I think the concept is workable. The mining side of eve has always needed a functioning branch away from the multiboxing ISK printers of the primary meta. Maybe not for the sake of necessity but rather to possibly make mining more interesting diversified. Understandably it’s hard to make a mining ship that is neither overshadowed by boosted hulks nor strong enough that they themselves get turned into multibox ships. I’m sure this has been thought of already but it should be doable if there’s just heavy restrictions placed on the ship for being near active mining operations. Being near an active industrial core = minus yield. Being near an active mining laser = minus yield. And being affected by mining boosts = minus yield. Completely destroy the ships ability to mine if near these things or any other group restrictions you place on it. But on it’s own give it capabilities that can compete with or even beat the best a single account can do when it’s at the farthest end of the mining efficiency spectrum.
The idea I had was a T3 level ship. Expensive, high skill requirements, but a whole lot of features and fitting capabilities. Roughly a battleship class mining ship that could fit a covert cloak and covert jump drive. The ship should have solid tank and hard enough drove bonuses to fight off null rats and maybe a low-mid tier tackle fit frigate/destroyer. Nothing to PvP with but just enough to not get caught easily. The other thing I thought of is now that more ships have the ability to compress ore this ship could do solo compression without the need of an industrial core.
Thematically the idea is a super mining ship meant for long solo expeditions into null sec, giving you far more than what you can squeeze out of a T2 mining frigate and needing neither protection nor assistance in transporting or managing the ore. And it gives players a path away from multiboxing several accounts under a corporation’s or alliance’s umbrella protection. That path remains superior but this gives players an alternative that will make less money yet still give them more than enough of a fat paycheck and the potential to be much more engaging.
If solo mining is expanded this also opens up more possibilities for rarer and harder to get mining objectives in the future. Such as regions in space that can’t be colonized and are too hard to mine normally in but create an opening for stealth ships like this to shine.
And as it is expensive and requires high skills, it would only be fair if the residue goes into the new ‘residue’ hold which can, like ore from the ore hold, also be refined into minerals.
Self-compression would also carry over to the residue of course.
This is just asking for griefing, simply rock up in the noob ship with an active mining laser and hang around near people using this ship. Completely HiSec Safe griefing.
You and the other guy are sarcastically mocking this but you’re also not offering a viable alternative to how you’d make such a solo ship work besides giving it a lot of tools. Or what, do you just not want more variety in the game besides copy pasting hulk alts? Oh I know! Lets release a ton of worthless exhumer and mining barge skins! That’ll SURELY liven up mining and make it more “unique”.
If you want to solo mine for extended durations, take a look at the Retriever barge. That ships is intended for longer solo sessions with it’s significant ore hold. Higher skilled miners can get into the higher tier Mackinaw.
Of course a barge or exhumer isn’t always useful and especially in more dangerous space you may need some defences that barges do not have.
For solo mining in more dangerous areas I can recommend using a more agile and slippery mining frigate instead. The Venture with it’s bonused warp core strength, agility and low price is a good example of a mining ship that is intended for more dangerous areas of space.
Or like you said, stealth too is a good defence mechanism that would be perfect for solo mining ships.
Have you taken a look at the Endurance and Prospect? These ships are made for mining in dangerous areas.
Of course an exhumer with the survivability of a mining frigate and the compression of a mining support ship and the jump drive of a black ops battleship would be nice.
It would be just as balanced as a PvP frigate with the damage of a battleship and the survivability of a force auxiliary. Or a hauler with the cargo size of a freighter and the agility and speed of a leopard. It’s a silly overpowered idea, that’s why I’m mocking it.
I already told you what I would use that ship for. High sec baiting and mining tears. There’s nothing sarcastic about that. It’s serious business.
What more do you want?
Oh, that’s right. The ability to sit, afk, and mine in a neigh-indestructible mining vessel that can harvest at a rate of a zillion-kajillion veldspar units per sec. To optimize the isk/hour gig. With the ability to auto-target and insta-destroy any threat.
Your idea is terrible. It’s so bad in fact, that there is nothing I could offer as a suggestion to make it better.
But here’s one. Get an endurance. Learn how to use your d-scanner and actively play the game as you mine. You might even survive mining in low sec.
Barges and exhumers can only be used in absolute safety. They have 0 tools to allow them to solo dive into low and null. You’ll either get caught on gates or found in a belt. The T2 frigates suffer from low ore holds and no way to deal with rats if the need arises. You’ll always need to be near high sec to have a way to dump resources and go back in, just asking to get caught. Even if you can do it successfully the time spent doing that drastically cuts down your ability to make ISK.
And if we’re going to just mine high sec then again we rotate back to just playing the boring cookie cutter money printer style of gameplay. Buy a hulk, mine exorbitant amounts of ore, buy a boosting alt to help manage said ore and make you mine quicker, and then proceed to copy paste more covetor/hulk alts till infinity until your wallet is as fat as you want it. Nothing about this is engaging or rewarding, nor do some people want to be forced to play several accounts just to be able to play a mining role effectively.
A nice little website, called Eve Gatecheck is a nice way to determine if a route is camped.
You can also use wormholes to yeet yourself into low and null. It takes a bit of effort. Something foreign and scary to the typical high sec care bear miner, but it is quite satisfying if you manage to figure it out.
There are also these fun filaments that will also yeet you into null, but those are a one way trip. I wouldn’t recommend those for ore retrieval boat thingies.
Strange. My idea was effectively equivalent to a mackinaw with a higher yield and the ability to use the covert cloak and jump drive. Have you ever seen a mackinaw AFKing in null sec with no protection? Did you have issues killing said mackinaw? You put words into my mouth or over exaggerated what I was actually suggesting. Especially when I mentioned tank and drones I said for it to be enough to fend off rats and a bad fit tackle ship. Ideally this thing would be on par with a covert battleship in terms of cost and skill requirements. If you’re flying something like that and you’re able to get caught by some tin can fit T1 frigate or destroyer then of course the entire concept falls through the floor.
So then in the end you’re basically running a suicide mission, cause even if you dodge a gate camp if someone is actively looking for you there’s nothing those ships can do to survive. You aren’t going to fight them off, you aren’t out running anything, you aren’t insta warping anywhere like a frigate, and you sure as hell aren’t tanking anything. And no, I don’t mine high sec. I learned that lesson years ago when the income was terrible and you’d be more likely to go negative from all the people looking to gank you so as to inform you not to mine in high sec.
No. I want a better version of the prospect. Also, you’ve revealed exactly what your problem is. You’re literally suggesting that you just want people to multibox all day in the boring fashion possible. You’re claiming I want an easy game yet you don’t want any deviation at all from care bear miners grouping under an umbrella and printing ISK with 10 billion alts.