Intermediate mining option

[Rail_J_kar]

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.

[Geo_Eclipse_Oksaras]

@Mike_Azariah

[Elathy_Maricadie]

The old “mining” progression used to be Frigate (the now T1 exploration frigates) → Cruiser → BS - usually Rokh was used due to the cargohold you could achieve (still can).

Alphas are not meant to be mining anyway so I see no point in adding another Mining vessel to the game, currently the progression is as follows:

• Venture → Mining Barge → Exhumer → Rorqual or
• Venture → Porpoise → Orca → Rorqual

Nobody is stopping anyone from forming a fleet of Ventures and go munch on some rocks, and throw in a Porpoise and they can compress in the Asteriod Belt and drop off in the Hangar of the “booster”.

@Rail_J_kar

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.

So basically what you’re advocating is removal of Specialized holds. Otherwise you’ll first have to remove “ganking” from the game (yes, it did happen back then too but it was very uncommon to even hear about). Value of ship loss was a lot higher then, than it is now. Not everyone had billions of ISK on hand like most do these days (if not trillions).

[Rail_J_kar]

@Elathy_Maricadie

Value of ship loss was a lot higher then, than it is now.

Back in 2009, a fully fit retriever cost 5 mil. Battleships were somewere in the realm of 50-60 mil iirc. I assure you, ships were not more expensive back then than currently (even relatively speaking.) Of course if you want to go further back, before all the trade hubs and various pieces of infrastructure was established, then sure, you can absolutely reach a point where the vast majority of people were flying around in frigates because larger ships weren’t available.

@Elathy_Maricadie

So basically what you’re advocating is…

I’m suggesting creating new ships that fill the role of the moa and rokh miners, in smaller, squishier hulls.

@Elathy_Maricadie

Alphas are not meant to be mining anyway so I see no point in adding another Mining vessel to the game,

There isn’t any extra functionality given to alphas with this proposal than what already exists, so any whining about that is misplaced.

It’s merely lowering the barrier to entry to help with the onboarding process.

@Elathy_Maricadie

Nobody is stopping anyone from forming a fleet of Ventures and go munch on some rocks, and throw in a Porpoise and they can compress in the Asteriod Belt and drop off in the Hangar of the “booster”.

You’re entirely missing the point of the proposal. This change is not geared toward making it easier for veterans, as it wont change anything other than making the ship hull less expensive and potentially easier to kill.

The point is to incentivize players to seek out cooperation with other players. Fleet boosters are not very visible to new players, but a ship that has a higher mining output is.

@Elathy_Maricadie

you’ll first have to remove “ganking” from the game

What are you on about? Why would that be necessary? The purpose of all this is to increase player interaction, not hamstring it.

[Mindahouf_Davaham]

yeah I have to agree with you on this one. The idea is great and I hope you see some word from the csm team though in till then keep fighting the haters like that person

[Elathy_Maricadie]

@Mindahouf_Davaham

haters like that person

I am neither hating on OP or the suggestion itself, I just don’t see a barrier of entry into mining.

@Rail_J_kar

I’m suggesting creating new ships that fill the role of the moa and rokh miners, in smaller, squishier hulls.

That is why the Mining barge, or mining vessels in general, were introduced. Venture fits in somewhere between the old Frigate and Cruiser’s mining capability, the Mining Barge fits in between Cruiser and BS and Exhumers exceeds the BS. The only thing that really differs is the introduction of Specialized Holds, meaning that instead of only holding 500-2000m³ in the Cargohold you could have 5-12k m³ in the “new” Ore Hold.

@Rail_J_kar

There isn’t any extra functionality given to alphas with this proposal than what already exists, so any whining about that is misplaced.

When CCP switch away from the old Clones to the “new” Alpha/Omega status’ they made it very clear that they did not want Alpha accounts to have any meaningful impact on the Resource Gathering part of the game, as they were, and probably still are, aware that if not putting strict limitations on this activity (for Alphas) it would be exploited (botting) the hell out of - to the point everything would be practically worthless.

