Player Features and Ideas Discussion

The current system is not fine. Please tell me a situation where you, as an informed miner, would operate a Skiff.

If you say Null, I'll call shenanigans. I live in null, I've seen the grav sites and the ice belts and even the regular belts.

People fly Macks for EHP and Hulks for yield. Or they fly Retrievers and Covetors if they're really just starting. Not a Procuror or Skiff out there.

If you say Low, I'll call shenanigans. Even if you find a quiet low-sec, to minimize risk you want to get in and out in a hurry.

What says hurry like one mining laser and a gigantic ore bay? The Skiff and the Procuror are terrible for low-sec.

If you say High-sec, I'll just say you're lying because that's apparently not correct based on any observations at all.

As for the Tech II ORE frigate, I hadn't thought about it. I guess it should be better at whatever the Tech I does than the Tech I is. Making it a ninja salvage ship seems rather random.

Thanks for posting and I look forward to your reply about a scenario where you would pilot a Skiff or Procuror over one of the other hoices.

If you want to be awesome you can tell me why 95% of miners would pilot anything other than a Retriever or a Mackinaw. But only if you are feeling ambitious.

The hulk barely has an ore bay because its meant to be a fleet miner used along side an orca and hauler support. the orca provides all the ore bay the hulk needs.

the mack gets a small boost to mining amount, the skiff does not. so the mack has a greater yield than the skiff, theoretically and otherwise. i think its appropriate that the heaviest tanker has the lowest yield, and then only just.



WH's. bait procurors are hilarious and would probably work in low. if u dnt get engaged, then u stil get ore. rarity at the moment may be to do with the prices of ore. there is no reason to even try and mine in low sec because the ore is worth less than that of hi-sec. also, non-WH corps are never willing to babysit miners.



retrievers and macks are best solo miners. most miners are solo miners. feature working as intended

That's only because people are lazy. One ship being used a lot because more people prefer that playsyle is not the same as one ship being objectively better at everything.

That's precisely why it's broken. It's a big fat bag of stupid EHP with a built-in jet can sized ore bay with no real barrier between it and material acquisition at all.

It's bad for the game because it both dumbs Eve down and deflates the value of mining as a profession at the same time.

I can't argue about bait Procurors because I've never seen one. I'm just ceding you that point.

The Mack has the second best yield of the Exhumers, and is only nominally lower than the Hulk in first place.

Being gankable in high-sec as a theoretical possibility doesn't constitute much risk. If it is at least potentially profitable, however, it is then a legitimate risk.

I've seen figures from knowledgable miners claiming the Mackinaw's high yield combined with its cavernous ore bay makes it just as efficient as the Hulk for mining in large groups, because it can jettison a full cargo contiainer at a time, whereas the Hulk has to micromanage much more.

That's not a very clear choice. But I feel our perspectives are different enough that for this conversation to be civil we will have to agree to disagree. Again, barring the bait Procuror in WH space, as I have indicated I'll stipulate that point. It remains an edge case at best.

That's actually what I'm talkin' about.

Choices are vastly cooler than cookie-cutter boilerplates.

I've seen those figures too, but you are exaggerating them. They were saying that 2 macs are superior to a hulk and a hauler, thanks to the massive ore bay. But once you get to about 3-4 hulks with a dedicated hauler the hulk pulls ahead.

Why not give the Covetor and Hulk a strip miner range improvement as a role bonus? Its intended role is fleet mining, and not having to move too far away from the Orca is a good thing, I guess. 50% range bonus would put strip miners in line with survey scanners.

Fail pilots whining about a feature when they haven't even read the new ship bonuses.
I'm not in the habit of insulting people, but really, you guys deserve it.





Identical yield bonuses.
Mack gets a bonus which makes it equivilent to 3 Strip miners (assuming no overkill)
Skiff gets a bonus which makes it equivilent to 3 Strip miners (assuming no overkill)
Both get 1% per level in Exhumer skill to Yield.
Both get 1% per level in Exhumer skill to Ice duration.

The only difference between them is in potential fittings (which if they are being fully tanked doesn't apply) & overkill (which the skiff has slightly more issue with)
Yes, if you go for max yield from both of them, you get a slight bit more from the Mack due to the extra low slot, but at that point your EHP aren't going to be anywhere near as great. And the 5 med slots of the skiff makes it easy to fit a lot of tank + a scanner still & any other utility/prop you want.
Procurers/Skiffs also no longer have the Warp Stab bonus you people have been talking about. Know your ships!

Now, this has pointed out one problem to me however, and an easy one to resolve at that which should bring more hulks to the field if not more skiffs, which is number of slots between the three barges.
Hulk: 9, Mack, 9, Skiff, 8
However since the Strip miners on the Mack/Skiff work better... it means the following.

Available slots.
Hulk: 9
Mack: 10
Skiff: 10

This can be rectified either by adding a slot to the Hulk (Low slot ideally to pack more yield onto the hulk to make it a clear king there) or by removing a slot from the Mack (Low to drop it's yield) & Skiff (Mid, since it already only has 2 lows, and dropping it to 1 low removes fitting options). The latter option brings the Skiff & Mack to identical yield potential (in theory ignoring overkill), which helps the mack against the skiff, and since it increases the gap between the mack & hulk yield, also helps the hulk out at the same time.
The first option simply improves the hulk but leaves the skiff where it is.
So my personal preference would be for option 2, but either brings them back in line.

Mining is so one-dimensional and simplistic in its current form that its pretty much impossible to find varied balanced roles for multiple ship types, and since the hitpoint buffs have essentially nerfed suicide ganking into the ground there's even less in the way of decisions for miners to make.