I have a likely very unpopular and stupid idea, but I just want to find out why it is stupid. (It’s probably been suggested many times before)
Shouldn’t Combat Sites in the system determine belt rat strength and numbers? Makes for some collaboration between miners and PvE’ers, and adds a bit of a logical connection, consequence, and some lore/realism.
I guess people who like ratting for ISK would say otherwise. And miners who like to be left alone would also complain.
Grok thinks this is a great idea. But Grok is stupid too, like me.
They already do that, at least in lowsec: kill any miner that tries to mine the anomalies and the bounty-risk-modifier (BRM) will go up. Spaces with stronger demining efforts also spawn more faction npcs and clone soldiers.
If, on the other hand, you allow the miners to do as they please, they will not only lower the odds of factions and clones, but also wreck the BRM, which results in less ISK being minable from NPCs in that system.
This could be fun. High Sec could use some more powerful rats. Rats can be tough to take down in 0.5 with just 2 medium drones, but in all other systems, they’re not even a nuisance. Most miners I see just tank the rats. They’re not worth blowing up. If rats get tougher, the miners who’ve brought combat drones will all gang up on them. You would see 15 or 20 medium drones coming from 2 or 4 barges to all team up against the rats. It’s a fun sight to see!
Even in -1.0 nullsec, no subcapital npc spawn ever is a threat to mining barges.
Also, the solution to the presence of tougher NPCs on a mining grid (e.g. in wormholes) is to warp your miners off and bring some “real” ships to clean the grid.
And the cloaky eyes that scrub the belts to see the miners’ drones “teaming up” to produce a wreck that is in blaster range to the barges, gets the ability to bookmark that wreck. Inspired by the miners drones having “teamed up”, the cloaky eyes wants to try “teaming up”, too, and fleet warp some dessies right on that bookmark
Yep. No discussion about mining barges ever happens without someone claiming that mining barges get blown up all the time all day every day. It rarely happens. Only in a few systems. Gankers will patrol maybe 6 systems and think they’re making a difference.
Every single barge conversation. It gets old after a while.
I’m fairly sure I have myself blow up barges in more then 6 different systems within the last month, all cloaky scouted, but let’s assume for a short bit, that gankers would not exist. What would happen? Miners would get bored and ask for CCP to provide something that shoots at them.
Which is pretty much what you’re asking for, right?
CCP already provided it, you have belt NPCs in any system below 0.8. Unless it’s a wormhole gas mining site, they don’t do anything really, but they fulfill the miners’ wish to get shot at. But because most miners tend to ignore the NPCs, and some of them wreck the NPCs with 2 medium drones, you are asking for NPCs which need 5 medium drones to get wrecked. Lowsec and Nullsec have NPCs that have regeneration capabilities to negate 2 medium drones, or 5 medium drones, too, in some cases. But why would miners get more motivated to put drones on NPCs that need more drones to be put on them to get wrecked then they are to put drones on NPCs that can be wrecked with a lower number of drones? The NPCs that need 5 drones on them still pose no threat, so miners are still just wasting clicks trying to wreck NPCs, unless the damage level and especially the damage application capabilities of the NPCs would improve to the point they actually become dangerous. Or do you want to motivate miners to wreck the NPCs by having them provide higher CONCORD bounties? Or more loot?
If it’s loot, why would a miner bother to even possibly break his strip miner range and increase his align time while manouvering to the wreck to pick it up? Even in -1.0 truesec NPC wrecks containing more then 5m isk in loot are very rare, and 5m isk is about one cycle of strip miners and 1/20th of the barge if being poorly aligned becomes fatal, so why risk it?
If it’s the bounty, mining drone yields aren’t really high enough for the contemporary lack of income would compete with the combat drones, however the limits on drone holds demand that only small drones get loaded, since otherwise mining drones can’t be used at all, even if there’s no NPC on grid.
Also, if the NPCs get more “serious”, what would medium drones do? Any sleeper frigate outmaneuvers, aggresses on, and wrecks the medium drones you put on them. So small drones that deal less damage on paper but actually move fast enough to reach the NPC and apply damage at all are still superior to medium or heavy drones that have damage on paper but won’t reach engagement range before they get destroyed.
Finally … who fits 2 medium drones? It’s either 5 medium drones, or 5 small ones and 5 mining ones. Or 1 Ice Mining Drone.
I’m trying to make sense of this question, but I’m having trouble. Are you asking why miners would load combat drones to attack rats? If so then the answer is simple- because it’s fun. Why not do it? Drones are terrible miners. Even with max skills and T2 mining drones, they are terrible miners. Loading medium combat drones and attacking rats is fun. Drop an MTU and you can salvage the wrecks without having to chase any of them down. The MTU tractors them all to the miner who owns it.
