Combat? I would forget it. If your enemy is in a pvp build, and you are in a mining build, you are not gonna win
I completly get the entire logic of the original post.
If you want to enjoy open play casually with friends without having to worry so much about about being bothered I have a bit of a Tactical idea for you that you may wish to replicate and refine.
About 10 years ago I played a really good game (not as good as as ED. But it ranks in my #2 spot) called Eve Online. It is a subscription based game (expensive). It was all open play. Like the ED bubble, systems had security levels. Pretty close to the same ways of making money short of exploration in one and short of being able to build weapons and ships in the other.
Mining mining in high security systems pretty much meant if someone even tried to you, far superior security forces would be on em in less than 5 seconds and turn em into KABOOM! However, the resources and monetary awards available in high sec systems were not very lucrative. For that you needed to go to the lower sec systems or those with none at all. The caveat was there were ships solely designed for mining. More efficient than say a battle cruiser. However a devoted mining ship had, little in the way of defense.
My squad members invented a way to deal with it. While a couple of us mined we had 4 others in a belt not far away, but they could be on us in 5 seconds. We were always successful in deterring greifers.
There were also other players who's sole purpose was to bait and grief the greifers. I thought these guys were brilliant. They'd set up a mining ship with a tank from hell. Load mega weapons in place of mining beams and attach a tractor beam to hold em still. It was always a huge surprise when they struck a griefer. Kaboom! (how the heck did that happen?).
In ED there really isn't a ship designed and wholey dedicated to mining. This is a plus in ED.
Grab 3 or 4 pals. (numbers optional by need) have ve each put one mining laser on the ship or none at. But have at least one ship actively mining. The rest should have some material in the hold (for scanning appearance sake). From here you have a great idea of setting up a trap.
Have fun greifing greifers (or npcs)
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