Science & Industry

Ok let the flames begin.

Here my idea for a mining battle barge by ORE.

4 high slots with 2 turrets slots (LG guns) but you could fill all the spaces with strips
5 mids
5 lows

dedicated ore bay roughly on par with a hulks but a little bigger.
and around a Battle cruisers EHP possibly a little lower

now first things first, anybody who skips to the bottom of the postings without reading more then the first few lines to cry havoc deserves this.

Not Allowed In High Sec


also would recommend a new skill with exhumers as a prerequisite.

and it would have to be Expensive as Frap.

some ideas to go with:

A jump drive (might be to much)
A bonus to guns/strips



The basic idea is to have a miners high-end ship which can be in Low/Null with a chance of surviving, plus be useful as a mining vessel.

I think that mining ships are in a pretty good spot right now.

For the larger and more expensive ships (read: barges/exhumers) you need a fleet to be effective in low or null.

If you want to solo mine in low -- Use a Venture, Otherwise Solo Mining in a Mackinaw in High-sec is where the easy mode is.

Also from a consistency standpoint if the ship isn't allowed in high-sec, it cannot use jump gates, and must be moved via Cyno.

Yeah, no.

Personally, I love the idea of an extremely expensive mining ship that comes packaged with the mistaken impression that it is capable of defending itself.

Maybe I'm missing something (I usually am), but it sounds like a rorqual with a few less slots.

Not allowed in highsec? Check.
Jump drive? check.
Expensive? Check.
ORE? Check.

What you described is an expensive Killmail (won't be able to defense itself against serious attackers, would probably result in amusing kills on low-sec mission runners when piloted by people with a PvP mindset for kicks but that's about it) with a senseless limitation that is inconsistent with other ships of it's type (being unable to enter High-Sec).

Also, four strips and five lows? Oh my.

No, there absolutely never needs to be a ship for this role. It isn't a role that needs to exist, actually. All of your barges can fit a tank and carry a full flight of drones. Band together and possibly mix in a Blackbird or two for good times. If you want to get serious about fighting back with a mining fleet (and why would you ever want to be in that position?) then get buddies in ships intended to PvP competently.

You know....

I've been thinking. Now that we're going to have insta-warp-to mining sites and a lot more people in low/null- sec mining ....

Wouldn't it be interesting to allow a mining ship to mount something like a mini-siege module that only works in low/null- sec.

Something that would be interesting for a miner, like giving a big bonus to mining speed over a period of say... 5 min, like a cyno mod. It should allow miners to make on the order of 100-120mil/hr on high-grades (ie. on par with ratters and about 35% more than they make now).

But just like caps, if they're in siege, they're sitting ducks for 5 min.

That could create some interesting win/wins.

- Miners would make 35% more isk if they were using it
- More minerals from well organized miners means possibly pushing mineral prices (and therefore the prices of everything else) down somewhat (although I don't know how much of an issue this will be after Odyssey).
- For PVP-ers it could create interesting opportunities for ganking instead of getting in a site just in time to see the mining ships high-tailing out to a POS.

I think it's a great idea. it's an addition that will appeal to both miners and those who hunt them. How cool is that?

So you want a mining ship that can fight back. I think we already have one of those.

1. Strap a couple of mining lasers to a classic neut domi.
2. Put a flight of mining drones in the drone bay along with your combat drones.
3. Go mine in a belt.
4. Collect tears when some guy in a cruiser or BC tries to gank you.

How about no?

Counter proposal:
Give the skiff a 125/225 drone bay and a longer targeting range. Watch as small gangs disappear when they land on grid with a 20 skiff mining fleet.

Forget mining, fear the skiff gate camp. New domi bonuses on skiffs as well. Watch as the galaxy burns under the sentry guns of mass skiffs.

Oh god please make this happen.