Or, hot take here, just let us compress in Fleet Hangars of ships w/ active Indy Cores and in Structures. There’s clearly no compelling need to complicate the process we already have. You can add some modules, loss mechanics, skills, etc. if you want. (just know that loss mechanics can be defeated with Titan punting Freighters or just installing more refineries, so think through who is / is not realizing a loss)
I think this is smart. I get why it’s wanted, but the proposed implementation was nuts.
I don’t know that this is true.
Excluding the Venture (it’s the realm of newbros or alphas, they graduate or they don’t), I think the mix on the barges/exhumers was pretty good.
Covetor (and T2 equivalent): Fastest mining, smallest hold, weakest tank and utility (so really needs support or you wear the fact that you’re blasting off to a station really often).
Procurer (and T2 equivalent) : Slower mining, mid-sized hold, best tank and utility (cue the almighty battle Proc - a variation of fit that you claim to want to support, yet are killing with this patch).
Retriever (and T2 equivalent): Same mining speed as the Procurer, but massive hold and trades survivability (not as tanky as the Procurer) for longer time on the ore field.
Each is a compromise - an Eve mining equivalent of the “fast, cheap, tough, choose any two” triangle. Each found its own specific usage - we used Procs almost exclusively in NPC nullsec because of their survivability and lack of capital umbrella to support a Rorq (Orcas are useless in lowsec/nullsec without PANIC).
Even the T1 vs T2 compromise is there - if you want to min/max, sure, go the T2 option - but you’re putting a lot more isk on the field (Proc is about 50m fitted, a Skiff is 300m+ fitted).
As there’s only two expedition frigates, you really chose gas/ore with covert cloak vs ice without covert cloak. I think that’s fair enough, they’re fairly specialised ships to start with.
This removes a significant aspect of the “offensive mining” ploy that so many people were excited about (and I think will be excited about for exactly one deep-incursion mining mission until they realise that shooting ships is much more fun than shooting rocks). I think I prefer it this way, but I guess we’ll see how it plays out.
I like the fact that T1 modules/drones will not remove the bonuses of the extra ore that’s been put into space (though I share the concerns that many have with the way that extra ore has been put into space). I still disagree entirely with the waste mechanism though, I find it a complex and confusing (for others, I’m pretty sure I get how it works) way of achieving something that would much easier be achieved by simply adjusting cycle times or mining amounts on the modules to replicate the same overall benefits.
I get why drones are being adjusted. But again, why not simply lower the ore they bring in a little rather than introducing waste - are people going to get annoyed with me now if I pull fancy drones out because I’m reducing the overall ore available in a field? Originally the changes were shouted down because they’d make newbros unwelcome - are we now making those who’ve spent the time/effort to “get good” unwelcome?
So ALL mining crystals will now disintegrate with use?
Speaking of waste - is it still being calculated first? This is a bit of a bum move IMHO - why not calculate it after what the player gets? There’s only one instance where it really actually matters - as you take the last of a resource out of a rock - but if this is the end of scarcity, why not have the player’s cut taken first, THEN the dice rolled on the cycle that just completed and if waste rolls the winner, THEN take that out of the rock?
Please continue to remember the investment many people make into the Rorq - whilst I don’t believe it should out-mine even a small (let’s say 3+) ship fleet, in the end, it still needs to hold its own.
So does this mean that CCP believes that Ice mining is being more negatively impacted by Rorqs than ore (regular or moon) mining)?
Quite the mix here. Industrial core is now 2x to ~3x as hard to fit (T1 vs T2), gets a BETTER drone velocity bonus (which cuts into the yield reductions). The drone ore yield bonus reduction is > 50% on T1, < 50% on T2. For Drone Ice Harvesting, surely this is cycle time, not yield (given drones only pull one block of ice at a time), and does this mean the drones will cycle slightly faster after this is implemented (and if so, does that mean that you’re now cutting into the ice mining reductions from the capital industrial skill?)?
Again, this feels REALLY complex. Instead of pulling on one lever in each area to achieve the desired outcome, it feels that you’re pulling on several levers at once, and clouding the entire thing. Complexity is the enemy of reliability…
Certainly in highsec dogpiles of Orcas in Ice belts have been an issue for a long time, but I never (myself, maybe I just “missed out” saw it in ore belts anywhere near as bad). But this feels like you’re wacking the Orca harder than the Rorq.
As a side issue - can we PLEASE be consistent with how we list impacts? We have two sets of bonuses here - a role bonus and a per level skill bonus, and they’re both agaisnt cycle time - but one’s listed with a negative number, the other listed with a positive number. It’s confusing.
