Okay since I kept seeing rocks move from after a rock breaks I tried to tractor in a rock but it was not possible. Then I thought why the hell are we not allowed to pull in a rock closer. When we see them drifting away.
I suggest a basic Infero style module that comes from data sites. It has a range of 30km. Limited to tech 2 mining barges, porpoise and Orca. Limit one per ship. It would lower ship speed to 0 similar to a cyno until its finished its cycle. So it would pin the ship until the 2 min cycle is complete. Tractor speed would be slow around 20m/s but affected by tractor beam bonuses.
This would allow groups willing to somewhat risk ships to move rocks closer together to have a person herd rocks but be vulnerable for 2 min at a time and obviously it would make the group easier to predict as well as it herds mining ships together as well.
With it being so slow it would take ages to move an entire belt closer to a structure for tether range the usual 120km. But it would allow for a group to pull rocks into a ball inside a belt or even asteroid belt with the risks of being pinned.
This idea has come up every now and again. In the past the problem with it has been that all asteroids are actualy stationary collidable objects. Now with the new moon mining that is not the case in those belts.
The current bigest problem for your idea comes with rorquals, I dont think you have ever seen one, othervise you wouldent be suggesting this. If players were able to move the asteroids next to a sieged rorqual it would greatly increase its m3/h mined and that ship needs a nerf, not a buff.
Ofcourse you could just make this a highsec only module, but thats a bit silly as there currently are none. Thats by desing, so that players have an incentive to leave highsec, in order to enjoy all the ships and modules that the game has to offer.
It is why I intended a limit of ships that could use it and a limit of modules per ship. So it would require a orca porpoise or tech 2 barge near the rorqual to pull it in on barges the barge would loose a mining module and with a limit of 1 per ship I doubt it’s worth it for a rorqual pilot to put 4 skiff chars to pull rocks closer at such a slow speed he would probably crack rocks faster than they can get pulled. The design is more intended for porpoise or rorqual as they can pull single rocks closer they do have bonuses to speed but even then you are using it more to pull select rocks closer for barges a tiny bit.
Whilst it’d be fun to troll miners by pulling their rocks away we probably shouldn’t do this.
It makes the refinery rig for lowering the rock spread pointless and like the rorqual changes, it cannot be easily undone and anything that increases yield should be very carefully considered.
Well that would be option 2 for funny battle porpoise messing with miners.
I understand but it would be a selective sure in big style it could cause problems for the rig but doing it in big style makes a big risk for a group of people being stuck for multiple minutes pulling rock back together. 2 Min is a good amount of time where your at risk for someone, dropping in and tackling.
Munching one moongoo asteroid takes a rorqual 15-40 mins, depending on its size and distance from the rorq. If I could have an 1mil sp alt in a cheap ship pulling rocks to my rorq every 10-15mins I would practicaly double my isk/h rate with it, without commiting a second rorq on the field.
Well as far as I note skiff mackinaw hulk porpoise and Orca all need more than 1 mil Sp and all require omega. Only one that is cheap of that bunch is porpoise. Sure all cheap compared to another rorqual.
For a rorqual miner anything below 1bil is cheap, the porpoise with its under 100mil price tag is praticaly free.
Only way to make your tractor beam module balanced, would be to give it around 5-10mil focused SP requirement and around 4 bil price tag. Then it would still be cheaper than an rorqual and would potentialy increase your income with one rorquals worth, if you actively pulled rocks instead of afk:ing. It would also make you commit isk to the field in roughly same proportion keeping the risk/reward balance.