Greedy Goblin

Friday, January 11, 2013

Why fight against the AFK-ers?

I already wrote why it is important "morally" to fight the AFK-leeching. Now I want to explain why is it important from the selfish perspective.

The income/hour of the AFK-leech is infinite by definition. Practically it is a large number as setting up the character takes some time (queuing into a WoW battleground, warping to the ice field in EVE). Even this small time can be saved and the infinite income/hour can be reached by utilizing a bot.

Compared to the income/effort of the AFK-leech, even my trading income is laughable. Any active player is a loser compared to the AFK-leech. So yet again we reached the point that the best way to win a video game is not playing it but let a bot do it for us. However we want to play video games and don't want to be losers in the same time.

The only way out if we can make the AFK-leeches go away. In WoW it was theoretically impossible. Since you have no losses in WoW you can only slow down their progression but it's irrelevant as half of the infinite is still infinite. Also, Blizzard actively protected them, because an AFK-leech/bot is indistinguishable from a bad player. Does he do below-tank DPS because he is a bot or because he is bad? Does he stands in the middle of the nothing in a BG because he is AFK or because he is clueless? Blizzard wants "casual friendly" which by definition friendly to AFK-leeches and bots.

In EVE the active players can actually win against AFK-leeches/bots because there are losses. I can't just decrease the mining income of the bot but can make his income negative by blowing up his ship. "EVE is real" and "EVE is harsh" is all over the marketing, but still the game is littered by AFK-leeches proving that it's not true. In a really harsh game AFK-leeching would be impossible. I've never heard of someone winning in chess or football by not being there.

While "the economy is important" is all over EVE, practically people ignore it. Theoretically you have losses, your destroyed ship doesn't respawn like your killed avatar in WoW. The consequence of a loss is having to spend time mining, missioning or ratting. The enemy can be defeated by simply destroying more ships than they can replace or want to grind for. The problem is that with AFK-leeching getting a ship isn't harder than waiting for the resurrection timer. Sure you must wait more, but it's only a problem if you "have no life". If you play just X hours a day (and X isn't a large number), you have 24-X hours left to get ISK while asleep, watching TV, playing some other game or going to school/work. You really can't care less about your lost ship if its price will be there when you wake up thanks to your mission bot or AFK-ing Mackinaw.

So both to not be a sorry impoverished loser and to make ISK important, the AFK leeching must go. It won't go away by writing posts how unethical it is. We can also wait forever until CCP can catch all the bots. EVE is a sandbox where players can make impact. It's time to make some: the AFK-leeches will be purged by holy antimatter!

79 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think you have finally lost your mind.

There is no difference at all between a miner that stares at his lasers and one that tabs out for x minutes waiting for his hold to fill. None. They affect the economy in the exact same way.

Further, there is no difference between stepping away until the hold fills, and pressing "create all" in the crafting window to make 100 belt buckles. Both processes run until the game says stop. The latter you did all the time. You seem to have forgotten.

So, have you gone crazy, switched your viewpoints, are a hypocrite, or have you just made a huge mistake.

Lastly, the bumping movement's true goal of cleaning up high sec is completely defeated by the fact that you attack ATK players. You attack the way of mining you are trying to promote. The only people who should be attacked are bots.

I wholeheartedly support a movement that cleans the bots out of highsec. I do not support an obvious protection racket and I am laughing my ass off at how caught up you are in it.

Makes good reading.

Alkarasu said...

@07:11 Anonymous
"There is no difference at all between a miner that stares at his lasers and one that tabs out for x minutes waiting for his hold to fill. None. They affect the economy in the exact same way."

You are, actually, very wrong here. There are one fundamental difference between a bot and an active player (and AFK tabbing miner is very similar to a bot in this regard) - a player have limited patience and time. AFK player don't tap into that valueable resources too deep, bot don't spend them at all. And that resources are, naturally, the only valueable thing in any videogame, only thing, that is ever traded in EVE markets, the only thing, that is a source of the cost. Everything, any activity ingame is somehow measured against this universal resources. Now, try to explain, how producing something with spending a lot of the most valueable resource in existence have similar impact on the economy as producing it without spending that same resource at all.

Gevlon said...

There is a fundamental difference between AFK crafting/trading and AFK mining. The crafting/trading is market-limited:

If a Moa costs 11M and the materials 10M, then I make 1M profit on a Moa. It doesn't mean that I can craft one million Moas to have 1T profit. That would surely crash the Moa price below materials. So the time while I craft the Moas is irrelevant, so AFK-ing it has no practical effect.

On the other hand minerals are time limited, 2x more time means 2x more minerals and I can always sell minerals for a positive amount. The mineral income is payment for time. If you AFK it, you get payment for nothing.

Anonymous said...

What a nice minion of the new order you have become :P

The difference between the AFK miner and the bot is simple: it's not against EULA/ToS to afk mine!

Everyone can do it and with undocking your ship you take the risk of getting ganked. Thats fine to me. But if I can get some Ice/ore while reading the Eve-O forums or all this nice Blogs around eve (yours don't count the nice IMO) it is good. Because I invest time in Eve and the social media around it.

Oh and your calculation of infinity has some major lacks. No once time is infinite and the AFK miner is not always afk as he has to empty the bay every X Minutes. Thats Y Minutes where he is active.
Further more the afk miner doesn't get stuff for sleeping. Those 35 Ice blocks hardly pay the bill for electricity for your running hardware over 8h of sleep.

And finally yes BOTs are the real evil. They should be hunted and destroyed at any occasion.

Now go and get your self a miner in belt while writing the next propaganda piece for the new order.

Anonymous said...

In my opinion this is not actually a crusade against just afk miners but rather a reaction to making ganking miners a viable part of game play again.

If you read the 'code' it is very anti-miner (even AK ones). The orders stance is now that every player must be aware of it's policies so they bump/shoot on sight. It is probably only a question of time before they no longer even explain why a mining ship was attacked.

To call attacking a mining ship a fight is also misleading, it is simply griefing in the same way a gank for LOLs is.

Alkarasu said...

"But if I can get some Ice/ore while reading the Eve-O forums or all this nice Blogs around eve (yours don't count the nice IMO) it is good. Because I invest time in Eve and the social media around it."

You don't invest time in EVE (as your participation is just about a minute per hour), and you don't invest it in the social media around it (you can do anything while AFK, so it's highly probable, that you'll find something else to do in that enourmous amount of time mining require).

" the afk miner doesn't get stuff for sleeping"

Yet it's very much possible to get ISK for every moment that miner is not sleeping, which is still much more, then any non-AFK miner can spend on it, and AFK-miner still effectively NOT playing the game 99% of that time.

Hivemind said...

"I already wrote why it is important "morally" to fight the AFK-leeching."

I went back and re-read that post; I still don't see which part explains why AFK mining is "immoral". If I missed something in that post about morality, please point it out to me.

"The income/hour of the AFK-leech is infinite by definition."

You really need to explain this, because it makes no sense to me - the income/hour of an afk-miner is still limited to Value of Ore x Volume of Ore mined/hour. Just like it is for at-keyboard miners.

"Compared to the income/effort of the AFK-leech, even my trading income is laughable. Any active player is a loser compared to the AFK-leech."

Again, you need to explain this. As I and others have pointed out, the mining process for an AFK miner does not go
1. Start mining
2. Go AFK
3. INFINITE ISK!
They still need to return to their keyboard every time their ore hold is full to empty it and restart mining. Failiure to do so means that their income/time is reduced to 0 until they do come back. Just like it is for at-keyboard miners.

"If you play just X hours a day (and X isn't a large number), you have 24-X hours left to get ISK while asleep, watching TV, playing some other game or going to school/work."

As I and others have pointed out, AFK mining doesn't continue without supervision past the point the ore hold fills. As you don't seem to get how important this point is, here are some numbers for how long that will take a Mack fitted for yield with a 5% implant:

No Fleet:
Ore: 24.9 minutes
Ice: 43.64 minutes

Maxed Orca
Ore: 14.65 minutes
Ice: 29.54 minutes

Yes, a player can start mining at the start of an extended AFK period and come back at the end, gaining benefit for the first x minutes as above. They're also exposing themselves to risk for the whole period, and potentially inviting higher risk by being so blatantly AFK. If you want to gank a target you know isn't going to escape, try the one who's been sitting in the belt for 4 hours with their lasers off. What they definitely cannot do is gain the full benefit of the 24-X hours a day that they aren't playing.

"The mineral income is payment for time. If you AFK it, you get payment for nothing."

You get payment for tying yourself to returning to the PC every X minutes as above in order to empty your ore hold. Just as an at-keyboard player gets payment only for being at-keyboard when they need to empty their ore hold.

Yesterday I laid out the mining process for both at-keyboard and AFK miners in the hope of illustrating the (lack of) difference for you, as you don't exactly have a lot of first-hand experience to draw from. Since you didn't respond to it then, I'm going to reproduce it. I'd like you to point out to me which part of the process for Miner A is "immoral" as you put it, and where in that process the infinite income kicks in.

Miner A and Miner B are both in an Orca-boosted fleet, mining in Mackinaws because they offer better yield than the Skiff and a much stronger tank than the Hulk's, strong enough to deter casual gankers (though not a large force like those fielded by the New Order).

For Miner A, the mining process consists of warping to the fleet, targeting a juicy asteroid, turning their lasers on and then stepping away from their computer and watching TV for 17 cycles, then coming back and moving their ore to the Orca, then returning to the TV for the next 17 cycles.

For Miner B, the mining process consists of warping to the fleet, targeting a juicy asteroid, turning their lasers on and then tuning out the mining process as they browse websites through the ingame browser for 17 cycles, minimising the browser, moving their ore to the Orca, then returning to the browser for the next 17 cycles.

Gevlon said...

@Hivemind:

I didn't write that (AFK) mining is immoral, I wrote that fighting them is good as it promotes people to advance their character (M&S learn that there are rules, socials learn that they can act themselves, competitive learn that they have effect on the world)

Indeed AFK mining needs time, but not your time but your computers without you acting. In the game, you gain ISK compared to the guy who plays the same amount as you, just logs off when he doesn't play.

Indeed, without bot, they just get one hold of ice. However it is one hold more than the ice the other guy gets who equally doesn't play. Also, botting allows the utilization of the whole time. Other players are unable to tell if you bot or not, they can only determine if there is a human operator present or not (unless bots developed which can reasonably talk)

If we assume that the dock-return period make the ice earned, we start to get really nasty incomes. A dock-return cycle takes about 90 seconds, a full hold of ice is like 5M, 200M/hour, beats active mission running by far. Hell it is probably the highest ISK/hour after trading. It can be further speeded up by parking a freighter to the belt next to the ship that just eats jetcans. A jetcan-alt-tab-take cycle is about 20secs, providing 900M/hour. That beats my trading income. That beats FW-exploiting. All without effort, knowledge, skill. Any risks involved comes from gankers.

The active (though dumb) miner who just watches the cycle is playing the game, spending his gaming time on earning ISK. I can be better than this player by earning more ISK than he earns and can directly defeat him by destroying more ISK of his than he can earn. The inactive earns ISK without spending time. His ISK is free, it cost him nothing so he cannot be defeated.

In a game, resources are relative. The ISK and other assets are worthless pixels by themselves, they earn value as game points. Having more points means I'm a better player. Generating game points without playing is the definition of cheating.

In less moralizing terms: if I tolerate AFK-mining, I forfeit my chance to win EVE, I accept that I will always be behind them.

I won't.


Now I ask you a question: how is an AFK miner better than the WoW Alterac Valley AFK-er? (WoW gives out points for losing the BG so you get honor points even if you did nothing and the team lost)

Anonymous said...

Gevlon, can you actually define what is "afk-mining"?Docking/undocking/hauling/organizing, etc. is the same, the only difference is during the mining laser work which does not require any input, so:

1. A person is always online, staring at the screen.
2. A person is using in-game browser to read something game related or not
3. A person is using out-of-game browser, but alt-tab'inig to eve every minute or so to check if anything happened
4. A person is using two monitors, so he can see both eve and out of game browser windows
5. A person is using two boxes with two keyboards, one for eve mining fullscreen, another for something else
6. Person is using a huge projector and while vacuum cleaning his house he keeps his mining activity in his peripherial vision.
7. etc. etc....

Don't you think that your definition of afk-leaching is lacking? You can not compare it wow pvp-leaching, because in wow pvp everyone is supposed to make "effort to win". In eve watch the lasers part you are not supposed to make any "effort". Jeez, you even can not do anything if you wanted. Probably they should increase yield if you are spinning your ship while mining lasers work - then there would be a difference!

Bobbins said...

Doesn't the code also target active players who refuse to bend over for the New Order? The New Order doesn't just target Bots, and AFKers.
By trying to hide behind a noble cause you are blind to the real objective of the New Order which is bullying. The New Order can't bully AFK or Bots so who does that leave?

Gevlon said...

@Anonymous: the definition is indeed lacking, that's why there is a simple practical method to determine: the miner should be able to answer the Agent in local. If you can do that, you are considered "active". It's arbitrary but it works.

@Bobbins: yes, it does target active ones who refuse to pay the 10M and change their Bio. Similarly the cops arrest you if you drive sober and within the speed limit but refused to get a driving license.

The New Order bullies those people who have an overly need to make a fuss. I mean a Bio change and 10M isn't much. Most people don't have Bio at all. But their "moral" stops them from it. Yes, we bully them. We have to because they are poisonous examples for the real AFK-ers/botters.

Anonymous said...

So, the afk-er's just have to setup some kind of loud "buzzer" which is able to react to something on your screen. But... Isn't that botting? So, you are creating a situation in which bots have more advantage as they can be setup to react to various triggers, while you are forcing an average person to read local at all times, he can't even alt-tab.

Anonymous said...

the miner should be able to answer the Agent in local. If you can do that, you are considered "active". It's arbitrary but it works.

being able to is very different from actually answering. How do you determine the difference between an "afker" and someone who is just ignoring your obvious superiority complex?

Hivemind said...

@ Gevlon:

"If we assume that the dock-return period make the ice earned, we start to get really nasty incomes. A dock-return cycle takes about 90 seconds, a full hold of ice is like 5M, 200M/hour, beats active mission running by far. Hell it is probably the highest ISK/hour after trading."

You're (deliberately?) confusing ISK/hour with ISK/effort, two very different statistics. Your 200m/900m ISK/hour theory is leaving aside that that the hour of effort being spent to make that 200m/900m would have to be spread out over an absolute minimum of 20.7 hours and 89.5 hours of real time respectively. Those numbers once again remain the same for a player who is at their keyboard for the whole process or one who goes AFK aside from offloading.

In contrast, a mission runner gets about 40-60 mil ISK/hour and about the same ISK/effort. They work harder, but they can leverage their willingness to do so with a far more efficient use of their IRL time.

Since you brought up the comparison to trading, I have to ask how is AFK ice mining (in which a player exerts a small amount of effort routinely, and mostly benefits from the game mechanics continuing in their absence) different from your income stream (in which a player also exerts a small amount of effort routinely, and mostly benefits from the game mechanics continuing in their absence)?

"The inactive earns ISK without spending time. His ISK is free, it cost him nothing so he cannot be defeated."

