Crime & Punishment

Lower yield than Hulk, same as mack, but lower cargo. Numbers for ISK/hour are above. But yeah, I agree it should be nerfed a bit (yield wise, not tank)

Mack needs a tank nerf..? It's currently only a bit better than the hulk (not even 1.5* better, whereas the Skiff is over 4* better)
Hulk - ~22k
Mack - ~27k
Skiff - ~110k

Um... does it matter if the Skiff is nerfedk? The OP is assuming that nothing will replace the Skiff and they will have an easier time killing miners. However, there is another option that was used long before the mining ship rebalance... the mining BS. A few Rokhs with 8 miner IIs, mids for tank, lows for cargo, mining upgrades, and a DVU II will easily out tank a skiff, yield enough, and work well enough for a multi boxer.


So will a Skiff nerf lead to what the OP wants ot just back to Mining BSes?

Is it really? I still don't see many Skiffs. I don't go looking for them though.. Today I've seen 1 hulk (with an orca in belt), 1 covetor, 1 procurer and a mackinaw.

No, actually, let's not. Price is not a balancing point. And linking to that blog doesn't help your case either.

So, I would love to hear you explain why you think pricetag means that you should be immune to the actions of other players who outnumber you so severely.

Because that kind of seems unbalanced to me.

Eh, maybe. They should release it.. And when miners are most active :)

Way ahead of you. https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=5220183#post5220183

No mods, perfect skills it's 11/14/35. No skills or mods it's 7.7/10/23

Which makes them effectively immune... Like I stated several times b4 already.

I've also said numerous times b4 that the Skiff is not overpowered because of it's awesome tank, but because of everything it has combined into a single (mining) ship. It has awesome perks but no 'awesome' drawbacks to compensate for them compared to the other exhumers. I've also predicted that I would probably be repeating it till the thread closes

Let's compare it to the Hulk shall we?
Someone said the Hulk has a 15% yield advantage over the SKiff here. Dunno if it's completely correct though, haven't ran the numbers.

Tank: depending on fits, the Skiff will have at least 3 times the tank of the Hulk, most of the time it will be more towards 4 or 5 times that of the Hulk. That comes at the expense of just 15% yield.

Now that we got the main attributes out of the way, let's take a look at the others and see who comes out on top.

--Ore bay: Hulk 8500, SKiff 15000. this is sort of a semi-main attribute, not as important as everyone and his dog has a hauler/orca support but a roomy ore bay gives you the ability to (semi) AFK. Skiff wins this round by 76,5%.

-Cargo bay: 350 each, so that's a tie. Cargo bay is hardly relevant anyway since the introduction of the ore bay.

-Drone bay: 50 Hulk, 100 Skiff. The Skiff wins by a 100% margin and is a MINING vessel able to hold a flight of medium
drones in it's bay along with two flights of light drones, giving you all the drone options for every situation without really having to make a choice.

-Drone bandwith: tie, both have 50.

-Mass and inertia modifier: not going to do all the math but letting EFT do it for me, end result: Hulk needs about 33% more time to get into warp, Skiff is the more agile of the two.

-Capacitor: Hulk 625, Skiff 900, recharge time is equal, Skiff wins by a land slide again. Which surprises me as the Hulk will have a much greater drain from it's 3 strip miners than the Skiff will have from it's single one.

-Targeting: Hulk can target up to 35km away, Skiff 30, Hulk can hold 7 targets, Skiff 6. Looks like a win for the Hulk but if you think about what it means in practice it looks a bit different. The Hulk can set up 2 sets of roids to mine (2*3 asteroids) and still have 1 space open for targeting whatever. The Skiff can set up 5 sets of roids to mine (5*1 duh) and still have 1 space open.

-Targeting speed. With all lvl 5 skills, Hulk will target a frig in 2.5 seconds, Skiff in 3.8. Win for the Hulk. For bulky mining ships I think both do a very good job at targeting frigs that fast.

-Sensor strenght: 12 Hulk, 14 Skiff, the Skiff is the more resilient of the two against ECM.

