Bob Barker's Revenge

The white Krikkit warship was parked among the stark gray crags of the asteroid, alternately flaring under arc lights or disappearing in shadow. The black shadows cast by the hard rocks danced together in wild choreography as the arc lights swept around them.

--Douglas Adams

Ripard Teg recently put up a post on Jester's Trek called The price is right discussing the recent increase of the price of ships in EVE.  If you haven't read that yet, go do so now.  Not only is it a good read, but the rest of this post isn't likely to make much sense without that context.  What the rest of this post is likely to do is respond to a question he posed there and include some arm-chair game designing on my part.

For those of you who can't be bothered to read his post in full, it ends with a question of how much a Drake should cost.  50m?  100m?  Some other amount?  I'm going to have to go with the 'some other amount' option on this one and answer that I think ship prices in general should cost much less than they do now.  Or rather, much less than they did before the rampant price increases started.  However, this decrease should be balanced by a drastic increase in module prices.  Allow me to explain.

The intended outcome of this change would be that with Hull prices reduced, but Modules prices increased to the point that total cost of a fully fit ship remained roughly the same, PvP for profit would become a more fiscally viable option.  The idea being that losing a ship in combat would still cost the same, but that destroying another ship in combat has the potential to gain much more than it does now in profit.  To anyone who regularly PvPs, this keeps you doing it much longer as every negative balance entry from the loss of a ship is more heavily offset by each positive entry from selling the loot dropped by the destruction of someone else's ship.  This could be accomplished over time by shifting the balance of mineral requirements from ship hulls to modules, but it doesn't really address the cause behind the current rise in mineral prices.

Jester (Or Ripard Teg, or whatever I should be calling him...talk about wearing too many hats) rightly attributes the rising prices to mineral scarcity set off by announced upcoming changes to EVE and recent actions taken by CCP against botting.  The natural answer to this scarcity is that, as mineral prices rise, more people will take up mining and eventually it will reach a new equilibrium.  The problem with that new equilibrium is that it may be found at a point that simply prices many players out of the equation.  I certainly won't be flying Battlecruisers if they cost 100m ISK and, as my stock of Assault Frigates begins to dwindle, buying more of them at 40m apiece is getting hard to justify too.

In order to see a drastic increase in supply, what we need are mining fleets.  The problem with a mining fleet is that it's basically a giant space pinata for any ships with guns attached to them.  Jester already goes over a number of a reasons that this doesn't work in EVE today, and I'm not going to just rehash that all here.  What I am going to take a look at is the proposed solution to build a better mining ship; something tankier or with the armaments to defend itself.

As someone who has destroyed or ransomed a number of Mining Barges myself, often in Frigates, I think this is a poor answer to the problem.  I think a mining ship should be relatively easy to kill if caught.  Ah yes, "if caught," noticed that bit didn't you?  My solution to the problem of the ease at which mining ships can be caught and killed is to introduce a new module; The Spaceship Parking Brake. (Clearly a terrible name, I leave any discussion of naming conventions or how this works in EVE's lore to those more qualified than myself.)

The premise behind the SPB is that it would be a midslot propulsion module that once activated reduces your ship's maximum velocity to at or below 1m/s.  To those wondering why anyone would want to do that to their ship, the simple answer lies in how ships aligning to warp work.  A ship equipped with a SPB would be able to remain aligned to a celestial to allow for an immediate warp out upon hostiles arriving without actually moving.  This gives mining ships the ability to mine while aligned without getting out of range of asteroids, cans, other ships, etc.  Anyone who is actively piloting their ship would be able to escape enemy ships in Null or Lowsec easily, while the slow and inattentive remain behind to die.  That's all I've ever asked really, that those practicing mining with poor player skills die, while those who are doing so intelligently are allowed to remain alive to continue mining.  

"But I'll still have to warp away anytime enemies show up."  Well, yes exactly.  Which is precisely what any mission/anom/plex runner has to do when an enemy fleet shows up where they are.  The difference being that a PvE fit ship in a mission can potentially be aligned and continue with their mission anytime hostiles are present in local, while a mining barge does not have that luxury.  This gives them the ability to be on equal ground with other PvE activities in EVE; not safe, but not suicidal.

Regarrrds,

FNG

Edit: Go check out @Gamerchick42 for some great additional insight into "EVE Market Crash 2012".