And there I thought you'd finally gotten past the "AFK ISK is free ISK" stage with what you wrote earlier. As you yourself have already pointed out, he has a finite ISK/effort - if you destroy 100mil of his ISK he has to exert 30 minutes of effort to make it back - and as I've pointed out he has a finite ISK/rl hour - that 100mil will also take at least 10 hours of RL time to replace. Since he doesn't have access to an infinite amount of RL time, he still can be defeated.

"Generating game points without playing is the definition of cheating."

The "game" for mining consists of being there to start mining and being there to offload when full. That is all. The AFK player is still playing that same game.

"In less moralizing terms: if I tolerate AFK-mining, I forfeit my chance to win EVE, I accept that I will always be behind them."

So to put it bluntly, what you're saying is "AFK mining is bad because I do not like it". That's fine. You're welcome to your opinion, you're welcome to share it with others and you're welcome to act on it ingame by trying to wipe out AFK miners. But stop trying to mask your personal dislike by scaremongering with unsupported claims about AFK mining harming the game or being unfair to other miners, and please stop trying to bring morality into it.

"Now I ask you a question: how is an AFK miner better than the WoW Alterac Valley AFK-er?"

1) The AFK miner still interacts with the game exactly as much as their at-keyboard equivalent.
2) Mining doesn't offer additional rewards for a more active playstyle, WoW BGs do.
3) WoW BGs are a team game. The AFK player does so without regard to the rest of their team, and their lack of effort can be directly detrimental to the rest of the team's reward. The AFK miner doesn't drag down the yield of at-keyboard miners by their presence.
4) There isn't a more efficient source of honor available to non-AFK WoW players that leverages their willingness to be active. In EVE an active miner could be mining more profitable minerals in nullsec or WH space, which require attention to survive, or they could run missions in hisec for a higher ISK/hour return.

Cathfaern said...

@Hivemind
"You get payment for tying yourself to returning to the PC every X minutes as above in order to empty your ore hold"
I know I'm kinda geek, but:
I usually wake for 18 hours a day. I work at computer, and my work allows that I could take some minutes breaks almost anytime I want (but surely for every hour). After work I usually spend my freetime at computer (play games, read webpages/forums/etc, watching film). Let's say that I'm away from computer for 3 at most 4 hours, but that includes eating, housework, etc things I can start at end anytime I want (so I can schedule it around afk mining). So at average I spend at most 2 hours a day when I'm not sitting before a computer (average because some day I have sport or other activity, so I'm offline for more hours).
That all means that I could AFK mine for almost every waking hours. If I would have to pay attention, I could mine for at most 4-5 hours a day, rather than this 16-17 hours, which is huge difference.

Gevlon said...

@First anonymous: bots are obviously more efficient than AFK. However forcing leeches to actively bot is already a step of eliminating them: they are now risking bans.

@Second anonymous: after the first gank he'll answer.

@Hivemind: because trading has an inherent risk, an investment can very easily lose value over the time. I make the money by making the right investment. Mining on the other hand will 100% chance create minerals that have some positive value. Suicide ganking here doesn't play since the hauls of the trader can also be ganked.

He can only be defeated by targeted ganking. That costs me time and ISK. In other words I have to go out of my way to defeat him. He only other hand have to do nothing to defeat me, he wins while he is away.

AFK miner is "bad": because it is a non-fun winning strategy. If people would want the highest possible ISK/effort, everyone would just AFK mine. That wouldn't be an engaging game.

About your points:
1) while an active miner could do many things the AFK doesn't, it's true that the logged off miner does equally less, so I accept this

2) This is not true, a max-yield Hulk that fills a hauler and watches local/dscan to avoid ganks provides significanly larger yield.

3) This is the fundamentally wrong point in your logic. The miners aren't after ore/ice but ISK. The AFK-er increases the supply so decreases the price of ore/ice, decreasing the profit of every other miners.

4) This (for reasons unrelated to our topic, see http://jestertrek.blogspot.com/2012/10/its-all-same-thing.html) is not true. Check the prices of high-end ore. It's just barely higher than highsec ore and this can be attributed to transport cost. Even if we ignore other costs (like having to be in a corp of often horrible people), mean that an active miner has nowhere else to go unless he gives up upon his chosen playstyle.

Alkarasu said...

@Hivemind
" I have to ask how is AFK ice mining (in which a player exerts a small amount of effort routinely, and mostly benefits from the game mechanics continuing in their absence) different from your income stream (in which a player also exerts a small amount of effort routinely, and mostly benefits from the game mechanics continuing in their absence)?"

Completely different, of course. Mining directly produces goods from time those beams are active. Trading don't. Every EVE miner is, by design, a direct competition of every other EVE miner out there. Every unit of ore and ice drops value of all the ore and all the ice everyone else mines. Normal miner do that too, but AFK-miner is several times more effective at that. And that's pretty linearly equals several times more harmful.

Hivemind said...

@Alkarasu

"a player have limited patience and time. AFK player don't tap into that valueable resources too deep"

AFK mining taps into time just as much as at-keyboard mining, unless you're specifically in a situation where you can spread out your limited EVE time over a greater portion of RL time. A player who can only spend a single continuous hour playing EVE cannot say "I'll spend it on the non-AFK part of AFK mining" and cash in the reward for all the actual mining time that passes between each interaction. As for patience, given that the AFK miner is presumably doing something they enjoy more than mining in between each interaction which they have to continuously put on hold in order to go back to mining, I'd say it can also be a fairly significant drain on that too.

"Now, try to explain, how producing something with spending a lot of the most valueable resource in existence have similar impact on the economy as producing it without spending that same resource at all."

Once again, the AFK miner puts in the same amount of time and effort to mining as their at-keyboard equivalent. All the game requires for mining is that the player start their lasers when their hold is empty and empty their hold when it is full. If the AFK player doesn't do either of those, they don't get anything. If the at-keyboard player does anything else AS WELL as those, it has no effect on their mining yield.

"Yet it's very much possible to get ISK for every moment that miner is not sleeping, which is still much more, then any non-AFK miner can spend on it"

Not true - if a player is free of RL commitments, there's nothing stopping them from mining from just after they get up to just before they go to sleep. If you want to argue that that's a very rare exception to the norm, where do you want to draw that line? If all you're looking at is time spent mining, if someone's retired and wants to spend their time mining in EVE all day, aren't they just as bad as the AFK miner? What about someone who only works part-time? Unless you want to bring all miners down to the absolute lowest common denominator you're always going to be able to point at someone who has a free time advantage over other players that they're leveraging to out-compete them.

"AFK-miner still effectively NOT playing the game 99% of that time."

By that standard, so is an at-keyboard miner who's just staring at the screen in between starting lasers and emptying hold. They have the same amount of actual interaction with the game, and receive the same reward for it.

@Gevlon

"I mean a Bio change and 10M isn't much."

That's pretty much exactly what Bing Bangboom said yesterday, and just as I pointed out to him it ignores that a miner is also required to follow the arbitrary and ill-defined Code of the New Order as well, which is a very different proposition. Exactly how much mining is excessive, please?

@Cathfaern

Well then it would be a smart move economically for you leverage your personal circumstances by AFK mining. As I said to Alkarasu above, there will always be someone who can produce more than others due to different personal circumstances. Unless you want to argue that we should all be limited to the level of the one with the least ability to compete for fairness, I don't think that pointing out that AFK mining is better for some than others is relevant.

Pete Butcher said...

As an active miner I have to add something to the discussion.
First of all - I support the war against bots, I've paid my 10M and I'm happy mining and I'll be happy to report any bot I find. But AFK miners are somewhat problematic. At first it may seem that not being AFK does not generate higher income and is pretty much the same kind of mining as AFK. But, true active miners know that that this is not the case. Being active DOES generate more income. How? Rock scanner + mining cycles. Real miners know exactly how much they need to mine and when to stop their cycles and switch to another roid. The ISK/h ratio rises dramatically. This may not seem so obvious to people mining in fleets, as they usually tend to run full cycles, but to solo miners this is something natural (another thing is Gevlon's wrong attitude toward solo miners, but that's not what this discussion is about). Therefore being active = more ISK. Literally. I might also add switching different crystals in the process, but that's doesn't make such an impact, unless someone is stripping belts.
In other words - active mining can give significantly more ISK. You just have to be mining smart, not just being F1 monkey.

Anonymous said...

Trading does not have the "inherent risk" you seem to think, only if you have fat fingers on the keyboard while sleepy, or are trying to do speculation.

If you are fire and forgetting your trade orders in, oh, I don't know, say T2 ships and modules, there is negligible inherent risk. You put them up for sale, or buy orders, log back in a week and collect the isk, relist the items that you have bought.

Even with large volume minerals, outside of the busy hubs, you just stick them up there and log off. Regional trading too. Of course, you can run your 4 pilots back and forth between trade hubs all day, but then, thats like docking/undocking instead of using an Orca.

"We must get rid of AFK miners in the ice belts" smacks a bit of a goon-style "Lets drive up the ice price so we can cash in on it."

Or possibly, you are annoyed that despite your AFK trading, you missed the (by your maths at least) 900M per hour you could have been getting mining at the same time as trading? Only thing is, you can't gank AFK traders, or bump them. Sure, you can play with their market, but as they aren't logged in, they will just ride it out anyway, and it is /effort to find out what price they bought the goods for.

Camo said...

Gevlon: "Similarly the cops arrest you if you drive sober and within the speed limit but refused to get a driving license."

The question is whether the bio is the license or merely a bumper sticker and whether the new order is the police or a gang that claims to own their turf.

"If we assume that the dock-return period make the ice earned, we start to get really nasty incomes. A dock-return cycle takes about 90 seconds, a full hold of ice is like 5M, 200M/hour, beats active mission running by far."

True in terms of active time spent, but what stays the same is the total time spent mining.
Someone who actively mines for an hour has a low isk/hour compared to an AFK'er, but after an hour both have the same ISK.
If one were to gain the 200M they would need to mine for a total of 40 redock cycles, AFK or not.
If we had an activity that takes a second to start and yields 100.000 after an hour, it's 360M per active hour but is still outperformed by doing a single mission in terms of total yield.

Hivemind said...

@Gevlon

"Suicide ganking here doesn't play since the hauls of the trader can also be ganked."

I'd argue that the difference there is that people gank mining barges for fun (see: Hulkageddons before Goon subsidy, most New Order agents before reimbursement) whereas ganks on haulers are done for profit and the risk can be mitigated by keeping hauler value below the economic gank value threshold.

"He only other hand have to do nothing to defeat me, he wins while he is away."

I'm sorry, defeats you how? Wins what? Is this just because he spends less effort to make an ISK? If so, sure but your efforts scale a lot better, and frankly with sufficient investment you can bring your own ISK/effort ahead of theirs. We've already established that there is a finite cap on ISK/effort for AFK mining, all you need is to bring profit-per-trade up enough to be higher than that.

"AFK miner is "bad": because it is a non-fun winning strategy. If people would want the highest possible ISK/effort, everyone would just AFK mine. That wouldn't be an engaging game."

If all every EVE player wanted was to make as much ISK as possible, either on its own or in exchange for as little effort as possible, it wouldn't be an engaging game no matter what method they were using. I also don't see how this is specifically an issue for AFK mining - if every player decided to active mine and nothing else, that also wouldn't be engaging.

"2) This is not true, a max-yield Hulk that fills a hauler and watches local/dscan to avoid ganks provides significanly larger yield."

That's only comparing a Hulk to a Mackinaw, it doesn't weigh in on AFK vs active. If a player wanted to they could use a Hulk and still go AFK in between needing to empty the ore hold, the yield would be identical to a player who's at the keyboard.

"3) This is the fundamentally wrong point in your logic. The miners aren't after ore/ice but ISK. The AFK-er increases the supply so decreases the price of ore/ice, decreasing the profit of every other miners."

Yes, but no more so than any other miner does. The fact they're AFK doesn't affect the impact they have on the market more than it would if they were at keyboard for the same amount of time. Any argument based solely on increasing the income for one group of miners applies equally well to removing any other group of miners.

"Check the prices of high-end ore. It's just barely higher than highsec ore and this can be attributed to transport cost."

Currently, the most valuable common hisec ore is Kernite at about 223 ISK/m3, only available in some hisec regions. Meanwhile, Nullsec has Arkonor (273 ISK/m3), Hedbergite (273 ISK/m3) and Hemorphite (255 ISK/m3), representing between 14-22% greater ISK/hour than mining any hisec ore. Your point also ignores that the majority of AFK miners in hisec are mining ice, which is worth significantly less than any of the ores. ISK/m3 isn't comparable as the extraction methods are very different, but if you want a ballpark figure a barge will mine about 2x as much Ore as Ice, while the best hisec ice is worth 150 ISK/m3, equivalent to ore at 75 ISK/m3. Compared to that, a player actively mining Ark or Hed in Null is making 364% as much as the AFK hisec ice miner.

"an active miner has nowhere else to go unless he gives up upon his chosen playstyle."

I assume the "chosen playstyle" bit there is you glossing over the fact that a player actively mining in hisec could also be actively mission running for about 3x as much ISK/hour?

Gevlon said...

@Hivemind: it is true that an active miner decreases the income of other miners equally. However that is indeed competition, the very heart of every game. Score a goal in football, shot him down in an FPS, blow up his spaceship or beat up his market scheme.

The very point of the post is that the AFK miner is competitive without making significant effort or taking any inherent risks (ore doesn't shoot back, belt rats are a joke, suicide gankers gank missioners and haulers too)

I'm also aware that ice is cheaper than ore. But the New Order will cleanse the belts too. Targeting Ice is just a first step, it's chosen for being easier, there are much less ice fields than kernite.

Hivemind said...

@Alkarasu

[Trading is] "Completely different, of course."

Traders make ISK by providing arbitrage and possibly shipping between people who want to sell and people who want to buy goods. Typically this is sellers who are willing to charge less for the convenience of a quick sale and buyers willing to pay more for the convenience of a quick purchase. Every EVE trader is, by economics, a direct competition with every other EVE trader out there. Every trade that a trader brokers reduces the available arbitrage to other traders. Every undercut that makes a trader's goods more attractive to their customers also devalues every other trader's goods.

"Every unit of ore and ice drops value of all the ore and all the ice everyone else mines. Normal miner do that too, but AFK-miner is several times more effective at that."

How are AFK miners several more times effective, exactly? They mine as much in the same amount of IRL time as a non-AFK miner, and their ice/ore isn't worth more because it was mined AFK.

@Gevlon

"The very point of the post is that the AFK miner is competitive without making significant effort or taking any inherent risks"

The same is entirely true for an at-keyboard miner though. That's been my point in all the comments I've made on this. Active miners and AFK miners still have to put in the same amount of effort to earn the same rewards. You've tried repeatedly to prove that statement wrong, for example claiming that an AFK miner can do things like mine continuously while sleeping, but none of these claims have carried any weight. Can you give me a solid example of how an active miner is forced to exert more effort for their ore, ice or ISK than an AFK miner does for the same amount of ore, ice or ISK?

If an active player chooses to do so, they can exert more effort than their AFK brethren and increase their rewards - whether that's by mission running, mining in more dangerous space that needs attention or even just making smart use of asteroid scanners and mining crystals as Pete Butcher has said above, but they don't have to do any of that, and if they choose not to then their input and reward will be the same as someone who starts mining and goes afk until their hold is full.

