The Mining Game (Part 1)

Greetings my fellow pod pilots, & blog readers!!!

Recently I’ve been tossing around different ideas on how the game could be improved.  For whatever reason, mining has become the focus for my imagination.  Now I first want to say, that I am not an avid miner, nor do I do it with any regular frequency, but I do have an industrial alt that is slowly acquiring every mining & trading skill to 5! 

It is hard to believe that she is quickly coming upon 60mil SP!  My original intention was to just have an alt to salvage, be my hauler and trader in High-Sec.  After she was able to fly a Bestower, she moved onto a Providence, then Hulk, followed by Orca. (It might not of been in that order) Hell, she can even fly an Ark, but I haven’t decided to save for the Isk to buy one.  I then began picking up mining skills, PI, & production skills just to try different aspects of the game.   It is sad to say, but I need an actual industrialist to tell me what to do with all these skills, and explain how they affect her performance in game. *Sad Panda Update*

Now along the way I did decide to try mining ore & ice. (I have an ice belt next door to my High-Sec base of operations)  I have even worked in a few groups with Orca supplied mining links.  What I discovered…  Mining can be REALLY boring.  I can understand why people developed bots to do it.  (I do not condone bots in game)  BUT, it can be a lot of fun when experienced in a group on voice comms.  Who doesn’t like sitting around playing a game, while chatting with friends?  Isn’t that the reason we play MMOs?  So we can play with other players.  However, there are times when you don’t have the desire to get into a group, nor want to play with others.  So I began to wonder if there were things that could be done to enhance the experience of mining game play?

One Idea – Fragment Mining

***WARNING*** I am going to use some very basic equations to make my point that do not take every detail into account.  One of the advantages o f ratting is that you have a chance to loot really decent items from the wrecks.  It is simple, depending on the security rating of the system you an (Y %) chance of a faction/high end loot drop.  So for a combat orientated player they can look at their income as: Income = ((X ISK/hour) + (Y%/Faction Kill)) .  Am miner’s income, on the other hand, is based on the amount they can strip or mine in an hour: Income = (Market rate of Ore) * (Ore mined/hour).  Notice that in the case of the miner he has a fixed income rate depending on the ore mined!  His experience is constant & in my opinion a bit boring. I want to add + (Z%/Amount Mined)

Now how could CCP change that?  What about a chance of high end ores (the ABCs) or even possibly moon minerals such as Technetium  dropping?  This system would not merely have these prizes dropped into your cargo hold, but you’d have to work for them.

How it would work:

1- Miners begin mining a rock.  Depending on the security rating of the system the miner is in & the type of ore being mined, would grant a X% chance that the rock would yield a High End Ore Fragment (HEO Fragment) per FULL mining cycle for each mining module. (or maybe based on the amount harvested?)  I would suggest either limiting this benefit to strip mining modules OR grant bigger bonuses to the drop % based on the type of modules being used.  A civilian mining laser should NOT have the same chance as a fully fit out T2 Hulk. (Which in turn could allow for additional benefits for using T2 mining crystals or special rigs, or maybe even allow for *new* mining ships especially designed to search for these fragments?)

2- When a mining cycle results in the spawn or drop of a HEO Fragment it appears in space, much like a loot can or wreck.  It also would only remain on grid as long as any other wreck.  The fragment must be targeted.  Now you could simply loot this fragment like a loot can, but I think that would be too easy, and allow folks to come along and steal this precious cargo from the hapless miner.  I suggest the additional steps below.

3- When HEO Fragment is targeted a special mining module must be used to extract the mineral from the fragment.  It would share the same mechanics as salvaging, yet use skills specific to the mining profession. (WOOT!!! New Mining Skills & module to work for!)  I’d recommend that current mining ships could be given an extra high utility slot or two that could be equipped with these modules but not additional strip miners.  (Using mechanics equal to those limiting turrets/bays & utility slots on combat ships)

4- Once the minerals have been “extracted” from the HEO Fragment they may be looted into your ship’s cargo hold.

Until next time,

Be Bold…