So Alpha’s will soon gain access to tons of new skills, including BC’s and BS’s. This is a bit better for mining, I remember mining in Apoc’s back in the day. A maxed venture has the equivalent of 5 lasers, but several races have BS’s with 8 lasers, even if you have only enough hold for a single cycle
What I didn’t see was whether CCP intends to add barges to this skill list. I don’t see why not, as you can’t multibox miners and the income rate of barges is probably in line (or less) than what other alpha professions will bring in (lvl 4 missions, VNI with heavy drones, running WH sites in a T2 fit Gila).
I hope that they add them, mining is a huge part of the Eve economy, and Alpha’s get a piss pour glimpse of what an Omega can do.
You can multibox miners, especially if you use illegal bot programs, which is what will happen (more then it currently does) if they allow Alphas to use any mining vessel larger then a Venture.
What I meant was you can not legally multibox Alpha accounts. Should be pretty easy to determine if several Alphas have the same IP and are all mining together.
It’s a question of balance. New Eden needs more destruction but it doesn’t need more production. Alphas have been given a greater capacity to destroy but not a greater capacity to produce.
With battleships running level 4 missions or nullsec anomalies the income potential for Alphas has increased a lot and the additional ISK entering the game will put upward pressure on PLEX unless CCP creates more sinks.
As a subscriber I’m happy with the change - more people in space is a good thing, but some things need to stay behind the paywall. There does need to be an incentive for Alphas to subscribe and help pay the bills!
‘If’ CCP decide to allow Alphas to access mining barges I’d only see this as a positive for everyone. Maybe they can do it in a limited state. By that I mean allow the training to be injected, but only granting Alpha clones access to Covetors and/or Procurers. Giving Industrial mining Alphas a small step forward in terms of gameplay.
This way they can Venture mine their way to a bigger ship and become more efficient in their own right, then choose to take a risk and ‘speed’ mine in a Covetor, or possibly try and survive a gank in a Procurer. Also allowing Alpha friendly corps to run more “exciting” mining fleets.
Do Little is right, we do need more destruction, however a majority of Alpha players I come across arnt asking what it is they can blow up, instead they’re asking: “what can I create”, “how do I mine more efficiently”, “why am I limited so heavily in skills for Industry”. For those that stick it out in the Venture, fair play. For those looking for a little more, I’d say open the path for them to do so. Destruction will happen, there will just be bigger, more expensive explosions in the belts is all.
And I am not asking for Mining Barge V, just level 1, access to the ship but not max yield. I am not even sure if a level 1 barge gets more yield than a level 1 BS. And I know from experience that players will mine in a BS if it has higher yield.
I’m nearly certain a barge yield is higher… however, with a BS you only have what… ~400m3 of cargo? You will be warping to and from the station almost every cycle. Even if you went stupid with cargo mods you would still only get a couple of cycles.
Have you warped anywhere in a BS? A Retriever can fill up it’s moderate Ore Hold in the time it takes a BS to align, warp, decel and dock. Barges are superior to BS mining, I assure you, even at entry level.
Exhibit A: Ore Hold
Exhibit B: Cycle yield
Exhibit C: Align and warp time
Exhibit D: Lead Pipe
I like the idea of alphas such as myself being able to get into these sorts of careers. I always thought high level mission running looked cool but I knew I could never do it in a cruiser. I wonder if they will add more drone skills.
I completely agree with that statement.
another thing that would be interesting is if they add more manufacturing skills to alphas, maybe it will become a possible source of ISK
Back in the day… way before barges… Fleets of Apocalypses were the only way to mine. My corp actually demanded that everyone train into that one ship if you were going to do a corp mining op.
It just requires alot of attention, a jet can or Orca, and you can watch an awesome light show. It would actually help reduce mining alts since it takes way too much work to keep all 8 lasers running.
I think we’ll need to wait and see how the gameplay around moon mining develops. If it turns into a solo activity for multibox Rorquals, I don’t see much hope for Alpha barges.
If, on the other hand, a fleet of barges is actually required to efficiently harvest the moon ore - I think there is a chance CCP will add them to the Alpha skillset. It’s a question of supply and demand - if corporations have trouble raising fleets to harvest their moons, alphas can fill that gap without creating problems for the economy.
Too many Alphas mining highsec ores would depress the prices but, this is self correcting - if there is no money to be made, people will do something else.
I asked CCP rise specifically about this at Eve Vegas. He said that CCP does not have immediate plans to allow for Pilots to fly mining barges. I asked him if it was a matter of balance. He said it was a few things. First of all, yes there’s obviously potential balance issues. But he said the larger concerns were that mining is a very singular activity. He said they didn’t want to encourage Alpha Pilots to train into a field where most of your time and skills are focused on a single thing that don’t transfer anywhere else. Just like station Trading, or planetary interaction, Etc. He also said that a huge number of subscribe pilots in the game our characters that are trained into these kinds of activities. And that basically unlike generic PVE or PVP characters, making these skill sets available to Alpha Pilots would result in an enormous loss of subscription Revenue. So basically there are three major reasons why CCP is not intending to give Alpha Pilots access to mining barges. He smirked at the thought of Alphas Mining inside battle Cruisers and battleships. But like I’m saying, I think CCP would rather have that happen so that people train up battleship skills that are more transferable to other parts of the game in PVE and PVP.
Why? The rohk is so much better. It had the needed turrets, mids and ship bonus work well with a shield tank, and 5 lows is enough for upgrades and cargo expanders. I know many people used the mining rokh as their mining BS of choice.
I am talking way back before tier 3 BS’s, when the Apoch was the only 8 turret ship. Only ship that could compete yield wise was the 15 Harvey drone domi.
I might be off somewhere, but based on these numbers, an Alpha mining in a BS would have a similar yield as a barge but would have a low QOL due to cargo bay restrictions.