Anonymous said...

What good, non-afk, "New Order compliant" miner is supposed to do while lasers are doing their work? Just stare at the screen?

Nielas said...

This is a weird direction Gevlon has gone into. To me AFK-mining is not fundamentally differtne than AFK-craftign, AFK-retrieving items and gold from mails or AFK-scanning the AH. In WoW the ability to set things up so he could do most of the boring repetitive tasks while AFK defined why his business model was so successful.

I guess everyone has those personal thin lines that do not make sense to other people but are actually a really big deal to that individual.

Bing Bangboom said...

I appreciate Hivemind and Gevlon's (along with the rest of you) attempting to put the New Halaima Code of Conduct and the New Order into economic terms. Its always helpful to approach a complicated issue from every angle. You never know what will finally make someone understand.

However, the New Order of Highsec and The Code have more than just an economic aspect. It goes right to the very essential core of what Eve is. Is Eve a game where each player decides individually not just what his playstyle will be but also the outcome of his choices. Is preventing another player from doing what he wants in the fashion he chooses "griefing" and "harrassment"?

The fundamental problem that the New Order of Highsec has with the highsec miners is that most of them are bot aspirants. I know you hear us throw this term out frequently and probably consider it a propaganda tool for delegitimizing the miners. It is much more than this. James 315, in a series of admittedly long articles spelled out this viewpoint long before the New Order arose. They can be seen by going to www.minerbumping.com and clicking on Links. The series of articles now appears on themittani.com as they were buried in the Eve forums.

The articles clearly lay out what bot aspirant means. Why do miners afk mine? I think most people would agree that they do because:
1) The changes to mack and retriever holds, the practically inexhaustable state of an ice block, and the increased EHP of the mining ships make it practical.
2) The EULA allows it.
3) Mining ice in particular is so boring that no one really wants to spend valuable time doing it.

The economically driven miners (meaning all) are constantly trying to maximize their yield over time. AFK mining is mining on steroids. They maximize ISK by mining during time when they really haven't got time for play, they minimize boredom by doing something else while mining and they don't break the EULA so their accounts are safe. James argues that if CCP were to suddenly allow botting most if not all of the miners would begin doing so since they are economic min/maxers and this would allow them to safely increase their ISK intake. I often am told by miners that they would never bot but that afking is allowed so they are free to do so. The New Order sees afk mining as the entry drug to botting. Because the miners WOULD bot if allowed to, they are all already guilty of being bot aspirants. The only miners who have rejected this viewpoint are the ones who have purchased permits and publicly stated their support for The Code in their bios. Now, some of them may be lying but that is on them. The rest are unrepentant bot aspirants.

So, you may ask, what is wrong with being a bot aspirant? In the view of the New Order, bot aspirants have been the initiators of a number of changes to highsec that have moved Eve in the wrong direction. The increased EHP of the mining ships, the large ore holds, the removal of insurance for gankers, the changes to can flipping and ninja salvaging brought in by Crimewatch II were all the result of complaints by bot aspirants to CCP about things that interfered with their afk mining. They demanded to be allowed to play a multiplayer game without being bothered by other players! Can you believe this? And can you believe that CCP gave in to their demands and gave them all the buffs they demanded? And do you believe that CCP won't give in again and buff them even more?

(to be continued)

Bing Bangboom said...

(continued)

The New Order of Highsec is dedicated to bringing this to an end. With our efforts we are bringing home the idea that NOTHING will make the highsec miner safe to ignore other players. He will not be allowed to afk, he will not be able to mine at max yield, he will not be able to treat other players like well-programed NPCs.

The New Order is waging a war for the soul of Eve Online. Opposing us are the bots and bot aspirants. CCP can choose the players like us who, we believe, represent the initial intent of the designers AND the finest example of player driven, emergent gameplay that Eve is famous for, or they can choose the players who demand the safety to be able to play the game while not even being present to play. This is what we mean when we say you are either a supporter of the New Order or our enemy. There can be no neutrals in this struggle.

Highsec is worth fighting for.

Bing Bangboom
Agent of the New Order of Highsec
Belligerent Undesirable

Alkarasu said...

@Hivemind
"AFK mining taps into time just as much as at-keyboard mining, unless you're specifically in a situation where you can spread out your limited EVE time over a greater portion of RL time."

...which is exactly the situation for anyone, who works using the same computer he can AFK-mine on. Considering how much time people tend to spend somewhere near the PC, it's pretty normal to assume, that people, who would be most interested in AFK-mining will be like that.

"As for patience, given that the AFK miner is presumably doing something they enjoy more than mining in between each interaction which they have to continuously put on hold in order to go back to mining, I'd say it can also be a fairly significant drain on that too."

Once in 40 minutes you need to spend 1 to unload and reset the beams... something tells me, that nearly any activity can take such pauses without any ill effects. Actually, most activities benefit from such regular short attention shifts.

"If the at-keyboard player does anything else AS WELL as those, it has no effect on their mining yield."

Yes! But you carefully avoiding mentioning, that while AFK-miner doing something he need to do anyway, or even enjoys, while his ore hold fills up, non-AFK one spends mining. No matter how you look at it, EVE mining is quite boring stuff to do. So even if you take, that looking at the EVE screen with mining barge on it takes exactly the same toll on miner's patience (which is wrong, as in most cases changing activity "resets" the boredom meter), you must understand, that where AFK-miner does that 1 minute of every 30-40, non-AFK one does it 30-40 minutes of every 30-40. Terefore, even in ideal situation, AFK miner gets bored of mining 30-40 times slower, then non-AFK one.

"here's nothing stopping them from mining from just after they get up to just before they go to sleep."

There is one thing. Mining is boring. Mining 10 hours straight without leaving the keyboard is nearly lethaly boring.

"where do you want to draw that line?"

What line? I don't want to equalize all miners - and highy doubt Gevlon, or anyone in the Order wants that. Non-AFK mining idea is way more simple. Every mined unit should be someone's time converted into goods, not created out of thin vacuum. As simple, as that.

"you're always going to be able to point at someone who has a free time advantage over other players that they're leveraging to out-compete them."

...and it's good! He can use that time in many different ways, if he wants to make it into minerals or ice - good, let him do it, let him play the game like he wants to. He wants to be best mner in New Eden? Exellent! He wants to compete with other miners? Wonderful! But - by playing the game, not by touching it once an hour and making it print money by that.

"Every undercut that makes a trader's goods more attractive to their customers also devalues every other trader's goods."

...but no amount of trade can produce goods. No matter, how may trades are made, it's still the same goods, it's still the same ISK. You can shift it, you can bend it, you can spend as many time, as you have, and you won't make a single module to appear. And mining increases the market volume every second that beam is on.

"How are AFK miners several more times effective, exactly?"
I can spend about 2 hours mining a day before I get bored and go find something else to do (as I rarely have more, then 3 hours per day for games at all). I can spend 14-15 hours I'm at my PC working or doing other things while AFK-mining. Same character, same ship, 7 times more ore mined, and it doesn't even cut in the time I have for playing games, as I do other things while minerals flow. Nearly zero effort and 7 times the profit compared to the time I actually put some effort in.

Unknown said...

Would you be onboard with a price-fixing cartel similar to the New Order?

For example, suppose that there was an organization based around the idea "selling ice at less than X is immoral", or "selling ice somewhere other than Y is immoral" or "selling ice to someone other than Z is immoral". And of course, the usual ancillary "failing to support our campaign against immoral behavior is itself immoral".

I think these projects are fun and interesting, and it's a shame that there are so few goods and services in Eve, and they're so diffusely available, that it's very difficult to achieve a near-monopoly, even on a good that does have plenty of near substitutes.

gallego said...

""I mean a Bio change and 10M isn't much."

That's pretty much exactly what Bing Bangboom said yesterday, and just as I pointed out to him it ignores that a miner is also required to follow the arbitrary and ill-defined Code of the New Order as well, which is a very different proposition. Exactly how much mining is excessive, please?"

You all do realize that james 315 and his group is just roleplaying a deranged religious cult to put some window dressing on their griefing for tears?

Players taking on the bot problem themselves is a great idea and I'm sure the new order started with that goal in mind but its obvious that over time they've been seduced by the means and have forgotten or just willingly turned away from their goal.

Its clear to see that by their arbitrary changes to their practices (no longer giving any effort to trying to detect bots or afkers, just open season on people who don't pay their protection racket) that their original goal of disrupting bots had gotten in the way of their real pleasure of farming tears.

Its meaningless to engage in logical discussion based around their "doctrines" or what their original stated goals were. While things might have been different at the start all they are now are simple griefers who've added a mad cultist RP element to their activities.

Debra Tao said...

Take no offense in my comment but i feel like you are always trying to create notions and concepts out of nowhere just to justify what you are doing or to be more precise to justify that you are superior to other people.

Like earlier this year when you tried to qualify FWers as leech or cheaters similarly now you describe ice miners that are afk as exploiters, "cheating" and so on while you see afk trading, crafting perfectly fine and try to prove your point via an endless amount of subtle distinctions.

IPH shows that if someone is ice mining 8 hours a day each day his income is near 1.2b If you count the plex that's actually a pretty shitty income considering the amount of monitoring his require. Yes i know it's mostly afk but still doing that 8 hours a day each day is incredibly tiring. For what ? What you can earn in 2 hours in Jita ? I don't see how this is an exploit and i don't believe that there are many bots in belts. So far the new order hasn't really found a lot of bots...

That's just an excuse to generate tears via an incredibly complex and well thought-out mix of trolling : "code" "savior" "indulgence" for what is basically a protection racket.

Wolf said...

James 315, is a damn genius. Selling shares of his corp and taking donations? He's probably well on his way to making over 100B ISK total by doing jack shit himself the last few months. I really hope that I find out that this entire thing has just been an ISK making scam, it truly would be the icing on the cake and that fat bastard would have been able to eat it too (while laughing on his way to the bank). Sometimes I wish I were this creative.

Anonymous said...

Its all a goon plot to control ice prices *tinfoil hat*

Gevlon was a goonie for a bit, as was James315...just sayin' ^^

Debra Tao said...

@Wolf

This doesn't make any sense. The simple fact to blog that often with so much patience and effort represent a huge work. He also started all this by doing hours of relentless bumping himself.

Furthermore this cannot be a scam, everyone involve know that they won't see their money again. Worth it ? Most definitely look at the tears...

Anonymous said...

Should we also start attacking all the players using autopilot through the space.

Most of them are probably afk and some even doing courier contracts meaning they are getting isk by just undocking and enabling autopilot.

Hivemind said...

@Bing Bangboom

"I often am told by miners that they would never bot but that afking is allowed so they are free to do so. The New Order sees afk mining as the entry drug to botting. Because the miners WOULD bot if allowed to"

Since the miners are saying that they would not bot, what evidence do you have that AFK mining is "the entry drug to botting" exactly? Without proof that players move from AFK mining to actual botting, what relevance is it if miners would bot if it were allowed by CCP?

I imagine that most Knights of the New Order would evade CONCORD if doing so were not classed as an exploit by CCP, but I'm not going to suggest that they move from ganking to exploiting the game, or that ganking is a gateway drug to exploiting, because I have no evidence otherwise.

"In the view of the New Order, bot aspirants have been the initiators of a number of changes to highsec that have moved Eve in the wrong direction."

That seems like a very one-sided view of the matter, since it's ignoring all the game changes that buffed ganking prior to the barge rebalance. Specifically, there was a big buff to Destroyer DPS, another big buff to Hybrid weapons as a whole which boosted blaster damage and the introduction of the tier 3 battlecruisers whose core function is pretty much "ungodly DPS". I'm inclined to chalk Crimewatch II up to Greyscale being an idiot rather than an attempt to help miners.

"And can you believe that CCP gave in to their demands and gave them all the buffs they demanded?"

Firstly, do you have any actual evidence that these changes came about as a result of miner (especially AFK miner) lobbying, rather than CCP looking at their own internal stats and metrics and making changes based on them?

Second, "gave them all the buffs they demanded" (emphasis mine) is definitely misleading; gank victims, canflip victims and bait can victims have been whining for many years to make hisec completely safe. If they were given all the buffs they demanded, that would be the case. Last time I checked, it wasn't.

That point is my main argument against James 315's theory that CCP are stealth nerfing hisec to total safety, whether it's in response to miner lobbying or because they expect it to increase subs; if they were going to do it, why haven't they either done it already or taken more extreme steps towards it? Making barges tougher in response to ships putting out higher DPS is a far cry from buffing CONCORD response times for example, which would be far more in line with the kind of demands that get made frequently on the forums.

Incidentally, I found it quite ironic that James 315 recently had a post on his site that was poking fun at miners tinfoil hatting about him having CCP's ear, when he's complaining about miners having undue influence himself.

"CCP can choose the players like us who, we believe, represent the initial intent of the designers AND the finest example of player driven, emergent gameplay that Eve is famous for, or they can choose the players who demand the safety to be able to play the game while not even being present to play."

Or they can choose to strike a balance in between the two extremes. Or they can choose to replace all ship models with bananas. Or they can do anything else they feel like, because it's their game. You can claim that it's a black and white situation, but it's entirely up to CCP what changes, if any, they want to make.

Anonymous said...

@Second anonymous: after the first gank he'll answer.

Not if he has any sense he wont. The whole reason you and others are doing this is for the tears. The best way to deny a bully what he wants is to just ignore him.

Ignore the 'new order' enough and it will go away, because despite your posturing it is not about cleaning up bots or afkers (because it cannot be, you have no way of determining bots or afkers). It is about providing cheap kills for risk averse internet hard men.

Hivemind said...

@Alkarasu

"Terefore, even in ideal situation, AFK miner gets bored of mining 30-40 times slower, then non-AFK one."

Unless you're suggesting that boredom is deliberately incorporated into EVE as a game mechanic to limit how much players can make by mining, I don't see how AFK miners managing to minimise its effect on their gameplay is an inherently bad thing rather than a sensible approach. If you want argue that boredom in mining is inherent, it seems like the non-AFK miners are deliberately handicapping themselves and complaining that not everyone is doing the same.

"What line? I don't want to equalize all miners"

But you do want to equalise some miners - you're saying that you want to bring AFK miners productivity in line with non-AFK miners, apparently because AFK miners have a superior method to mitigate boredom.

My point is that things like boredom tolerance are always going to vary from one player to another. If boredom is intended to be a cap on mining, why is it wrong for a player to benefit from AFK mining mitigating boredom while it's OK for another player to benefit because they simply find mining enjoyable? In either case, they're getting around your "boredom is a hard-cap to mining income" mechanic.

"But - by playing the game, not by touching it once an hour and making it print money by that."

As I've said repeatedly, an afk miner and an at-keyboard player get the same reward for the same input into the game. There's nothing that an active player needs to do while their ore hold is filling up that an AFK miner gets to skip. The at-keyboard miner is "touching it once an hour and making it print money" just as much as the AFK one.

"but no amount of trade can produce goods. [...] And mining increases the market volume every second that beam is on."

But the effect is identical - a miner's activities decrease the value of every other miner's activities, a trader's activities decrease the value of every other trader's activities.

