On 17Jul2020 1537, Alex Goodwin wrote:

> I think this is a case of cross-fertilisation - I got the original idea
> from my experiences playing the MMO EVE Online (sardonically described
> as "Everyone Versus Everyone").
>
> Mining operations in EVE drive home the importance of logistics -
> frinstance, the mob I was in would often grab 6-10 of us and go at a
> belt (for reasons of game design, mined-out belts tended to respawn daily).
> EVE ship fitting (due to playability concerns as an MMO) consisted of
> dropping certain modules into your ship, subject to space, power and CPU
> constraints.
> There's two types of specialist mining ships:
>      Mining barges / hulks - Larger ships, focused on mining, large
> throughput, large ore storage bays on board, often give bonuses to
> mining results.
>      Mining frigates - Cheap and cheerful, still giving bonuses to mining
> results, fairly easy to learn to drive (unlike barges).
> In addition, generic ships often got refitted for mining.
>
> Neither of my characters ended up able to drive mining barges, so they
> tended to spend as much time driving a cargo ship as a mining frigate.
>
> One of the barge drivers would sing out they were getting full, so I'd
> finish my current mining cycle, warp back to the station, change from my
> mining frigate to a cargo vessel, warp back out to the barge in question
> and come alongside as they jettisoned (via container) their current
> accumulation of mined ore.  I'd load that up and scoot back to the
> station to dump it in my hangar there, then warp back out to the next
> barge, mosh, rinse, repeat.
>
> The smaller ships had to offload more often, so I'd usually have a
> flurry of activity bouncing back and forth between the station and the
> smaller ships.  Due to Dread God Finagle (Murphy's boss), they would
> _always_ seem to fill up while I was busy emptying out the bigger boys -
> this generally necessitated creative repositioning of mined ore so the
> Giant Frikkin' Mining Lasers could keep cycling while minimising the
> chance of someone else pinching the ore.
>
> On the larger mining runs (usually 8+ of us), I wouldn't bother staging
> my mining frigate to whereever we were mining, as I was a better help to
> overall throughput flying the hauler (both my characters had the skills
> to fly cargo haulers well, with maxed-out cargo space, warp speed and
> warp range - the latter two sped up in-system transit).
>
> When we were done, I'd palm off the accumulated ore to someone with good
> refining skills, who would feed it through the station's refining kit,
> and then divvy up the refined metals among us before we lived the Beat
> Feet Manifesto and headed back to our base at the time.  This was a
> countermeasure against a given ship getting rolled (or blown up - see
> "suicide ganking") for the refined metals in its hold.
>
> And this was in "high security" space - what the TAS would call "Green
> Zone".  Heading out to null-security space (such as down a wormhole) -
> what the TAS would gleefully assign a Red zone to - was a whole
> different kettle of fish.
You guys didn't run an Orca? Those things were amazing for mining gangs
(and for shipping stuff to the larger wormholes, and for wormhole
crashing, and...). I loved the Orca.

I never did that much mining - spent most of my career in a wormhole,
and we made our money from killing Sleepers and looting their bodies and
from gas mining, which meant Venture frigates (and stealthed frigates at
all the wormholes). We then spent all the money (and it was a lot of ISK
- living in a wormhole was very lucrative) on excessively shiny ships
that we'd go and pick fights in. The best times in EVE were amazing, but
like war, 99% of the time was boring grind.

--
Rupert Boleyn <xxxxxx@gmail.com>