Probably Terrible Mining Rebalancing Idea

[Knight7]

The existing Mining Barges and Exhumers are kind of problematic. They're slow, defenseless, and made of tissue paper; and on top of that, one of the T1 barges is completely useless (Procurer), and another is barely worth buying (Covetor) since you might as well just go straight for a Hulk. In light of the announced rebalancing/tiericide thing that CCP is working on, I thought I'd toss some ideas of my own around.

Skills

To begin with, the Mining Barge skill is no more. Everything that required Mining Barge X is an industrial ship made by ORE, so it now requires ORE Industrial X instead - whichever you had trained to a higher level becomes your new ORE Industrial level, and the SP from the other are refunded.

Modules, Crystals, Drones, and Structures

Hull Repairers: Hull reppers are shit. Their fitting requirements remain the same, but they now perform as follows (T1 versions):

             Small      Medium     Large
Repair Amt   75         300        750
Cycle Time   4s         8s         10s
Cap Cost     25         100        250
HP/Cap       3          3          3
HP/Sec       18.75      37.5       75
Cap/Sec      6.25       12.5       25

If you do the math, you'll notice that this is in fact flat-out better performance than comparably-sized armor reppers, but I figure that's appropriate because by the time you need one of these you're already in hull.

Mining Beam Extensor (New Module): This active midslot module requires 35 CPU and 1 grid, and boosts mining laser, strip miner, and ice harvester optimal range by 15% (T2 by 20%).

Strip Miners: Having T1 and T2 Strip miners require different amounts of cubage is dumb. They are now universally 50m3.

Mining Crystals: Similarly, these are ridiculously huge. They are now all 5m3.

Sentry Mining Drones (New Drone): Newly developed by ORE, these drones hover around their mothership, mining asteroids as ordered with a range of 25km. Every 60 seconds, each sentry mining drone deposits 40m3 of ore into the mother ship's cargo bay, unless the mother ship is further than 2500m away.

Surveyors' Repository (New Anchorable Structure): One of these small, low hp structures can be anchored and onlined in any asteroid belt or grav site. The Tech 1 version consists primarily of a 55,000m3 ore bay, accessible by members of the owning corp, but when a member of the owning corp targets the Repository and runs a survey scanner on it, it returns results for every asteroid on the same grid. The Tech 2 version adds better resists and also projects a 5km-radius shield bubble, which restricts its use to low- and null-security space. Nothing inside the shields, save the Repository itself, can be targeted from the outside - but ships inside the shields can still target things normally. The shields can be set to allow corp, alliance, blue, and password-based access like a POS.

Ships

With the removal of tiers as the primary balancing consideration, the mining barges have been reclassified into the prospecting and tanker ship lines.

Procurer
The Procurer is the poster child of the prospecting design philosophy. The Procurer's armament is anemic, carrying only a pair of frigate-sized guns and flight of light drones with which to defend itself; on the other hand, it is comparable to a cruiser in terms of speed, agility, and durability. The Procurer is designed to find valuable pockets of ore, mine them quickly, and move on before drawing hostile attention.

-15% strip miner duration/level; +5% probe scan strength/level
4/3/2 slot layout, 2 turret slots, restricted to 1 strip miner, 25m3/25mbit drones
250 cargo, 1500 ore bay
CPU 200, PG 80
Hull 1173, Armor 899, Shield 1094
Speed 172, Align 7*

[T1 Unrigged Procurer]
Strip Miner I
125mm Railgun I x2
Core Probe Launcher I

10MN Afterburner I
Small Hull Repairer I
Survey Scanner I

Damage Control I
Mining Laser Upgrade I

Hobgoblin I x5

Retriever
The Retriever is the first of the tanker design lineage, though it retains traces of the Procurer's speed. Being about as tough as a battlecruiser, the Retriever is the backbone of many mining fleets; with a skilled pilot, it can nearly match the Covetor in mining volume, if not in reach or durability. Mounting 3 cruiser-sized guns and a flight of drones, it's not quite defenseless, but its firepower is dwarfed by dedicated combat vessels.