"I can spend about 2 hours mining a day [...] I can spend 14-15 hours I'm at my PC working or doing other things while AFK-mining."

So your personal circumstances would allow you to make more ISK from afk mining than you could at-keyboard. This isn't the case for every AFK miner, nor is it the case that every at-keyboard miner is limited to 2 hours mining before they get bored, or 3 hours dedicated gaming. If you chose to start afk mining as you say there, you would be putting in as much effort as someone who was mining at the keyboard for the same 14-15 hours, while getting the same reward.

@gallego

I hate to burst your bubble, but the New Order has always had a soft spot for gankers - it's written right into their Code. James 315 was a ganker who switched to bumping when the exhumer rebalance meant he could no longer solo gank mackinaws in a cheap catalyst, the New Order grew from there.

@Wolf

If I recall correctly, didn't James 315 have a piece on themittani.com recently taking credit for an old EVE banking scam? :tinfoil:

Anonymous said...

Interesting points were raised but in the end the novelty will fade, gankers will get bored with warping to ice belts and shooting at defenseless barges...
Even goons got bored with ice interdiction...
Give it a month or two even Gevlon will get bored.
Meanwhile, botters will get better at botting, AFK miners will change systems, and gankers will get bored

I ll remind u in a month

Quim said...

Mining bots drive mineral/ice prices down. Mission bots drive named equipment prices down and other prices up (a wash for me). I buy both the named and manufactured equipment that bots helped reduce in price. I heart bots.

I agree with you that it's in the best interest of active miners to support The Cause. But you sound like Obama moaning about ATMs stealing people's jobs. It's in the interest of human tellers to support The Luddite Cause too.

Thanks for writing this blog. It's been an enjoyable read.

NoizyGamer said...

@Gevlon

Perhaps I'm just a bot aspirant or maybe I'm an M&S who doesn't know anything about bots. But could you explain why AFK mining is the moral equivalent of botting? Also, could you please explain this comment?

"bots are obviously more efficient than AFK. However forcing leeches to actively bot is already a step of eliminating them: they are now risking bans."

If your goal is to force people to break the EULA, then I'm pretty sure your efforts are breaking the EULA and need to be shut down.

Maybe you need to make a post that explains why AFK botting is just as bad if not worse than botting. I would be interested to read the reasons why.

Camo said...

Bing Bangboom: "Because the miners WOULD bot if allowed to, they are all already guilty of being bot aspirants."

If we were to do away with speed limits, everyone would be speeding. Therefore you are guilty of speeding and are fined for it.
Same nonsense.
Also it is 'might' not 'would'.

Alkarasu: "Yes! But you carefully avoiding mentioning, that while AFK-miner doing something he need to do anyway, or even enjoys, while his ore hold fills up, non-AFK one spends mining."

The underlying problem is the mining itself. Active mining isn't active at all. It is watching and waiting for an automated process to finish.
It's like actively boiling water or actively using a washing machine.
You are forced to wait until it's done, which is a reason why it's taxing.

Azuriel said...

This "debate" has been painful to read.

Hivemind has the right of things. The rules of the game CCP designed stipulate that no player input is necessary to mine. Attaching moral significance to that leveraging of the rules is a social construct you bring into the game; in effect, you are making the Play to Ego mistake outlined in your own linked Play to Win article. Is it a cheap move that "wins?" Maybe. But as always, the question is: whose fault is that? Botting is against the rules, but there is no player input being duplicated when mining lasers run on autopilot default.

You are free to lobby for changes to mining, or rail against the game design from within just like any social who complains about cheap moves in Arathi Basin. Just acknowledge whose side you have taken.

Gevlon said...

@Azuriel: please not that instead of whining of the "cheap move", I'm doing the hard counter: suicide gank. Actually I'm trying to explain the people the people that I have no other choice than this to win.

@Nozygamer: I want them to stop. Many would instead of turn to bots that can dock up when known gankers are in local. It's that choice, not mine. The active play is there.

AFK playing an botting both providers in-game rewards without effort.

@Hivemind: I do claim what you mentioned to Alkarasu, that PvE is meant to be boring. It's the death penalty. If you lose your ship, you must grind it back.

Alkarasu said...

@Hivemind
"Unless you're suggesting that boredom is deliberately incorporated into EVE as a game mechanic to limit how much players can make by mining"

I'm suggesting exactly that. In other case it was always way simplier to implement mining in the same form PI is implemented - fully automated material printing device.

"But you do want to equalise some miners - you're saying that you want to bring AFK miners productivity in line with non-AFK miners"

I want to make non-playing the game to be less rewarding ingame, then playing it. What's so wrong with it?

"The at-keyboard miner is "touching it once an hour and making it print money" just as much as the AFK one."

But they also spend the resource they supposed to spend to get minerals, while AFK-miners don't.

"This isn't the case for every AFK miner"

Really? Because I have that feeling, that the main point of AFK-mining was exactly that ability to get income while spending as little attention on the game as possible.

Unknown said...

The problem here is with the definition of "victory".

If you define "victory" as "having more ISK per hour of play", then you are up against AFK-miners essentially using "cheap" tactics to get maximum ISK per hour of play.

You can't really fault them for that, though, since they are just going about achieving the victory objective in the best way possible.

If you take steps to actively prevent them from achieving their victory objective in such a way, that your less effective way becomes better, you essentially become the Eve PvPer who you have said so many bad words against. You are doing something horribly inefficient to ruin another person's efficient operation for the sake of your own feeling of superiority.

You need a better definition of victory. The head picture of your site currently talks about pure exploitation, but once before it talked about building a better word through exploitation.

Stop trying to define "selfish" in ISK terms. To a truly asocial person, ISKs are simply means to an end. A tool for victory, not a victory condition.

The following line of thought may be helpful in arriving at a better (but still selfish) definition of winning:

AFK miners are losers because they forget about the true victory in Eve - that is, building up your own version of society. Thus, they deserve to be treated as soulless resource and consuption generating machines, which they themselves chose to reduce themselves to (at least as far as Eve is concerned).

If these machines generate too much resources and too little consumption, any active player with desire to "win" - that is build a functional virtual society with whatever parameters he likes - is entirely within his right to halt or alter their operations as he sees fit.

Hivemind said...

@Gevlon

Once again, Can you give me a solid example of how an active miner is forced to exert more effort for their ore, ice or ISK than an AFK miner does for the same amount of ore, ice or ISK?

"Many would instead of turn to bots"

That's now the second time the New Order has claimed that AFK miners frequently turn to botting, I'd like to see some evidence for that please.

"PvE is meant to be boring. It's the death penalty. If you lose your ship, you must grind it back."

There's a difference between grind and boring - as I've pointed out, AFK mining might be very low isk/effort but it still is a very slow method of making ISK in IRL terms. If you need to replace 100mil through ice mining that's about 10 RL hours or more to do; whether or not it's boring, I don't think you can argue that that's a grind.

@Alkarasu

"I'm suggesting exactly that [boredom is a game mechanic]"

By the same reasoning, AFK mining is a game mechanic to counter boredom in exchange for lower income. Bear in mind that CCP put in near-infinite yield icesteroids, miners that run until ore bays are full and the 35km3 ore bay Mackinaw. If they wanted to they could simply declare AFK mining an exploit; this has not happened.

"In other case it was always way simplier to implement mining in the same form PI is implemented - fully automated material printing device."

AFK mining and PI exist on a continuum of EVE PvE running from high ISK/effort, low ISK/time to the opposite extreme. PI is on the far ISK/effort end, generating few ISK per RL hour but also taking very little input. Ice mining is further along that scale, as it requires more effort than PI does and thus pays out more. On the far end are things like Nullsec sanctums and havens and wormhole capital escalations, which require far more player input but also pay off a lot more per hour.

Suggesting that the fact CCP didn't make mining a completely hands off process means it must only be done in the most hands on manner seems like a very dubious perspective that ignores how mining fits in to the other PvE activities.

"I want to make non-playing the game to be less rewarding ingame, then playing it. What's so wrong with it?"

Nothing, it's your continued assertion that AFK mining is "non-playing the game" while at-keyboard mining is not that I disagree with. All that mining requires is that a player be there to start the miners and there when the ore fills to empty it. Whether I go AFK in between or sit at the keyboard staring at the mining lasers cycling or sit at the keyboard and browse on the ingame browser while the hold fills up then my input to the game itself is identical, as are my rewards. At-keyboard mining is just as "non-playing" as AFK.

As I've pointed out above, there are other activities that are more rewarding than AFK mining that are available only to active players, which include ore mining using scanners to maximise yield, mining in null/wh space, any form of exploration or mission running. THAT is the game being more rewarding for players investing more effort.

"But they also spend the resource they supposed to spend to get minerals, while AFK-miners don't."

That's the choice of the players involved, not a requirement by the design of the game. I'd argue that given the game's support of AFK mining, players who are trying to compete with the AFK miners in the same field (active ice miners for example) rather than leveraging their willingness to be active in a more profitable field are doing it wrong.

"the main point of AFK-mining was exactly that ability to get income while spending as little attention on the game as possible."

Yes it is, but the difference between "Amount of time I can spend playing EVE constantly" and "amount of time I can spend playing EVE interacting once every 20-30 minutes" is not going to be as vast for most players as it is for you.

Alkarasu said...

@Hivemind
"By the same reasoning, AFK mining is a game mechanic"

It's not a game mechanic at all. It's a result of the fact that CCP can't force players to not mine AFK, unless some other players will enforce "no AFK" rule.

"Bear in mind that CCP put in near-infinite yield icesteroids"

...yet they made it so that to mine it effectively you need to use pretty easily ganked ship, and to do it really effectively you'll need full mining ops with all possible support and guards.

"the 35km3 ore bay Mackinaw"

Erm... you do realise, that 35km3 is 35 000 000 000 m3, yes?

"Suggesting that the fact CCP didn't make mining a completely hands off process means it must only be done in the most hands on manner seems like a very dubious perspective that ignores how mining fits in to the other PvE activities."

In CCP vision of mining (which is pretty easy to see from ship designs), mining is not a solo activity. And when it's not solo, there are plenty to do in it.

"All that mining requires is that a player be there to start the miners and there when the ore fills to empty it."

...and all the time in between to make sure no one will kill him in the process, yes. And that's exactly the point, where the New Order comes in.

"THAT is the game being more rewarding for players investing more effort."

Yes. But that's still have nothing about the game neing rewarding to people, who don't invest any effort at all.

"rather than leveraging their willingness to be active in a more profitable field are doing it wrong."

Actually, the New Order is exactly the thing, that motivates AFK-miners to stop they AFK-mines. Actively.

"but the difference between "Amount of time I can spend playing EVE constantly" and "amount of time I can spend playing EVE interacting once every 20-30 minutes" is not going to be as vast for most players as it is for you."

Sure, but it is still vast for anyone, who spend his day more or less stationary.

Hivemind said...

"It's a result of the fact that CCP can't force players to not mine AFK"

Which implies that CCP want to force players to not mine AFK. If that were the case, why allow mining lasers to auto-repeat? Why create a ship with a 35,000 m3 ore bay? It's CCP's game, if they want to force players out of a playstyle they dislike then they have all the powers to do that, instead they have not only tolerated AFK mining for the last 9 years, they've actually buffed it.

"yet they made it so that to mine it effectively you need to use pretty easily ganked ship"

Actually, any of the mining barges can mine ice effectively. The most effective ship for AFK mining is the Mackinaw, which offers reasonable tank; enough to hold off 1-3 gankers while still fit for max yield. It's only "pretty easy" to gank if you have a large group of gankers looking for targets, as the New Order do. Any ship will die if you specifically bring enough DPS to ensure it dies.

More to the point, how does the gankability of the ships weigh in on whether or not CCP are OK with AFK mining? The only relevant part for ships tank and CCP's intent would be how well it handles belt rats, which CCP also create, and surprisingly enough they don't have any trouble with them. Once again, if CCP wanted to prevent AFK mining they could have made belt rats too tough to be passively tanked, instead they create large ore hold ships that can easily tank any belt spawns.

"and to do it really effectively you'll need full mining ops with all possible support and guards."

As I've been saying all along, the option is there for players who are active to put in extra effort and out-mine the AFK miners. The fact that stuff can be mined more efficiently by active players/groups doesn't change that it can still be mined by largely AFK players as well.

"Erm... you do realise, that 35km3 is 35 000 000 000 m3, yes?"

No, because I'm using k there as shorthand for thousand, so that should be read as "thirty-five thousand cubic meters", not "thirty-five cubic kilometers". That aside, how is your pedantry relevant to the discussion?

"In CCP vision of mining (which is pretty easy to see from ship designs), mining is not a solo activity."

"The Retriever and Mackinaw are specifically designed for autonomy purposes, as their large ore bays allow their pilot to stay inside an asteroid belt for longer without having to dock." - CCP Tallest (http://community.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&nbid=73098)

"And when it's not solo, there are plenty to do in it."

Like what, exactly? Whether it's solo or fleet, all the mining process involves is starting lasers, waiting for the ore bay to fill and then emptying it, whether that's by docking or by moving the ore to a jetcan or an orca. More players do not change that.

"But that's still have nothing about the game neing rewarding to people, who don't invest any effort at all."

As I have pointed out repeatedly, AFK mining takes just as much effort as non-AFK mining. In either case the miner still has to be there to empty their ore and start their lasers. Why do you keep ignoring this?

"Actually, the New Order is exactly the thing, that motivates AFK-miners to stop they AFK-mines."

That's a group of players forcing their views onto the rest of EVE, though. The fact that they dislike AFK mining and seek to stop it doesn't change that the game itself allows AFK mining in the first place.

Alkarasu said...

@Hivemind
"It's CCP's game, if they want to force players out of a playstyle they dislike then they have all the powers to do that"

They also the ones to deal with the consequences of that. While players initiative, like those hordes of the Order knights, is completely within "EVE is real" concept, where CCP just relax and see, where it all goes, with players taking the heat if it suddenly goes wrong.

" Any ship will die if you specifically bring enough DPS to ensure it dies."

Sure, but for mining ships that DPS is so low, that it takes only 3-4 of week-old alts in ships, that together cost less, then one strip miner.

"how does the gankability of the ships weigh in on whether or not CCP are OK with AFK mining?"

Exactly because even when they buffed mining ship tanks, they still hadn't made it anything to worry about for gankers. For an example, look at all those freighters in hisec - they tank is just enough for them to be unprofitable targets when they do they job (which is hauling around big and relatively cheap cargo). Mackinaw, on the other hand, is profitable to gank as long, as it fit strip miner modules.

"As I've been saying all along, the option is there for players who are active to put in extra effort and out-mine the AFK miners."

It's a clear sign, that CCP encourages active playing, as proper mining op produces more ore or ice, then same number of AFK-miners, in much less time, and with much less boredom impact. Actually, in theory it's pretty well designed system, the only thing, that kills it on the spot is that most people have social skills of a newt, so to actually organize such an operation is hard enough to not to bother with the benefits. In a world, where people are not afraid to interact, AFK-mining would've died out long ago and without any help.

" so that should be read as "thirty-five thousand cubic meters", not "thirty-five cubic kilometers"."

