Can’t comment on the Rorq, haven’t flown one, but I have flown all of the other mining ships and I don’t have a problem with their balance as is mostly. Same does for the T1 industrials, I’m happy. I don’t use T2 indies very often so I’ll reserve judgement on those. The Venture is a fantastic utility ship but for Alphas there is just no upgrade path and I see a lot of bitterness on that. I would like to see a variant of the miasmos with a small fleet hanger (3500 m3) and a very limited T1 Mining Command Burst (Mini Porp if you will but with 1 laser point like the Endurance and reduced yield, a third of venture maybe). This would encourage alphas to fleet up and get a feel for fleet mining logistics without having to rely on an Omega providing boost. I think the venture should have an increased cargo hold to 75 m3 so you can use an MD and have the ability to use one single Civilian Mining drone as Alpha.
So you want more and more for Alphas without them committing to paying a sub?
No thanks.
I don’t think it’s asking a great deal actually. Plus there are alphas out there that can’t afford the sub. This is about retaining alphas, keeping them in the community until they can sub or plex. I would say at least 50% of the alphas I’ve tried to recruit are in this situation.
I appreciate this proposal more than the other calls for Alphas to be able to access barges, exhumers, etc. I don’t necessarily agree with it, but I do take your point about the frustration about an upgrade path and this seems like a more balanced approach than “open everything up”.
That said, I do think that one needs to consider the philosophy of what role Alphas play in the larger economy. Because they are limited in resource harvesting (PI and mining), and industry, this puts them in the position of leaning more heavily toward the consumer rather than the supplier side- and I believe that was an intentional design from CCP.
Also, because of skill and ship limitations, they are not able to take advantage of many of the more lucrative ISK faucets (super ratting, etc.)
I think that this is a healthy thing, particularly given where the game is with ISK supply, ISK faucets, material supply, and other factors that keep popping up in the MER.
On the one hand, I don’t think it’s heathy to relegate Alpha clones to being cannon fodder, but on the other hand, I think it’s also healthy to keep them more skewed toward the consumption rather than the supply side for materials.
To the point about the upgrade path, while I understand that way of thinking, I guess I look at the upgrade path as going Omega. I take the point about people not having the cash to fund the subscription, but that sort of is what it is. Keeping people in the game at whatever state they are playing is certainly important, but if the steps taken to retain those players create larger issues in the general economy, then everybody gets affected adversely- potentially more so than they would if those players leave.
OMG! An actual considered reply 
I understand what you are saying, ideally yes they should go omega and go down the barge or orca route but for many its not an option. If the miasmos-fleet version was balanced correctly I think it could work. I just want alphas to get the opportunity of working together to make a little more isk and then maybe they’ll join a corp to bring them on further. I see too many solo venture miners, those that actually reply to a convo very often stop playing after a month or 2 because they can’t see a way forward. The heart of eve is playing/working with others, I see this as encouraging that play.
Thanks- some of us here actually believe in civil conversations. Likewise, I appreciate your thoughts and responses as well.
I do take that point. I think one of the things that makes this a particular challenge for EVE is the way the economy is built. With a lot of other games, the devs just have to balance the benefit of free vs. fee and make sure that the paying players still see enough benefit to keep paying for subscriptions.
But because of how the EVE economy is built, there are all of these other factors that also come into play- the economy, the markets, ISK and material supply, etc. I’m not saying I have the answer, just that i take the extra complexity of the situation into account (and I’m not saying that you aren’t BTW- just adding that point).
I think that’s a very worthy goal. The question always becomes what the best way to go about that is. One of the reasons that I think your proposal is better than the others is this is not just aimed at generating more ISK- it’s aimed at getting people to work together, build a community, and hopefully gain a little more purpose in pursuing an objective. ISK essentially becomes a side effect, and I think that’s healthy.
I tell a lot of new players that if they are here just to grind ISK without knowing what they will use that ISK for or having a larger goal in the game, they are going to be miserable and burn out. Some get that and some don’t. For those that don’t, honestly there is no amout of ISK or game advancement that’s going to make them happy (same goes for Omegas, IMHO) and it’s just a matter of time before they leave.
