Intro: Lately I've heard a number of players tell me with certainty that the resource "field" is independent for every miner. In other words, that areas cannot be "overmined" because claims are not in the ground, they're generated at the moment of looting. I've heard a number of people tell me that they mine alongside their friends in the same spots and have great hit rates. (By hit rate I mean the number of claims found divided by the number of drops, in percent.) It's always been my experience when I wander into another miner's territory, I usually end up finding very little. Well, Greenleaf Mining Company decided to put this to the test and 5 of us met in 8 Coins region K to find out if there's any truth in the statement that miners who "mine after" can do just as well as those on fresh ground. Procedure: Five miners (myself included) stood together as close as possible facing inward (so depending on how drop location is determined by the system, the actual drop points were at most 1-2m apart). Each person dropped for ore and enmatter (together) in order, and claims were excavated after all miners had dropped. Each miner dropped immediately after the previous miner reported "NRF" or hit. We used the Terramaster 1 (one miner was still in SIB for it). Individual drop locations were spaced approximately 80 meters apart and were chosen in a "wandering" pattern. Results: [TABLE="class: grid, width: 80%, align: center"] Drop [TD="align: center"]Miner 1[/TD] [TD="align: center"]Miner 2[/TD] [TD="align: center"]Miner 3[/TD] [TD="align: center"]Miner 4[/TD] [TD="align: center"]Miner 5[/TD] Note 1 - - - - - 2 O - - - - 3 - - - - - 4 O,E - - - - (miner 1 accidentally dropped again after finding 1st two claims) 5 O - - - - 6 E - - - - After this drop, miner order was switched; miner 1 went to #5 and everyone else moved ahead one number. 7 - - - - E* Miner #5 was standing closer to the claim than the other miners (the claim was 54m away, so on the very edge of the search area). 8 E - - - - 9 E - - - - 10 E (31m) E (48m) - - - This drop is consistent with the observation that when two claims exist in a search area, the closest claim is found first. 11 O - - - - 12 E - - - - Claims: 10 1 0 0 1* [/TABLE] * For drop 7, Miner #1 may have been closer (it was hard to tell precisely which one was closer) but he was also the miner who was not maxed on the TM1... which leads to the question: is range reduced in unmaxed finders? Conclusions: Different miners do indeed share the same "field". After the first pass, an area may be depleted, especially if the first miner carpet-bombs the area and re-drops after finding a claim (a fairly common practice among miners). When meeting in the field, it would be a good idea to let each other know which area you have already mined. For further research: Is range reduced when finder is inside the SIB period? Is depth a factor in overmining; can you find deep minerals after finding shallow ones in the same area? What are the re-spawn rates of minerals? Special thanks to the miners who participated in this project: Linda Lin Washington, Keed Mypoppy Thorne, Spiry Golden XXX and Nineta Nita Kowalski. Thank you!
good stuff, to me it has always been pretty obvious that the fields are shared between players, to me claims are invisible mobs, i think the reason it does not effect most miners is the fast respawn rate of common resources, it is more noticable in small areas with a larger proportion of relatively rare resource types. i dont think depth can save you from the effects of overmining, to me depth only gives you access to a different resource distribution, but im interested to see if you can prove this to be the case. i havent personally tested respawn rates but i would expect that if one waited 10-15 minutes between carpetbombing a 9x9 square in a area with common resources one would see a normal hitrate. i would think if range is reduced this would show in the stats of the finder, it does after all show that depth is reduced in the sib period.
I agree. I think a claim has an X,Y position but not a Z. Z is determined by your finder at the time of drop, which in turn determines what ores you'll find. We did a little test of this as well after the above test, see research notes #2. The only real test I have done was about a year ago when I first started mining on ark. I found that ores had not respawned much before 2 hours (I didn't test further than 2 hours though). I, too, expect common resources to respawn faster than the rare ones... slow respawn might even be what makes rares rare in the first place.
Thanks for posting this, it is worrying if this is the case. I have always believed that claims are generated on drop; mostly because I would find it strange for MA to build in a game mechanic where you can unknowingly be financially disadvantaged by other players actions. Just seemed like a lawsuit waiting to happen to me. I think there are three possibilities here: 1. You are right, which is extremely worrying to me. 2. You are half right i.e. the area "resets" once everyone goes off radar 3. The data was just a statistical anomaly. Statistically speaking, 12 repititions are not enough to draw firm conclusions, however, I have to admit; it does seems as if either 1 or 2 are correct. Very, very bad move by MA if it's #1. Players should not be financially disadvantaged by something they can't control i.e. wandering unknowingly into an area that had just been carpetbombed by another player. I look forward to seeing further tests.
