So if it's already so damn untankable, why not find a different solution? Kaldenines' idea seems to be the only fitting choice so far.

@ zoom: While mining lasers don't need that much accu in general that change wouldn't really help here. If a miner can't even tank spawns without having any mining module active, there's no meaning in it at all. In contrary, as miner I need lots of CPU and mainly reactor to be able to equip a shield more effectivly while being able to mine (shield fit needs more reactor and cpu than miners).

Ah, since I always read here "shield tank" - why can't we already get a working option for repair? Atm the obvious choice to tank anyone (even the easiest spawns) is first and foremost the shield. You can't even equip a repairmod for emergencies when accu is too low and shield is down.

I suggest the auto-repair option for non-npcs so that a HM can at least tank a few t1 light bots (or at least the drone spawns) without shield so it can dock and doesn't need a puny repair for some scratches. All in all, it may take a seemingly eternity for drones to bring an unequipped HM down but one drone still is able to do that.
Furthermore, an opportunity for emergency repair. This could be solved somehow like: if there's no accu left rep-mod shuts down weapons and active modules for a few seconds instead of using accu but still repairs a percentage of your maximum HP; the shutdown time and repair amount can be balanced so that the cycle time of repmods gives PvPers enough time to still shoot you down. ECM, too, could still pose a problem.

To the ore spawns themselve, for alpha-I's it might be alright to limit them to not spawn under NPCs (to have an easier start for newcomers). But the difficulty should rise from there on: alpha-II, then beta-I, beta-II, with the highest danger zone gamma (maybe set the same rule for alpha-II and beta-I)

back to page 1

I was agreeing with Kaldenines.  You misunderstood.

Ok, a bit late to the party on this one (been busy) but my question would be why do miners have to defend themselves from or tank static spawns at all?

If all static spawns were orange (yes, on Beta too), including spawns defending assignment points then all that would need to change is that a player accepting an assignment would be flagged for the NPCs defending that assignment.

Add orange roaming spawns to alpha1 and keep alpha2/beta/gamma roamers as red and then mining is still not an afk activity (of which I heartily approve) but also not completely impossible.

That seems like the simplest solution ... or have I missed something?

Won't matter if you are being neuted / ECMd into oblivion by every NPC and its mother.

just in case, i would try to shield tank with an argano, and theoretically, my mining laser would consume 0 AP/s -

with
- a t4 small shield,
- a t4 medium accumulator and
- a t4 shield hardener,
- lvl9 Energy management, lvl8 accumulator expansion, lvl5 shield efficiency

i would get the following stats:
912 AP / 86s -> 21 AP/s peak recharge
0.316 AP/HP -> 3,16 HP/AP Shield

= 2886 Shield-HP @ 33 SHP/s average recovery @ 4 hitsize

vs. unbonused light em gun: 22 dmg / 5s = 4,4 dps / 4° dispersion = 100% chance to hit

aka: hurray, i can theoretically tank 2 non-tuning fit 2nd star with rather expensive equip and high extensions! and i dont even have my mining laser activated for that. now how would reducing the mining laser AP consumption change something?

btw, a trojar would be able to fit a t4 industry tuning, and two t4 mining laser - and still have better recharge, better shield, better hitsize - only worse cargo and halve mining efficiency.

Tbh Dynamic spawns  work great for gamma.  Not so much for alpha and beta, but I'm done with this topic I've conveyed why its idiotic to introduce dynamic features in a static world.

Yes that's right already heard about it a few weeks ago, good changes IMO, instead mining ships being a stepping stone with the Hulk being the best in every aspect , each class specializes depending on the gameplay taste of each individual player: Tanking class to play it safe, Large cargo class for AFK mining, Fleet/squad class for higher yields.

Seriously lets copy them, who cares

copy? wasnt that originally one of ACs goal to have a significant role for each class (ie not only stepping stones)? so back to the root idea

this goes one in one with the "whats the role of light bots" topic ->

If you look at the stats of the three mining bots in perp you get:

• Argano (light mining bot)
  - 3x small mining laser
  - 2x tuning slot
  - 1x lwf, 1x free engineering slot

  - Bonuses: cycletime, mined amount, geoscan accuracy.

• Termis (med mining bot)
  4x med mining laser ( aka 1 more then argano)
  4x tuning slot (aka 2 more then argano, stacking by multiplication)
  1x lwf slot, 3x recharge slot to make it capstable

  - bonuses: same as argano
  - slope and speed slightly worse then argano
  - cargo and mining yield/min far above then argano, even on low extensions

• Riveler (large mining bot)
  - 5x medium mining laser
  - 4x tuning slot
  - 1x lwf, 4x recharge slots, optional shield because easy capstable

  - bonuses: same as others, except resist bonus instead of geoscan accuracy
  - slope BETTER then termis, able to reach 95% of the mining locations
  - speed slower then the other two, but with ability to tank quite a bit.
  - more cargo then termis, ~25% more yield/min then termis.

Conclusion: since the price difference and EP difference between argano and termis is so small, the only reason to use the argano is, to gather the NIC for the Termis. After that you go straight to Riveler. If you got someone scanning for you, or got the accuracy extension high, you wont ever use the argano or termis again once your a Riveler MK2 pilot.

There are so many ways to make small mining laser and argano usefull for something - just an example:

1. ores spawning sometimes in small, very dense pockets on high slopes, only reachable by argano

2. + those dense pockets also "dropping" isotopes more often

3. + medium mining laser get AoE , small mining laser collect more isotopes

4. + arganos masking and detection equal to combat assaults (100/100)

Arjha also mentioned that termis could be combat-miner... with one more weapon slot and well, ability to fight off npcs - which is also hard to implement due to the rather bad DPS / self repair ability...