[2020] Ice Mining

Hey guys, I’m looking into this now and will get back to you as soon as I have more info to share.

My current understanding is that systems that had ice should all still have ice spawns but I need to clarify what exactly it was that was reduced. I know the ‘The spawn probability of all Ice Sites has been reduced’ from the patch notes is a bit confusing when they were previously guaranteed to come back on that 4 hour timer after being mined out.

Update: Okay so I’ve clarified what’s happening here. As you’re aware, previously ice belts were guaranteed to respawn in system 4 hours from when they were mined out. This respawn chance is no longer 100% guaranteed and so it is possible for belts to not come back exactly 4 hours later - it may take them some time longer to re-appear. The number of belts in a system hasn’t actually been changed and each will be rolling for its own chance to respawn if they’re all mined out. This will mean there will likely be less belts alive at any given time because they simply can take longer to come back.

I believe this is independent of downtime much as ice belt spawns were previously - but if I find out otherwise I’ll let you know.

Hmm, I may have misunderstood in my discussion with the team. It’s sounding more like the chance for a system to have ice at all for that day has been reduced, and not the respawn chance.

I will pass along the feedback here and try and get clarification once we’re back to work next week.

Hello again,

Sorry I didn’t get back to you right at the start of the week. I’ve been chasing this around trying to get more details and discuss the changes internally. The feedback, observations and Naverin’s chart have been really useful for me in these discussions so thank you for that.

I’ve clarified the way this change was intended to function:

At downtime some percentage of ice belts will spawn (in those systems with icebelts). Once mined out, these icebelts will then respawn after some time in another system that can also contain icebelts. You can think of it as being similar to how anomalies respawn, except it would be limited to ice systems.

However, this doesn’t seem to be what you guys are reporting as actually happening in game where ice systems are either ‘on’ or ‘off’ for the day. I’ve flagged this to the team and they are looking into it now - thank you for helping me to identify the issue. Should the intended functionality here be achieved, it will mean your ice belt system will have a chance throughout the day to get a belt spawn whereas right now if they don’t start the day with one it seems they simply will not get one. It would also mean that if you mine out an ice belt you can no longer count on getting a new one after 4 hours. In any case, the total volume of available ice in space will likely stay at a reduced rate, it will just be spread out a bit more evenly throughout the day. The team is monitoring these volumes and prices and can adjust availability as needed based on market response.

I’ll keep you all updated as the situation progresses - I will also update the patch notes to better reflect the actual situation once this has been settled.

Ice is certainly still spawning and in the intended qualities - just perhaps not as spread out as intended. This change was indeed for scarcity reasons: stimulating trade and ensuring the time spent to extract it has appropriate value.

That is indeed a symptom of the issue I outlined above. Distribution of ice belts does not seem to be working as intended and is being looked into.