Alpha Clone: (No?) Mining Drones?

As an Alpha account a T2 miner is 100% accessable.

Ah, I didn’t realize that.
I did a tiny bit of picking around and it appears if you had a full rack of tech 1 mining lasers and you threw on a flight of tech 1 mining drones, your mining output goes up by 30%. Bumping up to tech 2 mining lasers increases output by 20%, and the difference from adding a flight of tech 1 mining drones to your tech 2 mining lasers increases output 25%.

I did the values on EFT using all skills level V so the numbers won’t be quite right but I believe the ratios should be intact. EFT isn’t up to date but I don’t think these values have changed within the last few years. I came up with the following values:

  • Venture T2 lasers/ no drones: 468.8 (100%)
  • Venture T2 lasers/ T1 drones: 543.8 (116%)
  • Battleship T2 lasers/ no drones: 750 (160%)
  • Battleship T2 lasers/ T1 drones: 937.5 (200%)

Alpha clones do not get to level 5, they get level 4. Otherwise your numbers say it all. It’s still not about the drones.

I know, it’s just not easy setting up a new character when I can click one button for easy numbers. I’m lazy.

I agree. I think it’d be fine to give alphas mining drones, and in fact it might actually encourage ATK mining.

It wouldn’t encourage anything. By your own numbers:

Even with drones a venture will not get sub 9 minute fills without a fleet. Fleets are the best way to improve your income. Doing this requires you interact with other players or plex/sub accounts to do it solo. These are not solutions to make more interaction. These are methods to isolate it further.

Using a BS with mining drones is hardly the afk gameplay that was scare mongers about above that I was rebutting. That afk game play has a theoretical max yield of 180ish. Using the above numbers. So the afk gameplay argument doesn’t hold water.
Now max yield argument increasing is a fair one.

Using Pyfa, with a max Alpha profile (All 5’s profile with Alpha restrictions applied). But assuming they could use T1 Mining Drones…

[Abaddon, Alpha Mining]

Mining Laser Upgrade II
Mining Laser Upgrade II
Mining Laser Upgrade II
Co-Processor I
Co-Processor I
Co-Processor II
Co-Processor II

[Empty Med slot]

Miner II
Miner II
Miner II
Miner II
Miner II
Miner II
Miner II
Miner II

[Empty Rig slot]

Mining Drone I x5

93.2 m3 per laser = 745.6 m3 (currently legal for Alphas)
35 m3 per drone = 175 m3 (currently illegal for Alphas)
TOTAL = 920.6 m3

[Vexor, Alpha Mining]

Mining Laser Upgrade II
Mining Laser Upgrade II
Co-Processor I
Co-Processor I
Co-Processor I

[Empty Med slot]

Miner II
Miner II
Miner II
Miner II

[Empty Rig slot]

Mining Drone I x5

85.5 m3 per laser = 342 m3 (legal)
49 m3 per drone = 245 m3 (illegal)
TOTAL = 587 m3

[Venture, Alpha Mining]

Mining Laser Upgrade II

[Empty Med slot]

Miner II
Miner II

[Empty Rig slot]

Mining Drone I x2

188 m3 per laser = 376 m3 (legal)
35 m3 per drone = 70 m3 (illegal)
TOTAL = 446 m3

If you leave a Vexor floating in space, with nothing but some Cargo Expanders and a wing of Mining Drones to it’s name… it will mine about as much as an active Venture hard at work.

Yes, the BS miner would do way better than either. But it also needs to be attended to function. The problem isn’t the amounts mined. It’s the amounts mined without any effort. If an Abaddon is sitting in a belt mining the hell out of those rocks himself, then by all means, have at those rocks. He’s got to sit at that keyboard, activating each laser on each rock as they pop.

But if a Vexor could float idle while their drones do all the work for them, slowly chewing through the belt while the player is off playing PUBG or Fortnite or something, then hell no. You’re already playing the game for free. You don’t get to mine the belt for free too. And yes, I know this would happen. Because I’ve seen Haulers parked in a belt, slowly pointing their 1x laser at a rock. And when someone came along and Ganked them, the Pod continued to float next to that rock for HOURS afterward. So clearly that player had no intention of coming back to check on their ship once they flew out to the belt.

How is 175 the same as 446? it’s not even half what an active venture could do given those.conditions. Not to mention drones never get their real max yield because travel time.
You can’t.count lasers if you are calling it afk mining.

AFK Vexor w/ Drones = 245 m3
ATK Venture w/o Drones = 376 m3

If you give Alphas access to Mining Drones, they aren’t going to slap 2x of them into their Venture and go back to mining. They’re going to slap 5x of them into a Vexor and take a nap.

Wrong ship. Nersus unless botting.

I meant they’d use a Vexor for the mining yield. But you’re right, a drone capable Hauler would work better for the long run.

So they get 2/3 the yield of a venture with defence. or about 1/2 the yield of a venture with mining drones.
And the mining drones also don’t get optimal yield since you have to send them to 5 different rocks to get said afk (for not that long anyway because cargo hold, they get what. 2k as an estimate from my phone?) so your yield is decreased from travel time as well.
Mining drones don’t work like aggressive drones do. They require control or they sit around idle.

Half the income sounds just fine to me for someone logged in and in space with more value at risk. And who is restricted to a single account.

You are wrong. Repeat mine, mine the closest 5 rocks, target the furthest away rocks with lasers.

This is also wrong. The risk value is even less than that.

Repeat mining only means they go back to the same rock. Just like the laser continues to cycle rather than pressing f1 every time. It doesn’t go and find a new rock when it depletes one.
And if you are using lasers and drones in a vexor you aren’t being afk.
The whole “alphas will afk” is a scare argument because if they do afk they get dramatically less income than they could have and unlike omega players they can’t scale it by number of accounts.

Also unless I’ve gone mad a vexor costs considerably more than a venture.

Where in the world did you think an alpha player can’t scale their income? They can. We’ve even given verifiable demonstrated higher income with a battleship in this page alone. We’ve included for your benefit the actual math on how a single alpha player with intelligence can outmine the Venture AND how much bonus the income would be per minute with and without drones.

Because the battleship example involves not being afk? All the examples that beat the venture involve not being afk. That’s how I can say the afk alpha is a scare tactic.

What about multibox alphas in Gilas or vni?
The 2 man security team won’t come for you

We seem to have a disconnect here. Not even accounting for mining boosts an alpha can break the income of a venture with drones. We have the math above. My venture with no upgrades vs the math behind a flat gallente 7 turret battleship with no upgrades (which has considerably more shields) confirmed this.

We also have a point which was fully listed.

So a tiny change will do absolutely zip to your income. There is no real argument for when there are current methods to go beyond what you think your limitations are.

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Well done moving the goalposts and addressing an argument I never ever made. infact I believe I might have been the first person to bring up BS mining in the thread. I was referring specifically to afk income and the fact an alpha can’t scale it by running 10 accounts… I know an alpha can make more in a bs than a venture.
Well not without cheating but it’s irrelevant to balance around cheating. Especially when omegas already have drones.

More computers = ability to make more alpha accounts active at the same time.

No.