It is a problem sometimes. Take the north Windy Isle for example. That's where newbies get their first mining lesson, and it used to be the only place to get good returns of wenrex and vorn so it's a very popular area. Returns there tend to be lower than other regions of the planet, at certain times of day/week. Same thing with the empty regions of Sanc Cove, those tend to give lower hitrates than normal too. I send my miners there but they usually don't like to go back because of the consistently low hit rates. So... miners who can mine among bigger mobs might have a real advantage during peak times. I know during the first key blitz, claims of khorum were down in all regions but among the mobs... mining among korwil is not an easy thing for most players. When I mine RT, I frequently get very low hit rates, and there are usually a lot of miners there in certain spots. I think part of the reason for the low hit rate is also due to MA "throttling" the ores (the ore fields there consist of one or two ores in each area). I think this is one reason alt ingot has consistently high MU. But back to Ark... I don't have a problem with MA using this system. It's annoying when you run thru an area and get absolutely nothing, but it's also part of the mining profession... and mining is fairly easy to profit at, so I don't think it's a bad thing to have mining be player-vs-player to some extent. As long as the planet can be big enough to accommodate the mining that needs to be done to support the economy... Right now I do not believe that 8 coins is big enough to support any more miners. TT returns are low there, and it's not because of the "tax"... it's because the hit rates are lower from overmining.
Nice research, Neil. As I know, both players with same mining level and using the same finder will also have differ result. Let's say, Player "A" dropped a probe on the spot and got NRF, while Player "B" dropped a probe on the same spot, where player "A" dropped a probe and got a V claim! It's all about player's "luck factor"...
you have to remember this is MA we are talking about, i have always viewwd the system as being quite simple, claims=mobs, invisible mobs maybe, or mobs with a negative Z, but they spawn in the exact same way as mobs spawn, have a look at your radar how mobs cluster and then compare that to how finds cluster if you havent extracted them, what you loot may be generated on the drop/hit, but what you hit with your finder has been generated/seeded imho. you also have to remember that MA's HQ is in a european country, if you try to dry your baby in the microwave you dont get to sue the company that made it for not warning you this is a bad idea. although i dont see it as much as in the past, miners always used to warn another player if they had just carpeted a area, and i stil do, if the person replies to my hello that is.
i havent done any serious testing but i have had some interesting accidental results, one example is moving back to a spot i had mined less than 15 minutes before and accidentally dropping instead of hopping back into my vtol and getting a global. the situation with rares is different, or maybe gives us a clue as to how the system works, i dont think it is the slow respawn that makes a rare rare, so much as a cap on how much of any given resource their can be in the system at once, you wont notice this with common resources because they are being consumed at a high rate.
Interesting. How about doing the same test but excavating the claims before the next miner drops? I suspect this would give you different results.
Suggestion. Try letting a deed expire. and then rebomb it. make sure u guys cordon off the area. see if res really is location based. and not player
A claim near the water front is possible. Here's the proof... http://arkadiaforum.com/photopost/data/500/medium/Claim_on_the_water_front.jpg
Interesting idea... claims are location-based, that's what this experiment showed, but it would be fun to know if expired claims are simply recycled immediately to an unclaimed state (I doubt it though... I expect it's like a mob that is killed but not looted in time, it just disappears).
It could be the same mob respawned but since mobs can move, it is hard to track. But mines cant move ahah
Yes, this theory has been tested many times. In the end the results were inconclusive. With some people believe perception means something and others who think it's nonsense. Personally I believed in perception gains for a few years. Now i don't care about it since tt returns are decent longterm anyway, so i doubt perception really has an effect.
Same as Harmony. The times I've tested whether perception gains meant anything, there was no difference in the claims I found at the time or in the area. As far as I'm concerned, it's just one of the (many) superstitions miners have. To properly test the skill theories, you'd have to pick a particular "skill" theory, there are several of them out there. You'd also really have to do a double-blind test (3 people, the miner, the "skill watcher" and an "informer" who tells the miner when there is a perception gain; the skill watcher would give the informer false information half of time using a method that would not tip off the informer to its truthfulness; the skill watcher would not see the miner). Each time he was told "skill gain" the miner would need to have a specific procedure he followed (for instance, covering a set radius of ground around the perception gain). Then you use the "false" skillups as the control and see if there is any difference between that and the between real skillups. The reason you'd need a complex experimental setup like this is because when a miner believes in skill theories, he will--consciously or unconsciously--mine differently when they see a skillup.
Although I understand what you're saying, I don't really see the need for this. All you need is a specific written procedure that you follow exactly the same with/without skill gains. When finished with the test, you either followed the procedure exactly or you didn't. When you take away choice in the setup, only a small percentage of people are willing to lie and say they followed the procedure exactly in order to protect their bias. Repeat with several testers and you have a result. (I don't think this is such a complex issue that it would be difficult to come up with a fair, unbiased procedure) The problem you run in to is that biases stop potential testers from spending their time on the test. For example, I'm biased against the theory, so I'm just not willing to spend time testing it.
