Yes, there is only one reason this mechanic is so controversial: EVE is not a flight simulator
OP is close to the point, the physics are ridiculous and smashing into each other would cause so much damage there’s no question a lore argument would fall flat on this subject.
However, the issue isn’t only physics, it’s about mechanics and ship control. The carebear/nullbear catfight always festers around controversial mechanics that are essentially “unintended-but-working-as-intended”, but the solution isn’t to make things more complicated. That only throws balance further out of whack.
The solution is to be honest. Is this a beneficial part of the meta? Does the suffering of a few improve the lives of the many? Then give it legitimacy, predictability, counters, modules, collateral damage, anything that lends itself to be calculated and planned on. Have the pilot align, lock target and “bump”. Heck, give it its own button next to the ships throttle.
99% of Eve piloting is automatic because players have more to worry about than how wide the collision model is. It’s the same with “approach can” and “whoops your ship was too stupid to slow down and now you can’t reach it”.
There can’t be one or two activities that yank players out of the mostly believable game dynamic just because. It’s like a silly rubber-ducky bouncy mini-game that just happens to keep things weird… but no one in their right mind would write it like this from scratch.
But one issue is flat wrong and needs to be addressed somehow and that is miner bumping.
The problem is for a new player, and mining is one of the primary new player professions, there is no counter.
In my mind the best solution is not to mess with bumping aka ship collisions, but instead giving barges and exhumers, not command ships like Orca, a module that is the anchor module.
It anchors the ship against bumping for one cycle. It has a built in offset in that the miner may have become immune to bumping but they also cannot warp until the cycle ends so they are more susceptible to gank.
There is. Leave highsec, shoot them if they try to follow you. Once again the root of farmers failing at EVE is their stubborn insistence on refusing to leave the tutorial zone.
Pretty much everyone gets bumped by the big bot outfits in high sec ice. You can mine ice in just a few weeks time without plexing SP wise with a Venture yes?
A new player who choses mining as a profession will need to learn the gameplay and the risk/reward tradeoffs around mining. Eve is a PvP sandbox, and all the sources of wealth have risks. Highsec mining (low reward) has ganking and bumping (pretty low risk).
Our new player has some of the right ideas, I think:
Your bumper is benefiting from the protection of CONCORD, just as you are. To remove their CONCORD protection you will have to give up your own (leave highsec, enter an engagement), or find a way to bait them into temporarily losing it by becoming suspect, giving you a kill right, etc. There’s quite a lot of gameplay around this that you might be able to discover or invent, but you’ll have to pit your wits against the bumper.
What I suggest you do not do is ask for the rules to be changed in your favour, especially when you’re a new player. It might be best to learn the game first.
Please note I am not bashing miners. If I’m bashing anything it is players who ask for rule changes in their favour rather than solving their problems within the game.
To answer the question: If there were no highsec miners the minerals would have to come from elsewhere. Take a look at the Monthly Economic Report on mining value. There is no reason that highsec miners have to exist. I’m not saying they shouldn’t, but the argument that they must or we couldn’t fly spaceships is made often, and is false.
Counterplay should not require an escalation in risk for the person attempting to counter the activity. If bumping itself has no security status/CONCORD response/ship loss risk, the counter to bumping should also not have those risks. Forcing a player out of high sec, or to suicide-gank the bumper, isn’t counterplay - it’s acknowledgement that bumping is broken. Even CCP knows it has problems - why do you think they added the 3 minute warp timer for bumped ships trying to warp out?
We don’t need to drive people out of high sec - it’s a part of the game, people should be free to play in it, with balanced risk/reward mechanics - see suicide ganking as a good example of risk/reward mechanics at work. Bumpers are getting all the content denial value of suicide ganking without the costs, though, and may very well also be getting less obvious rewards out of it (such as bumping people out of a belt so their own corp mates can harvest it).
I don’t know what the right solution is, but the mechanic is definitely broken as-is when it comes to players trying to legitimately play the game. No player should be able to deny another player content without taking on risks - forcing the bumped player to amass a bunch of people to suicide gank the bumper, who can then just reship and go right back to bumping, isn’t equivalent risk for loss of content. It also neutralizes the income from mining when you lose time mining and lose isk on gank ships.
So let’s say I’m running a sleeper anomaly in a Tengu, and a couple of Lokis turn up and start slowly chewing through my tank. I call my corp mates who undock in a larger fleet to deal with the Lokis, who then call on their corp mates to bring in more, and so on.
Each side takes on more risk to counter the other. In the end, it’s quite likely one side will lose most of their fleet. Or at any point in the escalation one side can fold. This is standard Eve gameplay.
