It is now a little over 6 hours since reset and the NPC miners have killed 35% of the belts in the system I mine. I run them off and they come back in 10-15 minutes.
How do you deal with NPC miners?
Will CCP dial them back or nerf them?
Why do the belt rats not attack the NPC miner fleets? If NPC miners can take the ore, the belt rats should be able to attack then since they are different factions.
As a solo miner they are killing my mining and indy game.
A tip I received is to align to a station, shoot one of the miners, warp out, return after 3 minutes or so, the miners should have all fled elsewhere.
Or, if you got good combat abilities, attempt to one shot the hauler and warp off before the response fleet shows up, killing haulers kills their only way of emptying the miners cargo so if they fill up theyâre down till Maintenance hour.
The issue is once I run them off, they are back in 10-15 minutes and they are killing the belts 10-12 hours after reset. If I log in late night Eve time the belts are already gone 80% of the time.
What exactly is the point of NPC miners anyway?
As a simulated entity, the ore really goes nowhere. They donât have to worry about ISK, pay attention to local or dscan, they do (like a few of us) not have a real life and just play EVE 24/7 without sleeping, ever, and seem to have lots of âfriendsâ by default for some reason.
Whatâs next? NPC roaming lowsec doing PvP for us, ganking in hisec, doing market PvP in Jita and other tradehubs, running missions, maybe create their own alliance and claim sov in nullse⌠OMG SKYNET!?
I saw the EVE Vegas presentations, and when it came to advancements in AI for EVE, they were really proud of it, also mentioning that they got NPC to mine. This is why I think it was some idea, that wasnât really thought through in terms of game balancing, but rather a motivation to do something cool.
But it isnât cool. In a game world that is mostly put in the hands of the players, the NPC miners make a new, and quite disproportionate impact on the game world.
Worse yet, they do it in a âcheatingâ sense of way, I think. Retrievers âunloadingâ directly into an Iteron V? Oh right, theyâre NPC and do it in the code instead of actually having to use proper ways, like players need to. That makes it even more â â â â â â â â .
And since I now see that itâs been brought up months ago, and nothing seems to have changed, the message seems clear on that front.
âWe did this. But itâs not our problem.â
They were introduced as a new, more challenging form of AI (mainly the response fleet) As always itâs only a point of view - I find it cool so I kill them on a daily basis. Youâre most likely experiencing the not so cool side of it.
Moving next door would probably solve your problem. Or killing the whole fleet if Youâre in for a challenge. You may be in for a nice suprise in terms of ore dropped âŚ
Theyâre actually mining in the whole constellation, itâs a small pocket with stations of two NPC mining corps. Iâve also found that target lock breaks as soon as they initiate warp, so you canât hold them while theyâre aligning. Now thatâs a bunch of BS too. So much for killing their haulers 
Never seen that behaviour myself. Killed lots of Amarrian haulers and miners over the last couple of months, get the scram on first and you are golden. CODE type catalyst kills all t1 haulers and miners before the response fleet arrives.
With enough dps you can blap the hauler before it alligns. If you donât have enough dps you can hold it in place with web and point, just stay alligned and GTFO when response fleet lands.
If hauler initiates warp before you lock it you wonât catch it at the belt. You can agro a miner at that point and the hauler is likely to join miners at the safe spot (50% chance Iâd say) There youâll have to deal with the response fleet but you can deal with miners also. You either need to tank the fleet or kill it to the point you can tank it and deal with miners.
Some systems as Gyng in heimatar space are diriculous, dozens of npc, no rocks at all (its a one belt system)
Interesting development.
We hear NPCs are also attacking structures. Could this all mean the environment is about to become more competitive? Will this create shortages need to keep prices higher on items on the market?
Well, people replied âgrab the ore from the haulersâ. When you wait until the hauler approached all the miners, or enough miners until it decides itâs time to warp out, youâll never catch it.
One may wonder if EVE is so void of players, that we need NPC to mimic them as far as interaction with the game world goes. Since on the one hand, for some inconceivable reason theyâre simulating players, on the other theyâre not bound to the same rules and mechanics. That really is whatâs so upsetting to me. They donât get tired either or need to take breaks.
Given the crude state of the artificial âintelligenceâ, I fail to see any deeper meaning in it. I fail to see an incentive to âhuntâ the endless stream of fleets that come out of some Unicornâs magic butthole either, that may or may not drop a some amount of ore. NPC with that unnatural persistence canât really be terrorised to be point of being driven away.
As far as Iâm concerned, that little experiment should be removed, and I assume it was infant steps for their FOB stuff.
Curious if anybody has had similar issue:
I multi-box with multiple accts while utilizing a program that manages them. With that said, one of my accounts was sitting in the background awaiting orders, and all of a sudden i hear a weapons timer go off. I jump to account and find that Astral Mining Corp (outside of NPC station) has surrounded the toon, and attacking. This NPC miner stuff is still rather new to me, but these ⌠are rather tough. I was in armor when realized and began counter measures. I was able to avoid the entire conflict by just docking and waving them, âbyeâ. Though, something very interesting is happening. These lil ⌠are not leaving this particular toon alone. If I warp near anybody in that corp, they will call in fleet to engage me. Iâm not too sure what I did to piss them off so bad, considering I was in a Skiff fitted for Anti-gank, and no possible way of destroying them in first place. My notification pops up if I accidentally target someone I shouldnât soâŚ, then there is the issue of having to target the person/npc miner/hauler to begin with. âŚthen activate the weapon, then as i said the notification of firing in HS. With all these paremeters to think about, while sitting in background, this toon somehow pissed this corp off. What I would like to know is how to get them to leave me alone. Iâm open to all suggestions, except those motivated by insecure/immature people - and i do a good job of bringing it out in the open : )
Iâm having a problem where they just engage me without provocation. They come into my belt and attack me for being there. Iâve gotten 2 kill mails now because of it and have +2 standings and CCP has no idea why it continues to happen.
I have the same problem. CCP has had no answer for me. It just started happening after the 1.3 January patch this week. I went back and sniped out the response fleet and havenât seen them back in the system now 2 days.
But you obviously provoked them by mining the more precious ores.
Thank you Karl Poljus. I will try that and see how that goes. I just so happen to be looking for a corp/alliance (situation-dependent) and glad to see Iâm on right path.
Thanks for your input
Hi Steve S
You know; I truly believe those ⌠were the aggressors too. âŚHow cool is that!? Unfortunately, I canât prove it because the combat log looks clear, but i remember it stating something along the lines of me undocking, and never attacking. But, it did display that they attacked me. Either way, I was in a Skiff, but if i was in a Venture or something weak, smhâŚ
Sniping them seems to be the smartest move from what ive been reading. Though, iâve read you want to keep one or two left so the fleet doesnât auto re-spawn on you making it redundant.
Thanks for your reply
Thereâs a few systems where I go with my mining & hauling alt for mining, and thereâs nobody in the belts. An exemple near Jita : Faurent. Itâs a 0.5, but the belts are always full and Iâve never seen a NPC Mining Frigate/Barge here.
How do we deal with the response fleet too ? Like, do you need a cruiser with a strong tank or something bigger with an hell of DPS to quickly kill the haulers or the valuable targets ? (I heard that the Exhumers in NPC fleets have decent loots or salvage).
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