Ships & Modules

******** nearly-invincible hauler that makes bot-aspirants even more joyful and drives prices down for the rest of the struggling miners

More specialized T2 Industrial variant of Orca doesnt mean more tank. In the worsth case less or a lot less than the Orca.

I think that it would be nice if the rorqual could actually fill its intended roles better, before even considering making a T2 variant. CCP has been struggling for years, on how to make it so that people actually field the ship they want (in the belt), and have yet been unsuccessful. As such, I think even beginning to hypothesize how a tech 2 variant would work, when the tech 1 variant doesn't work, is silly.

But for the sake of humoring you, a tech 2 variant should not completely replace the tech 1, especially in all fashions, but provide a more specialized role. Given that ganglinks don't need to be any stronger, without forcing people into the tech 2 variant, I'd look at giving the ship a bonus to shield and armor links, and perhaps a sort of industrial jump portal would be very interesting. Allow it to bridge industrial only ships (industrials, mining ships, transports, PERHAPS freighters) to cynos, to further specialize them as a mobile deployment vessel. To make it easier for mining groups to move from one location to another, without the hassle of jump bridging, or using a titan. A bit more agility would also be a godsend.




There is one, and only one precedent, for tech 2 capital ships, so I don't understand how that especially translates to very significant ehp gains for them. Jump freighters have 80% (+/- 5%) more EHP than tech 1 freighters.
This is about the only case in the game, where anywhere near that much more EHP is granted to the tech 2 hull, over the tech 1 hull.

Generally speaking, t2 grants an improved resist profile, but often not a significant EHP gain.
Here are some cases where there is an EHP loss, with standard fittings

Stealth bombers
Some interdictors
Some E-war ships, particularly caldari
Black ops battleships
E-war frigates

However, there is a trend with industrial ships being significantly more tanky in their t2 form (skiff to procurer, mackinaw to retriever, bustard to badger II, etc), so it's probably completely dependant on how hard ccp would want these to be.

I was just discussing this very thing the other day after seeing the Prospector. It might fit into the Lore of ORE ships in general if they are pursuing CovOps capabilities now also. The ability for an Advanced Rorqual to bridge mining fleets around to really exploit frontier mining operations would be neat. Restrictions ofc, and not on par wth Titan/BLOPs bridge range perhaps, but it would add an awesome element to mining.

The T2 Orca would probably be the Warbarge for DUST? If not it would be a tricky one to balance, cos lets face it Orca is primarily High Sec and you usually have all the Facilities you need in close proximity. But maybe a larger Ore Hold, but give up its boosting, with a different EHP, it's focus would be the hauling over the boosting to save you bringing the freighter out to belts.

not sure if OP knows there are t2 capital industrial ships ingame already - jump freighters