Adding a Cruiser size mining ship only increases the likelihood that people would setup mining bots on Alpha accounts.

@Rail_J_kar

This change is not geared toward making it easier for veterans, as it wont change anything other than making the ship hull less expensive and potentially easier to kill.

As you can see from the images below a Mining Barge is already much less expensive than a mining Rokh would be. For example the Rokh is 18.6 times more expensive than the Moa, while the Procurer (in this case) is 26.3 times more expensive than the Venture.

@Rail_J_kar

The point is to incentivize players to seek out cooperation with other players. Fleet boosters are not very visible to new players, but a ship that has a higher mining output is.

Let’s do a little thought experiment for a sec. Ignoring the ship bonus’ on the mining specialized ships and their Ore Hold - What would the natural progression be now?
[in terms of ship value] Venture (2m) → Moa (17m) → Procurer (70m) → Rokh (365m)
[in terms of yield output] Venture (3.2m³/s) → Moa (8m³/s) → Rokh (12.8m³/s) → Procurer (15.6m³/s)

@Rail_J_kar

What are you on about?

It a comment on the impression was getting from reading your suggestion, nothing more. I recall battleships going for around 100mil or maybe less which is a lot if you could barely bring in that much each month, compared to nowadays where you can easily get 30-50mil/h doing some of the easiest content.

@Rail_J_kar

The purpose of all this is to increase player interaction, not hamstring it.

Adding a new ship does not in off itself increase player interaction.

[Wesfahrn]

A mining expansion would be cool

[Geo_Eclipse_Oksaras]

How many mining praxis are out there. With the fact alphas can use battleships, theyll find a way to mine with bigger ships if they dont want to use a venture

[Rail_J_kar]

@Elathy_Maricadie

I just don’t see a barrier of entry into mining

it’s not that there’s a barrier to entry, the venture is easily accessible. It’s that there’s not an easily visible progression for all the potential options.

@Elathy_Maricadie

What would the natural progression be now?
[in terms of ship value] Venture (2m) → Moa (17m) → Procurer (70m) → Rokh (365m)

I expect most miners will go: venture directly into a mining barge. Firstly because Moa and Rokh (or other military ships) require experimentation to find out what the best ships to use are (most players wont even think to look,) and then because the skill requirements isn’t a direct path.

By having the initial option open to players (since they’re both frigates,) of 6.2 m3/s or 7.5 m3/s but with no ore hold, players can make the choice of which direction to go. Toward the ore ships with their big ore bays, or toward the racial miners that focus more on working with fleet members.

And further more, we could also have the addition of t2 versions of these ships (which will keep alphas out of them.) The tech 2 racial fleet miners would be where CCP could increase resource acquisition above what barges / exhumers can do. Or maybe the t2 fleet miner would be above the barge… and another t2 class of ships, which would require both racial cruiser 5 and mining barge 5, which would be the fleet version of the exhumer.

@Elathy_Maricadie

Venture fits in somewhere between the old Frigate and Cruiser’s mining capability,

true.

@Elathy_Maricadie

Mining Barge fits in between Cruiser and BS

As stated above, your statement is only true for the entry level t1 fit barges. When skilled and fit properly, a barge will have a much higher output than a bs.

@Elathy_Maricadie

When CCP switch away from the old Clones to the “new” Alpha/Omega status’ they made it very clear that they did not want Alpha accounts to have any meaningful impact on the Resource Gathering part of the game, as they were, and probably still are, aware that if not putting strict limitations on this activity (for Alphas) it would be exploited (botting) the hell out of - to the point everything would be practically worthless.

And once again, the functionally already exists. As Geo pointed out, you don’t even need the battleship skill to run a mining praxis. Furthermore, even if skills were required, how much sp does it really take to be able to sit in a rokh, not much. the 1mil free sp every account gets should be more than enough to sit in the ship and give it the relevant alpha mining skills.

