I don’t know that we do need them, but if we have them they should be better, that’s why I want to have a small change, that would be easy to code, to try to make them more interesting. Like you said they aren’t interesting to the miners, because they can make more ISK acutually mining. But if you don’t have to be a trained miner to run them, then it would open them up to other people. Maybe some mission runners would try them just for a change, or for the LP stores.
It’s just about more choices, more options, and as long as they are here, let’s make them the best they can be.
@Mothre your first point of argument is invalid, there is a fairly large population of pilots who run mining missions.
With some of the Corporations you can be making up in the 3000 ISK/LP range which can convert into over 40M/hour in highsec. In NPC nullsec, working for a Pirate Faction you can get that up to 80M/hour, so solid return on time investment - especially considering it’s pretty afk ‘work’… you can be running the Mining Missions on an Alt while out on a roam with your main, it’s super easy stuff.
Okay, so still no room for improvement or letting non-miners in the game?
Given the information from your thread, I should add some details about the fittings. Ice and gas versions should be available (including ventures) but still limited to only mission ice and gas, and rental ships are bring your own drones.
Can alphas mine gas and ice? By throwing these kinds of missions into the pool aren’t you potentially locking them out or forcing them to skip missions?
I’m a fan of all of EVEs content possibilities, both PvP and PvE. CCP has been introducing new PvE content fairly regularly lately with both Alphas and Omegas in mind. They have done multiple themed events, the FOBs, and even some PvE mining content with the Resource Wars Mining Expeditions.
With that said I honestly don’t see how your mining mission rental ship suggestion will solve the problem of Alpha’s complaining about not being able to fly barges. I seriously doubt they would be happy with a rental ship specifically designed to run mining missions, they want to fly barges because they want to mine real ore and ice not because they want to run nerfed mining missions.
Your rental barge idea also seems overly convoluted. I’d think that to implement something like what you have suggested would take a large amount of dev time with the new ships, the rental program itself, collateral stuff, etc… that’s dev time they could spend on more themed events, more things like Resource Wars and maybe even revamping of the current PvE mission content.
I could go either way on this one. Alphas can’t do ice (they can gas huff), so they have to skip those missions when offered, pay if you want ice. Or, these ships don’t have any requirements so an alpha flying one could do ice missions, but the “mission strip-miner/gas-harvester/ice-laser(?)” would only work on the mission ores/gas/ice so it wouldn’t really be doing ice and wouldn’t effect the market.
Right, the thing about barges for alphas was a snide aside to call the bluff and show the ones saying they just like mining but it isn’t about free ore to be liars.
No new ships, there would be a few new modules “mission only” versions of mining lasers, strip-miners, etc… And there would need to be a fitting locked flag that could be applied to a ship. Collateral already exists in missions, so this isn’t anything really new. Basicly the agents would have a new “mission” option, like research agents that have more than one way to interact with them, where if you have a mission from them you can choose “rent ship” and then have a choice of three ships to rent. If you have a “rent ship” mission, then talking to them would give you “return ship” which is really complete mission (returns collateral) or “report loss” which is really abandon mission (lose collateral) the rental mission could be set with an “expires” timer, just like a normal mission.
If you think different content development is better, that’s cool.
I feel like some of the ideas I’m thinking about here could also open up some other ideas, I just haven’t thought them up yet.
And please don’t and stop. Alphas get too much already. They get pirate ships and cheat-stix.
Alphas should only get a read only access to the forums, so they spare us with “give mah even more for free” requests.
What’s wrong with mining missions? I do them all the time. I know there’s not very much ISK in it, but that’s not why I do it. I run mining missions to get my foot in the door with various corporations so I can use their R&D agents without having to ruin my standings with other races by doing combat missions.
Well, you could do distribution missions with a smaller investment and it’s a less intensive activity.
And security missions can hurt your standing with pirates and (more rarely) empire factions. But not with their corps (and it’s corps that are most important). And it’s pretty hard to ruin your standings to actually get shot (which pirates npc’s will do anyway no matter your standings with them).
Right, and that’s the point. This would allow everyone to do that without training as a miner. My idea is that if you want to mine as a profession, you need to train as a miner. But if you want to run missions, then there should be a way to run all the missions without having to really train deep into all the professions.
Yes, you can do distro missions. That’s kind of the point. Now if you aren’t a professional miner want a non-combat mission you can only do distro missions, with this change you could then do distro or mining missions.
I’m not sure how it would be locked to omega only, as in game the only distinction between alpha and omega is trainable skills. There aren’t any omega only items or things, there are only items or things that require skills that alphas can’t train. Missions, and therefore mission rental ships, require standings, not skills.
The only way this would effect alphas compared to omegas is a a trial, which should make them more likely to want to upgrade. Unless you are saying that barges suck so bad that no one would want to fly one after they actually fly one. For alphas it’s like a trial or test drive that can’t trash the economy, which is the main concern about giving alphas more. As a trial, it should increase alphas subscribing, unless the product, barges, is a bad product and people will only buy it if they are tricked.
but alphas can do lvl 4 combat missions and hauling, but would take forever doing a lvl 4 mining mission if that’s what they really want. mining missions don’t ad to the market like normal mining as your going in and mining a useless ore that cant refine to anything.
Thanks. I updated the OP with your points here and some of the other things that have come in the discussion so it’s easier for people who are new to the thread to get the ideas without reading everything.
I really like the things you’ve been doing regarding new PvE content, and your points in the “dedicated balance team” thread. When those guys give you a break from them giving you crap, would you mind looking at this idea that I think could open up some new PvE opportunities?
Im not sure if you are aware of this but level 4 mining missions can be about twice as profitable then mining hi sec ores atm (after LP), depending on faction of course.