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Please avoid the hulk in this thread as that is what all the other thread seem to be about
I would like to talke more directly on the New Mach, Skiff, Procurer, Retriever. and maybe the covetor.

I am concerned that the complaining and demanding to ccp about Hulk nerfs will over shaddw the ballancing for the other ships before they hit Tranquility.

The Procurer and Skiff is Meant to be your tanky Barge

The Retriever and Mach to be the AFK watch a movie/Solo Barge
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The things I am finding wrong so far is the Bonuses for both the Skiff and Mach are 1% yield per level and 1% Durations reduction

can the barge have a 5% increase in something it specializes at ie
- Ore hold for the Machinaw per level or
- =increase in shield buster effeciency for the Skiff.

or am I way off bace and that 5% per level in yields is super important

I posted a few comments in other posts

I build 3 of each of the 6 hulls on SISI and have been testing them in all manner of ways...

1. I think the + to Ore Hold is pointless, over say a +to resists and a EHP in sturcture increase to make a DCU worth putting on them... hull tanking with a buffer shield tank = anti-ganking success and frees up mids for a scanner... or a bettter cap to use ratio for the tank.

2. Barges need a 1-3/2/2 layout and enough PG to run a Ancillary and a Invul on top of a massive increase in stucture.

3. Proc and Skiff need a 75m3 drone bay, and a 2 HS - 1 miner and a aux for probe, cloak or such...probe mostly for WH mining, Cloak for null/low.

4. rigs are going to shift to overclocking rigs and PG implants over all others making he role - rigs pointless unless the tank to cap to PG/CPU is adjusted... or a massive stucture increase to stop Alpha-ganking = becomes a non issue as the shield tank is then just a rat buffer.

Sorry 1 hulk thing... Hulk is good but needs a 375m Cargo for 3x5 sets of ammo... 14 crystals on a 3 miner ships is kind of stupid ... 12 or 15... not room for 14.

think they all should have a bigger ore bay... imho.

Could not disagree more:

1) A + to resists doesnt make a DCU any more worthwhile to fit, nor does increasing the structure make an active tank any more viable. They aren't supposed to be ungankable, as you seem to think. As they are now on singularity, they are IMMENSELY harder to gank, we're talking 6-8 dessies, instead of what you could previously do with 1-2. The +ore hold, on the other hand, gives you a MASSIVE ore hold, so you can hold a TON of ore before you have to dock, which is incredibly useful. In terms of the ship playing the role they specified, the bonus is perfect.

2) Ancillary shield booster... and more structure hp... Are you kidding me? If you're running a tank, you should be able to permarun it. Balacing the ship, to have a temporary big boost, specifically to combat highsec gankers is the stupidest thing I've heard, and completely counterproductive. For that matter, you already have enough PG to run a small shield booster, and invul. Still don't know why you want all that structure, other than to 'escape in structure from a gank.'

3) Barges are NOT supposed to be all in one ships. 75m3 of drone bay space would be counter productive to carrying mining bots and a light flight, or a single flight of meds. It would give too much combat versatility, to what is meant to be a mining platform. As for the cloak, that would just be ridiculous. It is more than hard enough as is to catch exhumers in 0.0, considering they have scouts, or warp from their hidden belts the moment you enter system, but adding cloaks on to them would be ridiculous. I'm starting to really understand that you think mining barges shouldn't be killable.

4) No comment.

As for the bigger cargo hold for mining crystals, this is the ONLY thing in your entire post I agree with. CCP screwed the pooch when they gave them such a tiny cargo bay.

the skiff and procurer are useless in high sec as the increase in ehp for the other ships is sufficient to avoid a suicide gank.
and without bringing the hulk in to this the mackinaw just becomes the "go to" ship the hulk once was.

the rebalancing has pretty much failed and we're just getting cheap cyno bait in the form of the procurer and a new "king of mining" called the mackinaw.

the problem is the balance between the two ships for solo miners was "which will mine more?" as it stands the mackinaw mines more for short periods, and the hulk for long ones; however with the bullshit surrounding mining crystals and the hulk can't hold a large enough stock of crystals to support the lengthy mining sessions that would put it ahead of the mackinaw. the mackinaw already has more cargo and ehp than the hulk has therefore until they solve the crystal issue so we can actually use t2 crystals on the hulk without the risk of running out or not having the correct crystals then the mackinaw is the king of yield also.

which means the mackinaw has the best of all 3 traits, just like the hulk currently enjoys. yes, the skiff has more hp but when you're mining provided you can survive a suicide gank (which, the mack will do since it has more ehp than a hulk) extra ehp is redundant.

i honestly hope ccp are joking with the hulk's 350m3 cargo bay, and i assume they are since the cargo bay is still 7500 instead of 7650. if the cargo bay goes back to 500 and relieves the pressure on crystals "hulk vs mackinaw" is a viable option again.

sadly mining will just be synonymous with "mackinaw" not "hulk" after the patch.

aaaaand the procurer will be the new defenition of cyno bait. leaving the skiff to rot in darkness as it always has.

giving you a few moments to react? in a gank situation you die or survive. either concord gets there and saves you or they don't.
a current hulk can repel a gank; the exhumers are getting an ehp buff and the mack will have more ehp than the hulk. the extra ehp from a skiff is totally redundant.

even if you're not afk, a catalyst will just bump you out of align as soon as he warps in, it doesn't cause aggression.

once you move past a destroyer ganking is unprofitable and people who do it are either purely out to **** up your day or you insulted them. most ganks are done in catalysts because it's cheap and arguably profitable. when the ehp goes up there's going to be less of this casual ganking in a catalyst and people who gank you will incur a loss so unless they're just that way inclined then you're going to have had to provoke them.

the ehp buffs on exhumers are quite nice; it'll stop people ganking you because they can actually make money from it [which isn't what ccp wants] however if some one really wants to **** your **** up, they still can.

remove 1 low slot from the mackinaw. it solves all the issues, really.

what are you doing getting tackled to begin with in null? it's the safest place to mine in the entire game.

aren't you blue with test? mine in fountain. there's at least 2 systems that i remember that frequently had large grav sites spawning in them.