EVE General Discussion

We are still doing it, its just that people are not whining as much about it.

For some reason the first cycle always hit, even though the ECM strength of individual drones is low. With ECM drones out, the ganker would move on. Post-buff gankers do their thing in groups, so the drones are less effective.

There is no standard fit, it's player discretion. Miners are however, inherently lazy & greedy. It was just as easy to fit a decent tank pre-buff as it was to fit max yield/cargo. It's now even easier to fit a tank but miners still don't do it.

Does the Mining barge/Exhumer have a strip miner I/II fitted? If yes, then it is "fit" with its standard fitting. Everything else that is fitted is at the discretion of the pilot.

Thats not the barge thats broken.

Only the mack.

You obviously missed the part where destroyers now roam in wolf packs so that they don't have to pick out the weakest in the herd (retrievers).

No, its is now impossible to kill an untanked mack for profit. This has the knock on effect of invalidating the skiff and the hulk doesnt mine enough to make it worth sacrificing the tank and ore hold. Its an unbalanced ship.

Also giving ships a tank based upon isk cost would mean the guadian vexors would have a tank around the same as a nyx.

just to illustrate this point, the hulk mines ~15% more than a mackinaw.
consider the following: for an unbonused hulk, a flight of mining drones is the equivalent of a ~19% increase in yield, and how many miners use mining drones instead of combat drones? from my experience, few, including myself.
for an unbonused hulk it's still ~11%.

if people are ignoring a substantial bonus like that, it's no surprise people are ignoring a 15% yield bonus, even more so when they must sacrifice tank and yield in order to get that bonus.

It's also not possible to make a profit ganking unfitted abaddons or Rokhs or empty freighters. For most ships it just doesn't work that way.
The Skiff and Hulk were tiercided into different roles. Few of which include efficient High sec mining, this doesn't mean they are invalidated just that they are changed. Seeing as the skiff can get battleships EHP, I think it still has it's role for the uber paranoid and otherwise badly informed as even a retriever or any other Tech 1 Mining barge can tank belt rats in high sec, even an active played venture can do it, using a DPS tank. That doesn't say the Mack is balanced however, see below.

It's a good thing that I never implied that having isk and ehp as the one and only balancing factor is a good thing, because that would indeed be broken. You have to take some other stuff into account. like Tech level, Cargo hold, # of fitting slots, PG/CPU/Capacitor etc. The only thing CCP can balance is stats vs. basic build cost, player market does the rest.

---

I do however think that the Mack (and retriever) could do with less Mining yield, since sporting an above average yield, tank and supreme cargo hold is a bit too much and would balance the Exhumer line better.

As it is now (used this site for EHP numbers: http://eveblog.allumis.co.uk/?p=1070):
Hulk; 1 Yield. 3 Tank. 2 Cargo Hold .
Mack; 2 Yield. 2 Tank 1 Cargo Hold.
Skiff; 3 Yield. 1 Tank. 3 Cargo Hold.

How it should be imho:
Hulk; 1 Yield. 3 Tank. 2 Cargo Hold.
Mack; 3 Yield. 2 Tank. 1 Cargo Hold.
Skiff; 2 Yield. 1 Tank. 3 Cargo Hold.