i can't help but laugh at the baseless crying.

people will still be flying hulks in null for the yield, or procurers in highsec for the anti-gank, nobody in their right mind will mine in a mackinaw because a huge ore bay is useless. it's going to be quicker to mine 2-3 cans in a high yield ship and haul them all at once.

the only reason to use a mackinaw is if you don't own/can't fly a mammoth or itty V

People seem to worry a lot about the AFK mining thing.

But I don't think they thought this one trough properly. The ORE hold is not the hold that mined ore automatically moves into. It comes into your cargo hold first and without player action to move it, stays there! Your cargo hold fills up so fast there is no AFK mining possible.

The only thing a large ore hold enables is that you can do without permanent jet cans and/or a dedicated hauling alt. Hence making solo mining actually worthwhile, which is a good thing!

Autonomy: mining barges should have proper cargo holds so they not always have to rely on jet cans (without turning them into industrials however). That means giving them large, specialized ore bays where all the ore will automatically go into when mining.

I believe you are misinformed, as it is clearly stated here that the ore automatically goes there when mining ^^

http://community.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&nbid=72890

I think this change is for the better. Its not about trying to get people to do away with the hulk, its about giving miners of all colors more options and ability to tailor a ship to their particular needs. I support this idea wholeheartedly :)

You are right, they described the behavior explicitly (yet incomplete). Maybe they intend on reducing the regular cargo hold at the same time. Even if they don't this actually constitutes a nerf for current hulk pilots using cargo expander rigs. Quite simply your looking at a 2.58k m3 or so reduction of ore hold buffer before you need to drag everything to a can. Unless ore spills over into cargohold when ore hold fills up, but it doesn't state any of the finer mechanics which are important. Loosing 32.25% capacity is quite a lot in my book.

Even so, it might work out well in that a hulk can fill up the cargo hold with crystals without compromising this buffer. Details, we need more details!

Ok, after searching I found the answers to my question directly from CCP!

Someone: WHAT'S HAPPENING WITH THE HULK AFTER THE CHANGE?

CCP Ytterbium: Exact modifications are still vague, but the plan is to quite reduce its cargo hold and add an ore bay of the same size than the removed cargo hold. That means cargo expanders and rigs wonGÇÖt affect the ore bay at all, requiring players to unload ore more frequently. This is by design, as we want the Hulk to be moved into a fleet purpose that has to rely on others to make proper use of its best mining output. That also means we will not be introducing items that affect the ore bay size.

So yes, it is now official, the hulk will be the only one of the mining ships that actually gets nerved!

With a reduced cargo hold, answer to the question if the ore hold will spill over to the cargo hold becomes redundant. Assuming an 8k ore hold and enough cargo hold to handle 1000m3 of crystals the actual nerf for ships with 2 x T1 cargo hold expander rigs is about 15% (in effective ore storage).

But what if you do not AFK mine eh?

If you currently use Cargo expanders, the new Mackinaw/Retriever will be a huge boon to you.
If you currently use MLUs, the Hulk/Covetor will be unchanged, since you're using a hauler.
If you currently fit Tank, the new Procurer/Skiff will be a huge boon to you.

The hulk choice would still be sacrificing everything for that last bit of improved extraction. The re-balance is to give the other ships a proper role, it should not be that the change make the hulk the ship that no1 really want to fly in return due to it being gimped!

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.

The OP's problem is he is thinking too narrow. He is thinking he is a hulk pilot, and hulk pilots are may slightly disadvantaged by this. What the OP is forget is he can take advantage of these changes:

2) I have no doubt all other mining ships in the dev blog are increasing in price. Now is the time to buy up the ships outside the trade hubs that are still priced at old prices. (Either stock pile for own use or resale when the market adjusts.)

The same day the dev blog was published someone bought all procurers in Jita and surrounding regions. Quite a long-term investment if you ask me, since these changes aren't bound to happen for a while, but still.

Honestly! Who of you, who can fly a Hulk will change to another ship now, doesn't matter if 0.0 or hi-sec? Nobody!

The only one who benefit from this are new players, skilling for the mining profession. Means more minerals on the market, decreasing prices. That's it!

It's a nerf!

PS: mining in a Wormhole with Mackinaw and only 2 Strip miners, but just for more cargohold is not reasonable! You loose 33% of your yield. You must have been confronted with jetcan-destroyers every 30 minutes or so?

Same for botters - They don't need that extra Cargohold.

Only newbies benefit from the changes. anything else I wrote at the beginning of this post.

1) what's wrong with helping new players? i hardly think they will be able to keep up with a veteran miner, SP goes into many more skills than just exhumers and many more of them somehow directly affect your mining capabilities. there's a lot of skills not even in the industry family (drone skills for example) that are still important to mining.

2) mining in a ship that costs less than a hulk will always be reasonable, especially in ones like the wormhole example you brought up. it's not always about min/max, i don't know what it will take for some people to understand this key concept.

3) i do think you fear of botters exploiting the new barges is not unwarranted but we will just have to see about that.

mining in a ship that costs less than a hulk will always be reasonable