ALPHA miners only have one bonused ship - the VENTURE.
I propose that CCP make/create a new ship between the VENTURE and the BARGES that ALPHAs can have access to that gives us larger ORE hold than 5,000m3, maybe more slots for mining lasers, extra slots in low for configuration for more cargo OR more extraction OR more whatever . . . Something like a CRUISER size ship that has mining bonuses that are better than VENTURE and not quite as good as BARGES.
Christmas 2020 is right around the corner . . . . CCPLEASE!
CCP seems to be toning back what alpha’s can do because of bot abuse. I don’t think they will introduce something that will be abused by bots anymore, I hope.
You have more than one mining ship, it’s called Battleships with miners.
There is no room between ventures and mining marges to meaningfully place a new ship.
As, you know… Barges are cruiser sized effectively.
I’d also normally advocate for Alphas to be able to use expedition frigates, as they are a good upgrade for the Venture, require some decent training, and would be prime targets for gankers, due to the inability to use cloaking devices as an Alpha.
Unfortunately, with how many alpha mining bots there are, it’s impossible to support this idea, at the very least until CCP manages to deal with the automation issue, which might never happen at this rate.
Give Alphas access to Civilian Mining Drones… that way they get addicted to them, crave the real thing, upgrade to Omega… How do you get people hooked on drugs? You give them away for free
Can you imagine the devastation it would bring to the EVEconomy if Alpha Ventures started fielding Civilian Mining Drones or worse: mining Rokh + 5x drones!!? That’s 1.41m3/s for 5x unbonused drones with max Alpha skills (0.563m3/s for 2x on the Venture). EVEconomy goes BOOM
CCP already is very generous with what they allow trial accounts to do. If you want to do more, you’re welcome to buy a subscription. After all, it is a subscription-based game like most other MMOs.
Alpha Miners need to remember they are choosing not to pay to play the game and instead are making a conscious decision to have limited access to many of the games features.
There is never a point at which your free experience needs to be a better free experience, or closer to my paid experience. Especially the latter. Why should you have anything that even comes close to the experience I have, when that experience costs me money?
Please remember, we are not paying to have more than you. We are paying to have the full game. You are not paying to have less than us. You are choosing to have less than the full game.
So no.
You are not hard done by. Alpha is a free meal. Complaining about the quality of your free meal, or comparing it to the meal others have paid for because it’s better than yours, is all kinds of wrong for reasons that shouldn’t need explaining.
CCP don’t want alphas to be producers, this is fair enough and you won’t get any arguement from me. However there are new players who like the industry track and when you look at how PvE/PvP alphas can progress it looks pretty unfair.
I’m not suggesting at all that alphas should have access to expedition frigates or barges but some kind of progression would stop these posts popping up (which occur pretty regularly).
IMO there are things that could be done to give mining/industry alphas a sense of progression and therefore they are more likely to up to Omega, but I’m not going to waste time explaining because once again it’ll just be shouted down.
Bro, you can get a Praxis and mine quicker than a Venture. You just have to not complain so much and open your mind to the possibilities of what other ships can do. I’ve been playing since 2005, we didn’t have Ventures or Mining Barges/Exhumers then, all we had was some Cruisers that had some traits that helped with either mining or cargo capacity.
[Praxis, Mining Praxis Basic]
Expanded Cargohold II
Expanded Cargohold II
Expanded Cargohold II
Mining Laser Upgrade I
Mining Laser Upgrade I
Mining Laser Upgrade I
Mining Laser Upgrade I
What about a dedicated “mining destroyer”? Fitting something like 6(5 turrets + 1 utility)/1/1, bonuses, no tank. Maybe even a cargo hold smaller than the venture. Make sure it mines slower than barges/exhumers, but sucks gas and ice faster than the expedition frigates.
Key point- it is designed to be a super easy gank target that needs to work with other ships to be used effectively. Maybe even better if HS AFK mining is simply not viable, unlike the venture. Trival to smartbomb so an entire fleet of these ships could be wiped out without warning.
This subject pops up every now and then (might need its own afk cloaky trash bin megathread ) and people suggesting such always ignore the fact that if they as alphas get access to better mining ships then all other alphas will do so as well and may result in even more people mining thus all they would achieve is devaluing their own mining efforts and earn even less ISK with mining than before as the markets would be flooded with minerals, but even the best case if the same amount of people mined afterwards everyone would use the better mining ships and they would earn the same amount in comparison and the mineral prices would adjust based on the increased supply so their ISK earned would be the same in comparison so they would achieve nothing even the best case.
) and people suggesting such always ignore the fact that if they as alphas get access to better mining ships then all other alphas will do so as well and may result in even more people mining thus all they would achieve is devaluing their own mining efforts and earn even less ISK with mining than before as the markets would be flooded with minerals, but even the best case if the same amount of people mined afterwards everyone would use the better mining ships and they would earn the same amount in comparison and the mineral prices would adjust based on the increased supply so their ISK earned would be the same in comparison so they would achieve nothing even the best case. 