Re: Proposal: Auto-miner
I like this basic idea. Sitting in a bot watching red lasers do stuff is dull, and it steals people away from doing other stuff.
I'd make the following requirements:
Beta Only (risk!)
Has an easily seen box (moar risk!)
Slower than default mining (reward for people doing it themselves)
Anyone looking at the box can see how full it is (WAY MOAR RISK)
Consumes mining charges (that + boxprice makes it more expensive than standard mining, giving the peeps who want to watch redlasers a price advantage)
Decays after ~three days (won't have loads of them sitting around idle)
Can set a mining intensity (basically, how often you'll need to empty it)
Requires decent level of mining skills to use (keeps people from just dumping them out on pvp chars)
Advantages:
Less mindless (makes people like me more likely to generate minerals)
Less time intensive (pop and drop, pay a higher PU price for mins but less time PU)
More goodfite targets, fewer "gank teh miner" targets (field of boxminers would need a lot of haulers, meaning a gang and a pvp opportunity)