Foundations of EVE.
EVE is built upon three main Foundations. Mining, Exploration, and Hauling. These three core parts of the EVE experience shape what you as a capsuleer can or can not do. Either as a solo player or as small corp to the size of a cluster spanning alliance. So it is wise as a CSM candidate to consider the implications of changes to the “bones” of EVE Online.
And detrimental changes can have reverberating implications to the wider EVE Universe. Some are more apparent to the smaller player, while others take time to then start to affect players with larger numbers of characters and members. My perspective is to make these foundations as “strong and loadbearing” with ease of access to content or activity. We want more people to undock and do the basic, day to day mundane things in EVE, and even have a little adventure and potentially “some shakes” along the way. The more people undock…the more targets are in EVE space.
-Mining Foundation-
Currently the mining community hasn’t exactly gotten alot of great updates over the years. We went from a system of higher yields to a unified crystal system, which hasn’t exactly had beneficial implications to the game. We had a residue mechanic, which has had alot of mixed feedback, alot of people still refuse to use items affected by it. Early on in the initial testing on SISI in 2021/22, it was found almost every mining laser had some sort of residue mechanic. And alot of the playerbase revolted hard against the changes, as the effects of Scarcity changes deepened. [Leading for a time to an unsubbing campaign by main long term players in protest.] The Testing Feedback on Past Mining Changes It was not exactly a great time. Yields were dropped, asteroid belts for a time were weirdly shaped and you could get caught in the asteroid field rocks and not be able to warp away, resources were low, the worst of the waste mechanics were “prevented,” but we kind of have had a rehash of this same concept with Catalyst Update in 2025. Just with a nicer coat of paint.
In the Catalyst Update. All mining lasers and strip miners were “Quartered” reduced both in yield and cycle time. 1/4 of their original setups. T2 Modulated Deep Core Miners went from 180sec cycles to 45 sec cycles. (1/4 of cycle) T2 Mining Lasers…from 60sec to 15 secs. This is if you were looking at this from a particular perspective. This was done to every mining item Strip Miners/ Mining Lasers. Now most of the Proponents and Supporters of this update…say its proportional-everything is the same. One slight problem, T2 equipment kind of goes against this scenario in the wrong way.
In the older 2021/2022 Mining system. Residue for A Crystals was at least an understood 33-34%…so every Third cycle would generate Residue (Waste). But that is over 180sec. For a total of 540sec before you get a residue roll. Now B Crystal reduced the time to around 120 or so. But the Residue Chance was something like 50% so every two cycles would generate waste equivalent to intake. Catalyst multiplies this by several factors.
Because when you quarter the cycles…you increase the chances of residue rolls. So now you have 4 45 sec cycles…instead of 1 180sec cycle. But still the same chance to generate 33-34% with A, and about 50% with B. So over the same time of the older system you are now generating more waste rolls. Now the Catalyst update did introduce fleet boost ammo and changed how the mining survey scanner worked into a quasi passive survey mining chipset…that then buffs and lowers this residue, but if your cycle time is faster, chances of several other factors activating goes up.
One infamous situation was this. Where the new mining laser mutaplasmids ended up being figured out as a way to massively increase residue. 100% chance every cycle…at a higher multiplier of what you took in…to wipe the grid of resources.
Not exactly a well thought process, because then it gave us levers to deliberately destroy the mining ore in belts and anoms far faster than what can be collected.
So you can see where a concept that was conceived by Fenris for “positive interaction” can be thrown the other way by deliberate gameplay considerations by an intelligent player.
Notes on using Mutaplasmid Failure to Content Deny This applies to ice, gas, and even mining drones as well.
So if you fitted your ship with deliberately mutated to be bad modules…and you fleet boost only with cycle time fleet boosts. You can literally chainsaw destroy mining content. For some that might be a bit much work, but for certain groups its perfectly logical content denial and anom resetting. [Monkey paw indeed.]
