[Devblog] Equinox Mining Balance, Philosophy and Learnings - Devblog Feedback Thread

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Earlier today Game Design Director CCP Okami released a devblog discussing mining balance, learnings from Equinox, game design philosophy, and a quick look at the upcoming March 12 patch.

Please use this space for all questions, comments, and feedback!

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“we listened to the null lobby and their bot armies, so we made it easier to minmax”.

Got it.

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That is an insane write up. Remember: Actions speak louder than words.

But all in all there is not much substance to the patch.

Last but not least:

Increased Magmatic Gas cost of Metenox Moon Drills by ~35%

Its not a patch without a nerf

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Here are the changes for anyone who is curious :slight_smile: I hope i didnt miss any

  • Ore anomalies generated by both T1 and T2 Prospecting Array Upgrades in Nullsec have been rebalanced to contain a higher quantity of ore distributed across fewer but larger asteroids.

  • We’ll be adding T3 mining upgrades for Sov Hubs that will introduce much larger rocks and have roughly 3.5x-3.6x the ore of a T2 site.

  • Mercoxit sites spawned from T2 and T3 Upgrades will be more plentiful and will distribute more evenly across systems that have the Upgrades installed instead of clustering.

  • Mordunium will have a ~5% increased refinement rate

  • New ORE Deep Core Strip mining module that will reduce waste on Mercoxit mining

  • Increased Magmatic Gas cost of Metenox Moon Drills by ~35%

these changes affect Nullsec only right?

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Anyone can be part of nullsec if they want. So i dont understand the question.

I will walk myself out

Insightful!

Thanks for the clear communication with this devblog! I’m looking forward to the changes.

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Moving on.

Not everyone wants to. I lived in null for a month. It was the worst gaming experience I’ve ever had and that’s saying something.

I had to stay inside the shield unless all my corp mates were also on. I had to stay inside the shield anytime a neutral entered. I had to follow them on wormhole day to high sec, do my shopping, and then follow them back to stay inside the shield.

I had a busy schedule. I still do. So whenever i got time to play Eve, i was usually sitting inside the shield doing nothing.

In High Sec, I moon mine in Gallente, ice mine in Minmitar or Amarr, mission run in Caldari, or I’m just flying around exploring new areas.

Being trapped in one system in Null or inside a POS shield is not for me. I hated it. Never again. There are even more reasons I didn’t like my time there, but you get the idea.

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I want to give another feedback on this that I hope CCP has noticed, if not I will point it out. @CCP_Okami , @CCP_Swift

the Metanox system meant a final blow to a lot of small to medium alliances in eve that are not aligned with big blocks because bigger groups or with a big PVP fleet (and no miners) came and inforced their Metanoxes on valuable moons (mainly R64) and killed the income of smaller alliances
As a result of this getting as a small or medium alliance in null sec without ‘‘renting’’ or being part of a big block is in my opinion impossible right now.
My alliance that was roughly (400 characters/80-100 people) disbanded because of this and 75% of the players stopped playing the game at all.

You can see some of those results in the player retention probably (I know that our alliance was not the only one). If you want more specific details you can look at Wicked Creek area situation since the metanoxes were released. (territory switched, but the activity in the area is almost null and all is metanoxed - as MER will point out)

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So the Devs still insist on doing all they can for Null while turning their back on and ignoring all other space.

Not surprising if they took notice of a CSM that’s predominately Null blocs is it?

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From what I’ve read over the months, CSM is Null Sec only. Their sole motto is, “Nerf High Sec and Buff Null Sec until everyone moves into Null Sec.”

Those people must really love sitting in one spot doing nothing for hours on end. Hours and days of waiting around and every now and then someone tries to kill you. Fun game.

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It’s looking more & more like CCP hates high sec players is the vibe I’m getting.
I’ve lived in null and I’d rather unsub and delete my account than go back.

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TLDR: If and when they fix mining in null, they’ll entertain visiting other regions.

Capital Mining. This is one we’re totally committed to. We want to get Rorquals back in space. Not only do they provide a very cool role, they’re great ships that a lot of folks have invested a lot of time into obtaining and are eager to get back into. We need to do this one in a measured way that doesn’t lead us back to the divisive “Rorqual era”, but this is a very real thing that we’re actively talking about.

That one is easy to fix: Limit the active Indu Cores to 1 within 1000 km of each other. With the current belt sizes, this effectively limits the mining Rorquals to 1 and retains the necessity for barges and exhumers as main mining ships. With the Rorqual limited to 1 per grid, you can even reduce the massive waste penalty on the mining drones again.

