Science & Industry

Hi Abadayos,

From my experience, I prefer the Mackinaw because it has a much larger hold than the Hulk. You reduce transit time bringing ore back and forth between field and station. The Mackinaw would allow your small fleet to avoid jet canning ore as well.

Hulk's do well if you have a large fleet or fleet bonuses that pump your yield. However, you need to consider the micro managing of cans and hauls.

It all comes down to personal preference, but I'd suggest a Mackinaw or Hulk depending on your style.

Best of luck, and have fun!

A single Mackinaw with 2 MLU IIs and 5 Mining Drone IIs has a yield of 1438m³ per minute, so three of them mine 4314m³ per minute, travel time of drones not included. That is slightly less than 2 Mackinaws boosted by a fully trained Orca pilot. I think the best setup would be 2 miners and an Orca pilot in the long run. The Orca can haul and boost, as well as provide some protection with its drones, so both miners can use a full flight of mining drones.
Two Hulks boosted by an Orca would yield about 6000m³ per minute, which is almost 1/3 more than with Mackinaws. Only problem is their paper thin tank :(

If you're mining in an area of hisec where suicide ganks of miners are common, I wouldn't fly a Hulk or a Mackinaw. Their tanks are just too flimsy for the amount of ISK that they cost. Go with a Skiff (which has a massive tank) or any of the T1 barges (because they're far less appealing targets) instead. Otherwise, Hulks and Mackinaws are fine.

Max yield vs. max ore hold is something of a personal preference matter. Given your situation, I would go for three Retreivers/Macks; you'll sacrifice some yield, but you'll gain independence and freedom from micromanagement. Once one of your characters can fly an Orca, I'd switch to two Covetors/Hulks and an Orca in the same belt; double-range-bonused Covetors/Hulks (Mining Director Link on the Orca + their new bonus) can mine at considerably longer ranges than other barges, and given how slowly they move, this is a huge benefit. Combine that with a mining yield bonus, storage capacity, and general utility of the Orca, it's win-win.

My Mack with 3 x MLU2's, non fleeted gets 1641 m3 per strip miner per cycle. Fleeted with another acc with moderate leadership it gets 1805 m3 per strip miner per cycle. All using T2 crystals.

Afk mining with Hulk is impossible beyond a couple of cycles, let alone considering being ganked.

A couple of things people have not pointed out that are rather important in this decision:

How safe is it where you are mining? If you live in constant fear of gankers or pirates, then a Hulk may be a bad choice for you. Even if you use every mid-slot and low-slot for tank, it cans till be easily ganked by 3 Catalysts. The same holds true for a Mackanaw. The Skiff, with the love it recently got, is able to have a tank over 100k ehp while also having the same mining yield of the Mackinaw. Yes, the Hulk still mines slightly more, and has better range, but you don't have to worry about losing your ship to a ganker.

The other thing you have to concern yourself about is the size of the asteroids. If you are in high sec, the roids are small enough that using a T2 strip miner and T2 crystals will cause you to have many wasted cycles because the rocks are just too small for the high yields of your lasers. This also applies to the base yields of the lasers of your ship. Because of role bonuses on the Skiff, with its one mining laser, can mine as much as a Mackanaw with its two. This means that the Skiff has a better chance of wasting mining cycles because all of its cycle yield is concentrated into one laser.

Hope this info helps.

Lots of people probably will not agree with me here. But here is my 2c.

Macks. 3 of them. Find yourself a 0.8 + system. Tank Macks to detriment of yield.
5 slot tank. 3 shield rigs.

Yes you will mine slower then others, but you will chuckle at single and duo gank squads.
Yes if they really want to gank you, they will bring numbers and you will be ganked. However, this mitigates a LOT of risks.

5 slot tank, 3 shield rigs (or 2 or howmany ever sit there), hell throw even a 6th tank slot by boosting a bit of bulkhead action.

With this setup you will be able to enjoy mining as much as possible i suppose.

Now people will tell you it is foolhardy to mine in systems above 0.7. Do some flying around, look for some systems. You will be surprised.