Your answer to make ganking a game mechanic is just ludicrous?. What about the poor newish and beginner players who are trying to make a start in the in the game in a ship that doesn't have enough or even capable slots for weapons to defend themselves and who just want to get to market, sell their cargo and get enough money to buy a bigger ship to get ahead.
As to players having to bunch up to protect themselves, how is this even feasible in a multi time zone world. Maybe you and your mates play at the same time but the vast majority of players are lone players. I myself play in open all the time but other than npc's I have seen less than a dozen real players in my game in the last year at least.
Why shouldn't players expect to mine in safety. for example I have always thought it idiotic that that a player can be far out in the galaxy find an until then unknown system full of pristine rings and within seconds of entering those rings several npc pirates arrive to lambast him over only having limpets aboard. When miners enter a system to trade you would think that any system wanting their trade would make sure that their system security would properly protect them but the only time you see system security is when you are attacked and if you aren't adept at combat, system security certainly won't save you.
Me I am more than capable of defending myself but when I am mining I just want to be left alone with game mechanics that work as intended. Mining doesn't need any great shake up it just needs a pulse wave scanner which works?.
I see to recall, back when passenger missions were the big money-maker, that there were people wailing about how there was nothing wrong with it and it didn't need fixing.
There are always going to be people who only prioritise their personal desire to make telephone-numbers of credits and ignore the obvious imbalances that causes to the rest of the game.
I mean, you're asking why a newbie shouldn't be able to accomplish the same things as a veteran player, like that's some kind of problem.
To suggest that a newbie, lacking the skills
and the equipment of a veteran,
should be able to accomplish the same things as a veteran is ludicrous IMO.
The whole point of progression, within a game, is that as you get better at playing it you can achieve more and be rewarded accordingly.
What I'm suggesting would mean that a newbie
does have the opportunity to maximise their earnings while, at the same time, making the game proportionally challenging, depending on the risk a player is willing to take.
That seems far better than simply making valuable ores more and more difficult to find and, thus, making mining less and less of a productive activity.
And, if a newbie
can manage to find other players to fly with, they have additional opportunities to earn extra credits as well.
I
do agree that other aspects of gameplay shoud be refined as well.
I've always said that the likelihood of being attacked while carrying
any cargo should be proportional to the amount of stations a player visits and other ships a player encounters while carrying cargo, to simulate the idea that word has got around that you're hauling a valuable cargo.
It's fairly plausible, for example, that if a mining ship was seen leaving a station in Borann (as was) then pirates might choose to track it and, if it dropped into a ring and then re-emerged a couple of hours later, they might decide to engage it.
Conversely, if you leave a station in a different system, fly to Borann, avoid getting close to other ships (even in SC), complete your mining and then fly to market through empty systems there should be a greatly reduced chance of you encountering attackers along the way.
The current "always get attacked on arrival in a ring" and "always get attacked on the way to market" mechanics are clumsy, simplistic and unrealistic.
The main point, however, is simply that it's possible reduce the potential income from mining by making the process more challenging and NOT simply by making valuable ores harder to find, which simply means that mining will become more frustrating and people will stop doing it.
