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I understand the need to make each ship have its place but I can't help but feel like us Hulk miners have just got the raw end of a shiny deal.

They could be useful in quiet low sec system, ninja mining the more valuable ore. Then again, the efficiency loss might undo any value advantage you might get.

it isnt a nerf, its more like making the hulk redundant. if the covetor/hulk will be turned into fleet miners, then the only thing that matters is yield, tank doesnt matter, hold doesnt matter, nothing but yield. and if the yield difference between the hulk and the covetor is 15% yield, then the ship is as good a miner as the machariel is a blob ship.

100 machs blobbing... i can see how scary that would be... untill you realize the isk/VALUE ratio you get outta hulks/machs is ****.

why having a mining op worth 3 billons floating on a hidden belt, when 300 millons worth of covetors give you 15% less yield, and it amortizes itself in the first 30 minutes?

only a complete moron doesnt account for the ship value when calculating income, and the cost of a hulk far outweights the +15% yield.

I like the idea of having different barges to choose from. Each one has its pro's and cons. Excellent idea CCP. Cant wait!

You can pick tank, yield OR cargo

I agree. I will sell mine once the new barges come out since I dont do fleet mining ops. I am mainly a solo miner. The tank model will give me a reason to venture into null for some mining fun. And also make me a little more at ease against the high sec gankers.

Definately leaning towards the Mack/Retriever. Being able to ninja mine in my WH is just too good to pass up. Now we just need ORE to come up wiht a gas harvester ^^

They're about to become equivalents with regards to overall effectiveness at mining, it would be fair to expect that they're also roughly similar with regards to hull cost, at least one that isn't as huge as 3-4 times difference.

Read dev blog.
Hulk's tank will get nerfed, because it's not combat ship its tank is irrelevant.

Do you seriously think that they will give it 200k+ EHP tank?

Base EHP for most BSs is around 40k.

A properly tanked Hulk can be destroyed with one ship.

The original poster is in my opinion, completely right. I mine in nullsec in a Hulk so therefore i literally cannot take my eyes of local for more than 30 seconds, once this NERF, yes, NERF, goes live i will be punished by AFK noobs in highsec mining in a safe environment with a ridiculous ore bay sitting there pulling in a good amount of ORE compared to my yield, refining it in a max yield station and then selling it in Jita dragging mineral prices down while all they did is press F1 and F2, while i have to pay constant attention to a boring activity.

I am telling you right now, mineral prices are going to absolutely plummet. Which is disgusting if they don't balance the economy in other areas. Someone who hasn't trained into mining at all, can put 5 days in gas harvesting V and make more isk in 1 hour than i can in 3. Similarly a uber carebear Machariel pilot can run belts and sites all day and make more isk in 1 hour than i can in 3. So please CCP tell me how this is fair.

I spent 3 lousy months when i started EVE training for this hulk, and with this nerf i shall see my isk per hour drop to a ridiculous level, i could probably make more ISK ratting belts in a battle cruiser.

CCP need to nerf highsec mining, buff hulks, inject better asteroids into Nullsec and Lowsec rather than give a botters a good time running 10 accounts.

Also ship prices will plummet while ratters will still make the same amount of ISK so they can have fun time affording to PVP in whatever they want, while i suffer. Yes i am a pvper who owns a hulk, i cannot at this stage fly a decent ratting ship, nor should i have to.

What ship can suicide gank Damnation? Probably wouldn't matter if it shoots back because as we all know Damnation's dps is something you don't want to speak about.

I'm surprised that after all these years there are people that can't see one change's effect past the devblog notes...

To all the dumbasses: yes, the buff of the mining barges is a nerf of the hulk. Why? Because hulk will be useless. It already is uselss!! Why use a hulk when you can use a ship that costs 10-20 times less and has roughly the same yield? So yes, all barges receive a role at the expense of Hulk's role. That's stupid.

To the idiots bashing the carebears: if there were no carebears you'd have to mine all the minerals yourselves and build the ships and the modules and do that very inefficiently. You wouldn't even have time to blow that ship you just built. So stop being idiots and be glad for every buff of the industrial side of the game.

Depends on the Hulk-tank after this changes. Currently, you have to use a Gistii b-type ssb and logistic drones to handle rat-aggro in Null-sec belts. If the hulks tank gets nerfed down to not beeing able to tank belt-rats for atleast a decent time anymore, the hulk gets less useful (I use it myself as a fleet miner, but if they change it to a point at which I need combat-supporters, I'll switch to another barge).

