EVE General Discussion

Hello,
Today I had a discussion with my corp mates about the Mining Frigate Tree.

The discussion revolved around it's purpose to the game. And when you do the math, they don't serve a purpose. The only purpose/value these ships have is fun. Which is a cheap price when you see no one flying these around by choice.

Which I've come to realize is actually a priceless value you can't put onto a ship. Which is why I choose to fly them. However...

My corp mates kept trying to tell me that these ships serve a purpose.

So first to define purpose. A purpose for a ship would make it able to do something better then any other ship of it's tech type, Training Time Class, Ship Class etc. Another arguably equal ship.

They told me the Prospect and the Venture are good for gas mining especially the Prospect.
-I said no they aren't. After 20+ days of training to get into a Prospect you basically get a suped up venture that can fit a covert ops cloak. I said for it to be a true upgrade to the venture. TO BE AT LEAST a true upgrade to the Venture it would have to be able to fit a Covert Ops Cloak AND a Probe Launcher. If not the cost of the ship alone makes it a scary thing to take into a wormhole to lose every now and then. All the Low Slots are completely negates because there are no Gas Mining upgrades to put in them. I can see the Prospect being a good upgrade from the Venture for Ore mining. But a Barge is pretty good at that too. So what's the Prospect's purpose?

-It doesn't have one. It's one high slot away from being the true upgrade it should be. In fact I think CCP withheld a high slot for some reason from it. It really is one of the worst "upgrades" in the game. I can tell by it's stats and it's other fitting's that it was put into the game to be a ship that you take out. Scan down wormholes with, enter said wormholes, scan down gas sites with. All while cloaked. And huff up gas and bring it to where it needs to go. It was a Expedition Frigate, it was to leave high sec and come back with a prize. But they with held that one high slot from it that would allow it to do this in a profitable manor. Now it just makes you wanna rip your hair out.

My corp mates then said, well I use a venture to gas mine with. And having 60 million ISK worth of gas in my ore hold tells me this is a great ship for gas mining in.
-I said with the time is takes to scan down a wormhole, scan down a gas site (if there are any), huff that gas, then come back to civilization, all with out a cloak. Is both dangerous and the ISK/hr isn't the amount in your cargo hold, is severely reduced from what you might expect. You're probably making closer to 10-20 mil/hr then 60 mil/hr with all things considered. But you can expect this from the Venture it's a Rookie Ship it's a Tech 1. So it's okay. I mean it's something to do.

They said the Venture wasn't for solo gas harvesting.
-I said then what is it for? A catalyst with 5 Gas Harvesters on it is a better fleet gas harvester then the Venture. Almost expect idly too. If it's not good for solo gas mining it doesn't have a purpose.

At this point it really comes down to this. The Venture is fine for Gas mining sure. And for Ore mining it's a nice ship to have. But it gets obsoleted by a barge in 5 or so days. And were not talking by a little bit, a barge obviously out mines the Venture by 125% - 200% (2 - 4x).
-Well a barge can be considered kind of like a tech ii ship it takes awhile to get into and it takes special skills and equipment, it's also highly specialized to do it's job. Well then I'd expect the Prospect to AT LEAST compete with it. Instead the Barge blows the prospect out of the water too.

They said a Prospect is better for going into dangerous space with to mine ore with. I said with a yield difference like that, it absolutely isn't. Especially when the Price Tag is the same. In fact you won't see hardly anyone ever flying a Prospect. It has no bonuses which give it a profitable purpose. There are other ships that outrank it. As said previous the CATALYST out performs it when mining gas in a Fleet.

I don't know much about the Expedition. But I was excited until I saw it only had one turret slot. I haven't done the math but let me guess, it's out performed by a barge by more then double maybe triple...

So what is the Mining Frigate Tree? It's a Tree that out performed by the Barge. It was designed to go and explore to look for gas, ore and ice. Why? Because the barge is the better ship for mining ore with. It's not great at travelling around in. So what did CCP do? They reduced the Mining Yield in Mining Frigates so badly, that it's STILL and ALWAYS, RELIABLY more profitable to mine VELDSPAR in a 1.0, in a barge. Then it is to go explore space and find rare exotic ores, gases and ice with.

