Hi again folks. Thanks as always for participating in the thread.
Let's do a bit of a Q&A to answer some of the questions we've been seeing come up repeatedly.


Q: Will starbases (POS) be removed when this feature is released?
A: No, the removal of starbases will be a gradual process and even with the release of refineries there will still be major starbase functions that are not yet replicated by new structures (cyno beacons, cyno jammers and jump bridges). We will have some news on the next steps towards the starbase phase out soon.

Q: Will the new moon ore require new types of mining lasers and drones to mine?
A: Our current plan is to use the same mining lasers, strip miners and mining drones that currently mine the existing types of ore. We are interested in hearing what the community thinks about this however, and are keeping our options open.

pretty much similar to market orders not hiding when you log off, industry jobs don't pause, sp farming doesnt pause when you are offline, if it was a true passive income then isk would just go straight into the wallet without any work after the initial setup.

The POTENTIAL is there, but, given current citadel tactics everybody is simply going to put these to down time for vulnerability and at best you'll be ganking miners while its active.

The structure itself will end up entirely immune, which sucks because like or not hitting a moon miners is a fairly huge part in nullsec warfare, its one of those things that allow smaller entities to harass larger entities in a meaningful way, not just 'lol ganked ur hulk'

So... RIP lowsec and NPC nullsec moon mining?

These changes would seriously decrease t2 material outcome.

Q: Will the new moon ore require new types of mining lasers and drones to mine?
A: Our current plan is to use the same mining lasers, strip miners and mining drones that currently mine the existing types of ore. We are interested in hearing what the community thinks about this however, and are keeping our options open.

This expansion is a pretty good chance for a couple of interesting additions:

1) Deep core mining skill and deep core miners to gain another use
2) A 3rd t2 mining frigate that specializes in moon goo (can fit covert ops cloak for ninja bridging purposes)
3) Moon goo rigs for exhumers & barges


To be honest I don't care if the same ships & equipment is used or not, I'm just throwing it out there that this is a chance to further specialize moon goo mining.

Q: What will happen to Siphons in the new system?
A: We currently plan to phase out siphons since they don't really fit with the new system (there will be much more direct ways to steal moongoo). Siphons were a solid attempt at achieving a worthy goal, but for a number of reasons that particular implementation was doomed to extremely niche status. We think that overall direct spaceship interaction will be a more fun way of engaging in guerilla attacks against moon mining infrastructure.

Do you really want to limit newer players from taking part in moon mining by requiring deep core miners. Now if you want to limit specialty crystals to deep core miners I am ok with that.

Moon Harvesting - Ability to harvest resources from moon deposits. Level 1 unlocks a moon mining laser and the crystal for R4 moons. Each subsequent level unlocks an additional crystal for each type of moon goo, with level 5 being required for R64.
Advanced Material Reprocessing - Ability to reprocess mined moon ore, similar to existing reprocessing skills.

However in future iterations we would be very interested in investigating expanding this same "scheduled mining event" gameplay to all areas of space using different resources. These might take the form of new resources or allowing the collection of existing resources such as normal minerals or T3 gasses.

[quote=Fredric Wolf]

Do you really want to limit newer players from taking part in moon mining by requiring deep core miners. Now if you want to limit specialty crystals to deep core miners I am ok with that.

If we follow this logic, market orders are passive income. CCP should nerf them.

How about Fracking barren moons to generate ordinary ore anoms?

Q: Can this new moon mining mechanic be expanded to include highsec and wormhole space?
A: As we mentioned in the blog we think this general mechanic has potential in other areas of space, but we're not currently planning on opening up collection of T2 moon materials into areas beyond lowsec and nullsec. We've run the number and we don't think diluting the sources of T2 materials across more areas of space would be beneficial to the feature.

Hi again folks. Thanks as always for participating in the thread.
Let's do a bit of a Q&A to answer some of the questions we've been seeing come up repeatedly.

Q: What will happen to Siphons in the new system?
A: We currently plan to phase out siphons since they don't really fit with the new system (there will be much more direct ways to steal moongoo). Siphons were a solid attempt at achieving a worthy goal, but for a number of reasons that particular implementation was doomed to extremely niche status. We think that overall direct spaceship interaction will be a more fun way of engaging in guerilla attacks against moon mining infrastructure.

Q: Will Rorquals be able to dock in the large refinery?
A: Yes. The medium refineries will have the same docking restrictions as Astrahus and Raitarus, while the large will allow those ships plus the Rorqual thanks to dedicated Rorqual docking facilities. Non-Rorqual capitals will not be able to dock in the large refinery however.

Q: What types of ships will be able to mine the new ore spawned by moon mining events?
A: The new ores won't require special ships to mine. They'll be minable with the normal ore mining ships that are available today (including Rorquals).

