K-Space Mining: Something to Keep In Mind

If we count up the weights in lasers (refer to the High-Sec/K-Space section of this article), it doesn’t make sense to take out an Orca unless there is at least 18+ weight worth of lasers.  This is because an above-average skilled Orca pilot will contribute about 20% boost to the mining laser output.

Any mining teams using Orcas with less than 18 weight worth of lasers are not only putting the Orca at risk for negligible gain, but also are making less per hour.  If your mining team exceeds 18 weight of lasers though, go Orca happy!

More tonight — my K-Space team, get with me, I have the new K-Space Op Paysheet ready.

The Void

W-Space has this affect on the men and women that inhabit it.  Here they are forged from carebears into ruthless killers in pursuit of ISK.  I remember when we first took the initial team into Valhalla system.  We would routinely close holes at the smallest possibility of combat.  After all, most of these men and women had a PvE or industrial background.

4 months down the line, we’re in our comfort zone.  Sure we’ve had some heavy losses initially to the Russians and the certain role-playing drug runner alliance.  But even after a massive fleet loss in February, I’m amazed that my group even rebounded.  Yet a few days later, they were at it again, with shiny new ships.  The resilience is very comforting.

We’ve tried a few different ways of diplomacy here, and have made a few friends from it.  But eventually we fell back to our basic corp policy of NBSI.  It’s funny, some of the people we killed ended up being friends later.

I admit at times it’s lonely in here, with so few people to interact with.  But whenever we’re back in k-space there is a certain itch to be sucked back into the void.  Small habits we picked up, such as spamming 360 d-scan every 2 seconds, being paranoid, pixel panic.  It’s pretty disheartening to see so many people out in k-space, and not being sure about your surroundings because of the expanded threat levels.

In here, we’re in our comfort zone.  Grinding out anomalies, magnetometric, radar sites, maybe even massage some arkonor and mercoxit rocks once in a while.  On any given moment’s notice though, we saddle up our war horses at opportunities that arise to take out threats.  It’s funny watching ex-industrialists rocking battlecruisers, raking laser beams across enemy hulls, supporting our combat pilots.  But our evolved mantra is, if we don’t teach intruders a lesson, someone else will.  I tend to think we’re a bit nicer at it then others may be.  At least we’ll blow you up outright instead of warp scramming your pod for an hour haha.

W-Space / Empire Mining Payout Schemes

A point of contention has always been “how do you pay your team” for combined ops?

In my EvE career, I’ve gone through numerous ways of team compensation.  You can take the “scientific” route, and break down each member’s contribution via their skills, ships, equipment, and of course time put in.  This is the complicated way that carries with it its own headaches.  THe lazy way, of course, is to take the lump sum of the op proceeds and split it up evenly, though this will give the higher skilled members less.  In my experience, the op leaders should always pay “how they feel like,” no questions asked.

That being said, in the pursuit of fairness, let’s say we’ll look at two different scenarios:

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W-Space Payouts:

In W-Space, I expect all my project members to have fairly high skills.  This means that combat site runners and PvP pilots need to be able to field a well equipped battleship, and of course, everything down.  Miners/industrialists need to be able to fly a standard Hulk fit, level IV/V racial industrial, and perhaps have basic research/production skills as well.  It’s helpful that all members can fly at least racial industrial IV, preferably the Iteron Mark IV/Iteron Mark V, or Mammoth as those are the best train time/volume haulers.  For Combat/PvP type pilots, training a Bestower is fine if they don’t plan to put much time and SP into industrial/haulers.  Then of course, there isn’t any baby hand-holding done in W-space, so all pilots also need to have above average scanning ability, and need to *know how* to scan themselves out as this is a prime duty for all involved.  As such, you’ll find members of my W-space team having at least 10m SP typically, or more.

Here, I weight each member by their perceived contributions.  Main toon is 1 weight, alts are 0.5 weight each, if they are also used often in conjunction to the main.  A weight is sort of like a “share” in the proceeds.  Per my fancy schmancy spreadsheet, corp tax is automatically put into a pile, and the remainder is available for payout.  All the members’ weight values get added up, and the payout pot is divided by this combined weight, and this is the “share” of the loot.  Members get their weight * share = personal payout.  Deductions are made if a member is underperforming, which is placed into a “bonus” pot to be divided among the deserving pilots.

Assuming Combat/PvP pilots fly battleships and down, and industrial/mining pilots fly Hulks:

1 weight = Main Combat/PvP/industrial/miner toon
0.5 weight = Alt Combat/PvP/industrial/miner toon

We follow these simple calculations to pay your W-space combat site runners/PvP pilots/industrialists/miners:

tL = Available Funds of Total Loot/Ore
T = Corp Tax (% value set by corp)
tW = Total Weight
pmW1,2,3..x,y,z = Personal Weight of Main Toon
paW1,2,3..x,y,z = Personal Weight of Alt Toon
S = Share
pD = Personal Deduction (% value gauged on performance)
pbD1,2,3..x,y,z = Personal Deductions Going to Bonus Pot
B = Bonus Pot
pB = Personal Bonus (% value gauged on performance)
pP = Personal Payout

01.  To calculate the total weight –> (pmW1,2,3..x,y,z added up) + (paW1,2,3..x,y,z added up) = tW
02.  To calculate the Share values –> (tL – T) / tW = S
03.  To calculate personal deductions –>((pmW1 + paW1) * S ) * pD = pbD1 (and so on)
04.  Adding up personal deductions to get Bonus pot –> pbD1,2,3..x,y,z = B
05.  Total Pay to be paid to the payee –> ((pmW1 + paW1) * S) – pbD1 + (pB * B) = pP

Easy peasy, right?  This simple math won’t bite, I promise!  😉

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High-Sec Mining Payouts:

READ HALADAS’: THE COMPLETE MINER’S GUIDE, you won’t regret it.

