Currently, Metenox dominate the moon mining landscape in EVE Online. While they offer convenience and safety for the owning corporation, they have removed nearly all risk from the process. For small groups players this has closed off one of the few remaining ways to engage with moon mining content in a disruptive or opportunistic way.
In the past, there were risk-based opportunities like:
- Siphons, which let players steal small amounts of resources from moon operations.
- Ninja mining fractured moon chunks before the owning group could harvest them.
These mechanics aligned well with EVE’s core philosophy: “greater reward must come with greater risk.”
Now, with Metenox structures being completely automated and nearly unassailable, there is no risk—and no interaction. The owning group gets safe, passive income, and there’s no incentive or opportunity for others to intervene, disrupt, or steal.
Proposal:
Introduce new gameplay mechanics that allow solo players or small groups to:
- Steal limited amounts of moon ore from active Metenox drills.
- Deploy specialized structures (e.g. “nano-siphons”) near Metenox drills that extract a small portion of ore and trigger a suspect timer or other consequences.
- Hack into a Metenox drill through a mini-game or hacking module to extract a portion of stored or active ore, again at a clear risk.
- Scan down temporary “leak nodes” that spawn near active drills, giving a short window of opportunity to mine some ore before despawning or alerting the owners.
This would not threaten the profitability of moon mining for organized groups, but it would add conflict, opportunity, and emergent gameplay—especially for smaller corps and solo pilots looking to carve out their own slice of New Eden without needing to hold territory.
Right now, Metenox structures contradict CCP’s own principle that wealth in EVE should be earned through risk. Bringing back even small-scale theft or interference would restore balance and engagement to this important part of the game.