Topic: Mining Changes
Now that I've had some time to digest the changes mentioned in the dev blog, I have some questions and some criticisms I'd like to discuss.
To summarize, mining yields will be given a 50% bonus across the board. Whether this is before modules and extensions or after, this will drastically increase the speed that anyone mines. Next, mineral regeneration rates will be slowed "accordingly." Finally, titan ore will stop regenerating on beta islands.
My first question, is, are we mining 50% faster or is there 50% more ore in the ground? If the amount of ore is the same but we mine it faster and it regenerates slower, this will create a bubble as there will be half as much ore in the game. Unless we are relying on the 6 new islands to make up for this shortfall?
Ok, so my first criticism of these changes is that they make mining a "secondary" profession. What I mean by that, is that now it requires far less investment of extensions and equipment to be competitive at mining. The emphasis is taken off of mining efficiency (meaning ore mined per hour), and placed on finding and protecting mineral fields. At a game level, this doesn't seem like a bad thing. It encourages teamwork, land control, and gives us a desperately needed something to fight for.
But it destroys the miner as a primary occupation choice. It no longer makes sense to place all of your extensions in mining to increase your mining efficiency. At some point, you are losing more time to scanning down new fields and doing what it takes to mine them than you are to the actual process of mining. Mining is now something that you hop into a Termis and do with poor skills when you come across some ore, and not something that can be the reason you play the game.
As a (the only?) dedicated miner who isn't just doing it on an alt - this is all I do in the game - I no longer see myself able to enjoy the game only by mining. The 50% boost alone maybe I could, or the regeneration only, but the combination is going to make it impossible for me to get out and mine all the time without significant combat support, which I can't always expect or rely on.
Again, at a game-wide level this may not be bad, but it is a significant step to kill off an entire profession, relegating it to secondary status. If everything happens the way it's been planned, I'm not going to ragequit and be butthurt, but I probably will reset my account and play a combat character. I currently mine exclusively, and probably 80% of that makes it to the open market. If there are any others like me who are thinking similarly, this could have the opposite intended effect on the game by driving prices way up, because no one is mining. The exception will be corporations, who have the logistics to perform moving mining ops. But they aren't likely to put that ore on the market.
As for the changes to titan ore, I think this is a great idea. I support the furthering of this idea, where each beta island has more or less of certain other ores, requiring an interdependence between beta/alpha, as well as between beta islands. I have no real complaints here, however, make sure someone is considering the fact that the titan on alpha needs to be considerably increased. The fields of red titan ore as far as you can see on beta don't exist on alpha, and others are correct when they say that the beta Rivelers will descend on alpha for their titan...
Summary (tl;dr)
The mining changes will move the focus of mining, from mining, to finding and controlling fields, killing the solo miner as a profession. This sucks for the solo miner, and also for the market, as corps aren't putting ore on the market. Titan changes are ok as long as amounts are increased on alpha to compensate.