+10% strip miner yield/level; +5% shield resistances/level -7.5% strip miner duration/level; +5% hull resistances/level
6/5/2 slot layout, 3 turret slots, restricted to 2 strip miners, 50m3/50mbit drones
350 cargo, 3000 ore bay
CPU 380, PG 300
Hull 3516, Armor 2801, Shield 3370
Speed 113, Align 13*

[T1 Unrigged Retriever]
Strip Miner I x2
Dual 150mm Railgun I x3
Small Tractor Beam

10MN Afterburner I
Medium Hull Repairer I
Cap Recharger I
Survey Scanner I
Mining Beam Extensor I

Damage Control I
Mining Laser Upgrade I

Hobgoblin I x5
Mining Drone I x5

Covetor
Nearly as tough as a battleship, the Covetor is the premier Tech 1 mining vessel in New Eden today. Slow as a brick and packing only marginally more punch than the Retriever, the Covetor is designed to park in the middle of a belt or grav site and mine all that it surveys. Showing the Gallente roots of its creators, it features an extensive drone bay and systems capable of controlling new sentry-type mining drones.

+10% strip miner optimal range/level; +5% hull resistances/level
7/5/2 slot layout, 3 turret slots, restricted to 3 strip miners, 125m3/125mbit drones
450 cargo, 6000 ore bay
CPU 500, PG 670
Hull 5560, Armor 4795, Shield 5213
Speed 85, Align 19*

[T1 Unrigged Covetor]
Strip Miner I x3
200mm Railgun I x3
Small Tractor Beam

Large Hull Repairer I
Cap Recharger I
Survey Scanner I
Mining Beam Extensor I
Sensor Booster I

Damage Control I
Mining Laser Upgrade I

Sentry Mining Drone I x5

Orca and Rorqual
The 500% bonus to survey scanner range is applied as a bonus to all members of the fleet.

Skiff
The Exhumers skill grants a 60% bonus to Mercoxit Mining Crystal yield multiplier/level and 20% reduced chance of Mercoxit gas cloud forming/level; it also gains the following as a role bonus: -97.5% to Covert Ops Cloak CPU requirement.

Mackinaw
The Exhumers skill grants a 5% reduction in Ice Harvester duration/level and a 10% bonus to ore bay capacity/level; it also gains the following as a role bonus: 100% bonus Ice Harvester yield but 25% penalty to ice harvester duration.

Hulk
The Exhumers skill grants a 5% reduction in strip miner duration/level and a +10% bonus to strip miner yield/level 5% bonus to strip miner yield/level and a a 10% bonus to ore bay capacity/level.

*Ship stats designed using EVEHQ's Ship Editor. Align times based on the skills of a starting character.

[Knight7]

Completely Optional Bonus Idea: Racial Barges

Unifying the ORE barges into the ORE Industrial skill naturally suggests the idea of giving the empires their own mining barges based on the [Racial] Industrial skills. Personally I think that would be pretty awesome, because it's kind of lame to have a skill that only lets you move varying quantities of shit from point A to point B, in varying degrees of rusty/shiny/blocky/phallic-ness. Given the direction CCP is going with removing racial mining frigates in favor of an ORE frigate (and then, likely removing the racial mining cruisers as well), this doesn't seem likely, but I did think up some concepts for racial barges anyway:

Penitent (Amarr Tanker)
The ultimate solo miner, the Penitent doesn't quite have the same reach as the Covetor, but makes up for it with a truly extensive ore hold, allowing it to remain unsupported in the field for longer periods of time.

+5% strip miner optimal range/level; +10% ore hold capacity/level
7/3/4 slot layout, 3 turret slots, restricted to 3 strip miners, 50m3/25mbit drones
450 cargo, 5000 ore bay

[T1 Unrigged Tanker Penitent]
Strip Miner I x3
Focused Medium Beam Laser I x3
Small Tractor Beam I

Mining Beam Extensor I
Survey Scanner I
Cap Recharger I

Damage Control I
Large Armor Repairer I
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane I
Mining Laser Upgrade I

Mining Drone I x5
Hobgoblin I x5

Magpie (Caldari Prospecting)
Some might expect the Caldari to adopt the tanker philosophy when designing their own mining barge, but instead the nimble Magpie flits between the asteroids, finding the choicest ores to harvest and bring back.

-15% strip miner cycle time/level; +5% strip miner yield/level
3/5/1 slot layout, 2 launcher slots, restricted to 1 strip miner, no drones
250 cargo, 2000 ore bay

[T1 Unrigged Prospecting Magpie]
Strip Miner I
Light Missile Launcher I x2

10MN Afterburner I
Adaptive Invulnerability Field I
EM Ward Field I
Small Shield Booster I
Survey Scanner I

Mining Laser Upgrade I

Symplegades (Gallente Tanker)
In designing the Symplegades, the Gallente eagerly seized upon the innovation of Sentry Mining Drones, incorporating an immense drone bay and the very best drone control systems available.

