Random ice spawns

[Scendon]

I understand the purpose behind randomizing the spawn times of ice, but question the implementation of this. It is currently, 1:00 PM local time and no ice has spawned in the current system I mine ice in, 8 hours after up time. If this is going to be the future of ice spawns maybe place a probability modifier on the chance of a spawn in specific systems.

If I could make a suggestion, systems where no ice belt spawned at up-time will automatically get a probability modifier added to increase the likelihood of ice spawning in that system at the next spawn. This can also be expanded to include systems where no ice belt has spawned/existed for a set period of time, say 4 hours. This modifier can then be increased incrementally every 1 or 2 hours that ice fails to spawn. Increasing this modifier also helps spread out the ice fairly throughout the spawning systems. Once ice spawns in the system the modifier is reset

Currently I am seeing systems with multiple belts while I wait for the first ice belt to spawn in my home mining system. Not a complaint, as again, I understand the purpose behind the changes just a suggestion to help level the playing field. As it currently stands, I can see a possibility of certain systems going days without a single ice spawn while other systems have multiple per day.

[Mkikaden_Tiragen]

Ice anoms are now on spawn mechanic that is far more similar to that of other anomalies - that is, ice anoms are not on individual timers that always respawn at a set event or interval, rather, when one anom is exhausted then another anom will spawn somewhere. This change was made as part of the Ore Redistribution patch (removing the ‘every 4 hour’ respawn timer so not all ice belts are ticking toward active at the same time), and refined a bit in the most recent patch.

From the patch notes for patch 18.12:

• Updated rules governing the distribution of ice anomalies. After an ice anomaly is cleared it will now be reseeded randomly in any of the systems where ice is known to spawn. More than one ice anomaly may exist in the same system.

Reviewing dev blogs and patch notes only gives so much data - anything else requires extensive observation of belts over time. For example, it is not entirely clear of they are looking at all ice anom eligible systems as a single set when reseeding, or if it is broken into several regions and thus you can attempt to cluster several anoms in a small area through targeted mining efforts. Either way, timers are no longer part of the mechanic at all - ice anoms are now capped to a maximum number that can exist at once, and as soon as one is emptied a new one will spawn somewhere.

This not only reduces total available ice by a significant margin but also drives conflict over the sites and forces players to be more mobile to continue ice mining operations, as they cannot rely on a given system receiving an anom on a steady schedule.

[Scendon]

Do you know if they changed the amount of ice that spawns, similar to the ore anomalies? Where you used to get small or large ore deposits, are they the same for ice now too?

[Mkikaden_Tiragen]

I don’t have the patch notes for the Redistribution patch in front of me, and I don’t ice mine, so I’m not sure, sorry. You can look through the Dev Blog and Patch Note archives on eveonline.com to see if any composition changes are listed for ice (spawn size, refinement content, etc); I’m on mobile so it is a pain to try and hunt that data down for you myself.

[Scendon]

No worries, thank you for your replies. You have been incredibly helpful.

[Lamp_Shadius]

Can confirm, as a leader of a small alliance that previously relied heavily on these sites as a source of fuel and income, the lack of them for the past two months has been pretty awful, and now they will basically never come back.