“Oh, but the MTU can be destroyed costing the miner money.”
Sure, but again, gankers don’t patrol much space. By the time most miners ever see a single ganker, that miner already has a fat bank account. He can afford the 11 million ISK for a new MTU.
So? Miners have the time to waste. Tell me that you’ve never mined without telling me that you’ve never mined. Miners have a lot of time on their hands. They need it because it takes a long time to make money. Wasting clicks on killing rats helps fill the time.
“Oh but Miners watch Netflix and never look at the screen.”
Nonsense. If there’s an Orca and a Hulk, The Hulk pilot is looking at his screen. His hold fills up every 3 minutes so he has to compress every two. Each time he compresses, he gets less time before his hold fills up again. After an hour, he’s compressing every minute. If he doesn’t, his lasers shut off and he loses money.
You’ve never heard of an MTU? It brings the loot to the one who owns it. It has a really long range too. It tractors all on its own. It’s completely automated. It also beams the cargo from that ship directly into itself. All the miner has to do is empty that from the MTU and then scoop it up once he’s ready to leave. It’s that easy.
Medium drones are pretty strong with max skills. So are small and large. Also, miners aren’t usually alone. If you have a good group, you will have more than one ship with medium combat drones. Even if 5 won’t do the job, 15 will. 15 Medium Tech 2 combat drones on one NPC will certainly get the job done.
As for who fits 2 medium combat drones, me when I’m flying my Hulk. 5 T2 mining drones and 2 T2 medium combats. When I’m flying my Skiff, it’s different:
5 Mining Drones II
5 Hammerhead II
5 Salvage Drones II
A Skiff can fit a lot. And I always carry an MTU with me.
An MTU isn’t “ganked”. You shoot a miner’s MTU in order to provoke him to “defend it” by attacking you, at which point you get a limited engagement timer on him and kill him. The correct reaction is to ignore the suspect baiter and scoop the MTU to prevent him from wrecking it.
MTUs also aren’t barely ever destroyed, it is the number two thing that is destroyed in the game, right after pods. It is, however, rarely destroyed while the operator is on grid… instead it is destroyed when the operator forgets to scoop it before warping off and calling it a day.
But MTU padding is just a zkill meta. If you don’t care about it, it doesn’t matter whether some T3D padded its’ zkill with your MTU or you just forgot it and it despawned after 30 days.
That’s quite naive. More realistically, there’s a Porpoise, which in the age of in-space compression is afk crabbing alt-tabbed out, and a dozen or more covetors, all multiboxed by the same player, and he spends almost all his time alt tabbing (or rather eve-o-ing), tagging rocks, assigning targets, compressing and replacing breaking mining crystals. An Orca provides too little additional value over a Porpoise as do Hulks provide little additional value over Covetors to make the significantly higher price viable. The orca also is painfully slow in every aspect, and it can’t jump through low grade wormholes, either.
If you have only one mining barge, it’ll be quite a challenge not to fall asleep while mining. Hence a single account user shouldn’t be mining. So many other things provide better income, just sell your LP, relic goo, site bookmarks, intel, […] and buy ore from the multiboxers, get you a lot more ore per hour then single account mining.
zkill says I heard at least 84 audible pings from MTUs lossmails, plus another 27 or more audible pings from MTU killmails
Their problem isn’t their damage or tank, their problem is the low tracking combined with low movement speed and low range. It doesn’t matter how hard it hits if it can’t reach engagement range because it’s too slow.
If you think 15 medium drones “certainly” get the NPC wrecked, you might want to do some research on the instrumental core gas site… or the vital core one. They pay really nice, so the research might pay off, however the former will remove 3 exhumers before the exhumers put even 1% damage to a single NPC, while the later has so much repair capability that 15 medium drones are just gonna get tanked… while it also has no problem providing lossmails to 3 exhumers.
But then, those NPCs are meant to be “dangerous”, unlike the asteroid belt NPCs which especially in highsec are meant to be “a nuisance” at best.
2 Hammerhead II inflict almost 30% less damage then 5 Hobgoblin II do, and both can be combined with 5 mining drones into a 50m^3 drone hold… on paper. In practice, the hobgoblins reach the target faster, track it better, lag behind less… and have more damage, too.
I never said it was “ganked.” I used the word “destroyed.” You can take that however you want. Also, miners don’t normally attack combat ships. Those that are dumb enough to do that won’t do it twice. But that doesn’t matter to me. MTUs are used all the time. If they weren’t, you won’t be here telling me all about how often they’re destroyed. They’re obviously used all of the time so that miners don’t have to chase down wrecks. I don’t know why you were trying to argue that.
