So huh. When you mine in a group what do you use? We in the GMS have one person on a Heg and the rest on Mafics and Dacites. You know those smaller ships who have a 25% bonus when mining over the big ship right? They make excellent fighters in a snap if you set them up correctly.
As for those of you claiming mining is broken. Are you stupid? Sure, depleting fields is bleh. However, with the recent update GMS had our fastest operation ever. We filled a transport for each member of the operation faster than ever. What that means is we made more cash per minute than ever before even with the nerf to their selling price.
I see no issue here, just people going about mining all wrong. Claiming that only well connected players can mine just means you are too lazy to bother interacting with another player. Doing so might result in you forming a friendship, which means a person to mine with.