Science & Industry

I would say, no, not worth it for /just/ hauling.

It's faster than a freighter if fit correctly (MWD, to have a 10 second warp) But very restrictive in what you can move.

I'd suggest looking into manufacturing with the alt. It can be a pretty hands off activity and you have the freight capacity to make it work.

The nice thing about the orca in high sec is the ship maintenance bay, which isn't restricted to just industrial ships like the rorq. It's not huge but it's helpful for moving a lot of items.

It's also useful in C1 and C2 wormholes since freighters can't fit through the high sec exits.

Stealth edit: yeah what the guy above me said.


Unlike some folks, I do alot of my bulk hauling in an Orca. Why??

Because correctly fit and set up I can tank MORE ehp than a freighter, AND I still have TWO X-Large ASB's for back up on top of that.

Good luck killing that with threeTornado's.

I don't now what kind of crappy defensive skills the above "experts" have, but they must be minimal.

The days of hauling 20b+ in my Orca's corp hangar have been patched away. However, the Orca still has more EHP than a Frieghter and is harder to gank, faster at hauling and easier to keep alive if it attracts a ganker's attention. The drawback is it doesn't have the m3 that a frieghter has.

(Of course you can always contact the good pilots of Red Frog Frieght and their other corps to do the hauling for you.)

Ahh right, forgot about C1. Been awhile.

Tornado's. Seriously. I know from one paiflul experience it takes 1 battleship almost 2 minutes to destroy an Orca with my particular fit. (Never do a mining boost when under war dec )

As was stated in the Dev Blog about the change in the Orca Fleet Hangar scannability, the role of the Orca is to be changed utterly. If so, why did not the Maintenance Bay also go the way of the Dodo ?

I agree with Jester that this whole matter, in a nutshell, seems like an arbitrary change just to have an arbitrary change.

edit: and the responsible Dev in an entirely different role now, but I'll let you all read about that for yourselves if interested.

That's how long it took to explode. Go argue with somone your own age.

In my opinion:

Orca primary role boosts. Secondary role none. Tertiary role hauling.

Why do I say this? Freighter patch has removed the need for orca hauling. The ship maintenance bay is for those who dont want to spring a few 100k for replacement rigs. If your hauling a ship in that bay with T2 rigs, chances are its too expensive to be hauling anyway. Small cargo? Use a T2 industrial, much faster even with 2 trips.

I have about 7 or 8 orcas lying around in various systems and since the patch, pure boosts and thats it. I mine with 4 hulks, a freighter, and a parked orca boosting.

Im starting to feel sorry for the orca really. Its fantastic at boosts, but its overkill on ship size for what it does. Create some new small scale battlecruiser sized booster with long range tractors, strip this ability from the orca, and give it triple the agility, and warp strength.

I trained my indy alt for a freighter, then instead of buying one I trained for an orca and bought one. Even though the unscannable hangar is nerfed, its worth it just to be able to move half a dozen fitted/rigged/loaded pvp ships at once. I move a fair amount of moon materials around for t2 production, by using an orca instead of a freighter I'm trading cargo space I wouldn't need for more speed, more utility, and better protection of my cargo should I desire to fit a bulkhead/dc. About a year ago my corp ceo had me test a standard t2 neutron blaster megathron with 2 magstabs and orgre ii's against his tanked orca. I gotta say, it was not in any hurry to die.

Also, blockade runners immune to all cargo scanning now.