This is an industry character who did FW about 10 years ago (yay: Minmatar, boo: Amarr). Trying to hop back on the saddle. Unfortunately, corp seems to be dead and had left FW, so I’ve only the retired rank plus the standings, and have been slowly figuring things out for myself.
I basically ran into the exact same problem in this thread. I took a Retriever out to a belt, waved to the NPC Minmatar miners, happened to be reading patch notes and suddenly I hear the “being targeted/fired-upon” sounds and lo, my Retriever is scrammed and gets quickly dispatched. I don’t care too much for the ship, but it took me a while to figure out that it was Amarrians in Minmatar hi-sec space who did me in.
Did the Minmatar become a bunch of bootlicking pushovers that let Amarrians violate their sovereignty and take Amarrian police actions against retired Valkear Generals in Minmatar space? I refuse to believe so, that wasn’t the Minmatar I fought for.
I worked really really hard to get my Amarr faction standings to the very negative point they are today, and I don’t want to ruin all that hard work by making them more positive. Why don’t the NPC miners follow the rules of the Sovereign faction they are in, or suffer the wrath of the Minmatar hi-sec fleet? I’ve done my fair share of hi-sec roams in the past and know the Amarr and Minmatar hi-sec fleets are a thing (they are still, right?).
FWIW I filed a bug report over this, because it seems completely broken to me.
EDIT: I have nothing against the NPC miners, they seem like a cool addition. I just do not like the way their coding has their faction standing ignoring the faction standing of the sovereign faction of the system they are in.
I mean it makes perfect sense. They’re Amarr, Amarr doesn’t like you, therefore they don’t like you. Whether or not it’s dumb that NPC miners have a ridiculous response fleet or exist at all is another thing entirely.
Though it would be nice if the faction system it happens in would react logically and spawn a defense fleet to attack the hostile NPCs for their actions.
Think of them as offensive mining, they are trying to deplete the resources of their opponents.
Because CONCORD ties the hands of the factions and mining rocks isn’t provocation enough to earn a hostile response. (plus there are Minmatar miners in Amarr high sec doing the same to them)
That being said, my mind was originally along the lines of:
I only have one chance to document my initial thoughts upon discovering this NPC mining fleet mechanic so my rationalizations were/are more in the “disappointment” vein:
Why is the line drawn where me mining rocks is provocation enough to earn a hostile response fleet from the enemy, but not provocation enough to have my allied faction provide me with my own OP response fleet?
Why can’t I realistically shoot back and do FW against these mining operations for FW benefits against these Amarrian mining ops in any faction space & role-play sabotaging this “unitarian” Joint Harvesting corp?
How come the RP-background “pacifist” Joint Harvesting is unilaterally initiating violent actions?
Why are NPC agents programmed well enough to recognize the whole nuanced agent/corp/faction standing system, but these NPC miners give no nuance to the game and consider faction standing only? For example, the Hollywood style tension where “both sides hate each other but can’t do anything about it”: where the Amarrian bastards are mining besides me but I dare not shoot their guts (response fleet blap) but they dare not shoot me (else Minmatar hi-sec fleet give them a good policing)? Missed opportunities abound.
I guess it all comes down to a matter of opinion. I at least now feel better informed about how to have fun and win at Eve.
Are you sure? How do the spawns work? I’ve been digging and the little I’ve found is that it is tied to station proximity of some sort. I checked the station list for the following corporations on DOTLAN and didn’t see them in any Amarr-owned hi-sec space (one of them has presence in Ammatar hi-sec space):
None of these are Domain, Kador, Kor-Azor, Tash-Murkon, or hell even The Bleak Lands / Devoid.
If the spawns are indeed tied to “within X jumps of the corporation station” I think the most problematic ones are the Joint Harvesting stations in Trytedald sitting in the middle of Heimatar hi-sec and within range of a lot of highly-populated hi-sec locations. There are stations in Amamake that, depending on range, also reach Minmatar hi-sec space. But it’s Amamake.
So I wouldn’t mind 6 Thukker Mix stations or so in, say, Bagodan. Thanks in advance, CCP Games.
OP kinda has a point, at least when Amarr bias is factored in.
Caldari mining corps are Poksu Mineral Group, Deep Core Mining Inc and MineDrill, all of which are State-only.
Gallente have Astral Mining, Material Acquisition and Allotek Industries, same thing.
Minmatar have Minmatar Mining Corporation, Vherokior Tribe and (kinda) Thukker Mix, the latter of which will shoot anyone who primarily missions for Amarr, Caldari and Gallente. Besides the Thukkers being in Derelik and Syndicate, they’re all similarly local.
Amarr have HZO Refinery, Ducia Foundry and Joint Harvesting. HZO is a local Domain-centered mining corp, but the latter two are multi-national. Funnily enough, most of DF’s international stations are in Gallente space, and JH’s obviously in Minmatar space.