The point isn’t to give alphas more mining potential than they already have, it’s to put the current capabilities in line with actual progression, so it’s visible to players who want to engage in that play style.

@Elathy_Maricadie

Adding a Cruiser size mining ship only increases the likelihood that people would setup mining bots on Alpha accounts.

Nonsense, there’s no direct advantage for the proposed idea over a battleship miner. In fact, there’s a disadvantage, since the ship will have less hp making it more susceptible to ganking. The end game for an Alpha miner will still be a battleship for this very reason.

@Elathy_Maricadie

As you can see from the images below

Why are you putting cargo expanders in the lows. You need t2 mining upgrades there to match the outputs I mentioned in the op. As I said, the intention is to make these proposed ships fleet miners, not something players should be incentivized solo mine in and see value with the process.

@Elathy_Maricadie

a Mining Barge is already much less expensive than a mining Rokh would be.

That’s part of the point I’m making. A procurer can mine more than a rokh, and is much less expensive. Which is why it would be useful to have a ship that’s less skill intensive than a mining barge, and of intermediate value.

@Elathy_Maricadie

Ignoring the ship bonus’ on the mining specialized ships and their Ore Hold…
[in terms of yield output] Venture (3.2m³/s) → Moa (8m³/s) → Rokh (12.8m³/s) → Procurer (15.6m³/s)

Why are you ignoring the mining bonuses on the mining ships? That doesn’t give you a clear picture of what we’re dealing with in terms of progression.

Using max alpha skills as a baseline:

venture : 6.2 m3/s
moa: 7.5 m3/s (if you can get 8, all the more power to you, I missed that build when I was doing research for this thread.)
rokh: 13.6

alpha proc + L1 mining barge +L3 Astrogeology : 12.4 m3/s
alpha proc + L4 mining barge + L4 Astrogeology: 13.7 m3/s
t2 proc max skills : 26.4 m3/s

There’s a bit of overlap between the bs miner and the proc at the lower skill level, but I think that’s fine game design wise considering the proc has a much larger ore bay.

Once the skills come online, the proc is a much better mining ship. I didn’t test out what a max level Rokh miner would be, but it’s safe to assume it’s much lower than the max skilled proc considering the battleship can’t fit strip miners.

@Elathy_Maricadie

I recall battleships going for around 100mil or maybe less which is a lot if you could barely bring in that much each month, compared to nowadays where you can easily get 30-50mil/h doing some of the easiest content.

What time period are you referring to. Because in the 2009-2012 era, I recall ratting for 60 m/h and a month sub cost 250-500m isk.

Maybe your tier 3 bses were 100mil, which is what the Rokh is, but it wasn’t difficult to achieve.

If you want to go before the era of barges / exhumers, then of course ships are going to be more expensive relatively speaking, because it took a lot more effort to mine ore. But at that point you’re talking 15+ years ago… and those statistics aren’t very useful to this discussion.

@Elathy_Maricadie

@Rail_J_kar

The purpose of all this is to increase player interaction, not hamstring it.

Adding a new ship does not in off itself increase player interaction.

Incorrect.

Players will want to make the most use of their time. If one frigate option gives a max rate of 6.2 m3/s and another gives 7.5 but requires fleet interaction, players will seek out other players to get the higher potential payout. Especially if CCP integrates opportunity missions into a ship, so little newbro pubs can drop their ore into someone’s ship for a direct isk payout.

Forgoing that, players will actually jetcan mine again, which will give more potential interaction opportunities, just in a less cooperative manner.

[Mephiztopheleze]

I can’t help but ask: why?
Why do something to encourage Alphas to go mining?
Why not encourage them to do something far more lucrative and enjoyable than shooting space rocks?
Exploration, for example, has the potential for a much higher income than mining. Hell, Alpha exploration is currently more profitable than singlebox Omega exhumer mining.
If you absolutely must encourage an Alpha newbro into mining, send them Gas Huffing. For that task, a Venture is a very good option.

