EVE General Discussion

Orca assisted mining operations can be very profitable, but the orca pilot doesn't contribute directly to the yield. If you have a small fleet, at what point does it become profitable to move a miner into an orca?

tl;dr: A good orca pilot is only profitable with 4+ Retrievers; a new orca pilot needs 6+

There are four bonuses from fleet mining operations, three of which depend on the orca:
1. Mining Foreman skill
2. Mining Foreman Links and Mining Director multiplier of those links
3. Use of Mining Drones with defense from Orca drones
4. Time saved shuttling to station

This analysis considers pilots to have the greater of level 3 or the required skills to undock each class of mining ship. It imagines that pilots in Orca-supported operations will use mining drones, but pilots in Orca-less fleets will use scout drones for defense. With these assumptions, a Mackinaw yields 1080+86 m3/min, a Retriever yields 965+86 m3/min, and a Venture yields 361+79 m3/min. I think this last should be 361+34, but I'm going to go with EFT's number. This means a Macinaw is equivalent to 1.1 Retrievers, and a Retriever is equivalent to 2.7 Ventures, and I'll just use "Retriever-equivalents" from here on.

I use the scenario of mining in a belt 20 AU from the base station, and allow 30 seconds to turn around in station (load station graphics, unload cargo, click undock, and complete). This gives time off-station around 80s/sortie macinaw and retriever and 60s for venture. This means that the orca cargo bonus is ~4.5% for Macinaw, 6% Retriver, and 8% for Venture.

The two most important parameters are the number of pilots and the Mining Director level of the Orca pilot. He will be assumed to have Mining Foreman V in both the Orca and Orca-less cases, because that is a prerequisite for the Orca.

The output is net ore yield in m3/min/participant, which can be envisioned as a family of Yield - vs - pilot number curves for MD[0-5], with MD0 representing no Orca. MD0 is the baseline, in which each Retriever-equivalent pilot yields 1.1*965=1061 m3/min and earns a share of 1061 m3/min, and the question is: how many pilots do you need at each MD level to exceed 1061?

The answer surprised me. At MD=1, each orca-supported retriever gets 10% bonus from Mining Foreman, 2.3% bonus from Link, 6% bonus from time in-belt, and 9% bonus from drones. Each orca-supported miner yields 1237 m3/min, or 176 extra m3/min than without the orca. The per-participant yield is greater than fleet-only operations when those extra 176 m3/min exceed the 1061 m3/min that the orca pilot would generate in his own Retriever. At Mining Director 1, you need SIX Retrievers to pay for the Orca. Even at Mining Director V, you need 4 Retrievers to pay the Orca pilot.

The biggest uncertainty here is distance to station and time off-belt. If you're working in a stationless system, the time benefit of the Orca may be dramatically larger. 3 Retrievers with a 3 minute turn-around, 2 Retrievers with a 7 minute turn-around.

That fleet of 4 retrievers will harvest roughly 5400 m3/minute, and will fill the Orca every 27 minutes (or so). They will fill an Itty V every 6-9 minutes, which is plenty of time to cycle the Itty between the field and station. Of course, the Industrial pilot would also require a share of the yield, and would only be a positive addition with a fleet of 8 or more Retriever-equivalents.

Appreciate any comments or corrections of math.

I don't know about the Hulk, but I do know that, for a Retriever, it is actually better to do a pair of Retrievers instead of a single Retriever and a single Orca. Prior to the mining changes, with all involved having perfect skills, it was more profitable to do 2 Hulks and 1 Orca, or with average skills (everything to 4), it was better to do 3 Hulks. I'm not sure what the new data is, and I'm having difficulty in finding it online right now, but in regards to the old information:

http://oldforums.eveonline.com/?a=topic&threadID=1250715

For the most part, it is going to be safe to assume that, with 2 players, having two mining ships will always be better, and from there on, it begins to be dependent upon skills.

You guys get horny from this???

Not sure if im misreading your post so feel free to clarify if im reading it incorrectly but...

Assumptions:

1. On average it takes 3 jumps to take ore from point of source to nearest reasonable marketing point.

2. Every pilot in question is maxed on all relevant skills.

3. I only mine in high sec, if you are using other parameters that I would need to know.

You contend that:

1 Orca, 1 Freighter and 1 Hulk

will outperform:

3 mackinaws ( I use a 3 system cluster for mining, each has a dock, when i have a charon full load at any dock one pilot stops mining and hauls to market, then goes back to mining)

I also use a 'cruise at slow speed while you mine' method and don't even need the 14km laser range I already have.

If your method works better in practice im interested, I just don't see how it could be.

I am. Somewhere out there is a Hulk, an Orca AND a Charon ready to be molested by a group of catalysts...

Careful not to get Veldspar on your chin.