Currently there’s a bit of a skill / capability jump between the initial mining venture (with an Alpha output of 6.2 m3/s) and the step up to mining barges. The mining barge’s output itself, being highly skill dependent. (A procurer with alpha level skills + L1 mining barge and L3 Astrogeology will output ~12.4 m3/s all the way to a max output of 26.4 m3/s.)
This barrier can be mitigated slightly by running a moa miner, which can output 7.5 m3/s… or a mining Rokh which can output 13.6 m3/s (both of which should be best in class for this purpose. Also, I used max skilled Alpha mining figures, because there’s no reason to use either of those ships for mining if you have access to mining barges.)
However, those ships are military ships, so it’s a bit odd to make them the stop gap measure, or end game mining options for alphas.
Instead, what I propose, is to bring back the racial miners; either based on the current t1 logi hulls (both the frigate and cruiser variations,) or a slightly modified version of them. These ships would not have the large ore bays of the ORE ships, but instead the smaller cargo holds of normal ships (though maybe ~50% larger than their logi counterpart.)
What is the intended purpose?
To create a fleet miner that has more effective raw output than a venture, have it be an actual mining ship (instead of the current military options,) but not have it step on the toes of ships that are designed to have a higher output (such as the barges.)
This will encourage players to organically seek out opportunities to play with other people, instead of mining solo.
And for those who are concerned about abuse, the mining output is still lower than a low skilled mining barge (alpha skills + astrogeology L4 + mining barge L4 in a procurer is ~13.7 m3/s,) so anyone who wants to multibox would still be better off using a barge.
With all that covered, what are the target outputs of these proposed ships?
I think using the above options that already exist in the game is a good standard.
The frigate will be based off the Moa miner, which has an Alpha output of 7.5 m3/s.
The cruiser will be based off the Rokh miner, which has an Alpha output of 13.6 m3/s.
Personally, I think it would be fun to allow these ships to use t1 strip miners, however t2 would make them too abusive. Perhaps a role bonus to use either strip miners or mining lasers, but not both at the same time.
A final note.
When I started playing this game years ago, the group of people I fell into enjoyed mining as a group. As an activity, mining is fairly dull, however mining with other people chatting in coms can be quite enjoyable.
I remember mining in a destroyer and popping the ore into a can so a fleet member could haul it away. I remember jet can mining with the purpose of hauling the ore away later myself. I remember being can flipped, and flipping other people’s cans. (One of my favorite kills was killing a miner while I was in a bait hauler.)
There’s a lot of interaction that seems to be missing from the game due to the current design around mining, and I think reintroducing the racial miners for the express purpose of fleet mining would breathe some life back into the belts and help the on boarding process toward mining as a career path.
