While mining in non secure space last week, I made an error and left 5 drones in an asteroid belt and logged off. I’m assuming that’s what happened, since the next time I went to mine, the drones weren’t there. I was pretty tired that night and I’m sure I just flew off without them. Not too big a deal actually, except for losing the T2 drones.

Until the next mining day…

Now this Hulk that I mine with is a really good tank against the local rats. I can sit there all day without too much of an issue against 3 1.4 mil Isk rats (Raven class Battleship) and tank their damage. The shields will never drop below 25%.

So, when I went mining a couple of days later, when the rats arrived, I noticed I didn’t have the drones. At first I didn’t think anything of it since I can tank these rats just fine. They started pounding away, I kept mining, and the tanking was working OK. Then… a problem. One of the little rats started Warp Scrambling me. Under normal circumstances, this wouldn’t be a problem because like I said, I can tank just fine. But now, I couldn’t leave. I had no way to stop the Warp Scramble on my ship, so I could go back to the POS. If an enemy player were to come into the system while I was trapped, I would be unable to escape.

For the first 10 minutes, I wasn’t too worried, but as time went on I became more concerned, and after about 20 minutes, I started calling for assistance from the Alliance members. There were some that were up to 10 jumps away that said they could refit and come to help but 10 jumps would take some time.

30 minutes go by… What am I going to do? I can’t get immediate help, logging out will get my ship popped, I can’t run, I can’t fight…

So, I called my little brother, 2 time zones away and begged him to log in and save this noob. How embarrassing. He said he was almost asleep too. But being the good little brother that he is, and the good corp mate, he jumped online, and came to my rescue. It took him another 5 minutes or so to log in, and fly to my location and take out the Warp Scrambling cruiser flying with the 3 Battleships.

Whenever I fly out to an Asteroid belt now, I will make sure to remember:  Never fly a mining ship without drones. Never. You might find yourself in an uncomfortable situation you can’t get away from.

I had a short conversation in game recently about mining etiquette. This was a friendly conversation in my corp with other corp members, talking about what they should do or can do.

I thought I’d bring this question up and see what kind of response I get.

In the Eve Forums, the topic has a lot of different points of view, from “there are no rules”, to the use of moral codes, etc. Basically, the way I see it, this is a MMORPG, that simulates how a real life situation might be. Some players play from the point of view of the Eve-Online game player, others as if they themselves are the pilots trying to carve out a living in the dark confines of space in New Eden.

Personally, I don’t want to make any enemies anywhere, in high sec or low sec, especially from mining. I guess I’m more of a relaxed player. Others, of course, don’t have that same attitude, and I respect that, though if someone is stepping on my while I’m mining, I might not like it. It’s just my point of view though…

Tell me what you think?