The aspect that worries me most here is the fact that you’re asking a ship with no PANIC capability to sit still for 2.5 minutes at a time if it wants the bonuses that this module provides, whereas a Rorq has a LOT more tank AND gets PANIC. 2.5m sitting still in a system is a death sentence in lower security systems within highsec if a fleet of gankers enter system. This feels like a mechanic with no counter at all (100% ECM resistance doesn’t really help, the improvement to shield boosts don’t feel strong enough for me because it just changes the maths for a ganking fleet, not the outcome), and that’s dangerous. I’d be very happy to be proven wrong here though!
What problem does CCP see with ships having a single multi-purpose ore hold?
To misquote Foghorn Leghorn, “Nobody, I say, nobody, in their right mind is going to go ore mining, fill up their hold and then duck off to fill up their ice and/or gas holds before dropping the mined resources to a station” (or Orca or Rorq, and they sure as hell won’t carry a full load of ore and then go put that at risk in an ice belt).
If you want us to have more capacity in certain ships, fantastic, give us more capacity - in a single purpose ore hold that can carry any/all of ore/moon ore/gas/ice. Just like we have now. Why introduce further complexity that simply doesn’t achieve anything worthwhile (if you’re about to say that you want to focus specific ships on specific items - like the Endurance on Ice, and you’re giving it a bigger ice hold as a result), doesn’t this go against what you said earlier where you want people to have more choice?
Of all the changes in this patch* (I’ll talk on this later), this is the one that confuses me the most.
I’ve honestly never used one, won’t comment here.
As I noted before, I think that already existed, AND I think you’re reducing play-styles by (for example) reducing mid-slots on the Procurer.
I’m not against an alternative to the Prospect being put into play here. Will it get used? I guess we’ll see - it will need compelling benefits (certainly a ship with more tank to cope with the explosions would be nice).
I’ve not quoted the images.
From this, it looks that the Rorq is a fraction over 25% slower at ore mining than previously, and the barges/exhumers have been boosted. On ice though, no idea - you’ve provided “Rorq Old” data, not “Rorq New”. Please fix
Can we please have the same data for the Orca?
Something else to note here - on ore at least, the Rorq solo still SMASHES any of the barges/exhumers solo (because a Rorq can mine solo with the industrial core going, so when comparing solo capabilities, you need to look at Rorq core active vs Barge/exhumer core inactive). I think I really like the balance achieved in this…
I’m not intimately familar with this area, but those who are raise concerns about doing this drastically reducing the availability of specific minerals. This worries me.
Finally - to the point I hinted at earlier.
With the move to Quadrants and a more regular/frequent release cycle, I thought the whole point was to reduce more frequent smaller patches with a quarterly alignment, following an agile development/deployment methodology?
The proposed changes fly against that. There’s too much change, in too many areas at a single time.
If CCP were to say “look, here’s the focus for this quarter” and then to release a small subset of changes every two to four weeks to drive the game in that direction, that would be MUCH better.
Week 2: Changes to Venture/Expedition Frigates
Week 4: Changes to Barges
Week 6: Changes to Exhumers
Week 8: Changes to Mining Crystals
Week 10: Changes to Mining Drones
Week 12: Changes to Mining Command Ships
Or similar (change the order, whatever).
What this does is give CCP smaller chunks to work on and adjust. If they find that as they go through the quadrant that changes to earlier releases are a little unbalanced, then fine, in week 8 you add notes that you’re slightly tweaking what you released in week 2 to ensure balance.
Right now, with all of those changes (and more, I haven’t mentioned the industrial freighters for instance) coming in one big patch, there’s too many changes at once to determine which piece of code broke something when it inevitably breaks (complexity is the enemy of reliability), and when things aren’t balanced, it’s harder to tell which lever to pull. Smaller incremental code releases makes it easier to troubleshoot - worst case, you simply pull one change of the six if it really screws up).
Overall - I’m very much happier with this latest set of data and explanations (even if it needs further tweaking, that’s better than needing to be thrown in the bin - though still, please, throw waste in the bin, please achieve the same goals in a simpler way).
2 Likes
You dislike the choice of colours on your space buttplugs?
1 Like
I mean if we’re comparing, Command ships DEFINITELY outperform their counterparts in the subcap line. A subcap line they don’t really outperform is faction battleships I’d say. The Orca and Rorqual are capital class vessels. The comparison is like a HAW Dread and subcap. The HAW Dread definitely packs the largest punch at the cost of maneuverability. The same goes with the orca and rorq, not to mention the immense cost difference of a Orca/Rorqual to an exhumer/barge being larger than a Dread/carrier and subcap.
1 Like
Dude, did you actually read the post to start with?
Compression’s on hold.
Gas bonuses are back.
Slag has other connotations. 
1 Like
Oh, I like that. A lot.
A mining laser is a precision instrument, whereas a strip miner is just that - it just strips things bare - sure, it’s faster, but I can almost accept waste (not tailings, that’s from milling after extraction) in that context.