Then a few months ago we had the Cow Stream. Moo Fleet. And I got to test some of my concepts. And was able to get to the lowest cycle time on a test ship. It can go lower.
So you can see the implications if you get the ship down to a certain cycle time speed…how it can throw out the cycle time math of residue or even bonus mechanics in this regard. Especially under maximum fleet boosts and other influences.
And this isn’t the worst problem that Catalyst added. They added Stocastic Rounding to the mining lasers. So if you are a player with lower skills, you might not be able to interact or efficiently collect mining resources if they are over a certain size. The worst offender was the T1 and ORE deep core mining lasers without abyssal mutation and attempts to min-max their yields. Would skip…several cycles before they took in a unit of ore. Notes on Mercoxcit Mining and the Catalyst Changes. Mercoxcit is 40m3. And the Catalyst changes quartered the yield of the mining lasers responsible for picking it up…other than the T2 Modulated Deep Core Miners.
This problem didn’t just affect Mercoxcit. But also Crokite, Dark Ochre, and Gneiss. Especially noticeable with lower skilled players. And also knocked out alot of the non-bonused ships from being used as mining ships. Because the new mining adjustments made them less able to pick up resources. And with the Stocastic Rounding Mechanics has penalized alot of newer players from picking up higher grade and more valuable ore. And wasting their time with skipping mining cycle mechanics.
I would also like to bring some review to mining and industrial interaction. And the value of some ores to the industrial process in EVE. Also ways to benefit and give options of upgrading, specialization, and transport in the mining field especially for solo players and smaller corporations. I in particular would like to see the Porpoise to get some compression for Ice as an option for smaller corps trying to take advantage of ice resources in Shattered Wormholes and in Lowsec. I think we also need a bit more variation in mining drones, since the drone line up has gotten a bit of love with hybrid drones for gameplay sake.
-Hauling Foundation-
EVE Onlines most unsung section of the game, is hauling. These are the truckers of EVE Online. And they move the majority of goods and services around EVE for ISK or self. However, I think their content hasn’t been honestly reviewed or updated in very considered thoughts.
The m3 Mountain Is a constantly growing and expanding issue in EVE Online. Now I know most people advocate that destruction knocks alot of this m3 out. But from my perspective even if you tried to wipe out as much as you could this mountain of in game materials keeps expanding. Now PVP activities can take chunks out of it. [Ganking to a degree as well…although that has been curtailed a bit by “Ganking Reforms” in game.] But, the PVP side of this game can not destroy enough of the materials to even make a serious dent. But the more concerning problem is the transport of this “m3 Mountain” can’t be logistically handled effectively or efficiently enough. We are feeling some of the reprecussions of “Freighter Nerfing” due to some easily fixed content. [One reason there is alot of opposition to Freighters being over the 2 million m3 mark, has been the argument for moving Super Caps across highsec. Which to me was kind of bonkers, because Gankers would conga line any detected super capital cargo in a heartbeat. The only sensible argument was the “collectors” in EVE who have rare highsec super capitals. Do not want the value of their ships being diluted by highsec traded repacked supercapitals. However that could be easily fixed via No super capitals can be repackaged as is…and must break apart into freighter load component which would make transporting said ship a huge ganking target and inconvenience. And any assembly of a super capital can only happen in lowsec at minimum. And because repackaging also resets kill marks…very collectible ships will not be repackaged for movement or sale. See you can do reasonable balance adjustments for the betterment of the economy and content of the game.] So we could probably buff haulers via modules or base states to larger m3 cargo amounts. Plus…we would also be freeing up super capitals…which currently are being used as logistical cargo ships instead of in PVP situations.
The Gap- There is a massive m3 cargo hauling “Gap” between DSTs and the lowest cargo rating of Freighters right now. I usually label this as the “150,000m3 Gap.” There isn’t a hull that most people can run, relatively effectively that can haul cargo in this content zone. So there is a major time problem in the game, because of Freighters having to shoulder the largest cargos…and then Jump Freighters mostly being used en mass to connect the rest of the game outside of highsec. (I have suggested in earlier CSM runs to allow the Triglavian Hauling ships to be allowed to do this.)
