EVE General Discussion

It gains independence from any kind of cargo or ore hold restriction, thereby letting in concentrate on getting the most out of its higher yield — a yield that is further improved by being in the fleet.

Because capships are for sissies. It kills pirates good though, so there's always that…

that's the problem; the hulk is only a good large fleet miner when you haven't got orca support active in the belt. that's beyond the point of this thread though so i'll leave that there.

if we're talking max skill then yeah, you're looking at roughly 50k m3 of ore per hour difference between hulk/hulk/orca and mack x3 in favour of the hulks. that's before you factor in hauling, you'll be filling the orca in under an hour and obviously the macks are warping too and fro self hauling. all in all it comes down to do you have the isk to spend on an orca and implant, along with the relevant skills for max orca boosts in comparison to the mackinaws, which require a minimal investment in comparison and if you want to be really cheap then say hello to the retriever, ~3k m3 ore bay difference from the mack, only 5% yield difference in comparison to a max skilled mackinaw etc.

i'll never say the hulk is a bad ship, however it certainly seems to require a lot more effort for things like isk investment, and skills, etc to get the most out of it. however whether or not that is a good or bad thing is another point entirely.

and to keep this relevant to the thread; reduce all the crystals to the size of t1 crystals!

the skiff gains the same independence from cargo/ore restrictions too. simply being in a fleet doesn't make the hulk better, think mining director skill (10% yield to fleet members).

the skiff gets the same benefits as the hulk for being in a fleet, the only real difference between the two is that the skiff's yield was gimped from the off.

How is the skiff's yield gimped from the start?

CCP could reduce the cargobay of the hulk to the size of a shuttle and I would not give a damn, as long as the crystals I need to mine with fit in it.

i think your interpretation is way off; not to mention ccp said they want to split the 8k cargo in the hulk so we'd always have 8k space for ore [granted they just cut the cargo without increasing the ore bay] regardless of how much space we wanted for crystals. 8k cargo isn't enough for 2 cycles of a hulk's strips to begin with, therefore why wasn't the hulk given enough space for said amount of crystals to begin with? we wouldn't have complaints about the crystal issue, we'd still have the same amount of space for ore, and ccp wouldn't be looking like liars.

I find it rather amusing that some people are so dense that they just can't seem to separate Mining, Hulk, Solo and AFK - and then resort to name calling when they have no other data or argument justification to backup their claims.

Understand -
- I do not AFK mine.
- I've mined in ALL areas of the game (Low, Null, Wh, High, Mission areas, etc.).
- I've mined in small (2 - 10) and in in large (30+) fleets.
- I use the right ship for the job.

I welcome any change that makes the game more dynamic and playable -- notice that they are mutually inclusive.

1 - being in a fleet does require you to be able to mine every single ore that your skills allow you to. It does not mean, or imply that you need to carry every single ore type. Your agument is moot as you could also argue that you don't need to be able to shoot at every ammo range on your PvP roam.

2 - miners are not asking to be able to hold every crystal + replacements (we'll ignore the obvious fringe requests) - but rather to just keep the options they currently have for crystal choices. Is that a whine? Nope, that's feedback. Note that difference when the combat ships come up for "redesign".

3 - Get it out of your head that "miners are only in high-sec". WH residents can't "dock up" and neither can Nullsec people that don't have a local Outpost.

4 - Fleet mining is for efficiency. Repeat that for me, please .. Efficiency .. Docking up reduces your efficiency. Therefore, you must have enough cargohold space to mine with efficiency.

>> If a fleet of Skiffs can outmine a fleet of Hulks or Macks, then that's the ship that will be used. Industrial operations are always about maxing input & output.


It breaks down like this:

There are 15 Ore types (Mercoxit excluded).
T1 crystals - 15 m3
T2 crystals - 25 m3

Let's standardize here a little now.

1. For the T1 Barges, it's being asked that they be able to carry at least 3 T1 Ore Crystal types + 1 spare. That is a mere 20% of the total Ore types (3 / 15).

2. For the T2 Exhumers, it's being asked that they be able to carry at least 5 Ore crystal types + 2 spares. That is a measly 33% of the total Ore types (5 / 15).

This gives you specialized flexability.

Minimum Cargohold Size = Crystal Size * # of Strips * # of crystals (active + spares) * # of ore types

Procurer / Skiff : 1 Strip
- T1 crystals w/ 3 ores: 15 * 1 * 2 * 3 = 90 m3
- T2 crystals w/ 5 ores: 25 * 1 * 3 * 5 = 375 m3

Retriever / Mackinaw : 2 Strips
- T1 crystals w/ 3 ores: 15 * 2 * 2 * 3 = 180 m3
- T2 crystals w/ 5 ores: 25 * 2 * 3 * 5 = 750 m3

Covetor / Hulk : 3 Strips
- T1 crystals w/ 3 ores: 16 * 3 * 2 * 3 = 270 m3
- T2 crystals w/ 5 ores: 25 * 3 * 3 * 5 = 1125 m3

I think this is a step in the right direction with the crystal reductions, but the Cargoholds still need to be brought into line with the ship speciality and the number of strips for balance. At 350m3 across the board right now, the Skiff is about right, the Mack has ~46% of what it needs and the Hulk sits at ~33% of its need.

As you can clearly tell, this is feedback.

It's positive, constructive and lays out a good solution to an existing issue.

>> It makes the game more dynamic and playable, thus promoting more people to come play.

As it stands right now, the mining barges are still out-of-touch with immersive and practical game play.

I await the next round of SiSi updates that include changes to look at......

Remember that a Rorqual only boosts better than an Orca when you have it fully trained - and that's nearly 2 months worth of training time.

It takes less time and ISK to max an Orca booster - and you can use it in all areas, not just low/nul/wh space areas.

I think your math is off sir your multiplying 25m crystal size by 3 stips by 3 crystals this is the same as strips by 5 ore types the hulk bay would be closer to 900 m3. I am not trying to troll you just pointing out your numbers are off.

So you need to have 2 spare crystals per ore type? I feel that is a bit excessive.