Ah. Well, that one big space you missed there. (35k m3 is way harder to misunderstand).

"That aside, how is your pedantry relevant to the discussion?"

Directly. Discussion with an insane opponent is pointless, so that must be cleared.

"More players do not change that."

Really? Even by the fact, that beams are pretty short, belts are pretty large, and asteroids (even the ice ones) are pretty fast to deplete if you doing it with proper buffed Hulks, so a lot of flying around is in order? Not to mention active chatting, that is mandatory when so many people are in one place?

"Why do you keep ignoring this?"

Because no matter, how many times you make wrong statement, it would not suddenly become true.

"That's a group of players forcing their views onto the rest of EVE, though."

Yes. Isn't it what EVE is all about?

"The fact that they dislike AFK mining and seek to stop it doesn't change that the game itself allows AFK mining in the first place."

Sure. It would be plain boring, if some deity will come and solve all your problems, no?

Hivemind said...

@Alkarasu

"They also the ones to deal with the consequences of that."

CCP make changes they feel are good for the game regardless of criticism; look at the Unified Inventory. If they dislike AFK mining I doubt they wouldn't take action for fear of backlash. If you want to claim that the New Order is that action, I'm going to need evidence.

"for mining ships that DPS is so low, that it takes only 3-4 of week-old alts in ships"

Not really. You can fit a Mackinaw for max yield and still give it about 20k EHP. A low SP alt in a catalyst can do about 300 DPS. You'd need 7-8 of them to reliably gank before Concord responds, which is about the number of Catalysts showing up on CODE. kills.

"that together cost less, then one strip miner."

Again, no. A cheap suicide Catalyst is 2.3-2.5 mil (check the CODE. lossboard), so the 7+ ships needed will come to about 17+ million. A t2 strip miner is worth about 4.6 mil, so even if both drop that's still a loss.

Where are you getting your numbers from, or rather how old are they? Those stats you're giving are pretty close to before the barge rebalance, not current.

"they tank is just enough for them to be unprofitable targets when they do they job"

As I've just pointed out, that applies to Exhumers as well. More to the point; anything you can say about ease of ganking for AFK miners will also apply to most active miners; a player at the keyboard can avoid being ganked, but it takes more than just being there; they have to be in alignment with something they can warp to and above 70% speed and they need to be checking DScan every few seconds to get a heads up. Without doing that an active player will still see the gank ships but they'll be locked and warp scrambled before they can warp.

"It's a clear sign, that CCP encourages active playing"

Perhaps so, but that doesn't change that they aren't discouraging AFK mining.

"Discussion with an insane opponent is pointless, so that must be cleared."

So if I had mistakenly thought there was no difference between 1,000m3 and 1km3, I would be insane?

"asteroids (even the ice ones) are pretty fast to deplete"

Thank you for proving that you have no idea what you're talking about. Ice harvesters extract 1 unit of ice per cycle. The average iceteroid has > 100k units of ice in it. A max yield hulk with Orca boosts brings in 3 ice every 147.9 seconds. It would take that Hulk approximately 57 days to mine a single iceteroid, ignoring that it will refill each day.

"so a lot of flying around is in order"

No more than an AFK miner would have to put in if they wanted to mine the same amount. That's my point. For any setup, a miner puts in the same amount of effort to mine the same amount of ore whether they are at their keyboard throughout or they go afk while their ore hold fills.

"Not to mention active chatting, that is mandatory when so many people are in one place?"

I'm not mentioning it because it doesn't affect how much ore is mined.

"Because no matter, how many times you make wrong statement, it would not suddenly become true."

What's wrong with it exactly? I am not comparing different ship/fleet setups with one another, I'm talking purely about a single setup being used by one player who is AFK in between starting lasers and emptying ore and one player who is not. I am only looking at the interaction needed to get the same amount of ore/ice for each player. With those criteria, I cannot see any difference between the two. If there is a difference, please point it out to me.

"Isn't it what EVE is all about"

Yes but it isn't what we're disagreeing about, which is whether or not AFK mining is inherently wrong. Pointing out "A group of players don't like it and have taken up arms against it" isn't relevant.

Alkarasu said...

@Hivemind
"look at the Unified Inventory."

Interesting thing about CCP is that they tend to ignore all the feedback they get on UI, while paying a lot of unneeded attention to what they get for other areas (and that's most fun, because UI is exactly the area they lack any sence in, they regulary manage to implement the good thing in the way, that makes it bad).

"If you want to claim that the New Order is that action, I'm going to need evidence."

You need a proof, that CCP likes, when players try to solve what they see as a problem without calling for help from the gods? You sure you hadn't noticed that yourself?

"You can fit a Mackinaw for max yield and still give it about 20k EHP."

Sure, but how many people actually fit it that way? Most AFK-miners are quick-alts, that don't always have the skills to get that maximum yeld, and any tank needs even more training.

"Where are you getting your numbers from, or rather how old are they?"

About a month old, when I looked into mining once more. I wasn't talking about so low SP alt, though.

"a player at the keyboard can avoid being ganked, but it takes more than just being there"

In case of a Knights gank no, it doesn't, as they don't hide they activity, and even if they don't, there are rarely enough to gank more, then 1-2 ships at once, so others have plenty time to flee - if they are not AFK.
And there is no need to check d-scan in hisec, you can see everything you need from local and overview.

"So if I had mistakenly thought there was no difference between 1,000m3 and 1km3, I would be insane?"

Depends on how actively you'll defend your position. Therefore, the question.

"No more than an AFK miner would have to put in if they wanted to mine the same amount."

AFK miner is a solo player. Active miner don't have any ONE reason to be a solo player, as solo mining is, by the long shot, THE worst time spent/ISK gained moneymaking activity possible in EVE.

"I'm talking purely about a single setup being used by one player who is AFK in between starting lasers and emptying ore and one player who is not."

And that's a mistake. No sane active player will use the playstyle of an AFK one. There are multiple ways to incrase his efficiency several times by not being AFK, so why do you keep insisting, that active player will RP a bot, instead of utilizing all the benefits of himself being active?

"Pointing out "A group of players don't like it and have taken up arms against it" isn't relevant."

It is. If they will be successfull in the quest of eliminating AFKers - they proved the point. If they fail - they proved it wrong. Even the proof "If you AFK-mine, the New Order will come and kill you" is pretty much enough to prove, that AFK-mining is wrong.

Hivemind said...

@Alkarasu

"You need a proof, that CCP likes, when players try to solve what they see as a problem without calling for help from the gods?"

I'm not sure who "they" refers to - should that be “CCP likes when players try to solve problems for themselves” or should it be “CCP likes it when players solve CCP's problems”?

Obviously CCP like when players use emergent gameplay rather than appealing to CCP but that doesn't change that if just because something is a pet peeve of a group of players it's not inherently wrong or automatically bad for the game.

If you're talking about players solving CCP problems, I'm sure they love it but that's the part I'm asking for proof on - that CCP consider AFK mining a problem and that they actually consider the New Order a solution.

"Sure, but how many people actually fit it that way?"

Not relevant - you're arguing that CCP made the barges too weak to be tanked, I'm pointing out that they haven't. Requiring additional training and players fitting ships properly doesn't change that the option is there. If CCP wanted barges to be impossible to tank, it wouldn't be.

"Most AFK-miners are quick-alts"

Source?

"About a month old"

Really? Because none of the fitting options I'm looking at are new and the prices for Catalysts and Strip Miners haven't changed that much in a month.

"I wasn't talking about so low SP alt, though."

You said "week-old alts". How many SP can you get in a week?

"In case of a Knights gank"

1) You were arguing that CCP deliberately made the barges vulnerable to gankers. Unless you're suggesting that CCP foresaw the New Order back when they rebalanced, the fact that an active pilot is just as vulnerable to a gank is still relevant to their designs.

2) the New Order will still gank active players if they haven't/don't/won't pay their 10 mil ISK and change their bios.

"there is no need to check d-scan in hisec, you can see everything you need from local and overview."

What info can you get from Local in hisec, exactly? Most gankers are random alts in NPC corps, so it's not like you can just set standings for a corp/alliance and safe up whenever you see them; this isn't nullsec. As for the overview, if you're their target then by the time they're on the overview you're already too late to warp out.

"why do you keep insisting, that active player will RP a bot, instead of utilizing all the benefits of himself being active?"

Why do you keep insisting that AFK players only ever mine alone with no boosts in untanked ships?

My point is that there is no mechanical difference to mining caused by a player being present at the keyboard between starting their lasers and emptying their ore hold. This holds true whether the player in question is in a solo Mackinaw and goes AFK for half an hour or in a boosted Hulk and only goes AFK for a few minutes. It even holds true for a player using a mining scanner, so long as they calculate how long it will take before the asteroid is exhausted and come back from AFK before then.

The fact that most AFK players will favour lower effort/lower ISK solutions while active ones are more likely to favour higher effort/higher ISK setups doesn't change that so long as a player gets back when they need to empty their ore hold, there is no difference between going AFK and never leaving.

"If they will be successfull in the quest of eliminating AFKers - they proved the point."

No, they'll have proven they really hate AFK miners, it won't prove whether or not AFK mining is inherently wrong or bad for EVE. By your logic the fact that there are a lot more AFK miners than there are New Order Knights around should prove that AFK mining is clearly right and the fact there are more AFK ice miners than active ones should prove that active ice mining is wrong.

Alkarasu said...

@Hivemind
"should that be “CCP likes when players try to solve problems for themselves” or should it be “CCP likes it when players solve CCP's problems”?"

Why not both?

"that doesn't change that if just because something is a pet peeve of a group of players it's not inherently wrong or automatically bad for the game."

Sure. So?

"that CCP consider AFK mining a problem"

CCP considers bots a problem. AFK miner, from the gameplay point of view, is very similar to a bot. If CCP is OK with that kind of behaviour, they should allow bots, or even provide everyone with full automining functionality.

"and that they actually consider the New Order a solution."

And why shouldn't they? Look at Retribution trailer - it's quite obvious, that CCP loves player-caused consequences to players actions.

"I'm pointing out that they haven't."

They did. How much one Mackinaw costs? How much will cost a maximum lowest possible SP fleet of Catalysts, required to pop it, even if it's fully tanked?

"If CCP wanted barges to be impossible to tank, it wouldn't be."

They already made it so, that the barge is impossible to tank to the point, where it would cost more to kill it, then it costs itself.

"Source?"

I know some people, who actively fill the market with ice that way.

"You said "week-old alts"."

That was obvious exaggeration on my side. I'm sorry if it had caused misunderstanding.

"Unless you're suggesting that CCP foresaw the New Order back when they rebalanced, the fact that an active pilot is just as vulnerable to a gank is still relevant to their designs."

Active pilot is less vulnerable by definition. As he can notice something happening, while AFK one can't. Yes, he still needs some luck, but no luck will save AFKer.
And for CCP to not foresee the possibility of an active ganking movement... how many Hulkogeddons they had by now?

"the New Order will still gank active players if they haven't/don't/won't pay their 10 mil ISK and change their bios."

And that is SO hard, that no one sane will do it to save his 175+m exhumer... right?

"What info can you get from Local in hisec, exactly?"

That some people is in the same system as you. You can notice sudden population spikes and prepare yourself. Most hisec systems have less, then 30 people in local, and if you are there often, you'll know, when there are may more, then usial.

Alkarasu said...

@Hivemind
"As for the overview, if you're their target then by the time they're on the overview you're already too late to warp out."

There are many people in belts. If you not they primary target, you'll have plenty of time to run away (especially if you started your engines the moment there was a population spike in local, then you may save yourself even if they are after you specifically). You don't have that option if you are AFK.
Not to mention a distinct possibility to arrange guards and scouts for a mining op of active players - even from they own combat and support alts. Knights wear red - so anyone can just shoot them the moment they are in a belt. 2-3 Tengus can easily save everyone (most likely gankers won't even bother, if some guards are around), and ONE newbie ship with no-skill alt in it at each of the system's station grid will easily notice 5-7 criminal pods warping in.

"Why do you keep insisting that AFK players only ever mine alone with no boosts in untanked ships?"

Because to prove, that it's a common sight, I need only to undock in a ship with a scanner and go to the nearest belt. There will be a lot of miners there, but there will, most certanly, be no Orca anywhere, and most ships will have only t1 strip miners fit (actually, when I did it, I was surprised, how many don't have any other modules at all).

"My point is that there is no mechanical difference to mining caused by a player being present at the keyboard between starting their lasers and emptying their ore hold."

And that point would not be pointless if there would be only that difference possible, yes.

"No, they'll have proven they really hate AFK miners"

That too.

"it won't prove whether or not AFK mining is inherently wrong or bad for EVE."

If it's so easy for other people to ruin you mining while AFK, they AFK-mining is inherently wrong, as its a risky and unprofitable buisness.

"By your logic the fact that there are a lot more AFK miners than there are New Order Knights around should prove that AFK mining is clearly right"

Sure, right now it's so. But the New Order is young, so it's a little early to account for they presence.

"the fact there are more AFK ice miners than active ones should prove that active ice mining is wrong."

Currently active mining is clearly way less effective in terms of time/attention invested to profit gained, so if you care only for your own profits, active mining is wrong. If AFK-mining will become too risky, then it will change.

Hivemind said...

@Alkarasu

"the moment there was a population spike in local"

So you're saying that players don't need to hit Dscan every few seconds, but should be checking Local constantly to see if it spikes? How is that different? Also this is hisec - Local numbers fluctuate constantly as players come and go. With the level of traffic in many systems, the arrival of a group of suicide gankers isn't even going to be a noticeable spike.

"Not to mention a distinct possibility to arrange guards and scouts for a mining op of active players"

Personally I don't think that guards work - gankers will still go straight for the vulnerable exhumer and ignore guard ships, while it's not feasible to bring enough guards or scouts to either volley the gankers before they kill an exhumer or watch every station or gate in a system at once. Even if they will work though, I already said that it takes far more than just not being AFK to avoid ganking. Sure, the options aren't available to AFK miners, but they won't be available to a lot of active ones either.

"And that point would not be pointless if there would be only that difference possible, yes."

I did ask you before to explain exactly what was wrong with my claim, which I note you haven't done. If there are other differences that will directly affect mining yield, explain what they are please?

"If it's so easy for other people to ruin you mining while AFK, they AFK-mining is inherently wrong"

Personally, when I'm using the term 'inherently' I mean 'ignoring the effects from specific player actions, like the New Order'. If, say, CCP banned you for AFK mining, or made belt rats that posed a threat to AFK miners, that would make it inherently wrong. Players trying to gank you for it is not inherent to the game.

That aside, by your argument AFK mining isn't wrong because it's not easy to ruin at all. Gevlon has already demonstrated that a single barge gank takes considerable man-hours to achieve, the New Order has demonstrated that it takes a lot of those to actually shut down AFK mining in a single system and that AFK mining returns when they leave. As far as I know, the majority of the AFK miners they run out of a system simply AFK mine elsewhere, so they're having very little effect on overall AFK mining.

"But the New Order is young"

Actually they started 5 months ago. In that time they've gone from 1 guy bumping miners in 1 system to a bunch of guys ganking miners in 1 system. That still leaves dozens of other ice systems and hundreds of ore systems completely free to AFK mine in. As I've said, they are nowhere near being in a position to make AFK mining too risky.

