I originally posted this as part of a reply on a thread regarding adding music to mining missions Add Music to Mining Missions but after the discussion progressed and derailed the original topic, I decided to just make a new post about it.
Deadspace Mining Escalations:
Turning in a mining mission has a 10% chance (or possibly guaranteed every 10 missions) to trigger a Deadspace Mining Escalation event that appears in your agency tab. Deadspace Mining Escalations would work similarly to standard escalations, except the acceleration gate would only allow industrial and mining ships inside (so all mining frigates/barges/exhumers/porp/orca/rorq/haulers/freighters) and would contain clusters of ore of varying amounts and rarities.
level 1 missions would escalate to a pocket that contains about 25% of an asteroid belt worth of standard asteroids for that security space, plus around 1% of the amount of ore found in that security space’s “Rare Border Ore” spawns.
level 2 missions would escalate to a pocket that contains about 50% of an asteroid belt worth of standard asteroids for that security space, plus around 5% of the amount of ore found in that security space’s “Rare Border Ore” spawns. Can very rarely contain ice or gas deposits.
level 3 missions would escalate to a pocket that contains about 100% of an asteroid belt worth of standard asteroids and anomaly asteroids (if any) for that security space, plus around 10% of the amount of ore found in that security space’s “Rare Border Ore” spawns. Can rarely contain ice or gas deposits.
level 4 missions would escalate to a pocket that contains about 200% of an asteroid belt worth of standard asteroids and anomaly asteroids (if any) for that security space, plus around 25% of the amount of ore found in that security space’s “Rare Border Ore” spawns. Often contains ice or gas deposits.
belt pirates would not spawn in Deadspace Mining Escalations, nor would diamond mining fleets appear
NEW level 5 mining missions (low/null sec only) would involve heavy combat elements while mining, and could potentially escalate to level 5 Deadspace Quarries. Deadspace Quarries are not protected by an acceleration gate (or the gate has no ship restrictions) and belt pirates can spawn as normal, as well as some additional pirate spawn events depending on the escalation site. In return, Deadspace Quarries contain a “derelict compression station” that can be used to compress without an industrial command ship if you approach it and open the interface (similar to winter nexus orca box interface) and around 1,000% of an asteroid belt worth of standard asteroids and anomaly asteroids, plus around 100% of the amount of ore found in that security space’s “Rare Border Ore” spawns, and random clusters of veldsar/spodumain. Almost always contains ice and gas deposits.
The idea here is to provide a type of reward that will incentivize people to run mining missions, since the current rewards for it are not worth the time/risk invested and don’t yield any conventional minerals for use in industry. (which when you think about it, doesn’t make a lot of sense for a mining mission runner) Furthermore, the reward isn’t a lump-sum of minerals directly given to the player, but rather a set of coordinates to a deadspace pocket where they can engage in MORE mining for actual useful materials, in better quantities and rarities than they would normally find if utilizing publicly available belts and anomalies.
Some may be concerned about the “risk vs reward” of this type of site, with it being a deadspace pocket that combat ships cannot easily enter. However, we must keep in mind that the miner had to risk themselves during the preceding mining missions in order to receive this semi-safe reward site. Furthermore, the miner could easily be ambushed on the way out with a full load of valuable materials, which would be far more lucrative to the potential pirates than ambushing them within the mining site with a nearly empty hold. If a pirate is feeling daring, they could PvP fit a mining/expedition frigate or barge (I personally suggest drone damage stacked orca for 1,100+ dps!) and try their luck at entering the site to fight the miner(s). Finally, industrial ships with maintenance bays (orca/rorq) could still transport combat ships into a deadspace mining pocket through the acceleration gate, and their fleet members could then swap their ventures (or whatever they came through the gate with) for the combat ships to begin fighting within the site, while the level 5 deadspace quarries would have no ship restrictions on the acceleration gate to begin with.
Successfully infiltrating an ongoing lvl 1-4 deadspace mining site with an industrial command ship full of combat ships and killing/driving off the previous miners would leave the remainder of the site for the taking by the pirates, who could jump back into their mining ships and utilize the industrial command ship that they brought in to organize a quick cleanup mining operation to steal the remaining high-value materials.
