EVE New Citizens Q&A

Suggestions for skills and ship for a Fleet Commander for small Mining Fleet (less than five pilots/ships)?

Would the FC need to have something other than a Mining Ship, to provide better support -- or would the bonuses from skills such as Siege Warfare & Armored Warfare apply regardless of the ship the FC uses?

The Mining Foreman/Director skills increase yield of the Mining, but would it not be useful to have someone in "bodyguard" status to help if pirates attack? If so, what sort of ship & skill pkg. would be recommended? If it is a suicide type attack, would the "bodyguard" ship/pilot effectively be useless because it would be over before he/she could attack/defend?

Thank you.

If your goal is to give out mining bonuses, Orca is your ship of choice. That does not mean having the warfare skills to 5 is a bad idea. If you want an escort, get someone else to do it. If you can't and need to do that yourself, you can put mining ganglinks (or any gang link for that matter) in any Battlecruiser.

Escorts are more of a deterrent than actually useful. You need a lot of dps to take out a catalyst/thrasher in less of the time it takes them to take down a barge. It is possible however, just do the math. A sebo, traking-enhanced, sniper amarr BS with a target painter should do the job quite nicely.

To provide basic bonuses (to armor, shields, speed, agility, etc) a person needs to be in the squad commander position. It doesn't need to be the FC, just whoever has the best skills.

Certain ships however will boost specific bonuses significantly. As mentioned above, the Orca is the mining fleet ship of choice as it can provide not only hauler support, but also Mining and/or Warfare Link bonuses too. People in ships like this should be the Squad Commander position.


I'm going to assume you are mining in high-sec.

You don't need a bodyguard in the traditional sense (big and lots of guns). Frankly, they won't be fast enough. What you need is something like a destroyer or cruiser with the ability to lock extremely fast and deal very high volley damage to remove [at least one of] the ganker from field as soon as they go "blinky" (if they are not already). Artillery-fit Thrashers and Ruptures with lots of Sensor Boosters are good for this.

Alternatively, you can get someone with a remote repair module (like a shield transporter) to effectively negate some of the DPS dealt to the barges during a suicide attack... putting the odds of survival more in the miner's favor.

However, the best way to keep your fleet secure from a suicide gank is to tank up your ships (by fitting lots of raw HP and resistances, not shield boosters***). Barges like the Procurer excel at doing this. And Armor/Siege Warfare links will further enhance your defenses (which the Orca helps with). The trade off is that you won't mine as much/fast.


*** suicide ganks operate on the tactic of dealing as much damage in as small a time frame as possible. It's rare for a shield booster or armor repper to complete it's cycle and negate enough incoming damage to make any difference. Thus, fit for maximum HP.

Another question : If the Mining Fleet is made of pilots who are not all in the same Corporation, if a Pirate attacks one, will the current flagging system/Crimewatch prevent anyone else in fleet engaging in actions against the Pirate?

Its a small group, all in NPC Corporations, but some not in same Corporation...we don't see benefit of creating new small corporation, as it will in our opinion be WarDecced/Ransomed, etc. sooner or later. Other than having a new Corporation name, symbol, etc. is there any benefit for a very small group of new pilots who fly together sometimes to create their own corporation?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Man has a point, if people decide to suddenly alpha you, your ECM / BUFFER isnt going to have time to cycle effectively.
And that's assuming you have lightning reactions to their fire.

True, but the current FOTM miner gank ship is a catalyst, which is much more about dps than alpha damage. And this gives you some time to react. Not much time, but enough to activate a shield transporter if you already have the victim targeted.

But yes, it wont help against a Thrasher alpha-gank squad.

It's not, it's just a PEBCAK. Go tell a miner to monitor local and spam dscan in highsec .

When the miners themselves can't be arsed paying attention while mining, you really believe one of their logi-bro/alt will?

No point looking for silly tactics, the only counter to ganking is attention and if you don't want to pay attention, either fit a massive buffer or lose the boat.

BTW gankalyst are not FOTM, they're the best tool for the job since 2011 at least .

Haha. Well, in Low, when six players jump into the system, you know there's trouble and you just warp to a safespot. But in high-sec, where many systems have always more than 40 players in them, it's much harder to spot a gank squad before they land on grid especially if they are a bit sneaky and have neutral sec status. But then, as Sin said, many high-sec miners don't pay any attention and won't even notice a full squad of reds arriving in the system all at once - so gankers don't even have to be sneaky.

Also, people exaggerate the problem. You usually have no problem to earn the price of your barge and then some before it gets blown up. But some people consider any loss a horrible experience.

I find that to be true, that the problem is highly exaggerated. Also, the more tears that are shed, the more likely you are to remain a target.

I think if you are prepared and in a well thought out fleet with Logi and a few DD's, gankers will look elsewhere. All you have to do is warp to a safe if you see gank-class ships appear on dscan.