Kicking Over Castles news discussion

[Arrendis]

@Litsea_Reticulata

That’s a shame. Like the linux client, it seems there are parts to this game that get no love, yet there’s a whole area that makes functionally irrelevant ship skins.

That’s called ‘the art department’. I don’t ask a coder to paint me a picture, and I don’t ask Stjepan Šejić to write code. It’s usually best to let specialists do what they do. As for the inevitable ‘then CCP should hire more…’ response… yes. They should. For pretty much every part of the developer group. But attracting quality talent to a godforsaken volcanic rock in the middle of the North Atlantic where everything costs twice what it would on a Friday night in SoHo ain’t easy.

@Litsea_Reticulata

If the rorqual could be used like a real carrier that would give it purpose outside of mining. The damn thing has a clone bay for. a reason right? Reminds me of when WoW introduced two seat flying mounts, just the rorqual could carry a bit more.

Yes, they carry a clone bay for a reason. And unless you’re jumping to a clone in the same Upwell structure, you can jumpclone once every 19h, at best. Having been part of the organizational effort that it takes just to get a bunch of Rorqs going all to the same places, the idea of importing ‘everyone get on the titan’ to mining is just… no. Not really a viable option. Ore holds in Exhumers fill so much faster than Rorqs.

There’s two types of ‘complexity’ that can get added: opportunity, and tedium. Similarly, there’s two kinds of effort that exit: engaging, and pointless. Engaging effort is the things you do that are interesting, that actually produce the ‘yeah, getting what I want out of this’. Pointless, tedious effort… is having a stream of exhumers getting bridged to a moon, then having to get bridged back to the refinery every 16 minutes, and then back to the moon. Because you’re not killing that moon with a single trip. And that’s assuming Mackinaws, with the biggest ore hold available.

Adding more tedium is basically saying ‘If you like EVE Online, we here at CCP would like to assure you: we can fix that.’ Really, the genie’s out of the bottle. This is why game companies have to be very careful about what they buff. It’s always easier to under-buff at first, then loosen it up a little at a time, than it is to give players waaay too much, then try to take it away. Eventually, CCP might even learn that lesson… but I’ve been hoping for that for closing in on 10 years, now.

I’m not saying that’s how things should be, and I’m not saying that’s a great and wonderful thing, but you know, it’s human nature. We kinda suck like that.

[Sgt_Ocker]

@Litsea_Reticulata

No, 1 active industrial core per mining belt is smart. A rorqual in a moon anom will have to move to keep being in range of ores anyway, they won’t be able to just sit and mine for 4 hours straight unless they want their excavators clocking up some serious air miles. Neither is there anything stopping everyone else getting into barges and exhumers and being able to reach like 50 km’s away.

First off, you don’t do moon mining do you - 4 hours LOL. At most as things are you might get an hour out of a good sized moon belt.
Hulks will actually out mine a Rorqual, they are just too labour intensive to be used by anyone not OCD.

@Litsea_Reticulata

Please. 1 rorqual guy that mines as much as 5 hulks is risking 10+ billion ISK, where as the hulks are at most 500 mill a pop. The problem happening now is that everyone can mine in a rorqual at the same time, its inefficient to do it any other way. Locking a belt to 1 active industrial core creates a self-limiting valve. Maybe wars might even start between groups because XYZ feels that they deserve more time as active rorqual.

1 Rorqual vs 5 hulks = Hulks win isk war, the only drawback is you need a freighter or something to use the Hulks. That is why most people will use Rorquals, you don’t have leave the belt to unload every few minutes.

I’d suggest you learn what the hourly income (ore mined by) from different ship types is before posting such wild numbers.

Yep lol, XYZ is going to go to war with Goons or PL or Test - or whatever coalition they belong to - because they want their ONE Rorqual to get more mining time - You don’t seem to understand how these large groups operate.

To “fix” Rorquals all CCP has to do is make them harder to multi box - 1 guy with 50 Rorquals in a belt is the problem, not the 50 guys with 1 Rorqual each.,.

[Litsea_Reticulata]

@Sgt_Ocker

First off, you don’t do moon mining do you - 4 hours LOL. At most as things are you might get an hour out of a good sized moon belt.

Not anymore. Made more money running incursions with less tedium.

My old corporation mined moons to pay for alliance SRP. After passive moon ore was removed we lost about 4 billion a month. Even with 12 people mining it took us a good while to clear one moon, then we had another, and another, at least 10 moons that came out every 2 weeks or so. It sucked and because it was hard to move, much more labour intensive to turn into ISK.

We made more ISK putting everyone in a carrier and super ratting.

