Daedric: Yes, you did that as GMS while mining in upper Tau, am I right? There are at least a couple more fields left that could be buffed a bit more (especially those in Omega systems, Omega-11 I am looking at you). Tau-23 mining has always been easy both in terms of prices and security, and it seems things haven't really changed all that much for it.
Anyway yes the whole thing with mining is that it now takes a team to do what a single hegemon could theoretically do on his own back then. If there is one thing that has to be pointed out, it is that mining will generally not recover to the same extent unless it is once again profitable to sit in a field with a hegemon all day and trade the ore with it also when it is full. Indies and teamwork are not words that generally go together on discogc, despite this community's wishes. And mining being a system that now favours teamwork over going solo will remain a stable means of making money for factions, official and unofficial alike, while all the indies make trading their main money making activity once again.
The question that we are faced with however is whether this is what we want, and if not then what do we really want? Personally... as long as there are sufficient numbers of both traders and miners it will be ok. But that's my take on it.
