The mining drones beeped as they got to work. San Holo relaxed as his chair moved into recline position. He let one eye close. There was something about an attractive barkeep but the screeching alert of the ship scanner brought him back from that dream. Struggling with drowsiness and the controls, San aligned to the nearest station whilst recalling his drones and releasing ECW ones. But this was one slug-like barge…
Panic set in as the scanner recognised the ship, a broadsword, and warned that it was approaching rapidly.
San’s brain kicked into full gear but there was nothing else he could do. He could see the broadsword approaching now, a growing dot, apparently becoming blurrier until it got almost the size of San’s barge when the pinkish blur transitioned into full terrifying clarity. It was painted as a garish white-on-red skull that had a grotesque elongated jaw. Kicking himself for being distracted for asecond, San initiated a target lock on the broadsword for his ECW drones. An unfriendly reddish-golden wall moved around San’s ship, enveloping it.
San was expecting this and had been ‘killed’ by them a couple of times before, with the disturbing questions it raised about who he was after his memories had been transferred into a new clone. Worse, his tensing torso and legs tensed reminded him, was being mashed or even ripped piece from piece.
From the computer’s external view, he aimed for the edge of the bubble. The computer coldly informed him that the Broadsword had a lock on his barge and had indeed webbed him. Arms and hands still moving freely, told his ECM drones to disrupt the lock. The broadsword’s gun ports flashed and a distorted crashing sound nearly deafened San as heavy projectiles bombarded the barge’s weak shield.
“Come on,” he screamed at his incredibly slow moving bucket half-filled with ore. Another louder crash and his bucket’s armour was being tested. Seeing the lock break, a wave of optimism swept up, even across San’s now perspiring brow. Moving a little bit faster, the edge of the bubble was now reachable. Clearing it, San had to align again to the most immediate signature – another ore field. Again the computer spoke about the broadsword again having a lock. No web this time, just the expected volley, penetrating the armour of his ship and his ship depressurising. San watched the warp countdown going slower, taking an infinity between each tick. C-R-A-S-H and his pod was ejected. Wreckage and ore everywhere. As if San himself was on autopilot, he felt his hands align and warp to the station. Entering the warp bubble, breathing hard, San counted his blessings more than his losses.
^^ This doesn’t happen in Eve. Not much anyway. Instead, miners are blown up in ways they cannot meaningful respond to on maybe 1 in 20 mining trips. As far as gameplay is concerned, they might as well roll a D20 and have their ship arbitrarily blow up on rolling a 1.
As we all know, mining is boring. Particularly, being glued to local/D scan/overview is a pretty awful way to spend four hours.
It’s not even a good rate of pay.
This is why miners AFK or multitask. Everyone does it. The game design encourages it. But why should it encourage miners to be AFK during gank attempts?
There’s something very lame about AFK “combat”. It’s a little bit sickening for the podded miners and ganking a ship that cannot respond meaningfully is deeply unsatisfying. Even in PvE, they shoot back.
So I’m looking for feedback on this idea:
AFK miners need an audible warning…
- … when non-blue ships appear on overview.
- … when new ships/probes appear on D scan (refreshed automatically every 10s).
None of this provides information that isn’t already in the game.
I’m picturing this as an active module that is only available to mining ships. Cloaking would disable it.
To prevent it being misued to monitor gates and wormholes, it would not work within 5000 km of either. Nor would it detect ships enclosed by warp bubbles unless they enter overview range (4000km).
Yes, it is a significant buff to mining but mining ship tanking abilities could be nerfed to compensate.
The only real downside pointed out is that bots might find it easier to hook into the code (bots already hook into the existing code). Making this module Omega only would limit that problem.
Some people don’t like the idea of others benefitting whilst AFK. To them I say “Then delete mining from the game. Also delete PI and markets whilst you’re at it. They’re all AFK activities.”
The only time AFK matters is when it damages gameplay for other players and nobody is damaged by such a module.
There are many things which need to change in Eve PvP. Cloaks are OP, bubbles are OP, cynos are OP, Local is OP and it’s very difficult to reliably find small-gang fights. If any of the first three were changed, it would change the need for this module.
Most of the thread has been disrupted by people desperately trying to keep their killsheets padded by AFK kills. They are transparent with their lack of actual counterarguments and repeated pestering of the moderators to close the thread. As such, I’m keeping this top post edited with all the valid arguments.
Also, Miner_Art shows far more interest in posting nonsense JPGs than discussing the suggestion. I will not respond to him any more.
Edit: mostly rewritten. Module no longer tracks Local.
