This does the opposite of what I would refer mining to be. This means mining is purely about hauling and protection. There is a small focus on finding deposits which will hopefully get a lot more fun once mineral deposits move and the scanning mechanic is made more similar to artifact finding.

This would be such a major change that it would pretty much force all the current miners to become haulers or combat characters to guard their mining probe/structure.

Firefall already has this as their main gathering concept where NPCs attack you (And hopefully players can too).

This is a nice idea but it would have been needed from the start. While you find mining boring there are a lot of people that enjoy it. The main complain I hear from miners is that the yields are hauling times do not seem right for time spent mining. They want to mine, fill up and make something but at the moment they have to find 2+ different minerals things to make anything apart from ammo.

Something that competes with ' the real' mining as it is right now, will just make mining so much less unrewarding, that it won't be worth your time and effort, so no.

This idea literally kills a whole profession, and there are loads of people playing who actually enjoy it.

I mine and enjoy it. However i like your idea syrissa under the condition the yields do not come close to competing with lwople doing actual mining.

+1 trade is the best option for those that just enjoy the manufacturing aspects. Logistically though its a pain, and its not only the volume of ores to haul around its also the segmented way resource gathering has been approached. Where every resource is located at different places.

An idea I would suggest is to just have 2 prospecting resources ores and liquids, and miners collect x% of desired minerals depending on charges used plus a smaller percentage of the rest. To make it more interesting for prospectors resource fields could be high,medium or low grade, giving higher percentage mined of desired ores. This system could equate to more trade for 'unwanted' minerals. Would also mean just needing 4 different locations to get all alpha resources, ore,liquid fields and the 2 plant types which remains unchanged.

Good ide I woul like to use it I dont mine because that is not a game, that is go there and sit then go back when you done.

But yes who like mining do it, and he still will be most rewarded, but give me that thing and I will mine sometimes for my corp or anything.

Can be something similiar: after you deployed that will be disappear or stop when is done and can be 50 % less efficieny like "real" miners.

Maybe the better solution can be is make mining more interesting.

(btw that idea was many times here)

more thoughts to the bringen combat and mining together:

well first lets look at the current instant npc action we have right now: beacons!
beacons are relativly easy because you have room and time. the next wave comes when the first is done and you have normaly enough room to outrange them and kill them slowly.

if you have to protect a "mining beacon" that will bring you a good reward of a good bunch of minerals, and you enemy does not care if you have finished the first wave, then you cant be slow and take your time. you need to bring enough to get the job done, or the enemy will overwhelm you. that means you have to bring a certain ammount of combat thrength with you. or the enemy will kill you and the mining beacon at worst.

this will give the hole a clear scalable work vs reward system. you can scale up the difficulty to a point where you will need a squad of capable heavy mech pilots to do it. of cource you also have to ballance the mineral gain. if you need more power to portect that thing then you can scale up the yield you get.

the intresting thing with this is that you can boost your mining output with combat power. so you can bring even the ppl to that part of the game that dont wnat to do anything with mining. but you bring them together to do something to gether and to have fun together, and still work together for the same goal. (in my case this would be to gather resources for the corporation, but the reasons can be more egoistic as well)

even if you enjoy both, mining and combat and have account for both, so you can combine it.

well i guess i will here negative answers from the dedicated miners here, because they will see their profession in danger as it was pointed out easlier. but i think this will enrich the game.
the ballancing will be another thing. yes the solo "i drop my mining here and be gone" should not be too profitable. lets say without any math behind it 50% of a miner sitting on a spot.
but when you bring the combat into it you can bring more into the rewarding system. should i bring more yield then a single miner? no! but if you need a miner and 5 good heavys then you have the minerals and the loot from the npcs, and that should be a good reward overall. that should be good enough to encorage more group play than simple solo mining or npc farming.

so i could go on but the wall of test is big enough for now.

you can bring a lot of accounts anyway. most ppl have a limit because they dont see a reason to send that much money for a game. for that who have it and/or dont care still can bring a lot accounts and manage them. then mining dont needs much to be played. think i heard of someone mentioned 7 paralell account in perp of some player and i have heard similar or bigger things from STeve.
besides if ppl bring 20 accounts just to place their "automated mining bots" and use another 3 accounts to collect the minerals. hell why not. that are 23 payed accounts that is quite a good money for AC. no problem with that.

so were is the problem with "very little" or "no" interaction while in the process. with my suggestion there still is only a limited ammout of mining possible and a trial or short time char will not bring a resonable ammout of mining. it still will require the same skills as a miner that has to make a few clicks all 10 minutes to do his job. no 300apm as in others games (gg).
besides you can also use  it while you are buisy with transportation or anything else.

it was said before. mining is no game. it has way to few interactions to be considerd a game. you like that? thats ok, but still no game. maybe you like "subway driver simulator" or similar titles that are quite successfull on the asian market. but sorry no game.

and i think that you are wrong with the thing that more then one way can bring you the same minerals. its already in the game. recycling also gives the same commodites as you will get from mining after you refine them. so another way can be sucessfull. you just dont get that much from recycling as you get from mining/refining. oh wait thats what i suggested with the idea.

its a varity and a bonus for ppl that dont stand there 24/7 on the field doing clicks every 10 mins. their reward would be less per time. but it would still be a gain.

something like that has to be ballanced to the other ways, but taht can be done.

When mining you can't look away from the screen for more than 3 minutes at a time if you're doing it right.. Else you're botting..

Mining needs to be made more interesting but not by taking away the only part of mining that currently feels like you're performing an action. Further reductions to hauling and improvements to geoscanning would make the process more fun. Most miners WILL NOT find combat people willing to waste time (Which is money) guarding the miners unless they HAVE to.

+1 No way around  the ' It gets boring if you do it all day, everyday' because everything does eventually.

im still curious why noone said "nnooooo, no mining moons in perp, they already suck in eve" here?

the problem is you have to do it all day or oyu never get a resonable ammount of resources for production.
do it a few hours and you will not see the end of the tunnel.

the question is not more miner players.
the question is how much % of the server population has to be miner to fullfill the needed resource income. the next problem is that a lot of indu/miner ppl are rather carebares and want the money only in their own pocket. not realy usefull for a beta corp... (dont take that personal everybody. but thats the way it is with a lot of ppl. if you think that this is not with you then thats ok, just ignore that).

the other question is:
how many miners do you need to get one producer running...