[Rail_J_kar]

@Mephiztopheleze

I can’t help but ask: why?

I wont rehash what’s already been said in the thread so far, but I’ll take on the question from another angle.

Mining in a fleet is a social experience.

If the only thing that mattered was min maxing your time in game for isk received, I’d agree with you. But there are people who enjoy mining, and I do think it would be good for CCP to cater a bit to these people.

(The social aspect is also another reason why CCP should work to revamp the mission system. Power up that friendship machine.)

@Mephiztopheleze

Gas Huffing … a Venture is a very good option

Agree, and I wasn’t really thinking about making a fleet version of ships for the gas game. But that is also an option to create a line of racial ships for huffing gas at a higher rate than the venture can.

@Mephiztopheleze

Why not encourage them to do something far more lucrative and enjoyable than shooting space rocks?

Ultimately it’s up to the individual to decide what he or she desires to do. It’s CCP’s job to facilitate those choices.

[Elathy_Maricadie]

@Rail_J_kar

Why are you putting cargo expanders in the lows.

Lack of Power Grid or CPU mainly, also the less time you have to spend warping to and from station means you have more time mining.

@Rail_J_kar

I didn’t test out what a max level Rokh miner would be, but it’s safe to assume it’s much lower than the max skilled proc considering the battleship can’t fit strip miners.

A Miner II mines 1.6m³/s with level V in Mining and Astrogeology - Moa and Rokh can fit 5 and 8 respectively.

@Rail_J_kar

If one frigate option gives a max rate of 6.2 m3/s and another gives 7.5 but requires fleet interaction, players will seek out other players to get the higher potential payout.

Put a Porpoise in with a fleet of Ventures today and you have exactly that. One of the mining boosts reduces the mining modules cycle time which gives a good increase in the m³/s.

[Mephiztopheleze]

@Rail_J_kar

Mining in a fleet is a social experience.

And herein is the actual problem that needs solving: how to get newbros into the social side of EVE, rather than trying to solo a game that’s not really designed for solo play. You can mine in a social fleet in a Venture quite happily. Look at the swarms of ventures munching moon goo in null fleet mining ops.

Alphas get a lot for free. I don’t think they need a mining ship better than a Venture.

Make Alpha mining too good and you’ll have huge multiboxed fleets of them infesting every area of space by anyone prepared to go through the hassle of doing so and willing to run the risk having them all banned for eula violations.

[Geo_Eclipse_Oksaras]

Again, they want ships bigger than a venture. Mining praxis exists for a reason.

[Rail_J_kar]

@Elathy_Maricadie

the less time you have to spend warping to and from station means you have more time mining.

If you mine with a fleet, you don’t have to warp at all. Someone with an ore hold can take the ore for you.

With responses like that, It kind just seems like you don’t understand the concept behind fleet mining at all.

@Elathy_Maricadie

@Rail_J_kar

Why are you putting cargo expanders in the lows.

Lack of Power Grid or CPU mainly,

With Alpha fitting skills, a Rokh can fit a full load of t2 miners and t2 mining upgrades.

1.7 m3/s x 8 = 13.6 m3/s

(low slots have 4 t2 mining upgrades - 9% each)

1.5 m3/s x 5 = 7.5 m3/s

(low slots have 1 t2 cpu and 3 meta mining upgrades - 8% each)

Once again, the above example is from an alpha account with max fitting and alpha mining skills (mining 4 and no astrogeology - since that’s an omega skill.)

@Elathy_Maricadie

A Miner II mines 1.6m³/s with level V in Mining and Astrogeology - Moa and Rokh can fit 5 and 8 respectively.

Now add the mining upgrades.

