EVE General Discussion

Repost from here.

The industrial and industrial-related ships in EVE have always been "weak" of course, The Wreath for example barely has more HP than a rookie ship (99 Shield HP? The Ibis gets about 150 ).
Part of this is that the industrial ships IIRC bypassed at least one of the HP buffs which were designed to prolong combat.

None of this, nor the changed 'landscape' in which the ships have to operate from the destroyer un-nerf or the introduction of the Tier 3 BCs can really be classed as a balance reason for a buff, but they could be classed as contributory factors...

Not just the environment has changed of course. MLUs saw an impressive increase in CPU draw with (deliberately I assume) no commensurate increase in Barge (no exhumers at the time) CPU... I remember scrounging around for a Photonic Co-Processor to try and get one on my Covetor. But the Exhumers made MLUs as ubiquitous as Mag Stabs on a Megathron or BCUs on a Raven. It makes sense to have choices of all upgrade, all tank or something in between reasonably viable - but at the moment the diiference between all upgrade and single upgrade with tank is too small IMHO leading to my CPU increase thoughts below.

For the Hulk specifically:
The Hulk has more slots than the Covetor, it has to fit the same modules but lacks PG to do so (every shield mod needs PG after all.) It does get plenty of CPU of course, sufficient for a shield mod in each extra slot but no PG.
I know that ships are balanced based on 'All Skills @ [5]' but, in general, there is a certain amount of flexibility to allow for slightly lower skills and downgraded meta modules. The MSE Hulk lacks that, because, sub T2, there is no difference in PG need between meta levels on shield mods (particularly the extender which is the largest single draw).
I'd like to see the Hulk's PG boosted, it would make sense to increase it by 3MW, 1MW for each additional mid over the Covetor, but I'd be happy with 1.5MW, and just 1 MW would remove the need for fitting implants for a tank akin to baltec's.

For other Mining Barges/Exhumers:
As anyone who's attempted to fit a Mackinaw knows, many of the ORE ships seem to run on 286s.
The Mackinaw could, with the addition of 50TF of CPU, fit a pretty reasonable 17k EHP tank while still retaining a single harvester upgrade. with only 40TF it could run a DCII tank for about 22k EHP.
The Covetor needs less to get a hulk style tank (and in doing so could encourage the tanking of Hulks) although obviously less hard. 25TF would be about ideal.
The Retriever is in at least as bad a way needing a T2 co-processor just to fit a DC and EM ward amp + rig tank... not enough to stand up to Empire 'rats alone and only offering 7k EHP. The change of the Covetor to Mining Barge [4] in Tiericide perhaps mitigates this but it's currently going to be weeks before a miner can move to a more survivable ship.

Nothing wrong with the ships. The error is in the miner who thinks that a Hulk is always the best choice of ship.

Obviously.

This is why fishing trawlers today are able to stand up to a naval destroyer, and why cruise ships are impervious to pirate attacks.

EVE should work like real life, where oil tankers can either out run warships and submarines or simply rely on their superior hull armor to withstand their bombardment/missile/torpedo attacks until help arrives.

Anything else is just silly.

Some of Thomas Edison's original incandescent bulbs are still burning.

Incandescent bulbs you buy at the store today last maybe 15k hours if you're lucky.

Darwin didn't say spit about product development or marketing.

If you don't think that planned obsolescence has anything to do with marketing and product development, then I'm not sure there's anything left to say to you.

That is exactly my point about the Hulk. It is planned obsolescence at its very best.

Bingo...

The real adaptation to a situation like hi-sec ganking would be other ships / technology that could offer active defense (as opposed to after-the-fact defense). I proposed such under the Aegis destroyers thread in the Assembly Hall (see sig). But the most positive responses I've managed to get are "this seems like a good idea, but I'm not going to support it yet."

Maybe I'm wrong but my sarcasm meter was through the roof on this post, to which you appear to have responded seriously.

Either this is dry Brit humor, or idiocy. I don't even

I'd really like for 'invention' to have a chance of making bpcs with varying stats.

Think about how much a hulk with a 4th turret slot could go for.

Also a designers flaw. You do realize how very little isk / hour mining generates compared to about anything else right? I could make more trading in jita with no skills. But a hulk pilot with 19 million in mining skills will still make less. People don't fly a hulk to get the results of a retriever. And you might say they trade off to have more tank. Yet both the retriever and the hulk usually die under the same circumstances so why tank it?

Long story short, fix mining, increase the mineral cost for modules + ships, or make a T2 variant of a ship worth fitting with a tank. Combat wise there are titans that don't work as well as others, carriers, etc. People choose not to use them but at least they have options to use something better. Mining is the only career where you have so little choice.

And honestly would it hurt to have two variations of the hulk? One with strictly mining / cargo hold bonuses, another with buffer / tanking bonuses. It makes sense in the high sec / null sec idea everyone pushes.