Monday, June 7, 2010

How mining could be better…A rant on manual mining, the last non-automated industry of EVE.

All right so the more carebear side of me HATES mining. I mean I bloody hate it with a deep seething passion. I’ve almost coma quit EVE over mining. There is nothing exciting about sitting in an asteroid belt in a 200M ISK ship watching ore filter into your cargo hold every cycle. I mean the people I see out there day in day out in the same belt in a fleet of bloody hulks in highsec mining veldspar HAVE to be on some major lithium or put them self to sleep after a 750ml of scotch while rocking them self off to sleep with a cocked revolver to their temple. Yeah, I kind of do hate mining don’t I?!?

To make matter worse we harvest moon goo from orbital stations that extract the crap from the moon. With PI we have command centers and stuff we drop on the planet to suck the crap out. Christ we can even anchor a giant bloody can to store our mined asteroid crap IN while we mine. So why dear god can we not anchor a mining device in a belt with range X that can be set to mine away at the belt? Why in the love of all things holy must we park a ship there?

I mean it’s not like we are considering the little guy here. If you have ever seen a gang of 5+ hulks and an orca roll through a belt you quickly realize the little guy in the noob ship is screwed. It’s not like it’s really a skill sitting out there in belt clicking every 6 minutes either. Add macro miners to the mix and well we practically HAVE automated mining (those jerks, how do they get off having a life when so many waste DAYS for rocks). So why is mining asteroids/ice/gas the only industrial past time that actually requires you to interactively do something? Are the devs at CCP really that sadistic? I bet they have videos of mining fleets to watch when they are feeling like it’s a bad day to cheer them up. Honestly who ever came up with asteroid/ice/gas mining game mechanics is one SICK person.

I mean just imagine a world where you can fly out in your industrial ship, anchor a small POS type object, set the type of ore you want it to mine. Then off you can go to run your mission, or talk smack in Jita or whatever else you find interesting. Take it a bit further where there is a limit to the number of them you can have in a system. Add to that the ability for them to be attacked and shoot back. Ya know like a POS that mines moons, and perhaps SHOOTS back if you are not blue to it. Might take some of the fun out of Hulkageddon but I am sure the fun loving rum drinking pirate types will live.

I bet there would be less macro miners exploiting the EULA and crushing the market for veldspar if we could automate mining. If any Tom, dick, or harry could skill up anchored mining stations (AMS for short), meet some faction requirement for highsec perhaps, and anchor it in a belt to mine away at the asteroids. How many more kittens would be alive today? How many more pirates would be happier ganking the living crap out of some one more fun in lowsec? How many more pilots would be actually fighting for Null space and not mining only to have to SCURRY when a Stealth Bomber enters local.

Anyhow, all other industrial tasks are automated so why not bring mining out of the bloody dark ages with AMS. Free the carebear to build ships and kill rats freely. Make the suicide miner gankers a distant memory, hence making 12yo’s have to partake in REAL PvP. Add some more war targets to the game that can shoot back, but also provide steady income without the man hours. Free the Null alliances from the tyranny of carebear rot by allowing more pilots to make cash AND shoot people in the face for the good of the pocket.

Screw Incarna until you fix lag and abolish manual mining CCP!

Cheers

EVE SOB

6 comments:

  1. I'm with you on abolishing manual mining; I've done it a couple of times -- low-level "Materials for War Preparation" missions with mining drones in my Ishkur; but it sucks. I can't imagine doing it on a larger scale. Better to anchor an "automated mining platform" and then hop in my Ishkur hoping a stealth bomber comes after my platform. Personnel-free bait.

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  2. I run 4 accounts, 3 hulk pilots and an Orca pilot. Ore mining can be done with a bottle of wine, or two. Ice mining is much more relaxing, get a countdown timer that beeps every 228 seconds and go off and do the housework, play guitar or watch tv. I also run level 4's but don't always have the time to run a complete mission, Mining can be stopped at any time.

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  3. Thanks from Dropping in DS. I take it as a compliment and agreement to my rant that you list drinking as required and housework as an alternitive to mining. :)

    Paritybit, as always thanks for dropping in.

    Cheers

    EVE SOB

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  4. Drinking is the #1 requirement, probably the only requirement :)

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  5. LOL! It's not that I consider drinking a BAD thing. I'd just rather drink for fun not to make something dull less so.

    Thanks for dropping in Meatay.

    Cheers

    EVE SOB

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  6. Good stuff, wow I wish they'd seriously consider this it would make the game sooooo much better. The only time I mine is when I am doing something else and I only do it because I have to do it, otherwise I would never, ever do it.

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