We’ve talked before about how this has contributed to the turbo crabbing that happens in most parts of space, people stopped having the easy moon ore to pay for their SRP and were forced to find another income stream. Following the path of least resistance, they ended up in the same place and everything got devalued.

I wonder if passive moon ore harvesting was still a thing, would the current mineral prices still hold?

@Sgt_Ocker

Hulks will actually out mine a Rorqual, they are just too labour intensive to be used by anyone not OCD.

I don’t understand why a hulk has such a pitiful ore hold. Its like having a combine harvester with the grain capacity of a wheelie bin. This should definitely fit into CCP’s “fix the stupid” category of activity.

@Sgt_Ocker

I’d suggest you learn what the hourly income (ore mined by) from different ship types is before posting such wild numbers.

A rorqual in delve will live long enough to pay itself off. A rorqual in somewhere ‘normal’ will likely die horribly in a dumpster fire.

@Sgt_Ocker

Yep lol, XYZ is going to go to war with Goons or PL or Test - or whatever coalition they belong to - because they want their ONE Rorqual to get more mining time - You don’t seem to understand how these large groups operate.

There’s always some greedy bugger who think they deserve more than others. Don’t care how good your diplo’s are, all it takes is one rorqual pilot to say another rorqual’s pilots’ girlfriend is dumb/fat and a decade long war will start.

@Sgt_Ocker

To “fix” Rorquals all CCP has to do is make them harder to multi box - 1 guy with 50 Rorquals in a belt is the problem, not the 50 guys with 1 Rorqual each.,.

When they get to that level of technical accomplishment, that would be just fine. It would be nice in the meantime to get some feedback from CSM/CCP about how difficult each solution would be to implement.

@Zhalyd_Lyehin

Talk to me again when Pyerite is more expensive than Trit again. Only then a semblance of normality returns.

That’s actually a really good point. I forgot when I started playing it was the other way around.

@Zhalyd_Lyehin

It is also misguided and dumb to “punish [everything] equally”. Small groups have not flooded the market with minerals, only the biggest groups have. Small groups have been punished by that development because their income dwindled while big groups could afford just yet another Rorqual to compensate or replace. Equal punishment is what brought us here and is the misguided way that CCP follows along.

I really can’t argue against that. I guess what I was trying to say that changes than can be defended as not targeting a single specific group unnecessarily could be considered more acceptable. Mining scales better than any other activity ( unless you count project discovery ) and the situation where a rorqual is required to attain optimal activity does seem like an unintended consequence.

@Arrendis

They should .

Don’t they already have like the largest full time developer compliment in the industry?

@Arrendis

But attracting quality talent to a godforsaken volcanic rock in the middle of the North Atlantic where everything costs twice what it would on a Friday night in SoHo ain’t easy.

I don’t think developers are the problem. After seagull left I am very lost as to who’s actually in charge.

@Arrendis

Yes, they carry a clone bay for a reason. And unless you’re jumping to a clone in the same Upwell structure, you can jumpclone once every 19h, at best. Having been part of the organizational effort that it takes just to get a bunch of Rorqs going all to the same places, the idea of importing ‘everyone get on the titan’ to mining is just… no.

Don’t disagree, just highlights that its an aspect of the rorqual that could do with a balance pass. Remove the timer for clone jumping to a rorqual, just as there is no timer for clone swapping at a citadel.

@Arrendis

Pointless, tedious effort… is having a stream of exhumers getting bridged to a moon, then having to get bridged back to the refinery every 16 minutes, and then back to the moon.

I agree, that does see tedious. Wouldn’t people just drop the ore off at the refinery local to the moon? I always hoped for a structure tractor beam to pick up cans, or maybe a ‘conveyor-tether’ to empty ore holds as they filled up. Really, a rorqual capital tractor beam reaches like 200 km’s, can’t be that hard to weld one onto the roof of a refinery.

@Arrendis

Eventually, CCP might even learn that lesson… but I’ve been hoping for that for closing in on 10 years, now.

Ugh. Don’t depress me.

[Arrendis]

@Litsea_Reticulata

I don’t understand why a hulk has such a pitiful ore hold. Its like having a combine harvester with the grain capacity of a wheelie bin. This should definitely fit into CCP’s “fix the stupid” category of activity.

Hulks have such a small ore hold because of a balance issue within Mining Barges and Exhumers. There’s 3 hull types. Each of them has a different combination of tank/hold/yield.

Hull type 1, Procurer/Skiff, has the tank.
Hull type 2, Retriever/Mackinaw, has the ore hold.
Hull type 3, Covetor/Hulk, has the best throughput.