Same Job Different Scale- Just like there are different sizes of construction and mining vehicles IRL, there should be various different scales of Haulers in EVE Online.
Bigger isn’t always better, but in EVE its pretty much the better option.
One of the more unusual issues that came up recently was the “SOCT nerf” Where the Sunesis destroyer which had been a pretty stable option for starting haulers…was nerfed into oblivion align time wise. But I feel Fenris missed the point. The reason why the Sunesis was being overused, was because there is no equivalent in game approximation of a light hauler for any of the factions. So the Sunesis was basically by default chosen for that role. Ironically its replacement was up and running in fitting concepts within the day, and was actually better than the Sunesis. However, if Fenris was creative in their solution they would have implemented a set of light hauler hulls for each of the factions to incentivize not using the Sunesis. And these hulls could carry 800-1000+ m3baseline. A little smaller than the regular T1 “Light Hauler” which by scale is at battleship scale. But most of those are 3000-10000m3 on the regular. Shows one of the bigger problems ongoing.
And on the subject of this same job different scale. I do not understand for the life of me, why there are not T2 variants of all the specialized T1 Haulers in game. Or having a version of the Bowhead that is specifically upgraded to haul mind numbing amounts of ore. Its a really weird situation when alot of content upgrades could just use a simple T2 variant addition. Or give us more specialized modules to upgrade the existing hulls.
Specialization and Optimization
One on going problem that plagues the Hauling community [And mining community by side upgrade.] Is the fact we can’t optimize specialized holds [Mining/Ice/Gas/Planetary Interaction/ Maintenance/ Fleet/ Fuel/ etc etc etc.] Outside of the limitations of the cargohold rigs and expander [modules] This would be the easiest to impliment. Take the cargohold expander…code it to affect only a specific specialized hold type. Bingo, now you have a Planetary Interaction Cargohold Expander. Allowing the hauling community [and by virtue the mining community] a better way to further specialize and optimize their ships means more niches and possible ways to chip into the m3 Mountain in the game. Also means more targets and fights for your PVP/ganks oriented groups, So Win-Win for all players in EVE.
There are more things that could be done in EVE, but I do believe there is alot of opportunities to do simple adjustments that could have better net benefit effects for the ecosystem. And getting the Hauling community a better handle on the logistics would help the PVP/PVE/Mining/Ganking communities as a whole.
-Exploration Foundation-
This is probably one of the more interesting and probably more complex issue as of currently in game. Explorers go and find sites, locations, wormhole routes, discover hidden ore/gas/combat sites. And recover lost data/relics/and loot for various fields of manufacturing, research, and bounty (loot payout) However, there are a few problem that need to be discussed for the health of the game.
Blitzing and Hyper Optimization- The player base for years in EVE has gone through a variety of changes with exploration mechanics, but the current ones are fairly a known quantity, with some exploration players being able to “Blitz” a region/constellation/site in record times sometimes completely sweeping an area of exploration content before lower skilled players even are able to start scanning the content. They can crack the hardest sites without even breaking a sweat and reap the benefits of large ISK payouts for their activity. And the game hasn’t exactly powerscaled to this kind of hyper optimization. I think a few more difficult sites with harder to scan down materials would be interesting, as well as unique scan down the NPC to find a POI [Point Of Interest] sites would be an interesting change of pace for the exploration gameplay.
Content Exclusion- Not exactly a huge problem, but there is some newer content from the Drifter Crises era, that is floating around this game. The Observatory Infiltration is one such example where T2 Explorers…which are kind of squishy in comparison to their factional and navy exploration counterparts are not allowed to operate in these sites. Although it would be interesting to see how the T2 ships would stack up against these much more difficult sites. Faction Warfare also has a site that requires you to sign in…to even start hacking. So some options in various areas of space are not available for exploration players to attempt. Would like to see some variation and opening up of content to try to see what we can do with it. [Also overlaps with content missmatch…where people have sites with NPCs that will attack you as well…and exclude you by ship hull type.]