Moa 1.6 x 1.08 x 1.08 x 1.08 x 5 = 10 m3/s
Rokh 1.6 x 1.09 x 1.09 x 1.09 x 1.09 x 8 = 18 m3/s

That said, I should point out that because astrogeology is an omega skill, the only benefit of calculating the skill for the Moa and Rokh is merely to balance check it as the procurer has higher output with t2 strip miners and the relevant support skills.

@Elathy_Maricadie

Put a Porpoise in with a fleet of Ventures today and you have exactly that. One of the mining boosts reduces the mining modules cycle time which gives a good increase in the m³/s.

A porpoise would just give a higher boost to the person in the proposed fleet miner / moa / rokh.

Additionally, you’re missing the point.

Yes, fleeting with higher skilled people will give you boosts, that’s not something that’s overly visible to a new player coming into the game. The game design element we’re talking about here creates a choice the player can easily notice, and have to make decisions about.

Will the player specialize for solo or fleet mining?

At it’s heart, EVE is a game about choices, there’s not supposed to be one ship that’s better than everything else.

---

I’m not really sure what your hangup is here.

The dev time needed to accomplish this is minimal, since the models in game would just be a reskin of the t1 logi ships.

It doesn’t provide extra functionality than what already exists in game, just merely creates a set of ships that are more in line with their functionality in terms of cost balance and skill requirements.

@Mephiztopheleze

Alphas get a lot for free. I don’t think they need a mining ship better than a Venture.

Once again, the request isn’t giving alphas extra functionality (so you guys can stop whining about that.) It’s merely moving the Moa and Rokh miners to dedicated ships so they’re more visible / intuitive to people playing the game.

@Mephiztopheleze

Alpha mining too good and you’ll have huge multiboxed fleets

You can’t legally multi box an alpha account. If that were really a concern, you’d see hordes of moas and rokhs in belts munching rocks.

Further more, people wanting to multi box bot are better off using paid accounts, since the options are much batter (ishtars and exhumers) and they’re less likely to draw CCP’s attention.

[Mephiztopheleze]

@Rail_J_kar

You can’t legally multi box an alpha account.

I’m well aware of this and even refer to it directly in my post.
It is still possible through both shenanigans, which I will not discuss in detail here and through technically legal, but totally against the spirit of the rules, means I also will not discuss here.

Both involve a certain amount of hassle and run a very real risk of losing all your accounts to the banhammer.

Make the rewards for flouting those rules high enough and people will start running the gauntlet.

[Rail_J_kar]

@Mephiztopheleze

Make the rewards for flouting those rules high enough and people will start running the gauntlet.

Sure, but once again, the Moa and Rokh miners already exist (as shown above.) Praxis miners exist (as Geo keeps pointing out.)

114 x 6 /60 = 11.4 m3/s

Making dedicated ships to fill the roles that are already in game, in a theme and format that actually makes sense, helps to foster immersion. And that ultimately, can only be good for the game.

[Rail_J_kar]

Also, it should be noted that the above examples were with relatively cheap t2 options. If you want to go super crazy, you could fit the ship out with ore miners and “Aoede” mining laser upgrades for a silly 20 m3/s as an alpha and 26 m3/s as an omega with L5 mining and astrogeology.

Or a less expensive (but still blingy option that only uses ore miners but only t2 mining upgrades with an alpha output of 19.2 m3/s)

There really is no reason to cry about alphas getting stuff when this is already available in game.

[Malak_Starfire]

Mining Barges are super easy to train into…you don’t need to train cruisers or battleships if you are a miner. We are talking about one week at most to get into a mining barge…we don’t need a step between ventures and barges. Add in all the free SP and that time can be dropped to a matter of a few days.

Just because a battle badger/sigil exists (or a mining combat ship), doesn’t mean we need to make a dedicated ship for that niche. Mining Barges ARE the intermediate mining option. Exhumers are the “expert” mining and expedition frigates are specialized.

[Geo_Eclipse_Oksaras]

Alphas cant use barges. Thats the whole point is somewhere between a venture and a barge for alphas to still mine, without paying for omega