If Hulks had a Mak’s ore-hold, and a Skiff’s tank, nobody’d use anything else.

@Litsea_Reticulata

Don’t care how good your diplo’s are, all it takes is one rorqual pilot to say another rorqual’s pilots’ girlfriend is dumb/fat and a decade long war will start.

You clearly have no idea how things actually work in the big groups. In that situation, whoever’s causing trouble will just get kicked. A good rule of thumb in Goons, for example, is ‘If your bullsh*t PvE drama is something Mittens needs to hear about, you’re probably gone.’

@Litsea_Reticulata

Don’t they already have like the largest full time developer compliment in the industry?

HAHAHAAHAHAHAAHAHAAHAHA

They slashed payroll to the bone two years ago so they could sell the company. That’s why the AT’s dead: Logibro was the only guy who knew how to make things work properly.

@Litsea_Reticulata

After seagull left I am very lost as to who’s actually in charge.

CCP Mannbjorn is the Executive Producer. He also hasn’t so much as introduced himself to the EVE community. I don’t expect that to change.

@Litsea_Reticulata

Wouldn’t people just drop the ore off at the refinery local to the moon?

No, because then you have to get the ore from a dozen different systems back to your market hub, and you can’t use the ore holds. So now you need another ship. It’s just easier to bring the ore to a central location before refining.

[MB_ThePhotographer]

@Litsea_Reticulata

Its like having a combine harvester with the grain capacity of a wheelie bin.

A combine doesn’t hold any ore. It just collects it and tosses it into an accompanying Orca!

[Nevyn_Auscent]

@Arrendis

If Hulks had a Mak’s ore-hold, and a Skiff’s tank, nobody’d use anything else.

However Hulks could have a Skiffs ore hold & a Macks tank without anything breaking. Skiff would still be the king of tank, Mack the king of hold space. But Hulk would not be dead last in two of the three categories.

[Litsea_Reticulata]

@Arrendis

If Hulks had a Mak’s ore-hold, and a Skiff’s tank, nobody’d use anything else.

If it was costed appropriately I don’t see the problem being any different to everyone flying a rorqual and using T2 drones.

@Arrendis

A good rule of thumb in Goons, for example, is ‘If your bullsh*t PvE drama is something Mittens needs to hear about, you’re probably gone.’

With thousands of members you can probably pick and choose. Its probably not too bad for morale to do a purge from time to time either.

@Arrendis

That’s why the AT’s dead: Logibro was the only guy who knew how to make things work properly.

I don’t miss the AT, my old corp’s alliance used to spend stupid amounts of money to get into it and rarely got a good placing.

@Arrendis

He also hasn’t so much as introduced himself to the EVE community. I don’t expect that to change.

Which is disappointing, but stalwarts like Rise and Fozzie still put pen to paper and make an appearance from time to time, which is nice.

@Arrendis

No, because then you have to get the ore from a dozen different systems back to your market hub, and you can’t use the ore holds. So now you need another ship. It’s just easier to bring the ore to a central location before refining.

Yeah, I remember that being a problem. Running combat sites was way easier and wasn’t dependent on the market. Not so sure these days, I fear the carrier nerfs have probably made that activity much less lucrative than they used to be.

@MB_ThePhotographer

A combine doesn’t hold any ore. It just collects it and tosses it into an accompanying Orca!

You’re right, cut out the middle man with an orca fit with a strip miner on the top and be done with it.

@Nevyn_Auscent

But Hulk would not be dead last in two of the three categories.

That’s true, sucking in two out of three categories doesn’t really inspire confidence.

@Nevyn_Auscent

Hulks could have a Skiffs ore hold

When I used to mine ice it was maddening that a skiff had a 12,500 m^3 ore hold, it meant it only really held 12 blocks of ice and 500 m^3 was wasted. if the skiff could be rounded up to 16, the mackinaw to 32 and the hulk to 20 that would be nice, without it breaking anything too much, right?

[MB_ThePhotographer]

@Litsea_Reticulata

You’re right, cut out the middle man with an orca fit with a strip miner on the top and be done with it.

The last I knew. it took at least 3 hulks to make an Orca fleet worth it. I have no clue what it takes today…

[Arrendis]

@Nevyn_Auscent

However Hulks could have a Skiffs ore hold & a Macks tank without anything breaking. Skiff would still be the king of tank, Mack the king of hold space. But Hulk would not be dead last in two of the three categories.

Right, except it’s also first in making money. The thing that gets you the most return needs to be the weakest in both of the other aspects, yes.

