore we do not need.

Nerfing the yield by 25%, adding in more travel time for the drones, increasing the rock size to make the drones orbits bigger to further bloat the travel time, and further increasing distance between rocks will not prevent us from killing the belts and sending ore out.

Fix mexallon so that we can get meet our goals and then we might not repeatedly mine out belts. Hell we might even have time to go and do other things in game than to try to get enough mexallon to keep our supers flowing out in a reasonable time frame.

Do I think the nerf can be avoided? nope, its going to happen I just think in another month or two we will see another nerf of some sort to mining and especially the rorqual because the problem is still not fixed.

I suppose that if you nerf the rorq down to the point where the hulk can out yield it then people will stop using it again but I do not really call that a fix to the problem.

For those asking for the Mex' 'bottleneck' to also be solved in Null.....

This would also heavily impact the majority of High Sec mining!

For that's therefore where the additional Mex comes from. It doesn't have to - but it does.

Removed some off-topic posts

[img]http://i.giphy.com/26FmPR9KSqjRCuJUI.gif[/img]

For those asking for the Mex' 'bottleneck' to also be solved in Null.....

This would also heavily impact the majority of High Sec mining!

For that's therefore where the additional Mex comes from. It doesn't have to - but it does.

I'd be interested in knowing if our industry genius did import the missing Mex because that should technically also crush the HS market who still need it's MEX to produce stuff.

Dear lord the GIF

I've found that I get a +5 to forum moderation when I post a gif along with my rule statements

Well - I've imported Mex to sell in Delve! Let alone for my own use - it's simply more efficient that way.

HS needs Mex too - but that's why all the Miners in HS mine Plag' - and therefore generate extra Mex'.

If NS stopped needing Mex', either as Compressed Plag', or even the refined material itself, then HS mining would once more suffer.