Content Mismatch- This is a pretty controversial content item. I have participated both in the Shadow War, and the Campaign Bulwarks. Both sites that if you enter them you become suspect meaning players can jump in and attack you. And this is also after the fact that you have NPCs trying to kill you while you are trying to hack in the site. Most explorers (especially the T2 ones after 2020 when they removed their combat bonuses) are not really cut out for fighting other ships. And some like the Navy Explorers…are not really that good at doing exploration hacking, and are subpar in comparison. Or you have to use really expensive factional hacking modules which kind of undermines their “lowcost” functionality. Personally I am okay with difficult sites with difficult NPCs…but the ships that are supposed to be getting into these sites are not exactly bonused for this on either the PVP/PVE/ or even Hacking. Hence why Asteros are so dominant because they can access so much content…while other ships are subpar [Navy] or not allowed [T2] Wouldn’t mind the T2 exploration ships to return with combat bonuses, it would allow us to erode some of the overusage of Asteros.
Time Wastage - if you are not (or even) hyper optimized for scanning, you end up having to scan alot of signatures many that are not important to your interests as an explorer…until you find that one site you want to, or need to interact with. This could be adjusted by allowing the deployment of specialized content probes. [IE wormhole Probes…for only finding wormholes…ignores all the other signatures.] Now on the flip side…if you are hyper optimized a weirder oddity of the game shows up. If you stay in a system, and your scan power is over a certain level, and a new signature spawns in the system. It will start for your with a much smaller size…and in some cases a hyper specialized ship/character combo can get a “freebie” scan…of under 2 scans at 2 notches in the scan system. But you end up with alot of stuff you don’t want to interact with…or can’t or you realize you are excluded from. So yeah…can be frustrating. And you thought combat scanners and wormholers had it rough!
Content Respawn Concentration- A weird little reality in EVE online is that sites will tend to concentrate in areas, where players will not go. This does tie into time wastage a bit, but its more about the mechanic. There are a few Lowsec and Highsec Islands where for reasons pertaining to how the game choses where something respawns. You will end up with massive pockets of many signatures, and no one running them. Usually because someone is trying to kill everyone just jumping across the gate. But yes it is a bit frustrating when the game seemingly dumps all the signature respawns into that in the middle of nowhere highsec/lowsec island. Same kind of problem does happen elsewhere in game, but its generally not noticed as often…or because of lower activity it spread out more across the more dangerous space. It seems a lot worse during Events…we call it “Event Code” where the rate of spawning of a variety of sites goes up far higher…than during non-event time in the game. So you might see locations with 10-20-30 signatures…but no one going over there to do content. It could be adjusted to spread stuff out…but that would take some time to parse the code base and how it is “RNG” coded.
Solved Content- Alot of the sites have an actual history and even a way to in sequence operate and do the content. So there is actually alot of currently in game content that would be considered hard to a newbro without understanding, but once you have a guide showing you how to do this content, its generally easy to do. Barring your skill levels and equipment. There should be more site variability and complexity with randomization and difficulty spikes. But this would mean either procedural generation of new sites…or dev time creating new sites to put in rotation.
Risk vs. Reward- Some Exploration Content is almost always targeted because its risk vs reward is always positive. Where as more available and net valuable content is ignored because of the lower perceived reward. I think some sites should be updated. And maybe a few more “mixed” content…relic+data…puzzle or even “find the map to unlock a bigger site” would be beneficial. And escalations wouldn’t hurt, but I think having some variety of reward or the possibility of higher rewards via escalation or discovery of something else would be interesting.
