My question is, is the Hulk even worth it anymore? Is the increase in yield over the Mack worth the hassle of having a dedicated hauler?

With Macks you have the ability to haul a jetcan+ of ore back to Station/POS/Rorq. And since you're gonna have to go back and get crystals all the time now, you will have more down time to drop off your ore. Converting a hauler into another Mack might be more efficient than having a dedicated hauler.

If the hulks can't mine 24/7 with all their gear/crystals ready to go, I really don't see the point of the increase in yield. They really need to do something about the mining crystals, cause if you've ever had to clear a belt/grav site you know you need more than 3 kinds of crystals to clear it. And you do a lot of clearing of sites/belts in mining OPs, which is supposedly the Hulks role right?

Max orca fleet bonus + yeti +3%

Hulk 2xmlu2 + ice harvester accelerator = 143,47s
Mackinaw 3xMLu2 + ice harverster accelator = 103,35s

Max orca fleet bonus + yeti +3%

Hulk 2xIHU2 + 1x ice harvester accelerator rig = 143,47s
Mackinaw 3xIHU2 + 1x ice harvester accelerator rig = 103,35s

These are based on numbers only? so why when u log on to sisi u only get hulk 166 and mack 119? is there something not working properly in sisi?

I'm a bit concerned about the exhumerbonus from the Skiff/Mackinaw. It renders the exhumerskill nearly pointless on them.
The choice for highsec lonewolf-miners is the now Mackinaw, new miners don't have to train it past IV or even III to get full benefit from the ship alone.
The direction of devaluating a rank5(!) tech2-skill cannot be a good step ... -> EvE, harsh, etc. you know.

the only people training exhumer V before the changes are people mining mercoxit, and even then mercoxit is poor isk/hour right now.

in truth; there's never really been a reason to train exhumers past III.

consistent with what i'm getting.



i did hear fleet bonuses on sisi were a bit funky at the moment, perhaps that's why the napkin maths isn't reflecting what's happening on sisi?

also are you using a foreman implant on sisi?
edit: you're missing the implant, i just removed the implant from my spreadsheet and i get the same numbers you are. mining foreman mindlink is what you need.
or warfare link specialist V that's the same bonus as the implant.

All these tears about cycles to cargo etc are pretty hilarious for those of us who mined before there were barges and you had 1 minute cycles that filled your cargo entirely.

Am I missing something? I can't find the new mining frigate on SiSi ? You know, the one in the concept art from the dev blog.

Please don't tell me that the "new" mining frigate is now the skiff? I was really looking forward to the new ship design. I'd buy one for looks, and just use it for hauling or something...

Newest build up on Sisi

no crystal size reduction
no cargobay expansion

but Ore bays on the Retreiver and Mac have been reduced and the bonus has been reduced from 10% to 5%

Newest build up on Sisi

no crystal size reduction
no cargobay expansion

but Ore bays on the Retreiver and Mac have been reduced and the bonus has been reduced from 10% to 5%

so that puts the retriever at 20*1.25 = 25k m3 cargo...
and the mackinaw at uh... 31.25 k m3?

infact, why am i guessing? i'll check sisi.

mack calculations were right, but the retriever has had the ore bay increased (or i'm just being forgetful thinking it was 20k m3 to begin with) so it's 20*1.5 = 28125 m3

with the ore bays that close, the mackinaw is now redundant.

you're doing your calculation at *1.5 for the retrieiver? its 5% bonus per level not 10%?

i think i need more sleep. what i wrote there was absolute ******* jibberish.

let me try again; the old calculation was 20*1.5 = 30k, the new calculation is 22.5*1.25 = 28.125. for the retriever.
the mackinaw has just been reduced from 37.5k to 31.25k. previously there was a 7.5k difference which is less than two cycles, however the sheer volume it has to begin with justified the difference. now the difference and the initial size has been reduced the mackinaw's only difference from the retriever is the tank; which is only better because it has to be to avoid suicide ganks which is a different subject entirely.

haha yea
I'm a little sad they've reduced the ore bay on the mac, it has completely removed my want for it. I'll just use a retreiver as the yield difference i'm guessing will be minimal.

/on rant
as for the suicide ganking thing.. that forum post is elsewhere and is hilarious.

Of Course suicide ganking was never designed to be profitable. It was always intended as a way for people to reallllly **** people off and ruin their day.

Instead its become some form of metagaming where people calculate losses and then ruin peoples days and make them ragequit just for fun and tears AND earn money. pfft. I think thats having their cake and eating it.
/off rant

mackinaw is exhumer I requirement now, so going from a ret to a mack with bare minimum mack skills you gain less than 1 cycle of ore's space, and 1% yield bonus. and at max skill you gain less than 1 cycle of ore's space, and 5% yield. (and maybe the cpu to fit a 2nd/3rd mlu) but you're giving up all of your cpu so you can't fit tank modules

They should limit all three ships to 1 mining laser fitted and give all three ships 3 high slots. That way we could have 2 high slots for various utility high modules like cloaks, remote repair modules, autotargetting, probe launchers, etc.

That would be neat.

Drox

mining barges don't need utility slots, nor should they get them. however reducing all barges to 1 high slot and giving them the 200% yield bonus ala skiff we've instantly solved the crystal problem for the hulk.

It would do that too.
But if the Skiff doesn't have the ability to find its own gravi sites, then you may as well have an Orca with a probing ship in the SMB flying around with you to carry your various ships. If you want that lone skiff to go do things alone, he will need tools to do them. I'd like to put a tractor beam on the Hulk so the Orca can drop some crystals in a can and let the Hulk pilot suck them over to him.

I want the ability to make the ships a little more interesting than just ore processing machines.

(What I really wanted was a Hulk with 5 launcher and 5 turret hard points and 8 high slots (limit 3 strips, no standard mining lasers). That way, you could defend the Hulks with Hulks. But you know, you can only choose between Ganking defenseless roids and ships.)

Drox

i'm just going to say; no, it's a mining ship not a swiss army knife.

Newest build up on Sisi

no crystal size reduction
no cargobay expansion

but Ore bays on the Retreiver and Mac have been reduced and the bonus has been reduced from 10% to 5%

DISLIKE enormous DISLIKE ... bad devs, no cookie!

It would do that too.
But if the Skiff doesn't have the ability to find its own gravi sites, then you may as well have an Orca with a probing ship in the SMB flying around with you to carry your various ships. If you want that lone skiff to go do things alone, he will need tools to do them. I'd like to put a tractor beam on the Hulk so the Orca can drop some crystals in a can and let the Hulk pilot suck them over to him.

I want the ability to make the ships a little more interesting than just ore processing machines.

(What I really wanted was a Hulk with 5 launcher and 5 turret hard points and 8 high slots (limit 3 strips, no standard mining lasers). That way, you could defend the Hulks with Hulks. But you know, you can only choose between Ganking defenseless roids and ships.)

Drox

mining barges don't need utility slots, nor should they get them. however reducing all barges to 1 high slot and giving them the 200% yield bonus ala skiff we've instantly solved the crystal problem for the hulk.