it dropped from 100AP down to 85 AP per cycle on standard.

and ind extension does not affect cycle time...

thats advanced robotics

I did some mining last night, and numbers aside, it 'felt' more dynamic with the cargo hold filling up faster. I also made a note of the tiles I mined to see how long it takes for them to regen; I'll follow them over a few weeks incase they are mined by someone else in between checks.

Prices are holding steady, I'm actually seeing more buy orders now, which could have to do with players coming back in and ramping up some production?

hmm, i should do a forum search, and search for all those agents who asked for "more to do while mining"

if they are still playing and still beeing professional miners - i would like to hear if they still need something else to do to differ themselfs from afk miner.
Yesterday i got the first complaint from someone about how fast his rivelers cargo fills up from a few cycles...

Well, combat pilots now have 'goo' - Dam you Mara, now I can't think of it as anything else - so they can earn NIC by farming, and not have to depend on mining alts.

Smaller cargo miners like Arganos have a slow cycle time, so they probably fill up at about the same rate as the Termis with faster med. modules. The Riveler still takes a while for me to fill it, but not so slow that I can go afk or do anything on a second account that requires constant attention; like combat farm. Well, technically you can... and with the base increase, you're probably going to still get about the same volume of ore now even if the mining stops for a few minutes while your distracted.

But there's been 3 times so far that roaming bots have spawned, and if I wasn't right there in the chair, I would have been toasted.

It all depends on how far your mining from the outpost and what you are mining too. Sequar is 80 kph while Lithus is 60 kph (T4 LWF/Nav10). Of course the Lithus always beats out the sequar even with the slower speed, but the question is if its worth getting one and the EP needed to drive it.

If the maths are wrong, blame excel )

Assumptions:
     Distances assume 15% deviation, so 500 meters to the outpost is 588 after dodging plants.
     A 30 second load-in, drop-off, load-out at the terminal
Basic numbers:
     80 Kph = 22.2 meters/sec
     60 Kph = 16.7 meters/sec

At these speeds, assuming your mining 80U/5 min, you would have to be mining greater than 2000m from an outpost to be unable to keep up with the sequar. That is you can make at least (1) round trip in 5 mins from within 2000m (2353m total distance) using the sequar.

If your mining 80U/10 min then you can be as far as 5000m from an outpost and still make the round trip in the sequar within 10 min.

So over 80U/10min you can easily mine anywhere and keep up with the sequar, as you approach 80U/5min your distances decrease to 2000m from the outpost.

If your mining 80U/5min, that's 240U/15min which the Lithus can do @ 5000m.

Not knowing your yeild bonus's, but if you do the maths on the ore/liquids, the base/volume breaks into 2 values for the 5 minerals;

Titan/HDT @ 750 ore and .00005 volume = .0375 U/cycle
Sterm/Imen/Liqu @ various ore and volume all = .045 U/cycle  (Note that you get less acutal Liquizit then Imen, but the volume is the same)

To get 80 U @ .0375 U/cycle = 2134 cycles
To get 80 U @ .045 U/cycle = 1778 cycles

These are base amounts, I'll do the 100% yeild bonus at the end.

Using a Riveler, you get 5 cycles / bot so

To get 80 U @  = 2134 cycles / 5 = 427 bot/cycles
To get 80 U @  = 1778 cycles / 5 = 356 bot/cycles

With no bonus @ 10s / cycle

To get 80 U @  = 4270 s (71 minutes)
To get 80 U @  = 3560 s (60 minutes)

To get 80 U / 300 s (5 min) would need less than 1s per bot/cycle at base yeild.

With 100% bounus, yields .075/.09 and basically reduces times by 50%

To get 80 U @  = 2133s (36 minutes)
To get 80 U @  = 1778s (30 minutes)

To get 80U / 5 min with 100% bonus you need cycles times

To get 80 U @  .075 = 1.4 s bot/cycles
To get 80 U @  .090 = 1.7 s bot/cycles

And of course that doesn't include reload and relock times.

With the much more reasonable 80U/15 mins with 100% bonus

To get 80 U @  .075 = 4.2 s bot/cycles
To get 80 U @  .090 = 5.0 s bot/cycles

So, you would need to be really far from the outpost, and get your cycle times down another 1.6s (plus a little more to cover reload/relock) to justify it from a pure logistics standpoint.

TL;DR That said, in this set of bots and the current island size, its not possible (or at best highly improbable) to actually outmine your ability to haul with the sequar. However, having to constantly run loads, even if you can take a 5 minute break between loads is a pain, with the Lithus you'd only have to do maybe 1 an hour (mining solo, and without a full cargo) to keep up.