Alkarasu said...

@Hivemind
"How is that different? "

You sure you ever played EVE? Because everyone, who does, knows about that little number at the top of the channel tab. It provides all the information you need to track sudden population spikes in a system.

"With the level of traffic in many systems, the arrival of a group of suicide gankers isn't even going to be a noticeable spike."

...and why would you want to mine in such a system? To be surrounded by competition?

"gankers will still go straight for the vulnerable exhumer and ignore guard ships"

Sure, they will. But remember, that the Order (actually, most of others as well) ganks in untanked maximum-DPS-for-minimum-ISK ships. Most of such ships can't survive a single volley of Tengu. Remember, gankers can't bring in unlimited numbers, if you can destroy 2-3 before they could fire, remaning DPS won't be enough to get the barge before Concord gets to the scene.

"the options aren't available to AFK miners, but they won't be available to a lot of active ones either."

Combat alts. I clearly remember saying that. Most miners do have one. Actually, most miners have combat mains, the very point of mining is to support those with ISK. To let them hang around while mining is not hard - and will most likely make those gankers think thrice.

"If there are other differences that will directly affect mining yield, explain what they are please?"

Sure. Dead exhumer produces 100% less ore, then not dead. I distinctly remember mentioning something along that lines.

"I mean 'ignoring the effects from specific player actions"

And why you want to ignore that very real threat, that exists even without the New Order around?

"Players trying to gank you for it is not inherent to the game."

You sure we are talking about the same EVE here? Because I kinda get the feeling, that they are quite different.

"As far as I know, the majority of the AFK miners they run out of a system simply AFK mine elsewhere, so they're having very little effect on overall AFK mining."

Such things need time to show significant effect, and the Order grows too. Each successful gank is 175m+ hit to the wallet of the barge owner. Each such a hit is more, than a day worth setback for a player. If it happens only once, that can be ignored. But the more time the Order is out there, the more chances it would become more, then once. And more time it happens, the harder it is to ignore, even if there are still some profit remans after the losses had been replaced.

"Actually they started 5 months ago."

Yes. They are young, 5 months is a very small amount of time. Such things tend to show very non-linear growth after certain manpower had been reached. The New Order is yet to get to that point - or die trying.

Hivemind said...

@Alkarasu

"You sure you ever played EVE?"

I like how when challenged you resort to ad hominems (I don't play EVE = I have no idea what I'm talking about) because it's a great way of showing that you're out of arguments.

Since you missed it, when I said "how is that different?" I meant "How is constantly checking Local for a spike different from constantly checking Dscan for Destroyers?"

"...and why would you want to mine in such a system?"

Welcome to hisec. More specifically, welcome to any hisec system with an ice belt - lack of competition and ice mining do not go together.

"Most of such ships can't survive a single volley of Tengu."

You might want to spend time in EFT before you make these claims - a gank Catalyst w/ lv 3 skills has 3.6k EHP, a max skill DPS fit HAM Tengu does 1.5k Volley per 2 secs. That's 3 volleys to kill a Catalyst. If the gankers bring 1 extra Catalyst to soak up the HAMs they'll still gank their target.

"if you can destroy 2-3 before they could fire"

Sure, if their pilots are AFK - if not, they'll have been spamming lock attempts before they even finished warping and shoot as soon as they lock. Killing even 1 before they can fire is unlikely.

"Actually, most miners have combat mains"

Yes. On the same account. Explain to me how a player logs in to both their alt and their main at the same time please?

"Dead exhumer produces 100% less ore, then not dead."

If you're arguing on being AFK vs not being AFK, an active miner is just as vulnerable to being killed as an AFK one. If you want to assume every active miner is taking every precaution to avoid ganks (in spite of the evidence they aren't) then you're ignoring the fact that the majority of AFK miners don't die - the New Order can occupy 1 system and get kills but (based on their before and after screenshots and their killboard) they're driving off the majority of the miners not killing them. Those miners just AFK mine in other systems with no loss while the vast majority of AFK miners were never in that system.

"And why you want to ignore that very real threat"

Because it's not very real. Outside of stuff like the New Order or Hulkageddon gankers are rare compared to the number of miners. With the New Order, avoiding them is trivial - they make a big deal out of where they are. With Hulkageddon it's easy to avoid mining for the duration.

"You sure we are talking about the same EVE here?"

Again with the implied "you don't know what you're talking about". Players ganking other players isn't built in to EVE; the lack of rules that allow it is, but it's up to players to make the choice to take advantage of them, at no point does the game force them to do so. If CCP put in a mission that said "Now fly to a belt in this system and kill an Exhumer" that would be different, but that is not the case now.

"the more time the Order is out there, the more chances it would become more, then once"

Once again, the main thing they're achieving is moving AFK miners to other systems, not forcing them to comply or quit EVE. In terms of outright eradicating AFK mining they're making very little progress at all, no matter how many systems they temporarily clear out.

"5 months is a very small amount of time"

But in those 5 months they've gone from being able to harass a single system to... still being able to harass a single system. There are hundreds of systems with ore belts in hisec and dozens of systems with icebelts that they haven't even visited.

"The New Order is yet to get to that point - or die trying"

Then why do you keep arguing that their existence proves AFK mining is doomed?

Alkarasu said...

@Hivemind
"it's a great way of showing that you're out of arguments."

Despite it's a valid question to someone, who clearly shows signs of having no idea, how chat channels in EVE work and can be used to track local population dynamic?

"I meant "How is constantly checking Local for a spike different from constantly checking Dscan for Destroyers?"

Now you "can't" see any difference between constantly pushing refresh button and checking the table for specifical type of ship (that you will see only when gankers are already in warp towards you anyway), and just looking on one constantly present and automatically updated number? It's pure trolling, you know.

"Welcome to hisec. More specifically, welcome to any hisec system with an ice belt - lack of competition and ice mining do not go together."

And every hisec system with an ice belt is a highway to Jita, yes? Because for systems, that happen to be off the direct trade routes, population dynamics are not that active to miss such a spike, even if the population itself is significant.

"If the gankers bring 1 extra Catalyst to soak up the HAMs they'll still gank their target."

...and that can be true (though I distinctly remember my own Tengu giving out 3k+ volleys without maxed skills, but I don't have EFT handy right now to check), if there are only one guard present. Now, please, explain, why in 10-15 people mining op there will be only one.
Also, if that op will want maximum security, they can bring some logistic ships too, and that will make a successful Catalyst gank nearly impossible, even if no one will shoot at gankers (unless logists will fall asleep). As you can see, there are many tools, that may protect the active miners, most of that tools are already in possession of the miners, and the only reason, that they are not used, is the need to be not AFK while mining.

"Killing even 1 before they can fire is unlikely."

...unless defence fleet is not spamming that lock button and firing the moment they get the lock. Anyway, that way the gank will require much better coordination, more ships, will have less probability of success, and pray tell me, WHY gankers will want to attack such an actively protected op, while there are plenty bots and AFKers, who fly the same barges, can be popped without much effort, and look just the same on the killboard?

"On the same account."

Nope. On a different one. So the miner alt can AFK-mine while the main shoots stuff or do something otherwise interesting.

" an active miner is just as vulnerable to being killed as an AFK one. "

...only thing is, that statement is as wrong, as it's can possible get, in other words, it's a direct, blatant lie.

"If you want to assume every active miner is taking every precaution to avoid ganks "

Why would I want to assume that? Right now, as you yourself claim, even AFKer don't need to take special precations, as the gankers are not numerous enough. But if the New Order, or someone other, who finds filling his killboard with exhumers fun, will make the danger more real (and it's already way more real, then it was 2-3 month ago, when most people never heard about the Order), then active miner can take some easy steps to remain safe, while AFK one can do only one thing - become active.

Alkarasu said...

@Hivemind
"the New Order can occupy 1 system"

But they can occupy more, then one. Yes, most likely, they will never be big enough to gank in every hisec system, or even in majority, but that's not needed. Moving the operation due to the Order activity is less unpleasant, than losing the ship, but it is still unpleasant. Move people around enough - and they'll think, how much they really want to live on the move.

"Players ganking other players isn't built in to EVE"

Damn that stupid Aura and her "Never undock something you are not ready to lose!" crap! Damn that CCP, that was never really aware, that PVP in they game is a glitch and have nothing to do with they intention! Good thing we have mighty Hivemind to open our eyes!
You, some way I can't really understand, missed the point, that EVE is a game, that is mostly about spaceship PVP, and people blowing up other people ships is the core of it's gameplay. All of it.

"If CCP put in a mission that said "Now fly to a belt in this system and kill an Exhumer" that would be different, but that is not the case now."

I think, it's about time you went to youtube and watched all that trailers. Because it's not even funny anymore.

" In terms of outright eradicating AFK mining they're making very little progress at all, no matter how many systems they temporarily clear out."

"but in EVE time is on your side" (C) CCP

"Then why do you keep arguing that their existence proves AFK mining is doomed?"

I don't. They still have to prove that one. The argument here is different one - you try to prove, that it's impossible for the Order to prove they point.

Hivemind said...

@Alkarasu

"how chat channels in EVE work and can be used to track local population dynamic"

If I'm wrong, explain why. Dismissing what I say doesn't prove anything. As far as I can see, the problems with using Local in Hisec are:

1) For a lot of popular mining systems (IE icebelts) the Local population is high enough that 7 or 8 gankers aren't a spike.

2) In hisec random traffic causes spikes and troughs; trying to use it as intel on gankers will result in a lot of false positives.

"Now you "can't" see any difference between..."

Both require a player to frequently check for info. There's a difference between pressing a button for dscan results and checking the Local pop, but in terms of regularity and disruption to doing anything else (browse the ingame browser, chat with friends in fleet etc) I'd say they're equal.

As for Dscan results, I'd assume that any miner planning on using it would have an overview tab to show player combat ships and use that with Dscan's "Use overview settings" on.

"And every hisec system with an ice belt is a highway to Jita, yes?"

I checked the details for the icebelts in Caldari space and aside from hisec islands the quietest one I could find still had over 1,000 jumps in the last 24 hours. That's still a lot of traffic, most of which is not gankers.

"please, explain, why in 10-15 people mining op there will be only one."

Because guarding a mining op is extremely boring, unnecessary most of the time, contributes nothing to income for the op and is usually ineffective against gankers. I was actually assuming 2 guards coordinating targets so they'd pop a Catalyst every 4 seconds or so. If the gankers bring 1 extra Catalyst its DPS during those 4 seconds should make up for the DPS lost by losing 1-2 more catalysts later.

"if that op will want maximum security, they can bring some logistic ships too, and that will make a successful Catalyst gank nearly impossible"

This has been tried; counters include sacrificial jam ships (Blackbird plus cheap jammers), bringing enough DPS to volley Exhumers or ganking the logistics ship first.

"most of that tools are already in possession of the miners"

That's funny, I don't remember any mining skills giving the ability to fly a logistics ship or tech 3 cruiser. I think you're getting a little ridiculous with the assumption that every mining group can easily field this support fleet of guards and logistics.

"WHY gankers will want to attack such an actively protected op"

For the challenge? The New Order have certainly done it more than once - I've seen minerbumping posts crowing about ganks of guard ships and logistics that tried to defend belts.

"Nope. On a different one"

So are you really telling me that you think the requirement for miners should be to also have (and pay for) a 2nd account with a combat pilot?

"that statement is as wrong, as it's can possible get"

You missed my point there which is that JUST being at the keyboard doesn't make a player safer from gankers. Being at the keyboard concentrating on EVE does give the miner additional options they can take but those are on top of not being AFK and require additional effort and/or additional players/accounts.

Hivemind said...

"Damn that CCP, that was never really aware, that PVP in they game is a glitch"

OK, what the hell? I said ganking wasn't built into the game, NOT that all PvP was a glitch. The systems that allow for ganking are built in, but what players do with those systems is up to them.

"You [...] missed the point, that EVE is [...] mostly about spaceship PVP, and people blowing up other people ships is the core of it's gameplay."

"We often hear "EVE is a PvP game, PvE is secondary". To this we would like to respond that EVE is a sandbox and shouldn’t necessarily favor one side over the other. What you do with it is up to you" - CCP Ytterbium (https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=2462718#post2462718)

"I think, it's about time you went to youtube and watched all that trailers"

Last I checked, none of the trailers showed a group of destroyers killing an Exhumer in a belt then dying to Concord. I don't know though, maybe I missed that one. Which was it?

""but in EVE time is on your side" (C) CCP"

Surely that goes both ways? It's just as relevant if I say that the New Order is doomed because eventually the players involved will get bored and move on, and AFK miners will come back to their claimed systems because "in EVE, time is on your side".

"you try to prove, that it's impossible for the Order to prove they point."

Actually no, the only thing I set out to prove was that there's no mechanical difference in mining output between an AFK miner and an active one. Then you came in claiming that there is because gankers will gank any AFK miner, now you're admitting that they won't now but might in the future.

Alkarasu said...

@Hivemind
"In hisec random traffic causes spikes and troughs; trying to use it as intel on gankers will result in a lot of false positives."

...which you can check with other means, like d-scan, if you are nervious. Still way better, then pressing that button once per 10 seconds (increasing the scan intervals you increasing the probability, that the gankers will be a big surprise, entering the grid the moment you scan).

" I'd say they're equal."

OK, so in your opinion shifting your eyes to a number in the corner of the screen for a second is equal to opening a window, switching to another overwiew tab (as player combat ships list is not something, that helps you mine), pressing the button, and then looking through the result, which can be pretty big, assuming there are some other people in combat ships doing something around you. I'm not sure, how this is equal, but maybe you are just that damn fast.

"still had over 1,000 jumps in the last 24 hours."

..which is about 0,694 jump per minute.

"Because guarding a mining op is extremely boring"

...especially when you are mining in that same op, yes?

"I was actually assuming 2 guards coordinating targets"

And I was assuming as many, as 1/2 of the mining fleet numbers.

"counters include sacrificial jam ships (Blackbird plus cheap jammers), bringing enough DPS to volley Exhumers or ganking the logistics ship first."

...and those same gankers can just bring they dirt cheap Catalysts and pop some AFKers without any trouble. Why they will go after hard targets, when there are plenty of soft ones?

"That's funny, I don't remember any mining skills giving the ability to fly a logistics ship or tech 3 cruiser. "

That's funny, I don't remember many people, who play EVE for mining only. And at the same time I remember many people, who mine specifically to support they combat and logistic ships.

"I think you're getting a little ridiculous with the assumption that every mining group can easily field this support fleet of guards and logistics."

I find it rather hilarious, that you assume, that every mining group consists solely of dedicated miners.

Alkarasu said...

"For the challenge?"

Challenge is a good thing, but largely underloved by the masses.
While easy kills being liked by many.

" I've seen minerbumping posts crowing about ganks of guard ships and logistics that tried to defend belts."

And that posts are describing, how low-SP alts on t1 Catalysts massacre such guards, yes?

"So are you really telling me that you think the requirement for miners should be to also have (and pay for) a 2nd account with a combat pilot?

No. I'm telling you, that pretty often they already have such an account, and not that rare, that there are more, then one.

" JUST being at the keyboard doesn't make a player safer from gankers."