+10% drone damage, hp, mining yield/level; +7.5% armor repair amount/level
6/4/4 slot layout, 3 turret slots, restricted to 2 strip miners, 250m3/125mbit drones
600 cargo, 6000 ore bay

[T1 Unrigged Tanker Symplegades]
Strip Miner I x2
Dual 150mm Railgun I x3
Small Tractor Beam I

10MN Afterburner I
Survey Scanner I
Cap Recharger I
Mining Beam Extensor I

Damage Control I
Medium Armor Repairer I
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane I x2

Sentry Mining Drone I x5
Hammerhead I x5
Valkyrie I x5
Hobgoblin I x5

Bonde (Minmatar Prospecting)
The Minmatar Bonde (named for an ancient word meaning "farmer") is a fleet-footed vessel with a long reach, designed to quickly gather any resources that are available and return before any slave-takers or other enemies can arrive.

-15% strip miner cycle time/level; +5% strip miner optimal range/level
4/4/1 slot layout, 2 turret slots, restricted to 1 strip miner, no drones
250 cargo, 1500 ore bay

[T1 Unrigged Prospecting Magpie]
Strip Miner I
150mm Light Autocannon I x2
Small Tractor Beam I

10MN Afterburner I
Adaptive Invulnerability Field I
Small Shield Booster I
Survey Scanner I

Mining Laser Upgrade I

[Suleiman Shouaa]

TBH I would just like to see capital sized mining ships, with their own equivalent of siege modules so risk is high, but so is the reward. Gives a much more ambitious goal to miners rather than simply training up for an all-V Hulk, enticing them to low sec/null sec. Might be the best that null sec mining needs...

Also gives more targets for roamers.

Win/win for PvPers & PvErs alike. \o/

[Mona]

Better mining equipment -> mining is worse. Every time.

[LordsServant]

Terrible idea, but would support simply because people like me would throw retarded amounts of isk at them, run them with implants/drugs + links, and get hilarious solokills with them

Sulei - that's an awful idea. Mineral prices would tank and hulks would be utterly useless. You'd just have groups of hardcore 0.0 miners in upgraded indy systems running entire large belts like sanctums in "mining dreads."

We're talking trit dropping to 1 isk or less p/u tbqh. It'd entirely crash the t1 market, and anyone NOT in the mining dreads would have almost no profit. We're basically talking the supercap proliferation gap of '11, except with mining ships.

[Knight7]

TBH I would just like to see capital sized mining ships, with their own equivalent of siege modules so risk is high, but so is the reward. Gives a much more ambitious goal to miners rather than simply training up for an all-V Hulk, enticing them to low sec/null sec. Might be the best that null sec mining needs...

Also gives more targets for roamers.

Win/win for PvPers & PvErs alike. \o/

Hmmm. The idea of a capital-sized mining ship appeals to me on a "wouldn't it be awesome" level, but I'm not sure it's really the solution to entice people who mine into low and null. At the moment I think the risk/reward of lowsec mining is a bit out of balance; the issue isn't with lowsec itself, but with the lack of survivability shown by the current lineup of mining vessels. That's why my proposal focuses on putting tools in the hands of the players so that they can take steps to manage their risk and entice them to venture into low and null in search of the greater rewards to be found there - tools like the ability to move around faster than a snail in molasses, to mount something approaching a proper tank, and to set up structures that provide additional (temporary) protection.

Now, it is true that these changes mean that barges will take a lot more killing now than they do currently, but their fragility and helplessness is the reason you don't see any outside of highsec and secured sov space - you know, where they bubble all the gates and POS up everytime a non-blue enters system.

Better mining equipment -> mining is worse. Every time.

[Citation needed]

Terrible idea, but would support simply because people like me would throw retarded amounts of isk at them, run them with implants/drugs + links, and get hilarious solokills with them

This prospect was not a non-factor in my thinking. I think EVE would be a lot cooler if there was more support for the idea of Q-ships.

[Suleiman Shouaa]

Sulei - that's an awful idea. Mineral prices would tank and hulks would be utterly useless. You'd just have groups of hardcore 0.0 miners in upgraded indy systems running entire large belts like sanctums in "mining dreads."