I also didn’t say that they’re “barely ever destroyed.” I simply said that they’re not blown up nearly often enough to make them not worth it. I use one all the time. The only time I’ve ever had one blown up was when I forgot about it and left it behind. I simply bought a new one.
Again- tell me you’ve never mined without telling me you’ve never mined.
I’ve seen easily 50 Orcas in the last few months. I’ve seen TWO Porpoises. The Corporation I’m in is very small yet we have three Orca pilots each with an Orca. I don’t have one. I don’t have the skills for the fit, but I have two Hulks, one Mackinaw, and 2 Skiffs (as well as several combat ships which include a Proteus, Vindicator, and Kronos), as well as an Avalanche, and a Deluge.
Hulks are very widely used because they ARE faster than a Coveter. If you can’t afford a Hulk, you aren’t mining properly. Hell, I can mine in a tanked out Skiff and use it to pay off a fully fit Hulk in 2 days. The mining difference between a Coveter and Hulk is tangible.
I’ve only fallen asleep once while mining and that was because I’d been up for about 20 hours. I’ve gotten to know a great many solo miners who don’t multi-box. I have quite a few on my contacts list. People solo-mine all the time. Not every miner is a multi-boxer. A lot of them aren’t.
See? You do know how often they’re used.
Okay… then bring in some stronger rats to High Sec and I’ll put it to the test and see if you’re right. Again- I’m all for that. Do it.
Maybe, but it doesn’t matter because High Sec rats will always be too weak for it to matter.
I’ve probably mined significantly more then you, all ore, gas, ice … and miner wrecks
I’ve seen 4 porps today on my grid today, and no whales, though the coalition nuked two orcas on the undock of the station it’s always camping.
I’m in a semi-large corporation (68 members), and nevertheless I’m the only one who has an Orca. One corpmate has a Rorqual though. I build the stuff, so I got significant quantities of most subcaps and modules to fit on them at the local market.
The difference is exactly 15% at max skill. In line with the saving an ice mining rig provides, which I don’t fit, either.
If it takes you 2 days to return of invest a hulk, then maybe you are the one doing something wrong. A hulk price of ore is mined in about an hour and a half with a single boosted Covetor, and that’s in any of the abundantly present variegated ore anomalies. Lowsec Gas, R64, Mercoxite, and the new Coherent ore types that spawn in the rare xx ore anomalies provide a Hulk in less then an hour.
Those actually pumping stuff onto the markets are all multiboxers.
Solo mining is called baiting
That’s not going to happen. Highsec PVE by design is low effort, low reward content.
You can poke an Authothysian Lancer, or run an anomic lvl4 security, but that’s pretty much the limit of what can be done PVE-wise in high.
So you don’t care about the efficiency of your damage projectors, but you want CCP to force others to care?
If you don’t see Orcas, you’re only hunting in the same area over and over and over. You said that you hunt a wide area. I don’t believe you. I think you’re lying. In fact, I checked your kill board. When was the last time you even entered High Sec? It doesn’t seem like you’ve done that any time in recent history.
I said in a SKiff.
In a Skiff. That’s the worst Exhumer. I can pay off a Hulk in a Hulk in no time. In a Skiff that’s fully tanked out, it takes longer. You do know there’s a difference. I know you do. I said in a fully tanked out Skiff. Details matter.
No. I want CCP to give me something worth caring about. Is the difference between the two concepts too subtle for you to realize?
I haven’t hunted in highsec for 4 years now. I just travel there, moving assets to and from the market, “spotting opportunities” while doing so. And 4 years ago I didn’t really hunt, either, we had lost some stations and so I gatecamped a popular gate with a ship- and a cargo-scanner in search for a new citadel in the cargohold of an untanked t1 hauler. The others that died were people fitting their ships so ridicilously it couldn’t be helped.
Also, as I wrote, I’m the cloaky scout. The cloaky scout never is on killmails on his own. I’m not even trying to hide which toons my alts are that I do the dirty work with, so if you want to do zkill research, it shouldn’t be hard to find it out, as well as their activities.
Details don’t matter.
I said boosted Covetor crabbing in abundandly available Variegated for about an hour and a half or less then an hour in less available R64. I was purposefully vague with the claim to support the “abundandtly available” part of it, as being specific would make it less abundant. Which Variegated? Which R64? Which boosts? Which Covetor fit? What mining grid layout? The prices vary, there are variants, different boost types, etc. and it all affects the amount of time you need to crab to get a Hulk out of them, but the variance is within +250% to the worst possible, like the difference between a bait fitted skiff and a yield fitted hulk is. 2 days of time to RTI against 1 hour to RTI, however, is an order of magnitude in difference.
