EVE General Discussion

TL:DR Version, Retriver classes better than covetor classes in fleets too.

I realize there is a thread that basically reads MACKINAW LOL SO GOOD! As far as i can tell, the hulk isn't significantly better than the Covetorr, to justify the price/SP of the ship. And the same can easily be said of the mac. Not to mention that the covetor class doesn't mine enough when compared to the Retriever class of ships.

I am using ice for my numbers for a few reasons, mostly because ice is extremely static.. predicted theoretical mining maximums are easily attainable. Where if you're mining ore, they just aren't. Rocks pop, belts run out, hauls pick up half empty cans. Ect.

The two yields that matter here are Solo/ Rorqual + mind link all skill perfect.

Retriever 44/59
Mackinaw 46/62

Covetor 47/64
Hulk 50/69

We have 2 gangs mining ice in separate systems. each composed of 10 pilots.

One of them is a rorqual and 9 retreivers

The other is a rorqual, 8 covetors, and 1 industrial.

Now, we're going to assume neither gang is stupid and putting a rorqual, in siege mode, in a belt, but is leaving at a pos.

Team A, has the retreivers mining and hauling for themselves, they have to return to drop off ore just over twice an hour. Their turn around time, would be just around 1-2 minutes for a trip. so about 4 minutes of mining time lost per retriver, or 2 cycles.
mining yeild is reduced to 55 blocks an hour.

Their yeild is 495 blocks an hour.

the covetors on the other hand, never leave the belt, and have a dedicated hauler.

Their yeild is 512 blocks an hour.

Seven blocks difference.

That is extremely similar yeilds considering the number of players involved, and the supposed "role" of the covetor.

Hulks Vs macks is

Mack gang 522

Hulk gang 552

30 blocks difference.

more importantly, the differnce between using macks vs retrivers? 27 blocks
Covetors vs hulks? 40 blocks.
Retreivers vs hulk? 57 blocks, or 1 more retriever.

Sp difference? Covetor needs all the barge levels you can get it, retreiver, entirely possible to use at barge 1, and be productive.
Hulk? Swapped bonus requires exhumers to be level IV, before it even mines more than a covetor and even then that's only by a percent. End gaming at 5% more effective.

A retriever? 100% effective at level 1, but requires more time spent hauling ore from A to B


The difference in the gangs starts to become very dependant on the speed and effectiveness of the industrial ships that are hauling for the hulks. You need atleast a 9:1 pairty of industiral ships to even begin to beat out retreivers/macks, and the industrial pilot probably won't be making more than 1 trip every 3-5 minutes, which is between 450 and 760 blocks.
That's between 6 and 11 hulks to the industrial ship.

Why am i saying it takes an industrial ship longer to drop off ore than a mackinaw/retreiver? A combination of pilot burn out, and the industrial needing to get back into position to hit a can and fly to the next hulk's can. Even with a tractor, extra time is added the mack simply ignores because it IS the can 2 seconds to lock the roid and game on. That's pretty rough.

It's even debateable if the orca is a viable hauler, even if you have the balls to continuously put an orca in a hostile belt in 0.0, it's slow align time, and slower warp speeds, make it extremely ponderous and slow to haul with. Although it's 5-8 times larger hauling capacity is significant.

Another advantage of retreivers is the gang is infinitely scalable. Add a retriver subtract a retreiver a pilot goes to take a ****, no one notices, no one cares. Industiral pilots goes afk for 10 min? that ore piles up fast. Hulk takes a break? Ratio drops and you should have all been in macks.

All in all, the theory of "Different roles, but same yeilds" doesn't make sense. A mining barge is all about yeild/cargo.

Although I do like these changes, I cannot help feeling that CCP had missed a golden opportunity to finally nail this.

I would have thought that to keep the Hulk unchanged and 8000k ore hold would have sufficed.

Mack as it is but only the yield of 2 lasers, and the same for the Skiff. This would have put everything into its place.

just my 2 cents worth

Well, it's a good thing the extremely unprofitable ice mining in highsec isn't the only type of mining there is then.

You all just keep mining that ice, the more the merrier.

Well said.... alot of players are very unhappy with the changes am one of them !!! having lvl 5 exhumers waist of time put them back as they were !!!!

Does the Exhumers skill no longer apply to the T2 mining barges?

Basically, the only mining ship you need id the retriever... because it's the only one that pays for itself by going afk for an hour.

Sure, it can be ganked pretty easily, but at ~28 mil, do you really care?

Sure it does, but it gives better bonuses now so of course the SP is wasted…

I used to mine, and think ganking miners was like punching little kids, but I'm starting to see why they do it ... Each ship works exactly as CCP redesigned them to work, stop thinking about what was, and think about what is. If the hulk is no longer the best ship for what you want to do, then change ships. Is that really that hard to understand? There are plenty of people out in fleets happily flying their hulks getting 15-30% more yield than the "i just wanna watch a movie while i play a game" crowd.

You have nobel prize winning math skills there. You also spelled yield wrong.

Math is hard? The difference is 17 blocks.