TL:DR at the bottom.
Greetings fellow immortals. For many hours at a time, I have watched two spinning circles on my high slots and transfer my ore to a fleet hanger every odd 5 + minutes. I pass the time by chatting up my corp mates, sicking drones on the occasional rat, playing with fits, listening to music or Eve vids on YT, and generally learning what I can about the game.
For the most part, I am entertained, but I believe that in the next year or so, that will not be the case. I have also heard the story of the Rorq pilot who logs in, presses f, and watches Netflix. The Chaos era is upon us and there are signs the mining system may see an update in the not so distant future. After several Eve Vegas vids and my own curiosity towards astronomy, I hit on an concept that I thought was at least share worthy.
Goals (because everyone seems to like bullet points)
- Maximize participation
- Present a challenge
- Be interesting and rewarding
- Allow proper opportunities for PvP where possible
Lore/Astronomy: There are countless rogue bodies roaming the cold emptiness of space. Being that they have no fixed position and no energy, it is only possible to detect them by their slight gravitation influence on other stellar bodies. One may even see disturbances on planets or moons as a result. Special gravitational trigonometric probes are needed to triangulate the position of the rogue body, meaning not only are the probes unique, but they require a different dispersal pattern that encompass other stellar bodies and stations.
This slowly moving body can be mined using conventional mining techniques, but a more rewarding method might be to use a Deployable Mass Driving Cynosural Field. When employed, a structure deploys alignment nodes and a jump drive onto the rogue body. The alignment nodes scan the rogue body and relay data to the jump drive for calculation. These scans use a massive amount of energy, making the operation visible to anyone in that star system. In addition, the scans seem to draw drifters (maybe not, I can be mean sometimes) to that site, their initial motives unclear.
Once calculations and calibrations are complete, the rogue body can be delivered to any station in range that is equipped to receive a rogue stellar body. A Standup Ore Harvester allows a station to receive a rogue stellar body, suspend it in an isolation field near the station, and break it down for raw ore. One or more filters may be used to increase the yield of specific ores while reducing other yields.
TL:DR - Scan down an anomaly with unique probes. Use your ships to mine old school, or start an op to move the rock. Starting the op summons rats, preferably drifters, and makes you visable. Upon success, the rock is delivered to a station. At the station, the rock is processed by a unique module using a consumable. Different consumables yield different results, and presto, you have ore… if you weren’t interrupted, that is.
Thanks for reading 