With high-sec mining teams, especially since they’re often used not only as a corp’s main industry arm, but as a training ground to prove pilots for later, more dedicated projects, they pay scheme must be different due to the fact that many team members might not be trained up to a sufficient level for their mining skills.  Since we’re not dealing with loot here, and just straight ore, it makes it a bit simpler in terms of the op leader selling the proceeds.  Remember that in Empire, ore values are much less than let’s say, out in W-space and null-sec.  As such, it’s *really* important that the op leader identifies the types of ore that brings in the highest amount of ISK/m3.  I’ve nearly podded a few op leaders for mining ridiculous things like Omber and Pyroxeres, when they could be concentrating on ore types that are worth double or more.  Refer to the handy-dandy Enildor’s EVE Ore Calculator chart for up-to-date information on mineral prices by region before you run any ops.  For more advanced/numbers type people, refer to the excellent Dedaf’s Industrial Tool spreadsheet which sync’s with your character’s API.

The goal which all Empire mining op leaders should push for their team members is to proceed to a Hulk ASAP.  The usual progression path is Racial Mining Frigate (Tormentor, Bantam, Navitas, Burst), Racial Mining Cruiser (Maller, Osprey, Vexor, Scythe), then straightaway to Barges.  You will be wise to have your rapidly learning team member skip the Procurer altogether for the Retriever, then skip the Covetor for T2 and the Hulk unless ISK is an issue (and they are only flying a Covetor to make ISK for a Hulk).  Unless your team member already has a Hulk on an alt or something, they should be training for one.  If not, cut them 🙂  Once they get to a Retriever, they need to train for T2 Strip Miners, specifically the Modulated Strip Miner II.  Being able to use T1 ore crystals is better than using no crystals.  They should also be able to fit at Mining Laser Upgrade I/II (note that on a Retriever, you need a Co-Processor I/II to make it fit).  Drones V and Mining Drones should also be trained at least up to being able to use Mining Drone I and for carriage of light combat drones for self-defense against NPC rats.

Now, on to payment schemes.

Like I mentioned before, you can pay by taking into all their skills, ship, modules into consideration, though many times this will be more of a headache for the op leader than making things easier.  I’ve come up with an easier, simpler method that still pays roughly the same.  Running with the “weight” and “share” system, Frigates equal 0.6 weight.  Cruisers equal 1 weight provided they use 5x mining lasers, otherwise pay at 0.6 weight.  When your pilot has advanced to the Retriever, each Strip Miner laser is equal to 1 weight, e.g. Retriever is 2 weight, Hulk is 3 weight, provided they are fitted with at least 1x Mining Laser Upgrade.  Haulers, provided they are on racial industrial IV, are equal to 1 weight, anything less is 0.6 weight.  For efficiency’s sake, haulers should be either Gallente or Minmatar (Iteron IV/V, Mammoth).  Orcas pilots should be paid at 1.5 weight, and only used when there are at least 18 weights’ worth of *miners* present, e.g. 5x Hulks, 9x Retrievers, or any combination up/down.  If you exceed 20 weights worth of *miners* you might be interested in having a full-time hauler present.  When a pilot has an alt present, their alt should be paid 0.75x of a normal “full” main’s weight (the reasoning behind giving an alt in Empire 0.75 vs 0.5 in W-space is that both toons should be more active since there is less worry of a semi-AFK alt being ganked).

Note that the “weight” system doesn’t perfectly pay each pilot for their exact contribution, as it still gives lower SP pilots a little more and higher SP pilots a little less, but it’s more or less fair.

Weights broken down:

0.6 weight = Frigates
1 weight = Cruisers with 5x mining lasers
1 weight per Strip Miner, up to 3 = Mining Barges/Exhumers
0.6 weight = Hauler that *is not* an Iteron IV/V or Mammoth
1 weight = Hauler that *is* an Iteron IV/V or Mammoth
1.5 weight = Orca

Empire/High-Sec Mining Payout Scheme Breakdown:

tL = Available Funds of Total Loot/Ore
T = Corp Tax (% value set by corp)
tW = Total Weight
pmW1,2,3..x,y,z = Personal Weight of Main Toon
paW1,2,3..x,y,z = Personal Weight of Alt Toon
S = Share
pD = Personal Deduction (% value gauged on performance)
pbD1,2,3..x,y,z = Personal Deductions Going to Bonus Pot
B = Bonus Pot
pB = Personal Bonus (% value gauged on performance)
pP = Personal Payout

01.  To calculate the total weight –> (pmW1,2,3..x,y,z added up) + (paW1,2,3..x,y,z added up) = tW
02.  To calculate the Share values –> (tL – T) / tW = S
03.  To calculate personal deductions –>((pmW1 + paW1) * S ) * pD = pbD1 (and so on)
04.  Adding up personal deductions to get Bonus pot –> pbD1,2,3..x,y,z = B
05.  Total Pay to be paid to the payee –> ((pmW1 + paW1) * S) – pbD1 + (pB * B) = pP

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Simple, yeah?