Science & Industry

So I have two accounts. As of my purchase of a miner yesterday, both accounts have a miner on them, one of them is Orca capable. I've only really mined solo as part of a corp op, but I'd like to start getting out on my own without having to have someone else babysitting me

Firstly, I don't know whether 1 hulk + 1 Orca is more or less efficient thatn 2 Hulks (Orca toon only has mining director 3 if that makes any difference), but I do know that the main problem is going to be the rats.

I have a combat toon that can easily tank the rats, but of course that means I'm only using 1/2 of my mining capacity. Likewise having to warp my miners out, log into my combat toon, kill the rats, then log and warp the miners back in every 15 minutes would be a pain to say the least. Is an Orca able to tank nullsec rats?

So, what is the least headachey way to maximise my mining yield with what I have available?

Simple mine with 2 hulks

strip miners high

1 shield booster, 2 hardeners and 1 cap recharger mid

1 mining booster low other slot doesn't matter cargp expander or shield recharge booster

rats come, activate booster send the 10 drone out on them if they come in the hulks lock range. if not and they are shooting at one hulk and out of lock range send the unengaged drones to guard and they should attack

If rats break your tank then send the hulks home, come back in combat ship and kill them

once you 5-8 cans send one back to grab orca and haul, then return with hulk and do that infinitium

you can with good skills and mods do the abovehulk fitting with 2 mining laser enhancers and it will be cap stable

Using the above I mine with 3 hulks, 2 with T2 miners and one with t1. T1 miner does the can hauling

this works for me out in blood raider space, just change the rigs for your own local brand of rats.

[Hulk, Hulk 0.0]
Mining Laser Upgrade II
Mining Laser Upgrade I

Pithi B-Type Small Shield Booster
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Cap Recharger II
'Dactyl' Type-E Asteroid Analyzer

Modulated Strip Miner II, Veldspar Mining Crystal I
Modulated Strip Miner II, Veldspar Mining Crystal I
Modulated Strip Miner II, Veldspar Mining Crystal I

Medium Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
Medium Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I


Hammerhead II x5

The orca hulk combo can be safer with regard to rats but makes a more appealing target to roaming gangs.

Been a while since I mined in null but you could easily tank the rats with the ORCA and have several utility drones (shield reps, mining drones, etc) just in case. you can also keep a BC or T3 cruiser in the ship maintenance bay of the orca that the hulk pilot can jump into if needed. However unless you are very deep inside friendly territory null sec mining in anything but covetors is very risky. they get close to the yield of hulks at a fraction of the price. you just need to warp out when ever rats show up and come back with a combat ship to clear them out.