No player should be able to mine indefinitely wherever they want without taking on risks – forcing their competitors to relocate. That includes the risk of income denial by other players willing to put in the effort. Income denial by other players is a lot of what Eve is.
Other players are causing you to lose income. Welcome to Eve.
Could you define “bad”? This is a genuine question. I think this thread goes to the heart of people’s different ideas about Eve, which is why I’m here, and I’d like to know.
There are plenty more long-play possibilities involving e.g. espionage, infiltration, negotiation, bribery.
But these counters all involve learning to play the game beyond mining. The OP’s suggestions are focussed on solution that don’t require them to stop continous mining. They might be willing to lift a finger to press an extra button when a bumper shows up.
I’m not trying to be cruel to the OP here. They seem to want to play Eve in a very narrow way, without engaging with most of the game. I don’t think that will work very well and I don’t think anyone will change Eve to make that possible.
Another interpretation of your post is that you think a counter should be available for every ship against every other ship in every situation? That’s not very similar to the rest of Eve. I’m pretty sure that isn’t what you mean.
Eve is a territorial game. Empires, Factional Warfare, Sovereign Nullsec, Triglavian Invasions, Wormhole Evictions. Power and territory. But miners should be immune from being forced to move? I don’t think so.
In an Orca? Don’t you think it’s about time they learned to play?
Now it appears you are saying that every attack should have a counter that a new player can use.
The sub discussion you jumped in on was about new players.
If it involves a new player profession in high sec then yes, it needs realistic counters.
You should go out to one of the high sec ice systems with a Venture like a new player would and try it out. You are not going to be bumped by some fellow player. You are going to be bumped away by some botter with 20 orcas and a battleship to bump with.
If you look and see you will see you are defending botters.
Thank you for coming back for further debate. I am learning from you.
A few years ago I had an ice mining alt in a highsec island system, just to try it out. I recently visited the area and noticed (in zkillboard) that someone has now monopolised the ice belts and is ganking any competition with a fleet of catalyst alts.
So CCP have created an environment that favours this player. They are multiboxing enough accounts to be able to run ice mining and gank fleets. It would be uneconomical to evict them because they are using highly tanked Skiffs protected by CONCORD. They are not facing enough risk for their reward.
The mechanics that are supposed (maybe?) to protect new players are being exploited.
Something simple like an anti-bumping mechanic does not deal with these deeper problems, and is likely to create more exploitable situations, further protecting botters. I think anything that defends easily farmable ISK in highsec will create more problems. As far as I can see there are only two solutions:
Remove the protection
Remove the ISK
I actually favour the second one. Make highsec ice nearly worthless so that new players can learn their trade in small ships and are unlikely to be disturbed by powerful organisations. And also the people who mine because they say it’s enjoyable or relaxing can continue to have an enjoyable relaxing time in highsec without affecting the economy.
(Incidentally, one of the reasons the player can run all these account is probably SP farming, but that’s a whole nother topic.)
You misunderstood my post. The person bumping has not taken any risk by bumping - their ship takes no damage, there is no security response to this form of attack (and it IS an attack), and bumping doesn’t make them suspect to the bumped player to allow a response without a guarantee of ship loss to CONCORD. This is unique vs all other forms of PvP play. Y
our example of the Lokis dropping in isn’t remotely equivalent - the Lokis are taking risk of losing their ships by engaging in a PvP action with another player, who may call in support - they have no CONCORD umbrella, because they aren’t in high sec. There isn’t an escalation of risk to meet them, only commensurate risk on both parties side based on how much they are willing to invest to achieve their goal.
Bumping is unique in that it is a direct interference with other ships flight mechanics in high-sec space without a CONCORD response. Bubbles, webs, and scramblers are all also ship flight mechanic interference, and are all either blocked in high-sec or result in CONCORD response.
Miners aren’t safe in high sec - undocking is a risk. They are susceptible to suicide ganking - which has its own costs on the part of the ganker, in the form of CONCORD response, security standing loss, and going criminal (allowing the miners or a response fleet to engage them freely). Similarly, their jet cans, drones, rat wrecks, etc, are all vulnerable to destruction/theft with suspect-status results - which allows the miners/their response fleet to engage without being CONCORDed.
I don’t have a problem with players interfering with each other - EVE is PvP to the core. I have a problem with players getting unequal CONCORD protection in their interference. There are already plenty of ways to interfere with miners and haulers that actually involve risk. Bumping doesn’t. That’s not balanced gameplay.
