Ships & Modules

Well, I finally had a chance to take my skiff out to lowsec to test it out-


Good stuff:
Skiff has great EHP..mine was ~72K fitted, agility/speed was good enough
Mining isn't a reason to go to lowsec, but the lowsec ores and rats definitely helps cover the cost of POS fuel
The rats are no longer horribly boring....it's almost like doing an easy l2/l3 mission with a slow drone boat
Easy to supply manufacturing in low sec

Bad:
Get used to not only having the lowest mining yield of the exhumers, but also losing access to both low slots which means no mining upgrade units (another 20% drop in yield)

Get used to not having access to t2 mining crystals because in lowsec one has to be self sufficient and installing mobile labs for invention in a lowsec pos is severely frowned upon (another big drop in yield)

Get used to having to watch local all the time, knowing that you have to be prepared to warp back to POS at any point -- yet, the local NPC's will try to warp scramble you, pirates will also try to warp scramble, and using a warp stab in your lows severely impacts the capability of your defensive drones (mine wouldn't return fire on attackign NPC's unless the NPC's got within 8-9km...works for battleships - not for frigs trying to keep 20km distance)

Using warp stabs also means that you need to constantly move your exhumer to each roid as your strip miner only has a range of 8-9km

No cloak...you only have one high slot which is needed the strip miner.

No salvaging/tractor of wrecks w/o getting another ship -- just single high slot.

No jet can mining, even if you are willing to do the extra work for it because at any point new hostiles can enter system and keep you camped at your POS for hours/days.


So, absolutely -- the +2 warp stab needs to be brought back, heck +4 wouldn't be out of line. Take out a low slot if needed - low sec skiff pilots would still be better off if they didn't get the sensor damp/scanning penalties of fitted warp stabs.

I'd even be fine with taking away both low slots if CCP added another 2 high slots that could be used for non-mining turrets/strip miners (cloak, salvager).

A slightly higher cargo bay would also help with salvaging rat wrecks as one goes.

So, CCP did great job on Mac for highsec....now just fix the skiff for lowsec - please.

Initially I thought the Mackinaw was good enough, but I checked the Goon Catalyst fit against a properly setup tank and found that 7 Catalyst were needed to take out its shields, so make that 10 to kill, which at 12m a pop comes to 120m to kill, as far as I am concerned doable by the Goons. So I decided that the Mackinaw was not for me, so I fitted up a Skiff and I get to about 34 Catalysts to kill. So for me I like that sort of survivability and will accept the slightly lower yield.

In Null Sec one has to survive until help comes and often you get camped by a single cloaky, so a Skiff does that much better than a Mackinaw and in truth has a real chance of killing a SB, so for me it works too,but what makes the Skiff so good is that it is fast and quick to warp, for me the Skiff is the perfect mining ship, I will sell my Mackinaws and Hulks.

Just one thing, if I mine in low sec or ninja mine in someone else's I would use the new mining frigate, its a throwaway ship and has the +2.

Oh and one thing I noticed about recent Mackinaw kills in Gallante space, most of them had not been fitted for a tank, some had not even changed out their cargo rigs, really some of these people are massively stupid...

Tested out skiff in wh space too....and have been thinking about it versus venture or other exhumers.

Biggest issue in wh space -- no utility high slots. Being outside of POS for any reasonable length of time w/o a probe launcher or cloak w/o being in a fleet is just asking for death.... The venture has a single utility slot and the +2 warp bonus, but the mining yield is so low due to limitation of normal mining lasers that it just isn't reasonable for use other than as a dedicated gas miner. The ore bay being limited to 5K versus 15K is also frustrating.

Macks/Hulks have more high slots but the yield on each slot is much lower...and their agility is horrible. Not really workable.

I'll stick with skiff for any serious wh mining but the lack of both the +2 warp stab bonus and no utility slots for cloak/launcher are serious hindrances.

the skiff had a +2 warp strength before the barge changes.

and low sec mining is horrible.
yes, after recent mineral price changes low sec ores are now rather lucrative. who in their right mind would mine these ores in low sec where every ganker has a list of asteroid belts and can warp directly to you? especially when the alternative is mining the same ores in null sec, in a dead end system with a gate that has more bubbles on it than a sumo wrestler wrapped in bubble wrap and the ability to mine in grav sites which must be probed down if any one wishes to warp to you?

or alternatively, stay in high sec and earn slightly less isk/hour on raw mining to save yourself time and effort on hauling and not having to worry about being ganked so you can be mostly afk while doing your mining.
in short, if you have a good logistics chain null sec is the *best* place to mine to make the most isk/hour. if you don't have the logistics to support you then high sec is a small isk/hour hit with the bonus of being able to mostly afk it. low sec has no redeeming features for mining. the logistics are just as bad as null sec without the security and the isk/hour isn't worth moving out of the safety and logistical ease of high sec.

tl;dr low sec offers nothing but a lack of safety and logistical problems for almost no reward in comparison to other places you can and should mine.

Not quite...The skiff is much faster to gtfo than other exhumers, but it isn't exactly fast. I timed it the other day, and even mostly aligned...it seemed to take between 6-8 seconds w/o any agility mods fitted. And, god help you if you accidentally hit another roid while trying to warp out... Of course, in a wh, you are in a grav site, and pirates will have to scan down you first...but the good ones will have their probes on dscan for no more than 8 seconds and will have their ships within quick warp distance so time is intensely critical.

Furthermore, when ninja mining solo for any significant duration, it becomes extremely painful to click on dscan every 5 seconds for 1-2hrs straight since that is the minimum that one must do if one does not have probes out to catch incoming wormholes....(probes can give one an extra 2-10 minute warning of incoming hostiles) and of course, the skiff doesn't have an extra high slot to fit a probe launcher....

So yeah, I still think CCP should return the +2 bonus to the skiff and/or add some utility high slots, and I'd be happy to trade some ore cargo space or a single low slot for it.

I have a theory that need will be addressed if/when the T2 version of the venture comes out. +2 warp core strength, 1 more turret, bigger ore hold, another bonus to gas harvesting, etc etc.

I do the same thing in a Procurer and will in the Skiff when I can pilot that. It's not about the ISK but the danger is fun, I figure if I get away with it more than half the time it's worth it.

If you're waiting until the last 6-8 seconds to begin your warp to safety, you're already doing it wrong.

Seriously.