I have TWO questions
#1 : As far as I can see, C-type mining crystals are just anti-productive, wasteful, and also unreliable, offering no actual benefits at all … so why would anybody ever use them? What is their purpose? The only thing I can imagine is to destroy ore for other miners, with -75% yield it looks to me like they’d even be bad at that, so why?
#2 : Primae is just a silly novelty ship, even with these little added holds, and unless it’s made into something much more useful it will still just be a novelty ship … why not make it a LITTLE more useful relative to its description? Maybe expand the Planetary Goods hold to 10k and also the Command Center hold up to 6k for a full capsuleer set of command centers. Even with all that it will still be an oddball ship with small holds that won’t see much use or value at all. Or, at least change the description as it’s all about being a planetary operation utility ship, but it’s actually being made into an ice/gas hauler … ?!
I already posted it a bunch of times. Search for my name and you’ll see a sheet with mining stats for the Orca and Porpoise.
Go into someone else’s space in null/low/j-space and wipe out their resources.
1 Like
Indeed.
@CCP_Psych - would you care to address the very strong suspicion that you have rightly run scared of the Rorqual nerfs because the NS big blocs got angry with you, but you decided still to treat with contempt those of us who pay a subscription to be HS solo miners…???
1 Like
What Arrendis said but also to clear out anoms. Use Type A or Bs for the ore you want. Clear out the ore you don’t want with Type Cs. Then the anom despawns and another spawns.
Say you need a boatload of morphite to build some T2 modules / ships. Warp to an anom, mine the Mercoxit w/ Type A. Then clear the field w/ Type C. Dock up, unload ore, undock and warp to the next anom.
1 Like
No. A ■■■■ implementation of a good concept is still a ■■■■ result.
Technical problems they caused themselves. The Rorq already does compression of regular ores well, it cannot* be hard to add other resource types to the same code and then extend that code to the Orca and Porpoise.
- Yeah, OK, maybe it IS. But they managed to remove existing compression from the Rorq easily enough. That means the code’s either already modular ore able to be put into a module. Then set variables per hull, and let the code just work from the fleet hanger as it already does, and just cut the lossy aspect already.
1 Like
Ok thx for the Update but i now see it like why should i use t2 miners?
What would had been worth to use t2 and fair for t1 is:
T1 waste 10% T2 waste with A type II (10%) t2 waste with B Type II (34%+x)
How to do it.
T1 flat 10%
T2 strip miners let the waste be 34% but add on the A Type crystals a (-24% for t2 crystals of A, -14% for t1 a type crystals) and for B Types just have added (t1 B type 10%, t2 B type 5%)
Resulting in:
T1 = 10%
T2 A type I = 20%
T2 A type II = 10%
T2 B Type I = 43%
T2 B Type II = 37%
Fraction = 0% waste
What will happen between t1 and t2 atype is no differance in waste make it equal viable to use,
and has the bonus that if it yields better then t1 it will be reasonable to have it as goal.
For B type the more yield comes with more waste which seems fair.
And since the fraction are so much more isk sinks they need to have the advantage of 0 waste.
The core idea is t1 == t2 A type II for waste so its a goal again
B type for kill the rocks when you know they will expire and be one anyway.
Fraction to have sligtly better yield then t1 but 0 waste for 400mil per set (;uff;).
Since when now t1 is o waste compared to the t2 Atype.
What is the use of skilling t2?
Yes I said that and also said the low yield of the crystal makes it inefficient even for doing that … on top that, let’s also consider how immensely boring it would be to do it at all! It would have to be OP-destructive to the asteroid fields to be worth the boredom, and then at that point it’s OP and becomes a different problem
I think the idea is stuff that’s time limited, you mine with T2 B Type (commons ores, R4/R8). Stuff that is limited by quantity (mercoxit, maybe ice, high end moon goo) you mine with T1.
I think mining waste only makes sense on the crystals, not the mining platform. That way you aren’t punishing the newbro or the vet with the waste mechanics. And the silly state of faction mining modules speaks for itself.
1 Like
We had those ■■■■ implementations go around multiple times, and nobody was hurt because of something he doesn’t have to interact with.
But that only counts if you have time limited.
I view it from 10 to 15 chars mining it. (what ccp likes)
And time is no issue:)
OP-destructive? You mean like how the c-type crystals give +18 to the waste volume multiplier? Not +18%, mind. All the percentage #s there have % after the number. This is +18 to the multiplier.
If nothing else has changed, that means the C-type crystals take the ‘how much waste does it make?’ from 1x to 19x. So if you’d normally mine 100, you will now mine 25. And in mining 25, you’ll generate (25 * 19) , or 475 waste, instead of 100.
So nearly 5x the waste isn’t OP-destructive? Send your offensive-miners in and hit someone’s moon-field, destroying things 5x as fast as they could conceivably mine it? (Because you get 25, + 475 waste, so a total of 500 comes out of the rock.)
And i discribet it above in the idea to have only the a type on the same waste. so if you want to mine faster you make waste (more) 