Warfare & Tactics

I don't know about that...perhaps some of the Hulk pilots end up being happy to be free of the awful mechanics of mining.

Hulks need a nerf. Their tanking capabilities are way overpowered currently.

Hulks are just fine. No tank or nerf needed. You can fit the Hulk for maximum EHP (average tanked Hulk has 20k EHP) and lose mining yield in the process (thus less mineral flow) or you can fit it for maximum yield that results in diminished defenses. I have even fitted the Hulk to be battle worthy, but it was never meant to be a combat-capable ship in the first place. It's an exhumer for a reason.

Now, the Orca is a different story. Being that it's a command ship, it can fulfill many roles including that related to combat. It is a command ship after all (regardless of the "industrial" label it has) capable of utilizing 3 active gang-assist modules at once. The average EHP of a well-tanked Orca is no less than 215k EHP. And with a very large capacitor capacity, energy neutralizing it will do very little or nothing even if the Orca is active tanked with shield boosters. To make it more challenging, it also relies on fleet bonuses to buff up its own defenses even more. An armored warfare link and a siege warfare link - shield harmonizer will boost the defenses for not just the Orca but for any Hulk that is fleeted with the Orca. As a comparison, a freighter (which can't fit anything at all) has a slightly smaller tank of a well-fitted Orca and it usually takes 15-20 battleships to kill a freighter. That's saying something.

The only two downsides to the Orca: 1) its long list of skills that need to be trained just for the hull alone plus those for the proper modules and 2) its extremely slow targeting speed. Even with a sensor booster fitted with the scan res script, it will take about 10 seconds to lock a single target depending on the target's signature radius.

EDIT:

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There is a common tactic (traditionally reserved for fleet warfare) that the Orca can use to buff up its capacitor in the event a gank fleet comes in with energy neutralizers. Spider tanking. The Hulks can sacrifice a strip miner to make room for an energy transfer array and still be able to fit a proper tank and be cap stable at the same time. If a fleet of about 5-10 Hulks is accompanying the Orca with this fit, they can transfer a bit of their energy to the command ship to quickly overcome the neuts using the collective power of many Hulks.

However, I have not tested this strategy before and I am not sure if the new mechanic regarding reps and aggression can affect this setup. But if it does allow it if the Orca is attacked unprovoked then this will mean that the aggressors will have to focus fire on the Hulks, but that will defeat the purpose of trying to kill an Orca.

Threading in a spanking hulk....

I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the emo music coming out of your stereo.

Bored as all **** in a miners thread....

LOL.... I never thought of it like that, but ya, close enough.

There just peachy pinatas. I support the killing of high sec hulks it drives up the price of minerals thus making the low sec grave sites all the more valuable. Plus 3 cheap t1 thrashers can gank a hulk and be replaced by the drop so whats the loss?

Don't make me mad, you wouldn't like me when I am mad.

Are you just a head or do you have a body too? You know, just wondering....