Science & Industry

Recently on the o7 Show, CCP Fozzie confirmed the removal of off-grid boosts and that this change would apply to mining boots. This means that you will have to siege your rorqual in the mining anomaly for 5 minutes to provide boosts superior to those from an orca. CCPs logic is that the rorquals tank will be increased and it will be provided with the ability to make other miners in its vicinity invulnerable for a short period of time, in order to receive support via a cyno, etc.

This may not be a problem for large, condensed nulsec alliances, such as goonswarm, test, darkness Co2, CVA, etc. However, for nulsec entities who cannot flashform enough people to fight a 50-100 man gila / proteus fleet from a wormhole (particularly thera), it is practically suicide to siege your rorqual, because eventually it will get tackled, and if they can keep it tackled it will die.

The underlying issue here is wormhole power projection. Groups like VOLTA have the ability to tackle something, (such as a rorqual sieged in the belt) and hold it there with a sabre long enough for them to mobilize a large fleet from a thera wormhole a few jumps away (or in system).

Even if you have scouts a few jumps away from where your corp is mining there is no way you are going to be able to red cycle siege and get your rorqual safe before the Thera boys tackle you. At that point you are dead and might as well self destruct your rorqual if you don't have a large amount of support ready to jump to your cyno.

However for instance, lets say your corp has 2 FAX and 10 carriers that can support your tackled rorqual. What will likely happen is VOLTA will keep your group of capitals tackled and then call in support from freinds (yes PL has jump clones and sleipnir's in thera, and likes to kill capitals).

Once again the issue here is wormhole power projection and why it is not viable to siege your rorqual or attempt to support it when it gets tackled by large wormhole entities.

A few potential changes that would make rorqual boosting viable would be:

1. Reduce the duration of the industrial core to 1 minute.
2. Remove the industrial core and add a flat bonus to the rorqual.
3. Make it so that unsieged rorqual boosts are better than orca boosts.
4. Allow mining boosts ( not combat boosts ) to be passed from off-grid.
5. Give an additional yield bonus to miners in the vicinity of the rorqual.

Build another one. If you are in null sec and your corp can't afford to replace a rorqual every few weeks, you are doing it wrong. The point of the game isn't to make stuff so that it never dies.

If its providing your fleet with a bonus then it should not be sitting perfectly safe in a POS.

Nothing was said about having to "siege" in a belt... other than the time frame of their "anti-gank ray" thing...

Way i see it, Rorq's were so risk averse something had to change. Getting them into belts is a great move...
and being scared of WH's is a healthy stance tbh... we're scary

Edit - And if you dont want to risk a rorq there are those new mining BC's they were on about...

if you so scarry about the Wormhole peops , then role the holes , take yachts(WIthout higgs rig , 100mn ab +instawarp) and your 10 peops and close it (1problem solved) Or just youse orcas then rorqs if the risk is to high for you.Its like sitting with dread in C5/C6 Site you stuck for 5 mins , the peops there accept it why you nullbears cant ? :(

Unless they change the industrial core the rorqual has always had to siege to provide better boosts than a max skill orca.

I don't think fozzie has ever mined in nulsec so i'm not sure if they will change the siege mechanic, however I just logged into the test sever where the new mining barge changes are live and can confirm that you have to siege to provide boosts better than an orca. Yes I understand that it is still relatively early and the mechanics could still be changed.

you haven't been keeping up with recent events, have you?

The solution seems pretty straight forward. Simply disconnect boosts from the industrial core. Allow the same level of boost without making it a stationary target. No other command ship has to immobilize it self to provide boosts. From Command Destroyers to Titans you can provide boosts without immobilization or fuel consumption.

So let's get those Rorquals on grid and boosting without using industrial cores. I use a Rorqual and have no issue taking on risk to get my reward.

For those concerned about loosing their POS Queens, I will share my secret weapons. It's a full screen height local window with an overview that marks neutrals flashy red. I also roll any local WHs and my Corp keeps eyes one system out. Additionally I watch the Intel comms closely. Doing this provides the PvP players plenty of content. They get to look at your pretty warp trails when you leave since you knew they were there.

Yeah, I agree to some extent - however if it tripled your yield over normal boosts the price of ore would tank and it would be pretty much required to siege to make good isk.