Hi
Ill try and keep this short.
I’m not here to ruffle feathers.
This is not a ‘How to Solo’ post.
I have two Accounts, my main goes back to 2009.
I’m a solo player, and predominantly a miner.
I used to mine mostly in nullsec.
I made very good isk back in the day.
You can assume all my characters are well skilled and lack of isk is not a problem I have.
My Question is this:
If you are a long standing solo miner do you feel as I do that the ‘sandbox’ physics has become increasingly hostile to solo mining game play?
I have many thoughts on this issue and can cite a number of examples where I feel changes made by the Devs over the years to ‘improve’ and develop the gaming experience, have had chaotic effects that may or may not have been foreseen and that have made solo mining, when not in a big corporation or alliance, in null sec almost impossible.
I fully understand that being part of a big corp etc can solve the issue, but I am and always will be a solo player. ( real life dictates my game play time ).
I know solo mining in null sec is risky, always has been, but as the years pass it feels harder and harder to earn a crust, as a result of the sometimes arbitrary ( out-with the logical imposition of the Eve’s core sandbox philosophy “sensitive dependence on initial conditions” ) that now overly favours the big team player.
I had that same problem. I was told that if I move to null sec, I’d make so much money that I wouldn’t even notice it if I lost a ship. “Yesterday I lost two ships which was over a billion ISK and didn’t even feel it.” So I moved to null. I had a Proteus and that was all since I was told moving a Bowhead was too risky. After several days of waiting, I was given a Coveter. I mined for an hour and earned 8 million without any Orca buffs or compression. All that risk with no payout. No trips to Jita. No trips to any market. No way to get ships built. Lots of territory for roaming, but no one played in my time zone.
So I went back to High Sec. I gave back the Coveter, left the corp, boarded my Proteus, and used my training at cloak warping from gate to gate by warping first to planets to change up my trajectory. I only saw one interdictor bubble and it was easily avoided. I also so a Keepstar which was cool.
I grabbed my Orca and my alt in a Hulk, and sold everything else I owned. I make more money mining Ice and ore and that’s all I do now, but at least I can go to market anytime I want.
I don’t have enough hours in my day to play 5 accounts and PLEX them- nor do I want to. I’d rather pay for two Omega accounts and enjoy freedom.
Null Sec is great for those with endless hours in each day as well as the desire to play so many accounts. It’s simply not my style. I now solo mine in High Sec in asteroid belts and ice fields. You can meet players pretty easily when you have an Orca. Everyone loves free buffs and compression! It’s nice not having to worry about losing anything. I don’t even have an Athanor these days.
@Sultan_Khan
I can only tell you that whatever you like to do is the right way for you.
I have done almost every playstyle in EVE over the last 20 years…single player, big alliance player, built a station, lost a station, built supers, took part in long fleet calls, ganked in highsec, did wormholes and back to empire space again.
Life changes, EVE changes, all is in a flow.
I am older now and also don’t have the same time as when i was younger. In particular now the constant social stuff of an alliance, defending a territory, constant risk of losing your station and such things just would be a big stress factor, that i couldn’t handle anymore.
At some point i quit all alliance life and play for me on my own time again, without any responsibility.
So again: what ever you do and how you do it is right for you. You set your own goals and don’t have to answer to anyone and also no one has any right to judge you. FOMO is also nothing you should get to yourself. Of course you will have it as long as you didn’t experience nullsec, it is cool at first, but it also grows old really fast and as written above also has its burdens that have the possibility to ruin your fun in EVE completely.
Currently I switch between the two, null and high. But having to shift from mining Mercoxit pretty well exclusively for many years to the lower grade ores in high sec is I think the result of changes and additions to the game logic and gameplay physics, whose effects on deep space solo players was not factored in.
I agree things change, as the should. Evolution.
But one thing that shouldn’t change within the sandbox is the logic, the game physics that binds it all together.
Since my arrival, I never joined a corp. Why? I got bugged the ■■■■ out of by a spammer sending me invites to a Halo corp. They could not even think of something ‘original’ to name their corp or they are obviously not a great fan of this game. I read a lot about the drama, abuse, and neglect within the large corps. If I were to join a corp, I would definitely do the following;
Use the tool to seek a corp
Find a mid-sized population, if you don’t want to get ignored.
No tax corp.
Find something creative, read the description and all the information.
Make sure it fits your play style. Farming, Mining, Scamming, PvP, PvE, or whatnot.
However like I said, I have been playing alone here from the start. I made my own corp “Perfect and Complete” should you ever be psychotic enough to join any corp, drop on by.
This is my opinion as a solo miner/ratter. Note I’m also a Hi-Sec dweller.
Whether you multibox to earn the money to plex or join a corp to make the money to plex or even just to make the money to do anything, you become a slave to the grind either way.
I pay to solo. I make my own rules. I decide my own trajectory for the day/week/month. I answer to noone but myself. Slow advancement? Of course. But I enjoy every moment of it.
I have 5 accounts, 3 of them alpha and barely get logged into. While I am in a corp, we all do our own thing, so we’re as solo as you can be just with an easy way to communicate and trade via corporation.
I stopped mining a few months ago because the time it takes to make the same amounts of isk keep extending as more people afk mine or bot. There are many other things in game that can be done to make more isk than mining, but I like to just chill out, bake in the background, listen to music and actively mine. I like using alts because i dont like relying on other people.
The value of a miner keeps lowering due to all the afk resource gathering and the botting. Metenox has also had a huge impact on the value of even owning moons. That thing has devalued moon mining to such an extent that many corps took down their moon drills.
Recently, i’ve heard from several people that even the ore anoms in highsec are becoming less attractive. afkers and botters get the majority. Especially the border empire anoms.
I used to. I really dont pay any attention to it any longer.
Ive been in the game for 18 years. I havent done it all but ive done enough to be very street wise in all situations. When i solo mine my two accounts, i really dont worry about anything. Ganks? nope, i dont worry about those…i see them before they get to me. Isk? another nope…i no longer worry about isk per hour…such nonsense.
Its all about relaxing in space and having no pressure on me. I give out lots of flowers as well while im doing what i want to do, when i want to.
the ppl complaining about the omber/kernite sites need to bring a booster…fleet up..if in a corp their corp needs to make a mandate for them…oh and stop nomading playing solo whatever…thats their problem…they want to be solo…so they get what they deserve.
honestly, it’s one of the best times to be a solo miner. myko gas will make you good isk in a cheap venture (about 100m/hr in a T2-fit venture, more with faction scoops, up to 250m/hr in an odysseus SOLO).
ice mining krystallos in a standard T2 endurance should net you between 30-40m per hr.
On a per-capita basis, mining is basically the lowest earning economic activity an Eve player can engage in. It scales out very easily, which is a big reason why the per-character earnings are not very good.
If you don’t want to scale and you want decent income, you shouldn’t be mining.
You can all claim you play Eve Online as a solo act, but eventually you must interact with the players. While I never joined a corp, I still have friends, enemies, and friemies in this game. My friend John has often said, he views players and high end NPCs. Even so, I know he is in a corp with 3 other people. They tried to suck me into their Kool-Aid cult but had no luck. I told them, my other account is 3 notorious pirates. It would be a conflict of interest.
There really is no choice here to solo. You will get tossed into a random NPC corp with literally dozens of other players. I made a dummy corp mostly to avoid taxes and it fits the character’s lore. If they allowed you to play alone, as in offline, or a universe all to yourself, then the game wouldn’t have the same appeal.
I can easily pick all three. Since i dont worry too much about the whole isk per hour nonsense…any isk is good income to me. Remember its not always about the money you know.
