Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I'm not really a miner, but I've read complains in the forums about the Procurer and Skiff being highly unused due to the other 4 mining ships being much better. These 2 ships were supposed to be ideal for low and null mining, but it's pretty evident they're not popular at all. So, in the spirit of conversation and the intention of solving this problem (and also because I read Fozzie was considering giving them turret hardpoints), why not make give them a large drone bay (225m3 maybe?) and 125mbps bandwidth, along with a 50% drone speed role bonus?

These improvements would not really make the ship much more capable of defending itself from other players, mainly because it's far from combat effective; but what they would accomplish is allowing the miner to both go ratting and mining at the same time, which could make his expedition considerably more profitable, potentially increasing his income higher than that of Mackinaw and Hulk pilots (in low or null space).

There are a few reasons for this... all of them are not the Procurer's or Skiff's fault.

- In high-sec tank really doesn't matter too much... all you need is either really good cost effectiveness (such that any gank you suffer from won't really matter in the grand scheme of things) or enough of a tank to make ganking unprofitable.
The Retriever and Mackinaw can respectively do those things. And they have a large ore bay to boot.

- The Procurer and Skiff have small cargoholds like the Covetor and Hulk... meaning that someone needs to store/haul ore for them... which makes them "group activity" ships. Most miners I have seen in high-sec are soloists and/or find it more time efficient to have everyone fill their Reterievers/Mackinaws to full capacity and drop it off in station themselves than have a dedicated hauler.

- In low-sec and null-sec people try to avoid conflict in the first place... which really makes the point of a tank moot. Just watch Local chat and dock up as soon as a hostile or "non-friendly" appears in system.


The Procurer is a 6 million ISK cruiser with a 65k ehp tank and locking speed of a frigate... and you think it's a good idea to give it the potential DPS of a combat battlecruiser (~450 dps)?


The real problem is that the Retriever and Mackinaw (specifically the latter) are a bit too good. Nerf their tanks a bit and you'll have more reason to use a Procurer or Skiff (or even a Covetor or Hulk) instead.

People are still free to mine in battleships covered in mining lasers, getting semi-decent yield out of them - I see no problem with people choosing to fly a mining ship in combat.

There's nothing wrong with either, it's the Miners that want pure yield that are at fault for the ship's unpopularity. Now to be fair, the Skiff is only 2.4 seconds slower (post Odyssey) than the Mack fitted for max yield per 2 Ice blocks and roughly 5 seconds slower than the Hulk per 3 Ice blocks. For Ore it's is a different story. This is with a hold of 15,000 in the Skiff, which isn't small by any means. The Skiff is also half the cost of the Hulk with as much as 5 times the tank for the same max yield fit.

For Lowsec, having more tank won't save you at all. IMHO the added tank is CCP's response to crybaby AFK Miners who never want to engage in PvP. They can fit max yield while having a tank large enough that it's not worth ganking except out of spite while still getting impressive yields.

As anyone who watched the TMC Live interview with Fozzie will know, the Procurer and Skiff are scheduled to be re-evaluated for the exact reasons cited by OP.

I would like to read Fozzie's or Rise's opinion on this, have any of you considered this as a solution to make those ships more attractive? Do you think there are any problems with this? Where would you expect the meta to go after such a change?

I think they need to test the waters, with something limited.

Put up a Pirate Hull cruiser that can fit a single Strip Miner, (or any sub category of such).

Give it a 4k ore hold, so it is heavily dependant on needing to constantly offload.

Push it to have the same bonuses on speed and efficiency as the procurer. We are talking about a limited presence pirate hull, not something that will ever replace the procurer due to cost alone.

The Pirate Miner, Angel Excavator, Mordus Mining, I am sure many names could appear.

In my opinion, the issue with null sec or low sec mining is more getting to and from your mining locations and to be able to hide from and/or evade predators.

The Procurer and Skiff are good starting points with their decent tank and ore hold. The ore hold is probably just big enough to make going deep into null worth it. I could see it go a little larger - not every player has access to a Rorqual or wants to mine in groups. Give it a little solo-ability.

However, I'd like to see the +2 Warp Core Stability that the Skiff used to have brought back for both the Skiff and the Procurer (http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Skiff), then give another low slot for extra stabs and make the role bonus a reduction of the targeting penalties from the Stabs and drop the yield and duration bonuses could be dropped to 100% or 150% in the interest of balance. Trade max yield for safety. Basically, for balance the ship should be made HIGHLY undesirable for hi-sec mining.

Buff it's Magnometric Sensor strength and Signature Radius so that mounting an ECCM will make it unprobable. This will give the ship a measure of safety as a predator would have to visually check all the ice and ore fields to find the ship rather than Combat Probe.

The extra low slot(s) could also be used for Inertia Stabilizers to cut align time, even though this nerfs the signature radius. I guess you have a choice: hide or escape a little quicker.

Yes fully support, I want my bait skiff to have more drones and drone damage to go along with its obscene tank!!!

BATTLESKIFFS RULE!!!

ok, the skiff isnt popular because of the smaller ore bay and it doesnt mine quite as much..

big deal. as i said in the other post about this,
1 stripper
1 ab, 1 small shield repper, 1 hardener, 1 resistance amp
2 mine/ice enhancers

itll move at 600 m/s in orbit around a roid. cut a great deal or rock or ice.

now, the comment was made about a large drone bay.
well, in low or null, we need a farther lock range as well. give it about 50k so we can lock rats or bad guys, give it 125 Mbit unbonused or 50 Mbit bonused bandwidth.

i could see the skiff gaining the gallente/amarr drone bonus of 10%/lev damage and hp.
that would give the skiff some teeth. it can survive now, but give it some teeth and stand back.

add some targeting range and i think itll be an awesome ship.