Well, I use combat drones to kill'em. If this isn't possible after those changes because my hulk blows up before I can kill them, I could get used to it and take the yield-hit to switch to a more tanky ship instead.

If you are a miner, and especially if you are a solo miner, get those drone skills up asap! They really do make that much of a difference.

There are more than just pew pew drones out there you can get. If you are mining areas with triple BS spawns, you need back up anyway, or an alt. But even so, ecms, webbers, or even just the aggro being on said drones enables you to get yourself out of there. My high opinion of drones still stands. ;)

If your solo mining with one account in nullsec you need to go back to empire. In null you need a second account to tank the belts with while your miner mines, it is possible to get a very expensive deadspace fit to tank the bs rats as a hulk but its just not worth the time. Alot of people use Domis, abaddons, Drakes, ect to belt tank while they mine. Most of my miners have an account dedicated to belt tanking. If you think that swapping to a pve ship every time rats spawn is viable you need to rethink your strat.

Dunno what fail ops your on but everyone we do we have a belt tank as well.

Damn, how hard it is to get it?

Hulk is the ship that has been pimped for mining yield.

Skiff is the ship that has been pimped for tanking.

Mackinaw is the ship that has been pimped for ice extraction.

So you have three tools, for three different situations

That is true on the surface, but it boils down to 1 option, which change depending on weather or not you mine alone.

Group mining with support: Covetor/Hulk.
Alone: Procurer/Skiff.

I don't think a lot of players are going to use the retriever for hi-sec mining, jet can sized ore hold may look good on paper, but at the expense of mining output and ehp it just don't seem worth it. With the procurer you still need to anchor cans, but you get battleship ehp and best mining output, and with no station jumps the most mining time. The Retriever/Mackinaw is probably going to be good for afk mining, maybe CCP plans to reward the people who don't play the game with a specialized ship.

While the Hulk is currently the only choice, we really gain nothing when it comes to ship options. The game is just being redesigned so miner no longer have the option to do maximum mining without a support/protection, which may or may not be designed to move more industry to low/null sec.

I may have exaggerated the uselessness of the Retriever/Mackinaw. I have done a lot of ore hauling in a Badger MK II, with expanded cargohold and cargohold optimization rigs, and i guess the ore hold means you can skip that part.

All in all the new designs are probably okay, they give each of the ships their own little niche. I don't think it's going to result in a lot of changes in-game, but i guess it may make life a little easier for new miners.

I will change in a heartbeat! If i am sitting at my computer working on homework why not just afk in a ship that costs 20 million total in mods and such with 27000 cargo hold over a hulk? I will be working on important stuff while my retriever fills up in ore. Who cares if i lose 20 million i can make that back in a hurry running one or two level 4's

The Hulk is pointless in my eyes except for 0.0 mining. I can't stand the fact a destroyer can destroy something costing 1000% more in a simple 6 or 7 seconds. A cargo ship will be what i use in the future no reason to use a hulk as a SOLO miner in HS.

You may want to mine in a different place. I mine often in a .6 system, and I get upwards of 6-8 cycles out of many rocks, which when I don't have my alt up (wife on other computer) or am doing work on other comp, i can solo with a Retriever. ;)

Except that now you'll have a ship designed for operations where you're too lazy to actively avoid ganks.

The Procurer/Skiff of Tomorrow will be filling in for the Tanked Hulk of Today.

Keeping the Ice/Merx bonuses the way they are is a boneheaded move on CCP's part. No argument there.

However, a Procurer/Skiff will still be capable of mining Ice.

The job of the Ice miner is to get Ice from the Belts to the Station, the rate that you get Ice from the belts to your Cargo is not especially relevant. If the Bonused ship is too flimsy to adequately perform the job because of the way you mine (Macks can fit Webs pretty easy), then maybe the metaphorical Ferox might be the right ship for the job in your situation.

This brings us back to the whole gank v. tank debate. With the mechanics as they are right now, a Tanked Hulk mines less than an MLU Hulk and less Ice than a Mack, but it's safer because the tank defeats most/all profitable ganks. Soon it will be a Procurer mines less than a Hulk and mines less Ice than a Mack, but it's safer because the tank... yadda yadda yadda.

Just because it's boneheaded to leave the bonuses doesn't mean you can't deal with it, and it doesn't mean that you're forced to do anything.

Sounds like we're shooting right past each other in agreeing.

Shall we start brainstorming ways to uncouple the Ice/Merx bonuses from the ships they're sitting on?