It does. Because by JUST being there you have a lot many options of what will happen next, then when you are AFK. Imagine, if there are 2 ships in a belt, and yours are not the one gankers attack first. If you are AFK, they have some chances to kill the first one, and then kill the second. If you are JUST there, you can run away while they are busy. It may be a low chance, but it's not zero.

"I said ganking wasn't built into the game"

But it IS! From the very moment Concord reaction timer was implemented and player ships got the ability to shoot each other in hisec.

"To this we would like to respond that EVE is a sandbox and shouldn’t necessarily favor one side over the other."

Very important word highlighted. Yes, it is not necessarily so. It's just the way it turned out to be. To be honest, it was quite inevitable in a closed sandbox, which is EVE. To change that CCP need to add some real exploration, which is impossible right now.

"Last I checked, none of the trailers showed a group of destroyers killing an Exhumer in a belt then dying to Concord. I don't know though, maybe I missed that one. Which was it?"

There is not a single trailer there with someone dying to Concord. Does that mean, that Concord is something, that CCP hadn't implemented?

"It's just as relevant if I say that the New Order is doomed because eventually the players involved will get bored and move on, and AFK miners will come back to their claimed systems because "in EVE, time is on your side"."

Sure. But if those in the New Order will get bored later, then AFK miners will be gone for good, as there will be no one to return.

Hivemind said...

@Alkarasu

"which you can check with other means, like d-scan"

So you're suggesting using Local instead of Dscan, but you'd still need to use Dscan as well as local?

"shifting your eyes to a number in the corner of the screen for a second is equal to opening a window..."

I'd assume miners using Dscan would keep the Dscan window and Dscan tab on except when needing to change asteroids. All they'd need to do is press the scan button and see what the results are. It's literally 1 click more than just looking at Local. The real hassle involved in either method is doing it every few seconds, which both methods need.

"which is about 0,694 jump per minute."

So 8 people jump in/out roughly every 5.5 minutes. As I said, relying on local alone will produce a lot of false-positives.

"especially when you are mining in that same op, yes?"

Yes. As you have said yourself, active mining is boring. Even more so when you've got to check local and/or Dscan every few seconds.

"I was assuming as many, as 1/2 of the mining fleet numbers."

Any reason for that assumption?

"Why they will go after hard targets"

Like I said, challenge. Most gankers want tears, if someone's gone to such a huge effort to guard a mining op they're more likely to provide them if the op is ganked anyway.

"I remember many people, who mine specifically to support they combat and logistic ships."

Yes, but those combat characters are usually in lowsec, nullsec, faction war, wormholes etc. They'll be limited by things like wardecs, travel and sec status for operating in hisec, which is why they have a hisec mining alt in the firstplace.

"I find it rather hilarious, that you assume, that every mining group consists solely of dedicated miners."

I have very occasionally seen groups of miners supported by a logistics ship. I've never seen anything on the scale you're talking about in hisec though. That would be why I am dubious.

Hivemind said...

@Alkarasu

"And that posts are describing, how low-SP alts on t1 Catalysts massacre such guards, yes?"

Um, yes actually. KMs and all.

"by JUST being there you have a lot many options"

Yes, that's exactly what I said. You have options. But being at the keyboard only allows you to use those options, it doesn't provide any protection on its own. Again, a player at the keyboard but not checking local/dscan or looking around their ship is just as easy a gank target as an AFK one.

"From the very moment Concord reaction timer was implemented and player ships got the ability to shoot each other in hisec."

Those are the systems that allow ganking. The game doesn't do anything to force or even encourage players to use them to gank though. Suicide gaking miners isn't a component in any sort of industry, doesn't create anything new, generate any ISK or change anything at all ingame except the victim and the ganker. If players stopped suicide ganking, no other mechanics would grind to a halt down the line.

"
There is not a single trailer there with someone dying to Concord. Does that mean, that Concord is something, that CCP hadn't implemented?"

What the hell? You said that there were gankers in CCP trailers, I pointed out there weren't. Where have you gotten this idea about not being in a trailer = not being implemented?

"But if those in the New Order will get bored later, then AFK miners will be gone for good, as there will be no one to return."

Yes, because AFK mining is a secret art that is passed down from miner to miner in hidden schools. With no AFK miners left, nobody else will ever look at the ore hold on the Mackinaw and massive iceteroids and realise "Hang on, I could just turn the harvesters on and go watch TV".

Alkarasu said...

@Hivemind
"So you're suggesting using Local instead of Dscan, but you'd still need to use Dscan as well as local?"

Not "need". May. If you are nervious. And if you, for some mysterious reason, actively mining solo.

"except when needing to change asteroids.

...and at that point, which can, considering mining ships slow speed, take some time, your miner is defenceless. While the population spikes in local can be monitored regardless of any other activity.

"As I said, relying on local alone will produce a lot of false-positives."

If the miner is so jumpy, he may consider not mining alone then. Because it have it's benefits even not counting the increased security.
And that's not that much of false-positives, as in most cases it's not a fleet of 8 every 5 minutes, but fleet of 1 every 2.

"Any reason for that assumption?"

It's about the percent of people I know, who are ready to multibox.

"if someone's gone to such a huge effort to guard a mining op they're more likely to provide them if the op is ganked anyway."

It's not a huge effort. And it needs really huge one to properly gank.

"Yes, but those combat characters are usually in lowsec, nullsec, faction war, wormholes etc."

Those combat characters can be moved in hisec for a duration of a mining op even if they are on the deepest end of a deepest WH - and if you tend to mine often, there are always jump-clones for that. Though, WH-dwellers can (and do) mine in WH.

"I've never seen anything on the scale you're talking about in hisec though."

Sure, and that's to be expected, as even the most bold "kill the AFKer" movement is pretty small scale right now.

"Um, yes actually. KMs and all."

Low-SP alts in t1 Catalysts? 5-7 of them? You sure?

"But being at the keyboard only allows you to use those options, it doesn't provide any protection on its own."

Being able to use those option IS a protection. Or, if you use the same logic, no protection is possible ever. because every other way is the same - like having a guard fleet is not giving you any protection at all, because attacking gankers is an option for the guards, nothing more.

"Those are the systems that allow ganking. "

Exactly! It was quite possible to make those same system stop ganking completely. But the systems made with exactly enough loopholes to make ganking not only possible, but in many cases quite profitable (depending on the ganked ship cargo). Piracy is a valid occupation, listed on EVE main site. With "hunting for capsuleers in belts" mentioned right there.

"You said that there were gankers in CCP trailers, I pointed out there weren't. "

There IS. Multiple times. They call them pirates though.

"Yes, because AFK mining is a secret art that is passed down from miner to miner in hidden schools. "

Because the Order may vanish, but the memory of it will live way longer. Those, who was driven off the belts will remember they losses. Those, who are new to the game, will read the stories. And there will always be people, hunting specifically for Mackinaws, as mining op will not use them, and they are very good sign of an AFK-miner.

Hivemind said...

@Alkarasu

"and at that point, which can, considering mining ships slow speed, take some time, your miner is defenceless."

Er. I would assume the whole "changing asteroids" thing would be: Switch to mining tab, select nearest asteroid, target and approach, switch back to Dscan tab, hit dscan. There's not exactly any reason to sit on the mining tab while you slowboat over to an asteroid, assuming it's even out of your range to begin with.

"It's not a huge effort."

If they're bringing an extra 50% of the mining team as guards, rather than putting them in mining barges to maximise yield, I'd class that as an effort in terms of lost profits.

"Those combat characters can be moved in hisec for a duration of a mining op"

If they're in any of those areas of space they have access to far more lucrative income sources than hisec mining; null/WH mining, exploration or anomalies to name just a few. Why would they put those on hold to bring the characters back and guard a hisec mining op worth far less ISK/time that requires just as much effort as they're expected to stare at Local numbers and/or Dscan?

"even the most bold "kill the AFKer" movement is pretty small scale right now"

Why would a heavily active local-monitoring, guarded active minig fleet need protection from the New Order anyway? What is it they're meant to be guarding against exactly?

"Low-SP alts in t1 Catalysts? 5-7 of them?"

http://www.minerbumping.com/2013/01/the-life-of-rebel.html
- Low-SP alts in Catalysts killing a Tornado
http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=15460664
- And a tanked Rook
I'm sure I remember reading about a Logi kill in the same style, but the search on minerbumping is kind of terrible and I cannot find it.

"Being able to use those option IS a protection."

No, using those options is protection. If a player is at their keyboard but not watching local or using dscan, not aligned, not moving and not guarded, he's no safer from gankers than an AFK player is. It's not until he actually uses any of those options that that changes.

"having a guard fleet is not giving you any protection at all, because attacking gankers is an option for the guards"

No, having a guard fleet doesn't offer any protection until the guards take the option to attack the gankers. If they just sit there and do nothing then they might as well not be there.

"There IS. Multiple times. They call them pirates though"

Sounds like that's in lowsec/nullsec then. Any proof they're in hisec? Any sign of CONCORD showing up and killing them?

"Because the Order may vanish, but the memory of it will live way longer."

That assumes that the New Order ever actually gets anywhere beyond occupying 1 system at a time and that their vanishing doesn't undermine the whole thing; if the lesson people learn is "Gankers might talk big but eventually they all get bored and go away" that's hardly going to disincentivise AFK mining.

Alkarasu said...

@Hivemind
"If they're bringing an extra 50% of the mining team as guards, rather than putting them in mining barges to maximise yield, I'd class that as an effort in terms of lost profits."

Combat alts proficient at mining?

"they have access to far more lucrative income sources than hisec mining; null/WH mining, exploration or anomalies to name just a few. "

...yet they, for some reason, decide to mine in hisec. Why won't they at least try to do it properly?

"Why would a heavily active local-monitoring, guarded active minig fleet need protection from the New Order anyway?"

Erm... you do notice, that you actually mentioned every step required to protect the op from the New Order?

" Low-SP alts in Catalysts killing a Tornado"

...but not killing a barge...

"And a tanked Rook"

... and no barge, again.
All while guarding against destroyers in a Tornado, or a recon ship is as smart, as putting out fires with the gunpowder.
And not to mention, that all 3 cases are the cases of a lone guard of a miner, playing solo, not properly organised and guarded mining op, where the number of combat ships, fit to fight targets of all sizes (like t3 strategic cruisers), may be as large, as whole New Order gank.
So, no, that doesn't prove anything.

"If a player is at their keyboard but not watching local or using dscan, not aligned, not moving and not guarded, he's no safer from gankers than an AFK player is. "

...now we need only to understand, why is he active, if he doesn't use anything, that will distinguish him from the AFKer.

"If they just sit there and do nothing then they might as well not be there."

Actually, no, they do offer protection by mere presence - as gankers have no way to know, that guards won't fire before the attack, so they need to assume, that guards will fire, and plan accordingly.

"Any proof they're in hisec?"

There are, as in many cases, no indication, where it happens at all. So it can be anywhere - and, as EVE is, it can be anywhere.

"Any sign of CONCORD showing up and killing them?"

No CONCORD ship is ever shown in any of the trailers doing anything (there are some flying in the background though, and you'll need to look very carefully to even notice them).

"That assumes that the New Order ever actually gets anywhere beyond occupying 1 system at a time "

Yes, indeed it is. Because if the Order won't get anywhere, AFKers won't be gone anyway, and won't need to return.

Hivemind said...

@Alkarasu

"Combat alts proficient at mining?"

It takes about a week to cross-train an alt into a Retriever, or train a new alt to pilot one. They'd have about 50% of the yield of a fully-trained Mackinaw pilot, so an op bringing an extra 50% of its usual pilots could theoretically increase total yield by 25%.

"Why won't they at least try to do it properly?"

Mining without guards while AFK or while doing something more involved on another account is doing it properly. You've said yourself that it's up to gankers to prove that AFK mining is wrong by making it unsustainable, at the moment the threat of ganking across 95+% of hisec space is too low to do that. Until that changes, a character who lives in higher risk/reward space with a 2nd account in hisec is better off doing something intensive but lucrative (running anoms, WH sites etc) with their main and semi-AFK mining with their alt at the same time.

"you actually mentioned every step required to protect the op from the New Order"

Yes, but according to themselves the New Order goes after AFK players and botters, so why would an active mining group need protection from them anyway?

"but not killing a barge"

As I said, gankers will gank people who try to protect mining ops. Given the casual arrogance of the New Order and earlier ganking groups I believe that if you brought higher tank combat ships like tech3 cruisers the gankers would respond with more powerful ganking ships like tier 3 BCs purely to kill off your guard ships. If that's not practical for them I would expect them to bring sufficient gank ships to kill the miners before the guards could take them down, again purely to spite attempts to stop them. You might consider it important that that would take more gank ships than usual, personally I only care whether the outcome for the miners is any different.

"Because if the Order won't get anywhere"

But even if they do succeed and conquer hisec, if they then fall apart due to boredom or turn on their active, paying miners within a couple of weeks this will tell AFK miners that they can just wait these things out, not stop them returning.

Alkarasu said...

@Hivemind
" You've said yourself that it's up to gankers to prove that AFK mining is wrong by making it unsustainable"

Sure, but imagine they did, and AFKers can't mine, as they risk too much. I was naturally talking about such a situation - as you claimed, that properly organized operations can't elevate security above AFK-miner level in case there are gankers around. And my point was that all tools required to make a mining op pretty secure from the New Order and others like them are already in miner hands.

"Yes, but according to themselves the New Order goes after AFK players and botters, so why would an active mining group need protection from them anyway?"

Because of the methods, naturally. To check if a miner is not AFKing, the Order Knights usially try to kill him. They can't kill actively playing protected operation. And they won't even try - as organizing such an operation and then AFKing entire fleet is... well, unlikely.

"As I said, gankers will gank people who try to protect mining ops."

Killing properly tanked and controlled combat ship is significantly harder, then any mining one. Simply because those ships, you know, made for combat. And killing properly tanked and controlled combat ship, which is a part of a fleet of several other such ships in throwaway Catalysts is possible, but have pretty low probability of success.

"the gankers would respond with more powerful ganking ships like tier 3 BCs purely to kill off your guard ships."

The idea of the New Order operations, the reason it exists and grows, is that they can do they thing without the need of investing any serious time or effort. Low-SP alts, low-cost ships and fittings, no need for much planning - everything is so that anyone can join, anyone can easily find some action to occupy even very small amounts of time, and not lose anything of value in the process - if you are an Agent you can bump some miners for tears without any investments at all.

" I would expect them to bring sufficient gank ships to kill the miners before the guards could take them down"

2-3 logistics in a fleet, pre-targeted miners, and good luck in bringing enough Catalysts to break through that. Or taking down the guards, for that matter. The only reason that's not implemented by miners yet is the lack of Knights out there to make it worth the effort.

"You might consider it important that that would take more gank ships than usual, personally I only care whether the outcome for the miners is any different."

Success of any operation is defined by the probability of the opposing force mustering enough resources to harm it. Among the recourses in EVE manpower is one of the most hard to gather, guide, and, most important, keep. So while it is possible, that the New Order will be able to gather enough people to break up such a fleet once or twice, it's quite safe bet to assume they can't do it for any prolonged period of time. After all, touching such a fleet is directly against the Order declared goals - as such a fleet is, most obviously, not AFK.