@Litsea_Reticulata

Its probably not too bad for morale to do a purge from time to time either.

We leave that to individual corporations.

[Nevyn_Auscent]

@Arrendis

Right, except it’s also first in making money. The thing that gets you the most return needs to be the weakest in both of the other aspects, yes.

Except that tank & hold both also contribute to making money in their own ways. You are taking an incredibly blinkered view on what has value here, and this is likely to be a strong factor in why the covetors and hulk appear the least popular miners. (Disclamer, I am not CCP, I don’t have actual data, this could be incorrect, and is simply based off visible ships when travelling).

[Arrendis]

They do, yes. But as it is, the Hulk can get the same kind of local tank as the Mack, just with a lower buffer. If the Hulk had the Mack’s buffer as well, and the Skiff’s hold, then it has the tank to stay on-field if there’s even a little support, and the hold space to not need to jetcan roughly every 2 minutes. Just the ore hold cuts the amount of effort—the actual work involved in keeping the lasers on by emptying the ore hold in a prompt and efficient manner—in half.

At that point, nobody who’s paying any attention to their client has any reason to use either of the others.

[Abe_Rollin]

@Arrendis

If Hulks had a Mak’s ore-hold, and a Skiff’s tank, nobody’d use anything else.

If you had a T3 miner with sus-systems would you use it?

[Arrendis]

That’d depend entirely on its numbers, now wouldn’t it?

[Shadow_Badaaz]

PLEEEEEEAZ Help…
I’m reposting my question because no one has answered it regarding this change.

Morning Ladies & Gents,
I need help with the details of the Medium Structure ADM (4.0) change. Too much has been left out of the explanation. Smart People, please assist…

1. What happens if you already have a structure in 4.0+ Nullsec? Does it blow up? Do I have to move it? Are you paying for all the rigs in that case?
2. What if I build one in ADM 3.9- space, and it turns into 4.0+ tomorrow? Does my structure blow up? Move it? Is CCP going to pay for my rigs?
3. What other new restrictions are falling onto individual or small corp players in 4.0+ space? Can we no longer use Sov-held structures there either? Please be detailed in your answer here - I was about to make a major investment into this game, but I need to know how it works or its pointless.

[Abe_Rollin]

It it helps - Questions I & 2 are about existing structures there is not change to them it’s about the deployment of new structures.

[Sylvia_Kildare]

@Merovee

From the beginning it always been player driven, the only thing that has changed was Ours. to Jita when CCP eliminated a gate in Ours., the trades shifted to Jita. In '03 Ours. was my home system.

Ours as in Oursulaert? I always heard that before Dodixie was the Gallente trade hub, Oursulaert was the original one… and I even did a BIT of trading there when I first started playing in 2013, though of course it was nowhere near as busy as Dodi by then.

But I thought it was Yulai that was the main hub that shifted to Jita when they killed the (super-long-super-highway)gates, no?

[Sylvia_Kildare]

@MB_ThePhotographer

The last I knew. it took at least 3 hulks to make an Orca fleet worth it. I have no clue what it takes today…

I dunno technically where the best ratio is, but all I’ll say is when they nerfed the Rorqual a couple times in terms of its on-grid mining capabilities, the 2nd time they buffed its boosting a lot and that made Hulks mining with Rorq boosts all the better.

Now if only the Orca had gotten a bit of a boost to its boosts as well… but this topic has come up before.

[Merovee]

@Sylvia_Kildare

But I thought it was Yulai that was the main hub that shifted to Jita when they killed the (super-long-super-highway)gates, no?

Yes I think you are right, I never used Yulai, but now i remember it was the removal of a long jump gate that killed Ours. I better remember to take my omega 3’s.

[Sylvia_Kildare]

hahah… no worries.

In a way, I’m glad that we got our multi-trade-hub system… it’s all I’ve ever really known, and while I’ve shifted over the years from using Dodi mostly and Jita when I had to… to using Amarr mostly and Jita when I have to, it’s good that there’s other options. Especially if you, say, produce t2 or t3 hulls and want to sell some in Hek, some in Rens, some in the others, etc.

But yeah, it’s too bad Oursulaert isn’t still as rockin’ as it once was. I’ll bet it was a fun place to be back then. It’s still a cool system with good connections in its area now, though. I used to live near Dodi my first couple of years in EVE, so I flew all over the place around there when I was a newbro.

[Merovee]

Ya I moved to Kor-Azor with this char., with the younger brother I moved from Ours. Clockwise through low sec for many years till I bump into BoB then back to Ours. I decided to train up my first char (this one) to pick on the interlopers in Delve.