I got one suggestion, delete the bonuses. Yield will drop, but prices will soar to compensate (as a Cap pilot, this would make me Sad).
Another suggestion (that would require mechanical work ) would be to move the bonuses to Crystals (or maybe some sort of ship script), so that a Merx/Ice crystal Hulk will mine as much as a Skiff/Mack (respectively) does now. That way it's easy, no matter what you want to mine, the roles are the same, Hulk for Yield, Mack for cargo, and Skiff for tank.

I think what CCP is doing is hedging their bets, since they're not sure how popular the new Skiff/Mack will be. Leaving the bonuses at least ensures some small market for those ships in case they don't quite buff the yield enough (or miners keep being thick and never bother switching from the Hulk).

I'm kind of hoping that they just add High slots and fitting and forget to change the numbers on the bonuses...

Dirt cheap Ice would be nice.

10m says CCP forgets to change the bonuses before the new barges hit SiSi (there's a good chance they won't listen to the SiSi testers either, but I'm not willing to bet on that) or otherwise greatly boosts the Ice output of Macks (who knows how they're buffing yield).

So neither of us is willing to take the other side of the bet...

Minmatar Cruiser, Gallente Cruiser etc etc etc. Could go on but won't.

It amazes me how few people have fully read the dev blog. You obviously haven't read the bit about reducing the current level of EHP on Hulks & Covetors.

To be honest I can't see the need for any of the changes in the mining ships dev blog. CCP wanted to make mining a more viable career option that gives a reasonable rate of profit. At the current moment prices for minerals are at a good rate and do indeed make mining a viable career choice. If you use your head and fit one MLU plus some tank to cover any errors you make you will probably not lose your ship to a gank. Therefore to my mind mining does not need amending or altering. If any pilot wants to AFK mine they deserve to lose their ship and I don't think massive amounts of EHP should be added to Retrievers to facilitate just such an activity. If I was in favour of ganking I would go out and destroy anyone who AFK mines myself.

(Ice would go in the ore bay right...).

What does this mean ? I think it means that the days of ganking high sec miners is coming to an end. People will use Macks for high sec. If it is more tankable than the Hulk right now, which pretty much we can draw from this post it will be, then it will be the mining ship of choice. Big ore bay and remember: they are bridging the gap between all mining ships. Why even think Hulk when you can use a ship that can survivdetill Concord shows up. Why use a ship with less yield like the Skiff ? If you can tank out a Mack properly and go afk for an hour while you get it filled, there is no reason to use a ship with slower yield and smaller bay. People will use what is most efficient and safe. This means most likely the Mack. This will in turn drive down the prices on the other ships substantially.

Give the Hulk a bonus yield% to Mining drones.

Just fixed 2 problems with one stone.

AFK doesn't mean away from the house, it just means not paying full attention to the game. The tier 2 barges will be ideal for mining while watching TV or some other activity that lets you check on the barge every few minutes. For ice mining you don't have to worry about depleting roids.

I can see that the tier 1 barges will see a lot of use in public belts, especially in higher gank-risk areas, the tier 2 barges being used by AFK miners in out of the way places, and the tier 3 barges, including the hulk only being used by hard core miners, probably in fleets.

Is not the same as saying we only need two mining barges T1/T2 version of the hulk, if you only want to fly hulk then do that, it's still the best mining barges in term of mining output. The current ship upgrade path is retriever then hulk, with the new design you get the chance to pick different ships, depending on what options and skills you have available in-game.

Some players seem annoyed that the hulk did not get battleship ehp and jetcan size ore hold, so it would remain the only real option for mining. This is eve, even considering that as an option is laughable.

You keep saying what will be and won't. Did they finally give out ship stats and I missed it? If they did, link please and thank you in advance If they did not, you would be basing a lot of your info on unknowns.

Ah, yep, missed the note about them not moving bonuses. I'll look around for it, thx. That could make things a bit more problematic for the balance of the ships, unless they really tamper with numbers hard. Will be interesting to see the final product.

Is that not the same as saying the hulk should get a mercox/ice bonus?, i can't see why CCP should nerf the other ships just to make the hulk a viable ice/mercox miner. I think the current system of specialization for ice/mercox/asteroids works, on the other hand i don't care if CCP change it.

I don't like the "hulk is all you need" philosophy, and most of the time output is more important then ore hold or ehp. Giving all the bonuses to the hulk, does somewhat limit the viable options when picking what ship to use.

It would be nice to see the hulk getting something new, just like the other ships, but redesigning the other ships to give more options and at the same time buffing the hulk to the point where it is always the best choice is counter productive.