So, and I think we agree here, the trick is to see what steps can be taken to give Alphas a sense of progression and purpose to keep them around and engaged while simultaneously mitigating negative impacts on the game economy and balancing the carrots and sticks to get a reasonable percentage of those players to subscribe.
Again, I’m not sure I have the answer there, but I think this is a good discussion 
Yeah I spend a certain amount of time each week on rookie help, countless times I’ve advised “Fun first, isk will follow…” but most don’t get it, most are obssessed with maxing isk and how to plex.
I’ve bossed a lot of mining fleets and a key consideration is balancing number of warps against losing a pilot to being a booster against overall fleet yield and the whole logistics side of it, including doing the ore share at the end. As long as you ensure a fleet capable miasmos has a low enough yield and fleet boost factor for all of that to be valid then I can’t see it being a problem.
I’ve actually run alpha fleets with a miasmos and a shared jetcan which works very well but you need alphas willing to learn how to do it. A fleet miasmos would naturally lead them into that.
There is a possibility for abuse, too many times I’ve seen an alpha trying to use a T1 indy or miasmos with a single turret thinking he’s found the secret to solo alpha afk mining. So the solo yield needs to be low enough that it would be dumb to try it.
There was a time when there were no alphas and you had a short period of time to trial the game. Now we have alphas and they want everything for free. If you want to up your game, then buy a subscription. if you want it all free then why should all the people that pay for subs suplement your gameplay.
They don’t want it all for free. And we should supplement their gameplay somewhat because the give us people to shoot.
Tsk tsk tsk… Because of people like him the attribute system is considered “too difficult”…
Because he was willing to “risk” +5 implants?
He clearly knew the risks and still went out in them anyway.
This loss has nothing to do with the fact that attributes are a bad mechanic form a by gone era and provide no meaningful benefit to eve.
No. Because he did not leave his training clone behind like a sensible person would do when he goes into a bubble heavy fight and still complains that implants impede PVP. I am not sure if Brisc knew the risk. I am not even sure he knew at all what he was doing there.
A mechanic that is still better than almost anything that has been suggested to replace it. Limited time boosters? So that people have to waste even more ISK on better training speed? Great stuff.
New EvE Portal must have fitting tool. It is something that I do the most when out of the cluster - messing with fits.
CSM is useless please disband
How about just going with a straight % increase on each implant?
The following numbers are examples only and should not be taken as representative of good ‘target’ ranges.
Limited: 2.5%
Limited - Beta / Low-Grade [set]: 3.75%
Basic / Mid-Grade [set]: 5%
Standard / High-Grade [set]: 6.25%
Improved: 7.5%
Then let them all just stack up, so no implant is a waste of money just because you’re not training one of those skills right then.
That’s not true. It’s a very useful tool for a certain group.
And maybe limit the slots for those implants to 2 for the sake of choices? Some of the freed up slots could be turned into new hardwiring slots so that people can use and lose more of those.
For slots 1 - 5 and amending current learning implants to have no attribute bias?
A scalling % would also fit and would be consistent with other implants like Alpha/Beta/Gamma/Delta/Epsilon etc, but the learning implants don’t have a secondary bonus. Are we suggesting adding one or keeping them a straight +% to skill learning speed?
How they could be amended depends on what happens to the attributes. How/If they are made obsolete or removed.
As we know, already available sets that have + learning and a secondary bonus, say High-grade Asklepian Alpha, with it’s +4 and +% to armor rep. CCP would only need to amend the learning part to work with whatever backend changes are potentialy made to the attribute system, would it be logical to drop 2 of that set for just + learning implants at the cost of the overall set bonus, And for the sake of argument let’s say those 2 would fill slot 1 & 2 respectivly, what other options are there for slots 3 - 5 outside of the current sets?
In that scenario would CCP need to make more implants?
This brings us back to implant entrapment, +5 clone death aversion. Even if they are changed there will still be a reluctance to loose the more advanced versions.
That would cause more harm to the game than complete removal.
While I am not fond of the booster idea (I am for complete removal) they work in a positive way to provide a use for LP and isk transfer between players on a long term basis, something that the current system doesn’t even do.
@Omnathious_Deninard May I ask you to expand on how it will cause more harm? 