Granted, the chances of a solo PvP player being able to easily scan down and gank a deadspace mining site is extremely low (needing to scan it down first, bookmark it, then fly home and return in a PvP industrial ship), but that’s completely intended. For a high value reward site like this, a certain amount of coordination and/or cooperation among potential pirates should be needed.
Why would you do them over security or distribution missions, though? The time investment is far worse and none of them have any “risk” in high sec, while the mining missions are arguably higher risk if ran in low/null because you’re an easier target. Besides that, the rewards and loot/salvage for security/distribution are better than mining missions.
Good for them I guess, but for every player that runs 1 account and wants the missions to be meaningful and relate to the type of gameplay they’re labeled to involve, it makes little sense. Security missions have you kill enemies that drop real loot and salvage, and are by far the most profitable. Distribution missions are relatively quick for how much they give and still yield some loot/salvage from time to time, making them mediocre to OK for income. Meanwhile, the rewards for mining missions compared to the time to complete the mission is abysmal.
You’re basically saying that mining missions should stay dead content, which isn’t helpful or constructive at all.
They just can’t use the gate. It worked great during winter nexus, and this one is more forgiving since you could smuggle combat ships in via maintenance bays, so yes they can “enter.” It won’t be the end of the world if there’s suddenly one variety of content where you can’t solo ambush anybody you want in a cloaked loki.
Since people wouldn’t constantly be in such pockets, but would have to “earn” them after going to a number of open deadspace mining mission sites before receiving one, they’d be spending more time vulnerable than “safe.”
It only applies to miners who ran mining missions beforehand, and it doesn’t even fully protect them. You need to think about how to keep the mining players engaged and immersed with the game instead of only thinking about how to increase PvP encounters. If you’re that desperate for a fight then just go fly around in militia systems.
(This would also bring some miners into lower sec space that would otherwise never leave high sec because they feel like they have a better chance of surviving in such a pocket. But you’d still have the chance to intercept them.)
The entire immersion into the game comes from the elevated potential of PVP encounters: Expecting them, coming up with strategies to counter them, evade them, come out on top if the PVPers underestimate you, learning from mistakes or successes. Special rules to limit or massive reduce PVP potential reduces the immersion considerably.
And they would only survive if they are under special protection. This is not what low sec is about (it’s already bad enough in Poochven). It would also give them a wrong impression and expectations of the area and the activities. People who get accustomed to these special rule areas only want more of those because “then they would leave secure space” and “could survive and fight back against the evil PVPers”. None of that is true.
Special rules for missions and any PVE content to unduly limit the PVP potential for the sake of “safe-guarding the poor miners” is not going to improve anything. All your reasons “for” the special treatments are in fact reasons against them.
If you play this game purely for the PvP I can see how you may think that way. I know a lot of players who play this game with the intention to never engage in PvP at all. That doesn’t mean you should punish them by breaking the content that exists for their preferred style of gameplay, though. Mining missions should be fun and REWARDING for them, even if they intend to avoid PvP forever. They are currently not.
Also, there’s nothing wrong with special rules for deadspace pockets. Acceleration gates are literally designed with special rules for entry in mind. PvE elements can exist in PvP space, since traveling to and from the destination offers no special protections.
Mining missions are currently extremely rewarding. That is why regions like Curse, Outer Ring are among the top gas mining regions in the cluster. Mining missions are safe, quick, require no big ship value investment, are easy to run and you can use highly efficient ships for them.
These special rules for most acceleration gates do not hinder PVP ships from entering. The special rules you have in mind and that this event purported are not beneficial to the game. That’s amply evident by the number of bots and mining ships loitering in low sec during the event that were left untouched always.
I think its a great idea but they should be much rarer. also lower amounts of ore spawns, allow NPC in all levels, allow fighting frigates through accel gates and increase the ship type allowed per level (eg level 1 only frigs, L2 frigs and Destroyers etc.) and let NPC drop modules for industry like mining modules or upgrades exclusive to the site (make it rare) and maybe Faction BPC or normal BPC, have mining/hauling NPC spawn which can drop reprocessed materials or ores. also have mining ships which vary from level (ventures on L1, prospect on L2, barges on L3 with a chance of a porpoise etc) the amount and difficulty of protecting rats increase per level and if not killed industrial rats will warp away within a certain amount of time leaving only fighting rats behind. ofc with these additions it would make it a very very rare thing for these sites to spawn. rarer than escalations from anom ratting.