"this will tell AFK miners that they can just wait these things out, not stop them returning."

My guess is that if they will be able to terrorise hisec AFK-miners for a month, that will be enough to discourage AFK-mining for at least a year. Even if they will break up after that month completely, that time will be enough to introduce enough people to the idea of easy killmails, that even without the Order around people will sometimes randomly gather to pop some Macks for fun.

Hivemind said...

"all tools required to make a mining op pretty secure from the New Order and others like them are already in miner hands."

Yes, but if we're dealing in hypothetical situations here then all the tools needed to break that security are already in the gankers hands - bringing more ships, bringing higher DPS ships and/or bringing something sneaky like suicide Blackbirds. "Bring more DPS" is always going to be a solution to opposition. You've said all they need to do is be safer than their neighbours, but what about in the hypothetical where their neighbours are all dead as well, or have an equally well-protected group?

"They can't kill actively playing protected operation."

They can if they band together enough agents and bring enough DPS. James 315 talks about using suicide tornados against hardened targets and has received enough ISK for the New Order to put together a large fleet of them if they felt the need to use them.

"And they won't even try"

I believe I have already provided evidence that they will kill people guarding miners just because they can.

"good luck in bringing enough Catalysts to break through that"

So you want us to imagine a hypothetical hisec in which the New Order or some other ganker force is simultaneously powerful enough to not only make AFK mining economically non-viable across all of hisec but to require active miners to bring along tank and reps just to survive, but also weak enough that they are only capable of flying Catalysts and cannot muster a large force in one place to either volley exhumers before reps can land or gank the combat ships providing the protection. That seems like it's a bit of a contradiction to me.

Either gankers are not powerful enough to provide a cross-hisec deterrent to AFK miners, in which case there is no need to bring guards, or they are powerful enough to deter all AFK mining in which case they'll also be powerful enough to easily volley guarded exhumers making the guards limit use at best.

"My guess is that if they will be able to terrorise hisec AFK-miners for a month, that will be enough to discourage AFK-mining for at least a year."

That's interesting, but the thing is we don't actually need to resort to guesswork for this because it's actually happened. About 8 months ago, Hulkageddon was widely publicized and backed by Goon bounties on Exhumers plus recent buffs to destroyers and unbuffed mining ships, lasting a month for the main event but with Goonswarm bounties on Exhumers continuing for another couple of months afterwards. Despite this, before the combination of declining interest, mining ship buffs, Technetium alchemy and the war between CFC and NCdot weakening OTEC stopped those bounties being paid out there were already miners back in the belts merrily lasering away at iceteroids, presumably AFK at the same time. Now here we are 8 months on and once again AFK miners are the norm, not the exception.

Alkarasu said...

@Hivemind
"Yes, but if we're dealing in hypothetical situations here then all the tools needed to break that security are already in the gankers hands"

Of course! But there are one little difference - miners already have those tools on they hands and only need to use them, while gankers don't. As a rule, if you are not using deadspace/officer modules, don't do stupid things and bother to act on your own protection, it takes several times the ISK you worth to gank you. Miners don't need to increase they spendings to get a guard fleet, but gankers need to multiply they efforts considerably to gank in that case.

"James 315 talks about using suicide tornados against hardened targets and has received enough ISK for the New Order to put together a large fleet of them if they felt the need to use them."

And how long will he be able to maintain such a fleet?

" I have already provided evidence that they will kill people guarding miners just because they can."

You provided evidence, that they will kill a lone, probably, half-AFK, guard, not that they will attack proper guard fleet of an active mining op.

"That seems like it's a bit of a contradiction to me."

Strange, as it's pretty non-conflicting points to me. To make AFK economically non-viable you don't need anything more, then a lot of cheap Catalysts. And to field a fleet of such Catalysts is cheap. Yes, in such a situation they, most likely, can and will sometimes muster such a force, that is capable to break such an op, but not as hisec-wide blockade, there are simply not enough resources ingame for that.

" in which case they'll also be powerful enough to easily volley guarded exhumers "

...how many times before they run out of ISK?

"About 8 months ago, Hulkageddon was widely publicized and backed by Goon bounties"

And yet that's irrelevant. Hulkageddon is, and known as, a limited time event. Everyone knows that. Everyone knows, when the most dangerous part of it ends. Everyone knows, that if you just wait for a month, you can continue to operate as you were, with usual risk of a stray ganker. As for the New Order - you can't ever be sure, when it stops. No one can tell you, is it over, or there are still Knights lurking around. And that's brings out completely different effect.

Hivemind said...

@Alkarasu

"Miners don't need to increase they spendings to get a guard fleet"

I'm pretty sure they do; other players guarding will want compensation, while using alt accounts means those alts aren't available for other ISK-generating activities, or as an opportunity cost they aren't available for fun-generating activities either. Plus of course the initial ship hulls will cost ISK as will ammo.

"And how long will he be able to maintain such a fleet?"

Well, James has been given over 48 billion ISK so far and seems to be getting over 8bn per month these days, so I'd say quite a while?

"not that they will attack proper guard fleet"

My point was that the gankers will attack people who try to oppose them directly over easier AFK miner targets. I don't think they've ever run across a guarded mining op, so without solid evidence I'd take that as a sign they'd gank a guarded op just to prove they could.

"To make AFK economically non-viable you don't need anything more, then a lot of cheap Catalysts."

Yes. A LOT of cheap catalysts and pilots for them. As in "Enough to drop an 8-10 man gank squad in any system in hisec with 10-20 minutes notice". And that's just if they only stick to ganking Mackinaws - by the time it reaches that level I'd expect to see a lot of players switching to Skiffs, needing twice the attention but offering > 5x the tank, which the hypothetical anti-AFK gank regime would also need to be able to break.

Even if all they ever have to take on is Mackinaws, let's say they find a guarded target and combine 2 of their 8-10 man squads into a 16-20 man force. At 700 DPS each for a low skill, cheap meta Catalyst fit that's 11.2k-14k DPS. That'll kill a tanked Mack in 2 volleys, or 4 seconds. How many guards would you need to field to kill half of them or more before the 2nd volley? If you can't kill at least half, they'll get the kill on the 3rd volley, 6 seconds in.

Yes, that takes twice the effort of a normal gank. My point remains that by the time an organisation has expanded to be able to dictate how all miners mine across the whole of hisec, putting that effort forth will be trivial. If they cannot do that, there will be no way they could cover hisec either.

"but not as hisec-wide blockade, there are simply not enough resources ingame for that."

Then there's no need to go to the hassle of guarding a mining op, you just locate it in a system that they're not blockading. There's not even any need to not be AFK in such a system.

"how many times before they run out of ISK?"

Let's assume they still have 40 of the 48bn ISK, that would pay for 400 Tornados or 16,000 Catalysts, and 8bn/month would keep them in 80 Tornados or 3,200 Catalysts or some combination of both. That's before they start dipping into pilots' personal wallets.

"Hulkageddon is, and known as, a limited time event."

By veteran players, gankers and spectators, yeah. Plenty of people who actually mine and were ganked didn't know anything about it, just that they were suddenly being killed in belts. If they had known, presumably they wouldn't have been mining there.

That's also ignoring that the Goon bounties were less well known and were not time-limited and continued to encourage gankers, but as soon as those gankers started getting bored and doing other things the miners returned pretty much immediately.

Alkarasu said...

@Hivemind
" other players guarding will want compensation"

The main idea is that miners can pretty well guard themselves.

"while using alt accounts means those alts aren't available for other ISK-generating activities"

If you intend to multibox something other, then mining, it will be mo effective, ISK-wise, to put all your alts there. Simple mission running will bring more, and considerably less boring.

" they aren't available for fun-generating activities either."

As you may remember, the main idea is that you actively monitor your mining window, so most fun activities is off the list (while guarding your barge also guaranties, that in most cases you won't even have to switch windows).

"Plus of course the initial ship hulls will cost ISK as will ammo."

Initial ship costs are irrelevant, as you don't buy that ship specifically for mining. You can do many other things with it when you don't mine. And ammo is spent only in case someone attacks.

"Well, James has been given over 48 billion ISK so far and seems to be getting over 8bn per month these days, so I'd say quite a while?"

To demolish every protected mining op in hisec? You sure?

"My point was that the gankers will attack people who try to oppose them directly over easier AFK miner targets."

You not forgetting, that is that very same gankers, which made they main idea not to kill all miners, but to kill bots and AFKers?

"I'd take that as a sign they'd gank a guarded op just to prove they could."

Everyone already aware, that any fleet can be destroyed in EVE. They don't have to prove something, that has been proven countless times.

"As in "Enough to drop an 8-10 man gank squad in any system in hisec with 10-20 minutes notice"."

One third of it, at most. To make AFK mining unprofitable you don't need to kill every AFK barge out there. You just need to ensure, that it's average lifespan in the belt won't be greater, then 2-3 days.

Alkarasu said...

"by the time it reaches that level I'd expect to see a lot of players switching to Skiffs"

Much earlier. But Skiff is much closer to the idea "better spend 1 hour in a Hulk with all the boosts and security of a mining op, then to alt-tab into EVE every 20 minutes for a day, while risking to see a cloning facility instead".
Also, it will need that Skiff to be properly fit, while current AFK Mackinaws are usually fit by the best Darwin award nominees.

"If they cannot do that, there will be no way they could cover hisec either."

With the current idea, they can cover the entire hisec, without that kind of organisational nightmare. All that such 8-man team need to go and gank - is that they are online at about the same time, and a chat channel to find each other. All, what is required, is to gather enough willing people to form enough stable online population, ready to hunt a miner. On the other hand, to take on a bigger op, you need to gather more people, those people need to be more committed, logistics problem arise (you can't seed every hisec system with Catalysts, and you can't move many of them on the short notice), so there goes my point - while it is possible to harm that protected operation, it's very unlikely, that the New Order will be able to do it constantly. Or, for that matter, want to.

"you just locate it in a system that they're not blockading."

With enough people the Order can block entire hisec without the need to be present in every system.

"That's before they start dipping into pilots' personal wallets."

Good. With this number of Catalysts, they can gank about 2000 barges with current 8-man gank (more, as they can kill more, then one unprotected), and 1000 - with that 16-man you proposed earlier (and they have much less chances to kill more, then one). With 1090 hisec system that will be 1-2 kill per system, with no money remaining, and about 0.2 kill per system per month.
Now, if you visit Hulkageddon site, you'll find, that it left the New Eden with 19177 less exhumers, so the amount the New Order can pay to gank right now is pretty pathetic.

"Plenty of people who actually mine and were ganked didn't know anything about it"

And most of them learned about the event from the gankers themselves. Which is about the time they knew, that the event is timed, and they just have to wait a little. So they did.
As you may remember, the New Order claims, that they are here to stay, so there are no time-limited event. In such a situation many will find it wise to just find some other way to make ISK.

Hivemind said...

"If you intend to multibox something other, then mining, it will be mo effective, ISK-wise, to put all your alts there."

There's a finite limit on how many alts you can take on missions before the additional input needed to run another account outweighs its bonus to completion speed (effectively, you hit a point where you need to spend more time starting alts on new targets than it takes to kill them). Multiboxing missions also requires a lot more effort than multiboxing one mission and an ice miner.

Then there are income sources like Nullsec or WH-space where the bar for concurrent input is even lower, as a player in Null needs to monitor local and intel channels while in WH space they need to monitor dscan. They can’t do either if they’re constantly switching between accounts, meaning they can’t use that many at once. High end sites also require more attention to detail as the mission-running ship has to prioritise targets and maintain transversal to be effective.

While combining an ice or ore mining alt with a more active income source isn't necessarily as efficient ISK-wise as doubling up on the active income, for a lot of players that doubling up simply isn't practical for them and the reduced income of active + ice is better than just active alone.

"As you may remember, the main idea is that you actively monitor your mining window, so most fun activities is off the list"

Which is another reason why players aren't going to use their combat characters to guard their mining alts, yes. They'll cut the miners loose and just focus on combat for ISK making.

"To demolish every protected mining op in hisec?"

Considering there probably aren't any protected mining ops in hisec right now, that doesn't seem a challenge. If protected ops do start appearing all it will take is a few shows of force to gank them (with accompanying blog post of course) to dissuade players from trying it again, long before the money runs out. You're arguing that a brief show of force would be enough to stop AFK mining for a long time; why wouldn't the same be true of protected mining?

"You not forgetting, that is that very same gankers, which made they main idea not to kill all miners, but to kill bots and AFKers?"

And yet, once again, they have shown that they will prioritise killing a ship protecting miners over killing miners.

"They don't have to prove something, that has been proven countless times."

I doubt that's how they would see it; bringing a guarded mining fleet is saying "Sure you can gank lone exhumers, but you can't take us on!". That's the part they'd be inclined to prove wrong.

"You don't need to kill every AFK barge out there. You just need to ensure, that it's average lifespan in the belt won't be greater, then 2-3 days."

Which means you do need to kill every AFK barge out there within those 2-3 days. Or you need to kill half the AFK barges out there in 1-1.5 days. Or whichever variation you prefer to give a 2-3 day average lifespan (without leaving obvious "safe" systems where you never go).

Hivemind said...

"But Skiff is much closer to the idea"

Actually a Skiff can still manage 20 minutes solo AFK, it just can't pull the 40+ minutes solo or 30 minutes boosted that a Mackinaw can.

"On the other hand, to take on a bigger op, you need..."

All the problems you're listing apply to a small group trying to cover hisec as well. A single group of 8 gankers might be able to gank any Mackinaw in hisec but they cannot gank EVERY Mack in hisec - between travel time and GCC they wouldn't have nearly enough impact. So you need to scale up to have more forces, they need to be distributed between timezones so that miners can't simply mine outside of ganker TZs and they need Catalysts seeded around hisec anyway since they'll be -10 sec status pretty fast. Once you've got the infrastructure needed to supress AFK mining across hisec set up, including players, it's not hard to coordinate it enough to go after tougher targets.

"With enough people the Order can block entire hisec without the need to be present in every system."

Yes, but only with the kind of setup above. A single team of 8 gankers cannot come close to doing that.

"With 1090 hisec system that will be 1-2 kill per system, with no money remaining, and about 0.2 kill per system per month."

Well, you're the one who's arguing that the New Order can take over hisec, not me.

"Now, if you visit Hulkageddon site, you'll find, that it left the New Eden with 19177 less exhumers"

Actually, no it didn't; whoever's in charge of the site forgot to turn off the KB link so it's tallied every Exhumer that showed up on EVE-Kill since Hulkageddon 5 began. For example as I write this the total is up to 19,263.

"As you may remember, the New Order claims, that they are here to stay, so there are no time-limited event"

Which is why I brought up the subject of the Goonswarm exhumer bounties. They continued after the end of Hulkageddon, were also touted as being here to stay and had the advantage of being economically viable - the Goons made a lot more than 10 mil ISK from the Tech used to replace dead exhumers. In spite of this, players were back to AFK mining in icebelts in hisec in pre-buff Mackinaws before the bounties ended because there weren't enough gankers still around to put them off. That seems to be contrary to your claims that a single extended ganking campaign would be enough to scare off all AFK miners for a long period.