We're talking trit dropping to 1 isk or less p/u tbqh. It'd entirely crash the t1 market, and anyone NOT in the mining dreads would have almost no profit. We're basically talking the supercap proliferation gap of '11, except with mining ships.

Depends on how much they mine. If for example they mine ~2.5 times as much as a Hulk whilst in "siege" mode, I doubt it'll crash the market simply because at the moment supply < demand. Would need hard numbers to say for sure though.

[Qwert]

I could get behind making barges something other than pinatas, so long as there are absolutely NO changes in mining output. Sentry miners might be worthwhile to look into though.

[Knight7]

I could get behind making barges something other than pinatas, so long as there are absolutely NO changes in mining output. Sentry miners might be worthwhile to look into though.

Worried about the economic effects, I take it? That's reasonable. I think a slight increase in mining output could be warranted as a way to soften the one-two punch of the loss of meta-0 loot and drone candy plus the effects of the reinvigorated War on Bots, though it's quite possible I went overboard in my initial draft, especially the Hulk's new second bonus, now that I look at it again. I'm not quite sure what to replace it with, though.

[Synapse]

Completely fails to address the major balance issue with mining...

.....It's SUPER ULTRA STULTIFYINGLY PAINFULLY BORING.

When I have highschool textbooks more interesting to read than your game mechanic, "balance" is not your primary concern.

[Knight7]

Completely fails to address the major balance issue with mining...

.....It's SUPER ULTRA STULTIFYINGLY PAINFULLY BORING.

That is a major issue, but it's one I'm not sure how to fix.

[Kyle Cataclysm]

I like the med slot module that increases mining range by 15/20%. Btw, I think the reason why strip miners are 100m³ is mineral compression. If you make them alot smaller, they're very useful for moving large amounts of minerals.
I agree that capital mining ships or any ship that mines more than a hulk won't necessarily make mining more attractive.

[Knight7]

I like the med slot module that increases mining range by 15/20%.

It seems like such an obvious thing to have, doesn't it?

Btw, I think the reason why strip miners are 100m³ is mineral compression. If you make them alot smaller, they're very useful for moving large amounts of minerals.

That is a good point that I hadn't considered. I'm fine with making strips 100m3; what I object to is having the t1s be 100m3 and the t2s be 5m3.

[Qwert]

Another thing that any change to miners has to take into account is that mining yeild is CPU gated via mining augments. So something needs to be done to how they behave before CPU can be buffed to usable levels.

[Knight7]

Buffed to usable levels for what?

[Qwert]

Buffed to usable levels for what?

Literally anything. Each mining upgrade also increases the CPU of the strip miners. Currently the only thing stopping full Strip miner/upgrade fits is that you don't have the CPU. If you want to give them the ability to tank, then they need the fittings for a tank. Which means they can now fit a full strip/upgrade setup instead and increase their yield quite a bit.

[RoemySchneider]

Better mining equipment -> mining is worse. Every time.

[Citation needed]

something i wrote years ago...

"hulks need to be cheaper!" - invention eventually came - hulks flooded 0.0 - zydrine/megacyte prices tanked
"mining needs a boost!" - rorq was introduced - zydrine/megacyte prices tanked
"mineral compression?! what the H?! we want to mine in 0.0!" - compression was (slightly) nerfed - less stuff was built - everything tanked for a little while
"mining needs a boost! also, we want to be self sufficient in high-sec!" - mining plexes came - ABC ores for everyone - high-ends tanked
"mining needs a boost!" - WH mining plexes - reliable amounts of ABC ores for everyone - high-ends kept tanking
"there's not enough veldspar!" - and so it was spawned daily instead of twice/week - low-ends dropped back to 'bot levels'
"fucking hulkageddon! nerf insurance!" - and so it was - ppl stopped defrauding - minerals we consumed a LOT less - everything tanked
"mining needs a buff!" - hello orca - everything tanked some more

i'm sure there's a few more instances i missed


either way... let's see how cpu rigs fare first

[LordsServant]

Buffed to usable levels for what?

Literally anything. Each mining upgrade also increases the CPU of the strip miners. Currently the only thing stopping full Strip miner/upgrade fits is that you don't have the CPU. If you want to give them the ability to tank, then they need the fittings for a tank. Which means they can now fit a full strip/upgrade setup instead and increase their yield quite a bit.

