So your issue is, if it can be AFKed then it should go.
Your definition of AFK is no interaction in a 15 minute block.
Unless your 4 miners are all coveters or hulks, your entire setup should go then. I no longer run the numbers because it isnt worth my time, but last I checked a venture can go for 15 minutes, procurer/skiff is about 15 minutes, retriever/mack is about half an hour, and of course the Orca which can go for 15-20 minutes by your count.
My statement wasn’t intended to be taken as “evidence” that it’s “happening all over New Eden”. In fact, I never made any claim nor argument regarding the overall prevalence of AFK Orca mining. In the block of text you quoted (out of context), I was addressing the claim that “you have to constantly assign individual drones to new rocks and manage your ships position relative to all of the rocks your drones are assigned to.”. Please do try to pay better attention to context.
Now, do you have anything constructive to add to the discussion, or am I gonna sit you next to Anderson in time out?
I don’t believe I’ve said that.
Sure, I’d be fine with that. Also this is an appeal to hypocrisy fallacy: the manner in which I mine has no bearing on the validity of my arguments.
Also, there’s a difference between AFK and multiboxing. While I may not be managing a specific client at a specific moment, guaranteed I’m managing one of the clients. The Orca clients, however, don’t get managed that much. Whether they have mining drones out or are just boosting, they are “effectively AFK”, which returns to my previous point (in response to someone else) that the Orca is currently a pointless ship to put an actual player (vs an alt) in - unless you’re AFK mining.
Ok, so I was off, you said 20 minutes. To me this sentence implies that IF I can sit in the same spot and mine for 20 minutes then I CAN AFK mine, regardless if I do AFK mine.
These two combined confuse me, as the first one says it doesn’t matter how I mine, as long as it can be AFKed my arguments are invalid. The second one sound like you are saying it doesn’t matter that your way of mining could be AFKed your arguments are still valid.
And again, you are saying that it doesn’t matter that your system could be AFKed because you don’t, but because an Orca only fleet could be AFKed then they must be punished.
So I will change my approach on this debate.
Your statement is that, AFK gameplay is bad and should be removed. I understand this premise.
Short of having a camera pointed at me, there is no way to guarantee that I am AFK, multiboxing, or just doing a low APM activity. Since there is no way to have a camera on all players, a different way of determining attentiveness is needed.
It sounds like your way of determining attentiveness is by removing gameplay, specifically Orca mining, that could be played in an AFK manner.
It sounds like your way of determining the AFKability of an activity is based on the minimum time between interactions based purely of game mechanics, i.e. an Orca could mine for about 2+ hours with no interaction.
Therefore, Orca Mining should be removed.
Does this accurately describe your issue with the Orca in its current state?
Please, I am no one’s “bro”.
If you bothered reading what I wrote, and others wrote, you would see that the “AFK mining Orca” is a ridiculous myth - it does not happen, and anyone stupid enough to try either dies and/or finds themselves several hours later with about 5000m3 of ore in an otherwise empty hold.
I do not mind people disagreeing with me, but do try to engage vaguely with the argument!
I encounter AFK Orcas on a daily basis. Try gaslighting someone else.
This is a specious argument. Arguing that “well, they have to come back, eventually, to move ore from one hold to another and therefore they are not AFK” feels… IDK. Gaslighty.
He does not even know what “AFK” actually means. That’s the root of the problem : he uses terms that he does not understand.
Perfectly cromulent.
Bro, CCP, the people who make the game, decided years ago that AFK gameplay is contrary to the core ethos of EVE Online. They have routinely made tweaks, updates, and changes to reduce the AFK-ability of activities. Changes to Ishtars, carriers, drone aggro, etc. CCP calls it “low engagement” or “low attention” gameplay. You can call it “low APM”, “AFK”, “AFC” or whatever you want. It’s all the same “thing”, and CCP wants to get rid of it. So do I.
You can argue about it all you want; equivocate between “low APM” vs “not actually at the keyboard” vs “actually at the keyboard but in another window” all day long (“when does a hill become a mountain - therefore AFK Orca mining don’t real”) The fact of the matter is, if I set my drones out and I have time to get up and go take a shower before I have to swap ore between hangars, that’s a problem.
