Just thought I'd point out that those two skills are some of the most useful in the entire game. You'd be hard pressed to convince everyone it was a waste of time. Go forth and pwn, you've got a lot of options now!!

it's not ground up. frigs are an entirely different beast from cruisers and bc's. unless your talking modules, which we're not.

Then why aren't you mining in a Rokh right now? It offers yield in between that of a Covetor and a Hulk.

Since when is "I WANT MAX YIELD WITH NO RISK NOR EFFORT" a play style? Or "I WANT TO PLAY A GAME AFK?"

I can't help but admire that art work on the new mining frigate. I know people have said it a thousand times by now, but I really want to stress how amazing it looks.

Great job!

The conversion to a fixed-size ore bay seems to be designed to combat afk mining. Afk mining contributes very little to player-generated content. It's full-on aversion. It's not-even-looking-at-the-screen aversion. But why make the ore bays so small? The vast majority of hulks in game use cargo expanders and have had somewhere ~18K m3 to play with and now will have to deal with a much smaller fixed volume?

Single-players industrialists won't be docking after every mining cycle so this cargo cap reduction will probably increase the frequency of jetcan mining imo. Reduced onboard storage = more jetcans? (Good news pvp'ers.)

The only thing getting a boost is player options, Ty.

The Hulk still delivers max yield. Because they are the most-efficient extractors, people are going to use them. But now that reasonable alternatives exist (slightly lower yield, better tank) flying the max-yield ship in high-sec may present increased risk.

I agree that increasing the size of the target on high-sec Hulks is a boost. But what it boosts and who it benefits is another matter entirely.

YK

THIS IS A BAD IDEA. I know the whole point is to group up and play with others, and I often do for missions and such. However, when it comes to mining, more often then not (95% of the time), I find myself mining on my alt alone in her Hulk. No Orca support (cause my Hulk pilot is the Orca pilot), and therefor I fit cargo expanders to minimize the amount of times I need to return to the station to empty.

Is this change really necessary? I mean, unless the Mackinaw is improved, it will never be as effective for mining Ore solo as the Hulk is now, due to the additional striper and the following bonus:
Exhumers Skill Bonus:
3% better yield for Strip Miners per level

So I ask, CCP, what do plan to do to address this issue that some of us might have with this change. If we've grown accustomed to mining solo with the hulk, are you saying that you don't want us mining alone anymore? Or is it that you just want us to be less efficient and less productive from an isk/hour perspective?