EVE New Citizens Q&A

Hi I am curious, do you guys know which is better in terms of mining yield, covetor or skiff?

Thank you, that's all i wanted to know.

Mmmm, content. Someone's about to learn all about EvE.

And it feels sooo guuud.

Covetor: Largest mining Yield. Smallest cargo hold. Not a good tank.
procurer: Smallest possible yield (depending on MLUs) medium hold. Best tank (50k+ ehp)

Skiff: Better procurer.

I should just let you be, but considering this is NCQ&A, I'll elaborate on the "no the right questions" part.

Playing around in PyFA using an All-V's char, a Covetor with T2 strips, T2 crystals, and T2 MLU's will mine at 24.4 m3/s. A Skiff with the same yield-based fit will pull 21.9 m3/s. Neither drones nor boosts are included in either of these calculations.

One big thing to remember though is that the Skiff has a 15k m3 ore bay while the Covetor has only a 7k m3 ore bay, so you'll have to make a drop more than twice as often with the Covetor as compared to the Skiff. Unless you have a hauler available, you'll have to make a station run about every five minutes with the Covetor, compared to every 12 minutes with the Skiff.

A turnaround of 2 minutes is pretty generous for barges and exhumers, but we'll work with that.

Over about 30 minutes (28 actually), you're mining for 4 drop-cycles in the Covetor (5 minutes of mining, 2 minutes of hauling), but only 2 for the Skiff (12 minutes of mining, 2 minutes of hauling). You end up with about 24 minutes of mining in the Skiff and 20 minutes of mining with the Covetor.

24 minutes in the Skiff @ 21.9 m3/s == 31,536 m3 of ore.
20 minutes in the Covetor @ 24.4 m3/s == 29,280 m3 of ore.

Considering that, in barges and exhumers, you're probably closer to a 3-4 minute turnaround, the whole thing falls so deeply in favor for the Skiff in terms of yield that it's rather comical. At least using a 2-minute turnaround, the Covetor can actually pretend it can compete.

As well, considering the tank difference, the Skiff is going to have about 10x the tank of the Covetor, with the Covetor clocking in around 7-8k EHP, and the Skiff clocking in at 75-80k EHP.

To top it off, the Skiff gets bonuses to drones, and has double the drone bay of the Covetor. With the covetor, you have 50 m3 for your bay and 50 mb bandwidth. You can take medium drones out to protect yourself, but they aren't going to scare too many gankers away. Alternatively, you could take a flight of light drones and a flight of mining drones, which will protect you from belt rats and allow you to mine better, but you have far less of a chance against gankers.

The Skiff, on the other hand, has 100m3 for its drone bay and 50 mb for bandwidth. You can take a flight of bonused medium drones to protect yourself a bit more against gankers, a flight of bonused light drones to fight against the belt rats (assuming they can even overcome your shield regen), and a flight of mining drones.

The tl;dr of this is that the Skiff is better than the Covetor over the long haul if you're mining solo, while the Covetor will win if and only if you are in a fleet with hauling being provided, and you aren't the only Covetor in the fleet (which would make you the primary target of the gankers, second only to a Hulk).

So there you go: The answer to "which mines more ore" is the Covetor, but the answer to "which mines more ore over a prolonged period is the Skiff.

Which is why CCP is a joke for balancing ships. Bestower and sigil have the same problem. Bestower looks superior for its one particular role, but it falls apart with the speed,natural EHP, and fitting comparisons.

Covetor is the same boat. Its so bad in everything else that its easy to make up for the deficiencies in a skiff to completely negate them in the long term, making the covetor just a weakly tanked, inflexible skiff.

If you're mining in a fleet, the Covetor is going to blow the Skiff so far out of the water that it isn't even worth mentioning. If you have a fleet of Skiffs, you can do some pretty impressive things (just take a look at the Bovril miners in Brave), but when you need a disposable fleet miner that you can afford to lose (and can afford to be SRP'ed), you aren't going to top the Covetor.

Different ships have different purposes. Iroquoiss Pliskin already pointed out the difference between the Bestower and Sigil, which is the same "problem" (that isn't actually a problem) between the Nereus and the Itty V, and the Wreathe and the Mammoth.

The Covetor and Hulk excel as fleet ships, while the Procurer and Skiff excel as defensive ships. If you're mining solo and want pure yield, you go with the Retriever or Mackinaw.

CCP are actually pretty good at balancing ships (nowadays). Of course, as the T3 Destroyers have shown, it may take an extra pass or two.

Of course, comparing the skiff and the coveter isn't entirely valid.

If you compare the skiff and the hulk, which is a more valid comparison (skill wise, and cost wise) you'll find the yield of a hulk is about 25% higher than the skiff. Which, if you have a fleet, with hauler support, makes a huge difference (hauler support is so you don't lose time emptying the ore hold into a station, and just keep on mining).

Nobody caught that but it made me chuckle nonetheless. There's nothing for me to say because everybody else covered it but to pretend to stay on topic...

In terms of yield it's Covetor -> Retriever -> Skiff.
In terms of tank Skiff -> Retriever -> Covetor.

If you're mining in the fleet, Covetor will beat the pants off everything if you have logistics hauling the ore outta there.