Science & Industry

This is a good idea!

I come back from a break and find talk of rorquals at fanfest? cant let this thread die

I guess I should put some of my thoughts here instead of just pulling the thread from the grave....

Rorquals have always been useful in the belt, but only under careful watch, ready to warp immediately when baddies show up. I've been doing this since some time in 2011, and only been caught once because I was greedy. To those saying they cant get into warp fast enough, work on your fit; its very easy to get into warp in under 10 seconds.

The question is, do we want mining to continue with hostiles around? The standard thinking since eve launched is that the miners should get into pvp ships and fight off the enemy. Why is the enemy going to stick around and fight what will likely be larger numbers and ships that counter what they are flying? By pulling the miners out of the belt, you have taken away their only clear target; you have no bait.

What this boils down to is survivability, can I live long enough for the cavalry to arrive? Of course the more the rorqual is beefed up, the more the hostiles are going to drop on you. Personally, I would love to have 20 nyxes come after me, and my friends would love it even more. Fozzie mentioned the skiff gang fighting off a blops fleet some time last year; the only examples I could find were multi-boxers, likely using isboxer.

Perhaps mining could be turned into a content generator just on baiting and counter dropping alone. I still say none of this matters at all, until your corp/alliance needs you in that belt, providing something they cant buy in jita.

hard to kill? a medium blops group will kill a rorqual with 1 capital booster and good resists in 60-70 seconds. drop a dozen bombers with them and cut that in half. sure, you'll kill some bombers in that time, grats :thumbs up:

last thing we need is more afk mining


--edit--
oh, your in skiffs? once your rorq is dead, have fun targeting things fast enough to keep drones moving, unless you're using isboxer (which ive never used, even ice mining)

lies all lies.. you haven't done anything about the rorqual. you're just trying to find reason to have it in a field in order to fuel and boost kill mails..

you broke industry and wont even fix that after removing teams. oh remember that one?? "it shall work really well" right!!!!!!!!!!!!!

you had a guy ruin her and he didn't even know It was used as mining support!..

no further words has been mentioned, none.. zilch,, zero, nada.. nothing!... its 2015!.. still nothing!!!!!!!!!!!

she hasn't even received new skin or look!.. nothing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Another thread CCP number changing squad talks the talk, but doesn't walk the walk.

I would love for you to prove me wrong. But seeing how bland the changes to industry turned out to be, I don't have high hopes.

It's hopeless.

The main problems with the rorq:
a) It's a ship, but it's function is more that of a pos module (compressing ore)
b) It's hugely expensive for it's function
c) It's customer is supposed to be industry, but it isn't allowed in highsec
d) It suffers from Orca'itis - the need to merge to be the supereme master mining-boost, ship moving, and ore hauling ship in the same hull.

How to solve?


I'd suggest:

* Allow it into high-sec.
* Keep its mobility, jump, and ship functions, but make it even slower and add other modest nerfs to greatly encourage owners to also use a dedicated freighter or j/f wherever possible .
* Add refinery function, and make it more efficient than standard pos refinery (best ore refining in high and low sec should only be possible with a rorq?)
* Buff Ore Hold size from 250K to 400K m3
* Continue to encourage having just outside pos shields, I just don't see making this a high-end at-the-roid-belt ship. It being nearly always outside pos shield should be danger enough. Maybe allow the refining and compression functions to only work when within 75KM of a POS.
* Totally wierd idea, give it a modest shield remote repair function/boost...but only for POS shields, and only when in a 'reinforced defense' mode that disables all other industry functionality. Logi ships should still provide much better pos shield repair, but since the appeal of rorq is it's all-in-one industry functionality, why not....Many industry players keep rarely used logi's around in the ship maintenance bay just to handle the brief periods between pos's leave reinforced mode and attackers return or pos shields fully heal up. That's always been an inefficiency. This will also encourage pos attackers to go after rorqs when/wherever they can, especially in w-space where killing off all pos's essentially means the attackers take over the entire system.

I still don't think the following is enough to achieve that goal.