So, yeah, your bulkhead Skiff mines slower then your yield maxed Hulk, but if you put that Skiff on Obsidian Ochre, it’ll be just as fast or faster at producing wealth then your Hulk crabbing the standard variant of Crokite, both of which are variegated. Likewise, given the same amount of time, your Skiff will grab more wealth from Shining Loparite then your Hulk can get from regular Loparite, both of which spawn on the same Refinery.
Btw if there is no gankers in highsec, and NPCs pose no threat, either, why bother tank maxing the Skiff?
The miner is on the mining grid because he cares about ore. If he didn’t, he would be shooting the minerals out of NPCs, for example, or just buying them from other players. Or shooting them out of other players, of cause.
How “exciting” is trying to optimize your mining cycles by preemptively turning off miners as rock m^3 gets below the cycle yield to you? How do you account for residue? How do you reschedule rock distribution when one miner is found to be grabbing more rock then another?
I’d have to take your word on the Null sec stuff. I hate Null Sec and wouldn’t take more than a Venture down there for mining. I’ll invest in a lot, but I’ll never invest in doing anything in Null. Ventures are free. Throw some crap mods on it, and try to get at least one full hold without getting blown up. After that, it doesn’t matter. Grab another Venture when that one gets blapped and try again.
That’s Null Sec mining for me. Nothing more and nothing less. I don’t care about Roquals or fits for the complex rocks that are only found down there. Just give me a Venture and a place to dump my ore or gas. I’ll mine until I run out of ships and go back to High Sec with the profit.
I hate Null sec that much. I lived there once and it was a terrible experience. In high sec, my Hulk is my fastest mining ship. All it needs is three T2 mining upgrades, shield mods for medium, and CPU chips for RIGS. It’s my cheapest mining barge. Cheap, fast, and easy… hmm… I should make that its ship name… Cheap Fast and Easy… as soon as I get home from work!
Residue doesn’t matter to me. It does to some, but I can’t make myself care. So I lose some residue to space. Big fat deal. When I’m mining Glistening moon rocks and getting 100m ISK of compressed ore in about 45 minutes, I’m good with some lost dust. I don’t mine for excitement. I mine for profit. The Mackinaw’s slogan is, “I’m just here for the credits I need to go back out there.” That’s why I mine. Or sometimes I’ll do it when I’m bored.
And if one miner is grabbing more rocks than another, then good for him! Grats! Well done! I don’t care about that. I’m not going to micromanage how many rocks people grab! Who the hell wants that job?
I tanked my Skiff because I had just returned to the game and needed to learn if High Sec was safe. When I quit 12 years ago, ganking was a lot more common. After returning, I was ice mining in a dangerous area. It was quiet when I started there, but over time, it became a hot spot. I got attacked once, but the group failed to destroy me. They failed hard!! LOL! After that, there were several more gankings done in that ice system, but they all avoided me and my Skiff. The tank on it improved as my skills improved and then it just became fun to see how high I could get it. Right now, if I overheat it, it’s at 252,400 EHP without Fleet Buffs! Overheated with Fleet Buffs, it’s at about 283,000 EHP with 90 Kinetic and 80 Thermal resists (Since everyone uses Catalysts). That’s without blue or purple mods. All T2 and faction mods only.
So it started as a defense against attacks because I didn’t know how dangerous things were when I returned to the game, and then it became fun to improve it. I still keep the ship. I just rarely fly it these days.
I almost always fly a Hulk now. I’ll fly a Mackinaw if there isn’t an Orca on grid. Or I’ll just hop in my Proteus to go run security missions.
Null is great but I run a skiff with a stab and grab the hornet ecm drones. Keep my cloak ship with a lock bomb loaded just in case they try and pile on top of me.
That’s cool that you’re able to remain safe enough to use a Skiff down there. And as long as you’re having fun doing it, there’s nothing wrong with that! Fly safe!
It depends where your sovereign space is and who you fly with, I have a blast on mumble. It’s not for everyone but you get a good territory and you can easily just print isk. You figure the processing boosts alone makes it worthwhile, but it’s the variety. Noxicm one day, Gneiss the next it’s a good time hunting anoms. My opinion you really need a skiff to handle the rats on your own, but my prerogative was to mine what I want when I want in null. At this point I lose an exhumer oh well I’ll just have to tap into the billions I’ve made in supplying pure minerals.