What is Exploration Role- This is an interesting problem…mostly brought on by the introduction of the Odysseus. Because this SOE Battlecruiser is a Gas Huffer/ Exploration/ Fleet Booster/ Logi-Mobile Depot/ Hauler (Maintenance Bay) / PVP-PVE capable/ Drone boat/ and also can salvage fairly well? Normally we would classify explorers as ones who scan down signatures and hack cans. But with the Odysseus, you are looking at a swiss army knife of a ship…that seems like it can do alot by itself without a sensible understanding of what it really does. Where as you have the Echelon…so hyper specialized from a different era of Exploration mechanics…it can’t be used without a lot of support. And with current mechanics shifting, exploration might get a bit more complicated to explain its function in game.
Exploration De-Specialization - This is the opposite of what is the Exploration Role consideration. In this situation due to new modules introduced by the Odysseus being added to the game. This was a bit more difficult pre-Odysseus, but now the game allows players to more aggressively turn non-exploration ships into exploration ships. The Explorer Fleet Boosts can be fitted to any command destroyer, or command battlecruiser. So when certain content requires the players to scan down or hack things…especially sites with NPCs in them, now you can do so fairly effectively and efficiently. Before this module addition, it took a very specific module and pod fitting for best results, and was subpar to specialized explorers. But now you can circumvent to an extent a variety of problems of using unbonused ships. Basically an unintended consequence. Especially if an explorer thinking they are safe get jumped by a ship they didn’t expect to be able to get into their site.
Hacking Mechanics- An interesting problem that has come to light…due to again…the Odysseus being added. Currently in EVE the hacking system is a “first to the can” situation. Whoever gets within range of the can…5000-6000m and activates hacking module gets the can. And the other explorer is out of luck…or better have guns/drones…or can bump you off the can. However, the Odysseus can reach beyond 30kms and hack a can remotely, once the can is hacked…its locked…no one can steal the contents and the Odysseus just putters on up to collect the loot. I have personally frustrated players in game with rapidly long range locking a site down via the mechanics of the Odysseus, and was also surprised by the fact once I have hacked it…the loot is only able to be picked up by me. Also activating a hacking module also locks the other person from hack interacting with the content in question. (Some interesting fitting concepts aside…mostly its 1 to 1 interaction wise…but the range is enough to make any closer range exploration ship very annoyed especially during events.)
Content Repetition- most sites are repeating design on the regular. Some variety of set up and positioning of such content would be interesting…for non-wormhole space locations. [Wormhole space has alot of variety of site types.) Just a way to spice things up…and make it less boring, but it would mean some dev time or procedural generation systems would have to be worked out. Doable.
Cherrypicking- the most frustrating annoying problem in game for explorers. Someone goes through a site…cleans it out of anything of worth…and leaves that one single can with some worthless bit of garbage…usually carbon of all things. Sites need despawn timers after you leave grid after hacking one can. Alot of exploration players get very upset when they have been going around areas trying to find content, then when their hope are up…they warp into a cherrypicked site.
Cargo to Loot/Deployable Interaction- This is a more player to player consistency issue. Most players generally will try to pack their ship full of loot and then head to safe space to cash out. While some more long term exploration players understand time and how much space they can use before having to return. This was more important in the older eras where some loot was very m3 heavy, and require some organization to maximize loot profit…including jettisoning low value loot. Then when the loot m3 was “shunk” alot of players ended up with “loot shock” meaning they would fill their ships up…and actually lose it by PVP activity targeting them. But the other problem is the problem of leaving space for your probes to be retrieved. OR, if you have a mobile depot being able to swap modules around while in space to better interact with certain content. Did you know a cov op cloak is 100m3 unpacked and repacked? So that kind of discourages trying to swap your exploration ship to a more efficient content fitting. And that also means less space for loot as well. Considering the mobile Depot and whatever your swapping out, its sizes.
