As we all know by now, in just a few days a new major content patch will drop. To quote the great Tim Curry, “I see you shiver with antici- (SAY IT) Pation.”
This patch, titled “Life Blood” is much ado about mining. Space mining sites. Moon mining stations. And now, the real lifeblood of Eve, spreadsheets. Team Five-O dropped a new dev blog that is the stuff of dreams for space accountants and bureaucrats alike. Introducing the mining ledger. CCP has given both individual and corporate level tracking data tools to go along with all the other mining upgrades across the board.
Not only does it track raw mining data of the kind that you find in the MER’s the data is also granular enough that it could add one more point to the intelligence game.
To quote the blog post, “We have been gathering the mining data of each individual pilot in New Eden since the June release to allow miners a glimpse into their activity history when the ledger is released.” Between that statement and the photo, you can clearly see that it would be trivial to chart an individual’s habits and trends with regards to mining and where they do it. Oh, and did I mention the blog makes it crystal clear that this information will be included in a new API endpoint.
Tin Foil haberdashery aside, it may well be a case of shutting the barn door after the horses have already run out. Looking at the corporate ledger it looks like you can glean even more intel about anyone who has passed through your space with an intent to mine your moon fields.
The data stream is presently only tied to ore fields associated with moon mining refineries. That is to say that the belts and anoms are still free of “big data” tracking. Not that I expect too much ninja mining of this type to take place. But perhaps some kind of Venus flytrap meta could develop where moon fields are left in space to pull in greedy for ninja mining, only to find it was a login trap with a tool to watch the field for activity via the API.
I guess I can dream.
All the same, for those who a really seeking mining efficiency to squeeze out the last possible 0.1m3 per hour, this can only be seen as a positive.