Naturally, all bonuses the Rorqual provides need to be tied to the active Indu core. Shield boost amount, mining amount, fleet boosting, the use of mining drones in the first place, the waste reduction of the mining drones, the use of the PANIC module, maybe even some passive stats like armor and shield HP all need to be tied to the Indu Core running.

This way you also prevent people from using several unbonused Rorquals instead of barges/exhumers. Moreover, you ensuree that only 1 Rorqual is feasible on grid and you prevent not only excessive usage of these hard to attack ships but also their remote assistance to each other, which was a major pain in the back in the Rorqual Era (20 Rorquals with 5 drones each is a LOT of very versatile and easy to manage DPS).

This also opens up the possibility for larger belt grids where several Rorquals can mine far away from each other.

I think that mining is a great place for us to explore this dynamism. Could you imagine stumbling across some mega rare and valuable ores in places you didn’t expect them?

If only those would exist but in the end it’s just the ever same minerals and nothing really special. However, mining signatures for some more seclusive and slightly harder to attack mining would certainly be nice to have. Have you already forgotten about the Comet mining people have been dreaming about for decades?

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Metenox - Making them more expensive won’t make more manual mining, metenox allows null to touch more moons as seen in moon goo prices. We don’t mine less, we mine more effectively, changing the cost will make less goo come to market, and could cause goo prices to go up. There is only so much time in space. There could be a reason for high sec goo for example if it is hurting high sec too much and if that is the point I understand.

Risk to Reward - Current Battleship cost is roughly 160M+ in high sec minerals and well under 100M for low and Null minerals. As a place holder of numbers.

T3 Mining Upgrades in Null - Pending power/workforce requirements could help a little. I would recommend more m3 for high sec, those are the Eve players we need out there more making trit, mex, pyrite compressed ore to help feed the rest of the universe.

Jump Freighter Capacity - Want to move stockpiles to the market or from market, JF capacity should be looked at, moving 35M units of pyrite, trit, mex to market at the cost of isotopes per m3, cheaper to just leave them in place. When excess minerals are created, you are correct, they go no where because it isn’t worth it. If JF capacity is fixed for other reasons, then maybe mineral size is reduced.

High Sec Moon Mining - Want more people to run moons in high sec for manual mining. The cost of isotopes and fuels needs to be better. There is ice everywhere in null, as needed for all the structures. Maybe a few new ice belts for high sec is in order.

We did all the work in 2021 for industry changes, maybe a look at ship input mineral requirements could also be looked at to help in the bigger balance of minerals in space. Cheaper ships makes it easier to let them go, and the Eve cycle of life happens.

Capital Mining - Orca / Rorqual - They are too expensive and stuck on grid for some boost. I can lose 20 Porpoise for a Orca, not as good boost, but just how it is, it currently would take forever to pay off a Orca or Rorqual. Maybe a way to put strip miners on these ships, compression and a few more % of boost at the cost of billions, doesn’t balance well. If any of these ships had a way to pay themselves off, I would field always. Like ratting if it took months to pay a ship off, I don’t think many would be ratting in it long.

Eve ecosystem is complex, if committed to small changes over time, I think however we go it is a step in the right direction.

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I hope that CCP would have this level of communication more frequently so that we no longer need to have headache for reading the word salad full of corporate position talk.

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Capital mining is a achievement in Eve not a right like all capitals. Any thought to allowing the Capital mining ships to dock in regular athanors or all structures. Giving them more movement through out the eve universe. Navigating these would be easier to spread out in more systems around all of eve. Also the Rorqual is loot piñata to Black ops droppers to the point of not being even able to fight back. Can we beef the rorqual up with a 10 min invincibility to allow for response fleets to actually get time to form . 500-800 % drone damage on all drones. At the moment I have seen a lot of my fellow miners drop to the smaller porpoise and Orca units as the agility is better and to mitigate their possible losses.
Maybe a Titan mining ship should be the New Achievement where gangs of Black op’s and blobs have to rethink how to deal with such a ship that cant be killed with a nuet gang once the 5 min timer is out. Having teeth to defend itself with Drone damage, fighter sleeves maybe. A new dynamic to the game as you make changes.
Thankyou for your time,
Carol1

Hey, At least CCP are doing something i guess. Highsec coulda used some love too. It didnt have to be much.

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Oh stop the whining please
 Give null all the ores and super duper rats that they want. Take away the afk cloaking as well as null dont like them. CCP just give it to them please but in return REMOVE LOCAL FROM NULL :stuck_out_tongue:

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