(Talked about earlier) Just the fact that the Prospect is Missing One High Slot to be able to fit 2 Gas Harvesters, 1 Probe Launcher and a Covert Ops Cloaking Device. Is Metaphorical to the entirety of what the Entire Mining Frigate Tree is missing. There are better ships for the job. And what's the Prospect good at doing. Going blindly out into space while cloaked. Why blindly? Because it can't find anything with out a scanner. Unless you take off 1 harvester... I'm done here. They've already got such a reduced yield. I'm going to mine VELDSPAR in a starting system to make top dollar. I'll catch you all later. Maybe I'll take my Prospect out later just for a bit of fun.

EDIT: The math checks out for the Endurance. The barge is better if you can get it there, but not by not much. So it's not worth getting there, giving this Frigate a purpose. It's also clings on the fact that it can stock all its high slots with all it's useable Mining Modules a Probe Launcher and a Cloaking Device. Which Is needed by a ship destined to travel in dangerous space.

I believe that shattered wormholes have very lucrative ice anoms and are only accessible with frigates.

You're right. I just went and did the math for this ship. And although it wouldn't be as good as a barge mining the same thing. The fact that the barge can't get to null sec very easily makes the Endurance have a purpose. This is the upgrade the Prospect needs. It needs to be able to do a purpose or it's purpose cleanly and efficiently. No Mobile Depot required. That's the silliest thing I've ever heard. That what I was referring to when I said it makes you want to pull your hair out.

And I want to be clear here. I'm saying this because the Endurance can actually fit it's mining modules, a probe launcher and a cloaking device.

As an Exploration Ship, an Expedition Frigate. This is needed. Which the Prospect doesn't have.

Oh dear... you have to make tradeoffs. Just like you make with every other ship in the game.

Mining barges? You have to choose between mining efficiency or the ability to tank realistic amounts of damage. You can't have both.

Exploration frigates? You have to choose between having speed, tank, and/or utility. Generally you can't have more than 2 of those aspects (not without a mobile depot at least).
Even the Astero (a Pirate Frigate) has to make tradeoffs. It can't fit any guns if it is equipped with a probe launcher and Covert-Ops cloak. This decreases its efficiency at running some sites as well as lower its capacity to defend itself.


Hmmmm... what else...

- Industrialists need to choose between tank, cargospace, and speed/agility. They generally can't have more than 2 of those aspects at any one time.

- All combat ships need to choose between;
------ speed/agility
------ tank
------ gank
------ utility/Ewar
They have to choose between 2.5 of those things because they only have so much CPU/PG and fitting slots.

- Big ships need to choose between being effective against ships around their own size... or be effective against small fast ships. The fits required to do either are quite different... so being caught against the wrong kind of target with the wrong kind of fit will leave you quite useless.

Wow, that is just a whole mess of ignorant noob thoughts based on incomplete and poorly understood information.




EFT-warrior posting detected.

-A mobile depot obviates the need to fit 2 harvesters, a cloak, and a probe launcher at the same time.
-The prospect can hold twice as much gas as a venture.
-It is faster and more agile than a venture. Coupled with its sig bonus, this can make the prospect surprisingly survivable.
-Your thoughts on the low slots are upside down and backwards, as yield is relative. You don't have any upgrades to put there and neither does anyone else. This means - tada - you don't HAVE to put yield upgrades on it. You can use those slots for other useful things, most likely pertaining to survivability.




How do you figure? Napkin math, looks like a catalyst with 5 T2 harvesters still pulls slightly less yield than a venture, and has significant CPU problems as well. I haven't thought through all the fitting iterations but just slamming 3 co-pros and a couple overclocks on there still leaves you with >3% CPU deficit.

A Cormorant can pull it off with a little more ease.

Fleet or solo, using a destroyer, with its CPU struggles, inferior yield, and MASSIVELY inferior hold makes no sense at all. Thanks to the fitting compromises that would be required to get the full rack of harvesters on there, it wouldn't even be more survivable, as it's bigger, slower, and still paper thin.

DOWN WITH THIS SORT OF THING!

Mining itself, by and large, serves no purpose other than to spawn amusing threads in See and Pee and Features and Ideas.

I can't decide between my two witty replies so I guess I will just post them both.

"Well I guess you have to talk about something while mining."


FTFY

True Story ...

Year or two back I noticed no buy orders for ventures at one of the schools so put up a spec buy order for 300 at 40k or so each.

Ended up with 300 Ventures for something like 12 million ISK :D

Had no use for them so donated them to the angel project.