Exploration Support Items- This has expanded in a few unique ways. We now have the Wedge implant set that increases the hacking potential of an Explorer, while the Virtue increases the scanning potential. We have the Bluefire Implant that boosts total hacking amount, while the Blackglass does the overall strength of hacking attacks. We have a few hardskills that help hacking and exploration work…helping enhance activities with even smaller low cost pods. We have boosters both event, limited time, and redeems [Halcyon] that affect wider and more valuable capabilities of the pilot in. We now have exploration fleet boosts that increase our ships scanning power, hacking efficiency, and even increase range of hacking modules and dscan sensing. [harder to sneak up] We also have storms and effects that increase exploration power even more. And the Odysseus…has a prototype system bonus system, that gives even more bonuses to the ship hull and gives it unique edges to exploration and content. I would like to see the Odysseus system bonus system…“exported” to the other SOE hulls to give them some unique options. [maybe even the SOCT hulls.] But also would like to see some more unique exploration based implants that affect other factors like hacking range etc…or more exploration themed rigs. The only little frustration is the lack of a consistent booster for exploration available in game. We have alot of offensive/defensive boosters…but not really much outside of event/redeemable boosters for use.
Exploration Overlap- A little problem that might need some looking into. But since EVE Online has the Odysseus now in game. It might be harder to ask for variance in ranges/power etc of exploration modules. Since the Odysseus would be side buffed by any changes attempted to help the normal exploration ships. And granted the Echelon was originally the only unique long range hacking ship…although fairly ineffective because of its inability to scan down sites, and its limitation to data site only interaction, and literally no fitting options.
I think first getting the Foundations of EVE in the Mining, Hauling, and Exploration. Will then allow people to expand outward to the variety of niches of content that they want to participate in.
And I think having a player with a varied perspective on the variety of content in this game is preferred, than hyper specialization, or even in game political alignment. And having that capacity to look at the details of the information and data, and see both niches and potential problems and to communicate where these issues potentially are going to go awry. And communicating ideas, and concerns of the wider playerbase. But also understanding the game needs a better long term perspective of both Monkeypaw and unintended consequences. And be willing to learn and even suggest creative ideas, as part of the process.
And also developing a communication system for players to bring more long form concept into the discussion, as well as the short form.
CSM Feedback Concerns and Dev Production Loops.
Considering the circumstantial information that Fenris has a potential 3 year dev cycle for some content, alot of the major concerns of the CSM having little effect on the games future is within reason. And considering that most players who have been in the CSM have intimated that there is a little problem of delay of content, *especially deployment of pretty important updates within the lame duck time frame* of the CSM. Where incoming CSM tends to catch flak for new content…that the previous CSM couldn’t interact or do feedback before deployment and the run down on their CSM terms. This coincides with the start of the business year, which could be within reason to consider when content comes into the game.
There is a circumstantial consideration to the dev cycle influence issue, because of the mining changes from 2021/2022 through 2025. With Catalyst “mining update” falling within that suspected 3 year time frame.
Personally, I would like to have a more open discussion and feedback for concept etc. I understand that due to NDA considerations, future “prototype concepts” would be things that couldn’t be discussed openly without Fenris Permission or NDA expiration, but I think the broader playerbase does need a forum to discuss wider effects of gameplay changes. And to put more detailed feedback. There is a bit of disenfranchisement building because the current environment feels like more social media integrated materials [Reddit and Discord, etc] are getting priority and the bullhorn over the official forums.
One of the major ongoing examples of feedback, is on the new UI HUD system is very detailed in the forums and people are giving really detailed and specific points. However, the dev blogs seems to be focusing on feedback from other more social media based systems.
I would like to be more open to seeing how the CSM could potentially give a more middle of the road consideration as the information gathering body. I do understand that various CSM have created ways for people give feedback via various special interest/ roundtable groups. However, in some situations there is a silo/compartmentalization situation + some of these groups usually have the same people in them over and over again. So some people feel like certain ideas/information can not get to the attention of Fenris via the CSM. (Or are drowned out)