-Speed: sub warp with all lvl 5 skills: Hulk 175, Skiff 250. Might not seem like much but if you are traversing a belt or ice field to get to the last few chunks the Skiff will beat the Hulk to it.

Fitting:
PG: Hulk 40, Skiff 50. Skiff wins by 25%. More importantly, it only has to fit ONE PG consuming Strip miner while the Hulk with it's smaller PG has to fit THREE. Looking at EFT I see that even with a full tank fit, the Skiff only uses 20PG of the available 62,5PG at all lvl 5 skills. What does it NEED al that PG for?

CPU, Hulk 310, SKiff 300. Well, that's a win for the Hulk right? Nope, again, the fact that the Hulk has 3 strip miners to fit and the Skiff only one, means that the Skiff effectively wins this one by a land slide too.

High slots: Hulk 3, Skiff one. In numbers the Hulk wins but if you put anything else than strip miners on it (can you even do that?) you lose it's only major perk over the Skiff, namely yield.

Med slots: Hulk 4, Skiff 5, 25% win for the Skiff. It also has CPU and PG to spare to actually put something useful in those slots since it only has to fit one strip miner instead of three. I can also easily spare a mid slot for something besides tank as even with a prop mod or utility mod the skiff still needs a swarm of catalysts to gank it. Effectively, a huge win for the Skiff again.

Low slots: Hulk 2, Skiff 3. 50% win in numbers for the Skiff. Skiff can choose a tank module while still having 2 mining laser upgrades just like the Hulk. If it goes full yield in the lows it catches up to the hulk a fair chunk in yield while still having several times the tank of a Hulk.

Rigs: equal in numbers but again effectively a win for the Skiff since it is so much more versatile in it's fitting options than the Hulk.

Role bonus: Hulk none, Skiff, 50% drone damage AND hitpoints bonus. Clear win for the Skiff and leaves me wondering what a mining vessel needs a bonus this big for. In comparison, classic Gallente drone boats need to train 5 ship operating levels to get an equal bonus. Skiff gets it for free.

Thus far my numbers game analysis of the Hulk/Skiff. In the mathier parts of the analysis I might be off somewhat since I was relying on either third party tools to do it for me or info posted by others in this thread. Feel free to add and/or correct. Any corrections and additions will most likely not lead to altering the final conclusion we are aproaching.

That final conclusion being: the Skiff's main perk (tank) is several magnitudes greater than the Hulk's. On the other hand, the Hulks main perk (yield) is nowhere NEAR being several times that of the Skiff, while at the same time being a prime gank target.

In addition to that, the Skiff wins in almost every other attribute and general traits, it's better in combat, it get's around faster, is more AFK-able, it is WAY more versatile etc. Except for highest yield mining or gank baiting, the Skiff is the superior option in every conceivable situation in EVE..

That was a good analysis, however the mining yield is key to a lot of miners, so missing that exact figure hurts what you did, personally as its a tank I want yield comes second, also the Skiff was designed to be used in difficult 0.0 space and have a chance to kill an interceptor and get out and also tank very easily triple BS spawns in the belts. The Hulk was designed as a fleet ship in protected 0.0 where people had other ships around it.

The point is that yield may be too high in comparison, made more important due to the fact that in hisec people use two mining upgrades in the lows because there is no value at all in the drone bonus. The issue is that if CCP nerf the Skiff they make it less viable to mine in 0.0.

I went around looking at CODE activities for a while and I found pockets of Skiff use, but in the main its Hulks and Mac's, I assumed that the pockets were due to high numbers of ganks and the few that I checked confirmed that. I will always tell people to use a Skiff as Eve is a game where people shoot you, so tank is number one priority

So in conclusion, yield may need an adjustment down, or yield on the Hulk and Mac needs to be improved.

When people here say that the Skiff is too powerful for a solo ganker, all I can say is tough, for many years even the best tanked mining ship could be ganked by a single destroyer, but most important in all of this is that there are enough mining ships that a solo ganker can cut his teeth on. But the Skiff is something he has to play as a team to get to and there is no issue with that ata all.

Good point both of those need a nerf.