Roemy beat me to the punch. CPU rigs will be changing this next patch. CPU rigs are gonna TOTALLY trash the fuck out of balance for tons of stuff in the next patch, among them obsoleting/buffing every "algid administrations" rig in existance. Hint: My/prom's slicers/enyos will be even more rofltastically OP soon.

[Knight7]

something i wrote years ago...

<snip>

either way... let's see how cpu rigs fare first

Thanks for providing citations. Put that way, it's a much more persuasive argument. In that light I can see why there's opposition to the idea of increasing mining yields.

I'm not sure what to do about the issue of being able to double up in Mining Laser Upgrades, though as a silver lining I'll point out that as long as CCP doesn't introduce rigs that add lowslots, the ships will still be limited to 2 of them, and that it will cost them the ability to mount a decent tank.

[Vortex]

Better mining equipment -> mining is worse. Every time.

[Citation needed]

something i wrote years ago...

"hulks need to be cheaper!" - invention eventually came - hulks flooded 0.0 - zydrine/megacyte prices tanked
"mining needs a boost!" - rorq was introduced - zydrine/megacyte prices tanked
"mineral compression?! what the H?! we want to mine in 0.0!" - compression was (slightly) nerfed - less stuff was built - everything tanked for a little while
"mining needs a boost! also, we want to be self sufficient in high-sec!" - mining plexes came - ABC ores for everyone - high-ends tanked
"mining needs a boost!" - WH mining plexes - reliable amounts of ABC ores for everyone - high-ends kept tanking
"there's not enough veldspar!" - and so it was spawned daily instead of twice/week - low-ends dropped back to 'bot levels'
"fucking hulkageddon! nerf insurance!" - and so it was - ppl stopped defrauding - minerals we consumed a LOT less - everything tanked
"mining needs a buff!" - hello orca - everything tanked some more

i'm sure there's a few more instances i missed


either way... let's see how cpu rigs fare first

While I don't disagree with the general argument, there are a lot of red herrings used as proof in this post. WH space does not contribute any great supply of any T1 mineral to the general market - the logistics of exporting the resulting ore makes large-scale adoption of such an act basically impossible. Sure you can import/build a Rorqual, but then you still are facing the problems of no local + no consistent belt access. Basically, wormspace is terrible for actual large-scale mining, and great for careful, small-time miners. Ironically, its the embodiment of what many what mining to be.

Similarly, the Orca is a very necessary ship in the game that fills a true workhorse function for a variety of jobs for removed from actual mining in an asteroid belt.

As for the rest of the points, you really need to tie in specific expansions w/ the market trends if you wanted to argue true causation like you are. The fact that various market/insurance gimmicks, and esp. the drone lands existed, all play a hand in obscuring the actual "value" of T1 minerals over the game's lifetime. Similarly, as the game goes on and T2/Invention/T3 are introduced, and player numbers rise, all of that has an impact on the T1 market. Claiming that invention was bad for mining profits is pretty silly when hulks used to cost 500mil isk or more, back when isk was hard to make. Sure you could mine "more" relative to other players, but I sincerely doubt it would be worth the massive time-to-parity blocks present on T2 equipment at the time.


I agree that, in general, better mining = more minerals on the market = price deflation. That said, we aren't exactly back to 3isk trit either here. It wouldn't be a terrible thing to hand those poor, downtrodden miners a bone.


Which brings me to the actual OP.

Basically, T1 mining should probably just be re-written entirely, and that's the problem you're running into here. Sure adding some reasonable EHP numbers and self-defense guns would help, but the vast majority of players are going to be sitting in these things with highly skewed SP ratios and never, ever be able to mount an effective defense vs. anything. Hell, you could put a combat main in them and all they'd stop is the most incompetent of pirate attacks. A few unbonused guns are simply not scary, and you can't make them scary without destroying what it means to be an industry-focused ship.

I'm also not too enthused with the introduction of yet more covop cloaking ships, or hull tanking as a legitimate thing. Encouraging players to train up a completely useless tanking methodology just for these mining ships is just poor game design. There aren't any faction/officer modules, and they negate the entire point that hull tanking is just a free-patch up to your ship's hull, not a method to actually tank damage. Just make them traditional shield or armor tankers, or if you really want to put a spin on them, you can have no-shield, regenerating-armor style ships sleeper style. Trying to balance legitimate hull-tanking with the power of the DC2 and the otherwise useless state of hull tanking is a bad combination in my book.