EVE General Discussion

Was passing through a ice system the other day and caught a subject in local that intrigued me. The locals were getting bolchie and clubbing together to guard against the continuing ganking. They were discussing how to fit out a Mackinaw so it wouldn't be such an easy kill. I did some research on the subject - saw some terrible fits and have not managed to come up with a good answer. So forum warriors - here's the task

If profit is the key to maximizing income (admit it, grinding is a boring necessity) then you need to spend as little time doing it as possible. That means an ice miner needs to keep the basics which are:
2 x ice harvester II in high slots
2 x ice harvesters (II as the meta 4 are 360mil ea) in the low slots

You have 9.59 to play with CPU wise and 23.94 PG (plus two medium rig slots) to get a half decent tank AND you must get 4 blocks every three minutes...

Consider that a dessy with t2 stuff puts out 680dps and takes down a Mack in under 10sec in .7 sec space ...


What can you come up with?

Be blown up?

Mine ice.

Oh, there was more to the thread! TL;DR.

Edit: Excessive lines removed - ISD Stensson

Or FAIL

A: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SlKedQg5O8

Move to a quiet system and then you can optimize your mining efficiency.

We came up with this:

1) Everyone carry ECM drones. Any attempt by a would-be ganker will only get one volley (maybe two) before the ECM drones kick in and put the ganker out of commission until Concord arrives.

Or everyone carry remote rep drones and have everyone target another fleet member to rep. It may not be super effective, but it buys you precious time before Concord arrives.

2) Mine using tech 1 mining barges. Yes they're less efficient than their T2 counterparts, but far cheaper to replace and far less interesting as a target if and when gankers roll in.

3) Have everyone huddle up near an Orca and when a ganker rolls in, have everyone stow their ships in the Orcas ship hanger bay. Be sure that everyone doesn't have any implants because the ganker may choose to shoot a pod or two instead.

To go along with point 3, fit the Orca for tank instead of cargohold optimization to further protect everyones ships stowed within. Also, have everyone orbit the Orca at close range. A moving target takes less damage than a stationary target. Even if it's just a small reduction in damage received, it's still a reduction.

4) Unfortunately you're going to have to sacrifice efficiency for survivability. Without getting into specifics of how to fit, you're main goal is to buy yourself extra time before Concord arrives. That means active tanking, ECM modules/drones, and other electronic warfare modules.


Regardless of the method you choose to say safe, all of them require constant attention. We miners live in dangerous times. We can no longer AFK to profit anymore. Vigilance will save you.

Even at max tank, takes very little to kill. The only way to stay alive is to just always be staring at your screen and not afk.
Then you can (almost) max yield and jump when more than 1 bad standing is about, and jump when d-scan picks up a destroyer or two from max distance. Start paying attention to common locals. Use intel, mark known gankers. etc and so on.

It breaks the rules (the 2 Harvester upgrades in the lows) and it requires a 3% CPU upgrade to fit but the best I've been able to come up with is:

2 x Ice Harvester II

Medium Regolith Extender,
Named EM Hardener,
Named Invuln,
Named Thermal resist amp,

Damage Control II
Power Diagnostic II

2 x Overclocker I

Almost 18k EHP

Of course 40 more CPU would mean the Overclocks could be replaced with extenders and 22k EHP... Not that that would stop an ice miner from being despised of course.

Hulk: 3MW PG
Mack: 40TF CPU
Covetor: 20TF CPU

The rules are a bit unfair. As an example, I would like to have the highest DPS drake without sacrificing its tank, and still be able to run the last room of an extravaganza solo. Compromise is king.