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Not fond of the changes to the Hulks.. It's like the most popular ship to gank in high sec so you boost the hp on the other 2 but not the one everybody uses, that one gets less and pretty much left alone.. What's the point in flying one now?? Meh subscription ends in 3 days may as well just let it laps.. Minecraft is more fun than eve these days...


v.

Same as always: it gives you higher yield.

Sigh… Yes I should have said “fit” there, but you could have worked it out from the context if you weren’t such a pedant



No. Miners in low and null do not need to compromise yield



A hulk, optimised for mining yield, is not able to defend itself no matter how much support is available. In a mining op you would want to optimise the yield from your hulks to justify all the time and effort being expended, but in high sec where the ganker always gets the first shot that means you lose your hulk



When the “Tools” they give us only work properly in some areas of the game and not others then yes, they are forcing us to play in certain areas



The ship that requires a group to shine is the hulk, but when mining in high sec even in a well organised mining op the hulk is too vulnerable to gankers when optimised for mining yield. Many people (including you) have said that miners should use a different fit or a different barge to overcome this, but that means that high sec miners have to compromise on mining yield to gain defence even when in an organised mining op, whereas low and null miners don’t have to make the same compromises. To me that is broken game play. They might as well change the description of the hulk to read “Fleet Mining Barge – Recommended for Low and Null Sec use only”.

Sure they do, if they want to gain defence — it's still the same ship, so the same rules apply.

That's because optimising yield is something rather different than having an optimal fit. An optimal fit is one that lets you do the job the best — a fit that only focuses on yield will only be able to do half the job… As it happens, the Hulk can already project a significant tank while still providing a high yield.

Good thing that they're not doing that, then (except for the Rorqual).

Hardly true even right now, and even less so after this change since there will no longer be any reason to weaken it by throwing on (already needless) cargo expanders. Right now, it can be made largely impervious to gankers (to the point where, to kill the Hulk, they have to expend more money than the miner) and this will not be made worse by tiercide.

The nullsec miners have to make the exact same compromises: if they want the ships to have high protection, they will have to sacrifice some of the yield. With these changes, you'll be able to do it in two ways: tanking your hulk or picking a different ship. This holds true regardless of what space you're in, and it holds true for miners just like it does for everyone else.

Now you are just being obtuse. They don’t NEED to compromise because they can operate in 100% safety.

Wrong. In the context of a well organised mining op the optimal fit is one that maximises yield. Anything else is just wasting the time and effort of all the supporting players.

The tools we have to protect a mining op don’t work in high sec – that should be obvious to anyone with half a brain.

We can get rid of cargo rigs, but the changes don’t free up any low slots – those are still needed to improve mining yield. After the changes the hulk (in optimal mining yield fit) will have an, at best, marginal improvement in its tank – not enough to offset the gankers first strike advantage.

Again with the obtuse-ness. When 100% protection is available through supporting players in an op why do they need to compromise? They don’t HAVE to compromise at all.

…if you remove the belt rats and if you dock up as soon as anything remotely threatening appears (which, by the way, will impact your yield far more than a bit of tank will).

…and saves them money since they don't have to keep rebuying those Hulks. No, it's not wrong. The purpose of the ship is to bring home the bacon. If it can only catch it and not bring it home, it is not good at its job.

…and yes, you can still maintain a high yield while projecting a good enough tank to stave off gankers.

Tanking works. Logis work. Fleet bonuses work. ECM drones work. Shooting the guy works. Hmm… what else is there, and why doesn't it work in highsec?

And fitting a Hulk for full yield is still suboptimal since it causes such horrendous ISK losses. If it doesn't cause any horrendous ISK losses, then there is no problem to begin with, and you can fit the ship the same way you imagine it would be done in low or null.

The obtuseness here is that you assume that the “100% protection” doesn't come at a cost. It does. They most certainly have to compromise their yield to gain that level of security.

I won't claim ownership of that idea, but I like it. What I said was that the mixing and matching of overall role and extraction speciality should be given to the players to choose, and then the T2 hulls could have some additional bonus that gives that overall role an additional tweak (I suggested giving Hulks agility and MWD-based bonuses, for the Mack… idk, maybe something along the lines of improved drone capacity to let it fit a wider variety of drones, which fits with the self-sufficiency theme, and I have no suggestion for the Skiff )

i guess that's the major problem here... people trained so hard to fly a hulk and want to fly it everyday...
i began playing this game from less than a month now, and is pure awesome.
the frig changes are more than welcome, as it is tiresome to get roflstomped everytime by tech2 battlecruisers, at least for a noob like me who doesn't have much clue of what's happening sometimes.
and well... i started playing this game mostly because of mining... i find it neat that you can play a game without beeing agressive... i spent lots of time jetcaning with the navitas... getting fliped and all that good stuff... then i got a procurer (wich y'all know is quite useless) and now i use a retriever(im dellaying the covie training because you NEED a battle cruiser) and well...
Im not as experienced in this game as you folks are... but these changes they're announcing are making the game much more interesting and viable to new players like me. I mean... it doesn't make any sense that the hulk need to be the best mining ship in every way... i mean... why mining needs to be such an expensive and dull acticity? these changes are clearly making the game better, as they give more options to suit your playstyle... and well if you'll need to brake your rigs... cry me a river.

An idea how to adapt mining barges and exhumers and how to introduce a mining frigate:

Unify skill requirements: Use the same for Procurer (this), Retriever and Covetor. Use the same for Skiff (this), Mackinaw and Hulk. This way you get rid of the tiers and open the way of roles.

Grant roles to mining brarges: Bring the Procurer in line with the Skiff (Mercoxit mining), the Retriever with the Mackinaw (ice mining) and the Covetor with the Hulk (non-Mercoxit mining). Example follows below.

Now, the mining frigate has to be balanced with a Covetor for non-Mercoxit and a Procurer (now similar to a Skiff) for Mercoxit mining. In addtition, also grant bonus to gas mining to make it useful beyond being a stepping stone towards mining barges.

Introduce a T3 mining barge ;-)
This way you can cover all the cargohold vs. yield vs. EHP.

From my point of view, it would fit very well into how CCP plans to setup their ships
T1 ships with roles, T2 ships specializing in those roles and T3 ships generalizing them.

Mining Barges with Mining Barge Skill bonus
- Procurer
60% bonus to Mercoxit Mining Crystal yield multiplier per level

- Retriever
5% reduction in Ice Harvester duration per level
Role: 100% bonus Ice Harvester yield but 25% penalty to duration

- Covetor
3% better yield for strip miners per level

Exhumers
- Skiff
Mining Barge Skill bonus
69% bonus to Mercoxit Mining Crystal yield multiplier per level
20% reduced chance of Mercoxit gas cloud forming per level
Exhumer Skill bonus
7.5% bonus to all shield resistances per level
add anything you like, yield is already as current

- Mackinaw
Mining Barge Skill bonus
5% reduction in Ice Harvester duration per level (maybe increase it further)
Role: 100% bonus Ice Harvester yield but 25% penalty to duration
Exhumer Skill bonus
7.5% bonus to all shield resistances per level
add anything you like, yield is already as current

- Hulk
Mining Barge Skill bonus
6.5% better yield for strip miners per level
Exhumer Skill bonus
7.5% bonus to all shield resistances per level
add anything you like, yield is already as current