Q: Will the new moon ore require new types of mining lasers and drones to mine?
A: Our current plan is to use the same mining lasers, strip miners and mining drones that currently mine the existing types of ore. We are interested in hearing what the community thinks about this however, and are keeping our options open.

Q: Can this new moon mining mechanic be expanded to include highsec and wormhole space?
A: As we mentioned in the blog we think this general mechanic has potential in other areas of space, but we're not currently planning on opening up collection of T2 moon materials into areas beyond lowsec and nullsec. We've run the number and we don't think diluting the sources of T2 materials across more areas of space would be beneficial to the feature.
However in future iterations we would be very interested in investigating expanding this same "scheduled mining event" gameplay to all areas of space using different resources. These might take the form of new resources or allowing the collection of existing resources such as normal minerals or T3 gasses.
For the first release we need to keep a reasonable scope so any expansion of that kind would need to come later if it comes. That also means that if we expand this gameplay to other resources in other areas we'll be able to integrate the lessons learned from the first release.

Q: Will starbases (POS) be removed when this feature is released?
A: No, the removal of starbases will be a gradual process and even with the release of refineries there will still be major starbase functions that are not yet replicated by new structures (cyno beacons, cyno jammers and jump bridges). We will have some news on the next steps towards the starbase phase out soon.

So would you say taking a dump is active or passive? You press really hard and then relax and let gravity work for you... passive?
Once you hit and release the flush and then the water and suction will do the rest... passive?

What about AFK Mining, AFK Ratting?

If you give me - in my R16 example - 200M for warping a few systems, getting fuel, warping back, fueling pos, waiting 10 minutes, taking goo, hauling goo to market, selling goo. Is it less passive then in your eyes if the Goo would be created once a month in 10 minutes when I am actually there?

There are things that require more or less activity, different kinds of activity, but they all do. There is no passive income. If in your personal view hauling, selling and caring about infrastructure is less active than flying a ship to (x,y,z) in space and start your auto-targeting something, well it might just be that you judge to your own preferences.

Will we be able to set a tax on these jobs?
While we're talking about taxes - will ore compression become a taxable feature?

Will there be a limit of one refinery per moon, or will an alliance be able to set up say half a dozen, and have one extracting a chunk of moon per day?

Also, even tho making this an active thing, it will make life in low sec even harder, as most large alliances in low sec doesnt have industrialists in their ranks.

RIP alliance srp for small-medium size alliances (not like free ships did anything in the way of content anyways, right guys?)

Also RIP t2 in general... incoming rebirth of t3 meta

Hi again folks. Thanks as always for participating in the thread.
Let's do a bit of a Q&A to answer some of the questions we've been seeing come up repeatedly.

Q: What will happen to Siphons in the new system?
A: We currently plan to phase out siphons since they don't really fit with the new system (there will be much more direct ways to steal moongoo). Siphons were a solid attempt at achieving a worthy goal, but for a number of reasons that particular implementation was doomed to extremely niche status. We think that overall direct spaceship interaction will be a more fun way of engaging in guerilla attacks against moon mining infrastructure.

First off I already have the skill don't attack me because you can't be bothered to look and see that alpha clones do not have deep core mining on their skill tree. How about you not being lazy with your quick attacks

Let's try this again.

T2 production is one of the few industry areas that actually have some decent skill requirements to produce stuff. High skill requirements are a good thing, because it limits the number of people that choose to pursue that niche of EVE.

Do I care that alpha's can't use deep core equipment? no.

Do I care if CCP changes it so alpha's can use deep core equipment? no.

The skills and equipment required for a good moon goo operation should be based on how specialized the other areas are. Even gas harvesting has its own modules and skills.

Whether or not alpha's can participate should not lead the decision on how to set up the system. The system should be set up, and then alpha access can be determined afterwards. Does that mean alpha's gain deep core mining? maybe, maybe not.

I have not been able to read the whole forum post, so maybe this is redundant in some ways.

As people have mentioned, a fair portion of the process of creating moon materials is automated, for theory's sake 1 person could operate and manage 5-10 moon mining control towers. In this new system, that number could flip to now need 5 people to maintain the same production rate per day per moon that the current system operates at.

If there is a concern over lack of player involvement that could disrupt the production of T2 materials, could a mining module for the refinery itself be considered?

This module would cost 1 High slot, and burn down the capacitor of the refinery so it could operate for 15 minutes / hour or so (don't know off the top of my head what the recharge rate on the capacitor would be). Burning the Cap on the tower would come with the inherent disadvantages of not being able to use its defensive modules as long as initially planned.

The aim would be to make the module capable of mining enough resources to maintain 40-50% of the current daily production rates, through the power of 1 person and a moderate time investment, on a belt that takes 24H to spawn.

I really like the idea of turning moon mining into an operation more players can be involved in, but the types of miners I know of are very risk averse and may not be interested in mining in lowsec.