Rorqual Changes

Ship bonus:
900 % bonus to Survey Scanner range
200 % bonus to Cargo Scanners range
Can fit Industrial Core
Can fit Clone Vat Bay
Can fit Industrial Jump Portal Generator
Can use 3 Warfare Link modules simultaneously
90 % reduction to effective distance traveled for jump fatigue
Immune to all forms of Electronic Warfare

Capital Industrial Ships skill level:
5 % reduction in fuel consumption for Industrial Core
10 % bonus to Mining Foreman Links effectiveness when using Industrial Core
5 % bonus to Mining Foreman Links effectiveness
5 % bonus to Siege Warfare Links effectiveness
50 % bonus to Capital Remote Shield Booster range
20 % bonus to Drone hitpoints and damage
50 % bonus to Drone hitpoints and damage
100 % bonus to Mining Drone yield [probably needs to be higher]

High Sots: 6
High Sots: 8 [3 mining links + 1 siege link + 2 tractors + portal + utility = cyno or siege link or cloak]
Medium Slots: 7
Medium Slots: 8 [+1 for survey scanner]
Low Slots: 3
Low Slots: 4 [+1 for damage control]

Ore Hold: 250,000 m3
Ore Hold: 1,000,000 m3

Drone Capacity: 300 m3
Drone Capacity: 4999 m3 [1,000 m3 would be smallest passable]

Drone Bandwidth: 125 Mbit/sec
Drone Bandwidth: 250 Mbit/sec [five Geckos, and add Gecko BPC to ghost sites]

* Remove ship restrictions on Ship Hangar. [Or for crying out loud, make it larger, and include all industrial ships]
* Increase Fuel Bay to [significantly larger to hold fuel for bridging].

Skill Changes

* Industrial Reconfiguration skill change: also grants 16 % Industrial Core cycle reduction per level.
This will also result in an increase in consumption of Heavy Water, and a minimum cycle time of 1 minute.

Industrial Core I changes

The idea is to give the core properties similar to a bastion module. The bulk of defensive abilities are with the core active. With the core inactive, the Rorqual should still be better than an Orca, and not totally helpless.

* 100 % bonus to Mining Foreman Links effectiveness [Max link multiplier = (1 + 5 * 5%) * (1 + 100%) = 50 %]
* 100 % bonus to Mining Drone yield
* 100 % bonus to Capital Tractor Beam velocity
* 100 % bonus to Drone hitpoints and damage [should be better than a Rattlesnake with core active]
* 50 % bonus to drone max velocity and tracking speed [should be better than an Ishtar with core active]
* 50 % shield resist
* 50 % armor resist
* 50 % hull resist
* 100 % shield boost amount [same as Bastion]
* 50 % shield boost capacitor use reduction
* Max Locked Targets: 13 [same as Bastion]
* Disallows assistance

New Modules
* Industrial Jump Portal Generator I
Can Only be fitted to ships requiring the Capital Industrial Ships skill.
Requires [significant amount of] Heavy Water to activate.
Allows bridging of all classes of industrial ships: Industrial, Freighter, Mining Barge, Exhumer, Mining Frigate, Expedition Frigate, Transports, ORE Industrial, ORE Freighter.

Perhaps give the Rorqual a bonus to ignore the structure penalty on expanded cargohold modules.

I was tempted to add a hardpoint for a new module, Capital Strip Miner II with the yield of a Hulk, as I think there is room for one on the model on top and below... but I resisted the urge.

Mining Drone yield should be bonused to be comparable to at least a Hulk, or equivalent new heavy mining drones introduced.

New Implants

* ORE Mining Foreman Mindlink
25% increase to the command bonus of Mining Foreman Link modules.
Replaces Mining Foreman skill bonus with fixed 15% mining yield bonus.
Replaces Siege Warfare skill bonus with fixed 15% shield HP bonus.

Things have been said by Fozzie I think during the Fanfest, they liked the idea of making the rorqual worth putting it into a belt, having a way of making it and miners around it invincible for a short period of time before reinforcements come. Plus making it able to mine himself too.

So Soon™

MOBILE REFINERY

In addition to its ability to compress, allow the option to refine when in deploy mode. Make it less efficient than a Minmatar Outpost perhaps on par with or more efficient than an intense refine array?


That would make it an eye catcher for sure.