Hey folks.
We continue to keep a close eye on the impacts of the changes to mining ships that have been made over the past six months. After this observation we have decided that we need to make another intervention to keep the economy healthy. This isn’t the first of such changes, and once again it is unlikely to be the last.
In the June release we are making a few targeted changes to Nullsec Asteroid Clusters (the ore anomalies created by the Ore Prospecting Array upgrade) and Excavator drones.
Firstly, we are adding a respawn cooldown to all Asteroid Cluster anomalies. This cooldown scales based on the size of the anomaly:
20 minutes for the Small Asteroid Cluster
1 hour for the Medium Asteroid Cluster
2 hours for the Large Asteroid Cluster variants
4 hours for the Enormous Asteroid Cluster variants
5 hours for the Colossal Asteroid Cluster variants
These changes will only have a significant impact on the absolute busiest nullsec mining systems. The vast majority of nullsec miners will not be negatively impacted. The pilots mining in those few extremely busy systems will have the option of staggering when they mine, or simply spreading out to a few extra systems.
We are also making some more small adjustments to the Excavator drones themselves. In June the changes are:
About 9% less yield for Ore Excavators
12.5% lower speed for Ore Excavators
About 11% longer cycle time for Ice Excavators
10% lower speed for Ice Excavators
We will continue observing the economy after these changes and making adjustments as necessary to keep it healthy for all our players
– CCP Fozzie