So CCP can either
But AFK Orca mining is probably going the way of the dodo, so buckle up.
Well, gosh, I do not mine AFK, yet I use an Orca as probably my most frequently employed ship.
Your complete and utter ignorance of how other people actually play the game, and your utter smugness in assuming that your ignorance is infallible, almost makes me wonder whether you are a dev… 
Anyway, toodle pip. Take care.
And this is literally the reason they gave Orca’s drones. So that Orca’s were not AFK Boosters
no it’s not. That’s the issue, you believe that because all AFK have low APM, then low APM is AFK. That’s not how logic works.
Congratulations on doing the pointless I guess.
The AFK bit is a probably not the best description of the problem. The problem, as CCP likes to describe it, is low attention gameplay. Orca/Rorqual mining obviously requires some clicks to make happen, but very, very few which opens up a bunch of problems, like people scaling horizontally with more and more alts. Honestly, one dude sitting in a belt while he mostly watches Netflix isn’t that much of a problem, but when players choose to scale their fleet with the supposed booster ship, and not barges, something is wrong.
It’s perfectly reasonable for CCP to want to restore some balance here and make it more advantageous to fill your mining fleet with actual mining ships, not just more command ships. Fleets of just command ships is just silly. Even how common it is to mine solo in a “command ship” designed to support and boost a fleet shows things aren’t quite working right.
While CCP could just nerf drone mining, I think if they can find the development effort they will go with something more organic. Like maybe command ships can’t use standard mining drones any more, just Excavators, which now instead of mining significantly increases the yield of any mining module that is mining the asteroid they are assigned to. Or perhaps they can only mine rocks that are being actively mined by a mining laser. Or something like that that ties their utility into the presence of a fleet along with actively managing something. Something that still makes a Rorqual or Orca useful, but only in the presence of a fleet and that doesn’t scale lineally with more command ships. If the Excavator Drones required to be assigned to the targets the fleet is mining, the command ship pilot would still have active something to do, but wouldn’t be able to mine solo or benefit from just adding “moar” command ships.
It’s fine that these ships are a tough nut to crack, but not if that is all you see anymore leaving no squishier targets for hunters or opportunities for escalation. A healthy ecosystem needs risk vs. reward, and reasons to fly different ships, and the Orca and Rorqual do too many roles too well to the point they are oppressive to the mining meta.
There are plenty of ways CCP can buff the boosting role of the mining command ships in an active way that requires the pilot to do something. Sure, it’s more work than just nerfing drone yield and CCP could indeed be lazy, but I am not sure why so many people in this thread lack imagination.
They could, but if that comes at the expense of one of the three pillars they designed industrial CS around, then they are doing significant harm to the ship line in terms of them not being an alt only ship.
Gosh, I suddenly realise my playing style… no, wait, my entire life, is completely meaningless because some towering superior intellect on the internet said so.
Good night, time for you to pop back under your bridge I think.
“Everyone who disagrees with me is a troll, because I’m so intelligent and smart and obviously correct, so there’s no way a person could reasonably disagree with me.”
I have already accepted that the change is coming, the problem I have is that I don’t agree with the reason for it coming.
This returns the orca to a useless alt ship like it was before drone bonuses were added, and now with no way to defend itself or the rest of the fleet.
Already made the same observation.
Already suggested this. But to be fair, if “AFK” mining is the problem, CCP should roll back the change where ore is dropped in the ore bay and all ships should mine into their standard cargo hold. It kind of defeats the original purpose of the barges but things change.
No need to respond, just like completeness
Yes, but that’s a separate problem.
No, it’s part of the same problem.
If your ‘solution’ makes a new problem that is just as bad or in fact worse than your current problem, then you DON’T DO IT. And you go and find a different solution.
And what is wrong, is that the barges are bad.
Indeed, barges should be as good to scale the activity. What should CCP do to make barges worth using ?
FYI I knew someone who was mining in NS using 30 covetor accounts. He then went to 10 rorquals instead ^^ But he was never AFK.