Trouble is brewing among the miners and industrialists of New Eden as upcoming changes to fleet boosting technology threaten to force their Rorqual boosting ships off of their tethers and into the chaos and danger of the battlefield. Now, faced with the choice between moving their valuable boosting ships into the belts, or with going without crucial mining boosts, a vocal group of miners has raised the flag of resistance and is sounding a call for all miners to go on strike.
For miners in New Eden, mining is all about efficiency, and the slightest increase in mining speed or harvested ore volume per strip miner cycle can mean a huge boost in the amount of ISK a miner stands to take home at the end of a given day. Fleet boosting technology (specifically, the Mining Foreman boost found on most mining fleet boosting vessels) plays a crucial role in mining fleets clearing a belt quickly, and with optimal efficiency. While the upcoming changes to fleet boosts don’t necessarily mean that these important boosts will no longer be available, these changes do significantly alter the risk vs. reward ratio of running mining boosts in a fleet.
Currently, boosting ships are only required to remain in the same system as the fleet their bonuses are being applied to, allowing the expensive Rorquals and Orcas to stay safely tethered to friendly citadels, or behind the shields of a small tower, while the significantly cheaper main line ships of the mining fleet assume the lion’s share of the risk as they venture out into the belts and mining anomalies in search of valuable ores to fuel New Eden’s industrial machine. This is all about to change, which is what has these stalwart miners up in arms.
Come November, the technology that allows capsuleers to provide crucial fleet boosts will change dramatically, as an entirely new line of fleet boosting modules takes the place of the current boosting system. You can read about these changes in detail in another article, but what it means to miners is this: ships providing boosts are now required to remain on grid with the ships they are boosting.
As you may have guessed, many of New Eden’s miners are not pleased with this new arrangement, or about the prospect of exposing their 2-and-a-half billion (or more) ISK Rorquals to the added risk of roving pirate gangs, packs of suicide gankers, or the mobs of bloodthirsty wormholers that tend to pour out of portals from Thera when least expected.
Of course, with topics as complex as fleet boosting and fleet-level mining operations, there’s much more to the changes that have been made to the Rorqual than I’m including in this article, and the debate about the efficacy of these changes rages to this day, but I’ll leave that to another reporter (since the minutia of industry and mining escapes me).
To add further fuel to the fire, a significant change is also being made to the docking bay mechanisms found in the the Astrahaus line of citadels as well, which will prevent the Rorqual from docking at these structures once this modification is made. Many serious mining operations have used Astrahaus citadels since their inception as affordable, relatively safe bases of operations. This comes as another significant blow on top of the changes to fleet boosts.
In response, an angry and vocal group of miners are calling for their fellow miners to band together into a single union and go on strike in what appears to be an effort to delay or derail the proposed changes to their industry.
Posted By EoM_Hydra on /R/Eve
The miners quickly escalated the issue by reaching out to CODE, Northern Coalition, and Vendetta Mercenary Group to enforce their strike by contracting them to attack and destroy the ships of “strikebreakers”; miners that refuse to join the as-of-yet-unnamed union, and continue to mine during the period of the strike (which, at the time of this article, was set to start on the 24th of September). In another bold move, the miners went on, calling on the CEOs of all corporations in New Eden to enforce a total ban on mining within their respective corporations and alliances in support if the strike. At the time of this article no Corporation has publicly agreed to this request.
With the upcoming general mining strike, Eve Miner Union is looking for mercenaries that will help to fight off strikebreakers
Starting from 24/09/2016 all hired groups will be entitled by Eve Miner Union to eliminate all strikebreakers found in the belts across the Eve universe.
Strike will continue until all demands presented to CONCORD officials will be fulfilledIf you wish to help to enforce this strike, please contact any miner that will forward you to local Eve Miner Union official.
Currently hired parties include :
– Northern Coalition
– Vendetta Mercenary Group
– CODEOfficial updates:
* Eve Miner Union calls all corporations CEO to join our strike and prohibit mining in corporations during the strike.
* Pandemic Legion officials accepted task to verify compliance to general strike in the northern regions, officials say that much more members will be delegated to control Vale of the Silent.
- Posted by StainGuy in /R/Eve
Additionally, in a subsequent communication that came later in the day, the leaders of the newly-formed union called for all miners to immediately change course, cease mining operations, and fly their ships directly to Jita. Once in system, the miners are to park themselves on grid of the busiest trade hub in New Eden, The Caldari Navy Assembly Plant located near the 4th moon of Planet IV in Jita in an attempt to grind trade in the system to a halt using only their presence on grid as a weapon.
Fellow miners, it is time for us to fight for our rights.
We are peaceful players but it is enough!
Enough of constant jokes and abuse of miners in EVE.
We will not kill others to prove our rights, instead of we will prove two things:
1. How important we are to eve economy
2. How important we are to CCPWe will do it in the most horrific way eve have to witness.
Fellow miners, spread the word, call friends and tell all your friends that miners from across eve will initiate full lock down of JitaWe will not harm any one (sic), but thanks to our numbers, and especially number of our alts that pay for running this server we will effectively shut down main eve.
The only thing that we all need to do is to bring all mining characters during this weekend, and keep them on the Jita 4-4 gridThere will be no mining, no trade until our demands are meet.
When whole eve will suffer – we will be watching movies, or having some quality time with our families and friends!
We pay for the servers, it is time that rest of eve acknowlege(sic) this!
Spread the word!
Call your friends!
All miners, all alts Jita 4-4 station, lets put some stress on the node!
- Posted by StainGuy in /R/Eve
Although the Union’s call to action seems to have been met with a significant amount of support from like-minded miners and industrialists, the conspicuous absence of a list of specific demands in each of their communications has led some to speculate that the proposed strike is nothing more than a cleverly orchestrated ruse by the strike organizers to vastly inflate the price of ore and minerals in the New Eden markets for their own gain. It has also been suggested that the entire operation may be an elaborate trap set up by the CODE corporation to lure unsuspecting miners to their deaths under the pretense of punishing strikebreakers. This reporter reached out to public facing members of the Miner’s Union and CODE for comment, but no reply has yet been received.
For now, the galaxy waits in nervous anticipation as miners everywhere decide whether or not to heed the call of the fledgling miners union. And as miners and mercenaries alike flock towards Jita, and towards mining belts everywhere, one thing is certain; if you’re sitting in a mining ship, it’s going to be an interesting few days in New Eden.
Stay Tuned for more on this story this weekend as Dartias Krawss heads to Jita and the surrounding mining belts for the latest news on the miner union stike.
