We have all encountered it… A fleet of afk Orca miners. Yes they are inefficient at mining, but a fleet of afk orcas will strip an ice belt rather fast.
Two proposals:
or
Thoughts?
adding role bonuses dependent of being in fleet for this one ships doesn’t seem like a good course of action
we have seen this happen as well and we told ccp this would happen if they made orcas actually able to mine. really though with 4-5 people its not hard to blow up one of those afk orcas with less cost than the orca. do it enough and they will leave. you can also bumb the orcas further and further away from the ice.
solve the problem yourself before turning to CCP
I’m not following your suggestion- Foreman boosts do not affect drones.
Are you talking about the ship bonuses being dependent on somebody else being in a fleet?
As somebody who mines ore solo in an Orca (yes, behind my keyboard the whole time 
), I appreciate the flexibility to do this with that ship when I am not in a fleet with others.
I do agree that the AFK Orca fleets are a bit of a problem, but I’m not sure that this is the best or cleanest way to deal with it. I’m just thinking about the nightmare of managing the implementation of this.
Sounds like you did turn to CCP lolz…
I know i can bump them, I know i can kill them. When said fleets have unlimited isk due to the ability to afk mine for hours to replace and grief other locals whom may retaliate it is acceptable to turn to CCP.
Make the ship drone bonus only active while boosting other miners… Its a fleet support ship not a solo mining ship.
they don’t have unlimited isk if you are bumping the orcas away and if they are AFK they won’t know who did it.
besides that all your idea does is have them create one extra account and sit it in belt
Mine certainly is, and it’s very viable. I think what you are really trying to address is AFK mining (which I do not do). One of the issues with what you are proposing is that if all of those Orcas are in a fleet, then they get around the mechanic you are proposing, unless you have a very specific category of ship in mind.
Devil’s advocate- what I would do to get around this is fit a venture with a cloak, fleet all of my Orcas and the one Venture, cloak it up, and I’m done.
I agree with your goal and concern, just not the mechanic you’re proposing.
At least that one extra account is more prone to be ganked. And yes a fleet of 9 orcas has the isk to do whatever it wishes compared to us normal players.
i dont see what is so hard about this. If you read my post your devils advocate does not apply. Unless there is a mining barge or exhumer in belt, in fleet and not cloaked the ship drones bonuses are not active.
The programming is a nightmare because you are changing the ship characteristics on the fly. That changes the data model for how ship attributes work and is not something that currently exists in the game. It’s hard from a programatic perspective, disrupts legitimate gameplay, and is easily bypassed as mentioned (use an uber-tanked, uncloaked Procurer instead). Lots of pain for no real gain.
Again, I understand your concern, but this is not something that I think is a viable approach to addressing the problem.
What would be a viable approach? Nothing, as you are flying the bot miner as we speak lol?
I am hardly a bot miner. As I have said a couple of times, I am always at the keyboard when I fly my Orca.
And there is no need to be hostile as I have said I agree with your concern, just not your approach.
What I think should be considered is 3 aspects pf the fleets you describe:
What you are proposing only deals with yield. The people are AFK, so what’s a few more hours mining? Multiboxing for fleets is allowed by the game mechanics and EULA. So, that leaves keeping people at the keyboard or making it more challenging to multi box large fleets from my perspective.
I think what would be interesting would be to increase the level of interactivity required to mine, particularly ice with long cycle times. Something that doesn’t turn it into a massive click fest, but something that requires attention and adjustment over time. Perhaps retargeting, or a new mechanic that requires some kind of analysis of the rocks that are being mined.
Pulling in 3Bil/day AFK is simply wrong and that is in high sec… oh yea AFK rorqs you say?
I’m not quite following your comment, but yes, I agree that the AFK thing is one of the main issues here, not yield.
As an example, one of the systems I visit used to have a large fleet of a couple of Orcas and lots of Skiffs. That has now changed to a massive fleet of Orcas. This is much less lucrative, as it has a lower yield over time…but it’s easier to manage for the FC. That says that a decision was made to go for something easier and accepting the tradeoff of less ice. In other words, in that situation, ease was more important that yield.
Ironically, this was actually “better” for the other miners since they could grab more ice from under this fleet since the cycle times were slower.
My only point is, this isn’t a single-dimensional problem and addressing one symptom likely won’t have the hoped-for outcome.
Also, I think it’s important to note that the dynamics of ice and ore are certainly different due to how harvesting works. I solo ore in the Orca, but never ice.
It mines too much and/or spreads miners too well.
See lots of afk orcas in fracked belts. Spreading miners across several rocks. You can go afk for a bloody long time before those drones chew through rocks alone.
no more than a corp with 9 miners
9 normal player, playing 2-4 hours a day vs afk orcs fleet mining 18 hours a day… no its not the same lol
sounds like he is just more dedicated
ok troll
yes i disagree with you on a change that would be negligible to the problem you are targeting but effect many players that are not multi boxing that must mean i’m a troll