First off, gas harvesting is a niche role in eve. Low and null, for boosters and WH for Fullerites. My main experience is with Low/Null Booster gas so this will be biased towards that aspect.
Right now you have three main options for gas harvesting: Prospect, Venture, and any 5+ turret ship. Harvesting rates are as follows:
Venture: 9.6k m3 per Hour
Prospect: 9.6k m3 per Hour
Five Harvesters: 9k m3 per Hour
With max Gas Harvesting skills and T2 harvesters Prospect and Venture you can get 9.6k m3 per hour. The 5+ turret ship can run 5 harvesters (thanks to Gas Harvesting) and caps at 9k m3 per hour. This can’t be modified because there are no gas harvesting mods.
So harvesting (in null sec at least) means you get to sit in you gas site for 3 hours mining the 30k m3 gas units in the site. You will often be alone, because gas mining is a niche industry and no one wants to mine gas to help you so you’re stuck in a site for 3 hours.
Is this a game breaking balance issue? No.
Would some Quality of Life changes be nice? Yes.
Gas Mining mods would help the ‘any ship with 5 turrets’ more than the dedicated gas miners, so that seems like a bad solution.
Instead I’d like to see one or two true dedicated gas miners. They could be T2 variants of existing ships, possibly expedition class, possibly exhumer class. One would focus on mining speed, so it wouldn’t take 3 hours to mine a site. The other would be shifted towards ore hold so you could mine the site without having to leave or jetcan.
I doubt that it would be effected that much for low/null gas, which is what my experience is in.
These aren’t ore anomalies where you can upgrade ADMs and get better and bigger spawns. These are sigs with preset sites. They have a limited region where they can spawn, a limited constellation where they like to spawn, don’t respawn when you clear one, have to be scanned down and, in most cases, have a plex worth of rats to be cleared before you can mine. Cutting down mining time won’t increase supply, it will only make it so you don’t have to spend 4 hours mining and hauling the stuff.
I understand that. They are also only 7% better than a cruiser with 5 Gas Harvesters, and have bonuses towards mining, the Prospect having more towards mining than gas harvesting which doesn’t feel very specialized. It feels like an entry ship that you’d get before moving into a mining barge. Except there is no mining barge for Gas Harvesting.
The supply is fixed, there aren’t infinitely respawning gas sites. Clearing one doesn’t spawn another. You mine the gas out of a system, that’s it, you’re done until another site spawns and you scan it down.
Mining a site out in 2 hours instead of 3 isn’t going to decrease prices, it means you are done mining an hour earlier.
Except clearing one does spawn another. You even said it in your post above. If they didn’t respawn how do they keep popping up for you to scan them. Gas mining faster is going to effect prices. More get to market faster so more competition means more market pvp driving prices down.
They have a spawn rate like relic, data, and combat signatures. You are limited by that spawn rate. Clearing a scannable site does not make another one automatically spawn. You have to wait on their internal spawn timer.
If you have a system with 6 data sites in it, and you clear them all, more data sites don’t pop up immediately because you cleared them. You have to wait on the respawn. You may not even get data sites. You may be stuck with random wormholes.
The same thing applies to gas sites. You can’t force them to spawn, you are limited by their internal spawn rate. Clearing them doesn’t spawn another. You are limited by the RNG gods. Faster harvesting just means you are done faster, not that you are increasing supply.
That isn’t how it works.
When a site is done it respawns automagically in a different system in that region. Gas is no different than data or relics when it comes to respawn mechanics.
I did not realize it worked that way. I concede that faster mining time could lead to a decrease in gas prices if you are insane enough to go and chain scan gas sites over a region, fly a ship to clear them, then mine them out, and haul the gas back, all without hanging yourself from boredom or getting murdered by roamers.
However
You have not convinced me that the gas miner with larger ore hold so you can mine a site out and carry it all back in one trip will destroy Eve, so I will still back that idea.
I’ll buy all the bongs you recover. Contract them to me for decent price and you have a customer for life. Not that I’m addicted or anything. I could quit anytime. Swear to bob.
So now that we’re past the point of increasing speed is stupid and know the conditions for a ship to actually finish harvesting a site would be either 3 trips with a prospect or 6 with venture then we can move on to an actual solution.
Ladies and Gentlemen I propose we bring the idea of a Venture upgrade to an expedition frigate which has a maximized gas hold, no bonus to mining boosts to it, and is designed to harvest gas sites.
In other words 1 turret for the gas harvester, 100% bonus to that as a role bonus, Expedition Frigate bonuses to shield resists and scanning, a 2 trip ore capacity but only 50 cargohold, 10m3 drone bay, no cloaking, 2/4/4, 2 rigs.
Venture and Prospect come stock with 100% bonus yield so the 100% bonus would need to mathed up or it will be only half as good (ie trash)
I’m guessing you’re aiming for same mining rate and 15k ore hold (Venture is 5k, Prospect is 10k), which seems barely worth using. An extra 5k ore hold isn’t worth it when you can get the same yield from a venture and an MTU and sit out till it’s done then come back in ore hauler.
Prospect is nice for 10k and 20k clouds but aside from that Venture and MTU is easier for long mining sessions.
Well they get 2 turrets so by removing one I would need to double it’s income with a single harvester. Valid point though forgot base again. Thus 300%? role bonus.
Primarily dealing with the Nebulae explosions unless that’s been removed since the last time I harvested it. Since it’ll have considerably more shield ability than a Venture and I’d suggest it be allowed to scan things down itself it’d need some means to hold the probes so it can do the job on it’s own. Cuts out the returning to pick up if you make the bay for the gas bigger.
Couldn’t we just give a gas harvesting bonus to the Barges and Exhumers? (in addition to ore and ice) And if not feasible for all six 6 ships, what about one T1/T2 equivalent?
Another option is to repurpose the Primae as a dedicated gas ship instead of a PI hauler. I don’t think anyone would object.