yes they have been removed - they've been moved to rigs

I really don;t want to see role bonus go completely away.. I think that would be fail.

That's the point. If you want to mine a lot before hauling, use a Mackinaw. It mines better than a cargo Hulk does.

And it's good to see that CCP listened when we pointed out that leaving the bonuses on the ships would be a bad idea (did we ever agree on the terms of that bet?).

Going to be funny to see the merc miners setting off clouds since everyone stopped DCM at 2, since the skiff's bonus negated the cloud generation.

Can't you just out range the clouds?

yeah.. 5km.

Any information on skill requirement changes?

The ships now seem to be at the same level, just different roles so I would assume they would have similar skill requirements (as opposed to the starter, intermediate, advanced set up now).

I did some math on the yields for a Hulk and 2 cycles without MLU2s and no fleet support will take almost 8k m3 space. So, after your first cycle, you make a little room in your ore hold by moving some to your cargo hold and fill up at the end of the second cycle. That seems to be the logic for 7500 m3 instead of 5500 m3.

The other two ships get about 11.74 and 5.47 cycles before their holds fill up without fleet and MLU support. (8 and 4 with)

Drox

One problem I see is can flippers will have a field day with solo miners in high sec. Using expanders you could get 17k m3 of cargo in a hulk. Now you have to be dumping ore into a jet can every cycle. Way to go ccp.

will it always have the 2x bonus on ice blocks mined in a cycle and the trick that if you stop your cycle at 51% you still get the 2 blocks? I don't get who's king of ice mining and which are the new rigs you're talking about.

I didn't say I liked it. And if you check the other thread, you'll see I'm arguing for 11k ore hold. I was just pointing out why it wasn't a 5500 m3 ore hold.

Drox

Yes I know. Just that the Hulk, being way more expensive, should be doing more and doing it better than any other mining vessel.

Ditto

As it is, you can have 10+3 crystals. So, you can have crystals for 3 ores with a spare each and one more extra or crystals for 4 ores and one spare (or singleton ore).

I wonder if they will remove my rigs for me, or if I'll have some extra room?

I've used cargo rigs to get my cargo space over two cycles worth of yield, but the lows are used for MLU2s.

BTW, does the Ore hold mean I can stash my mining barge in the SMB without emptying the ore out? I've managed to sneak extra PI stuff around by putting it in the PI bay of the Primae and carrying it around before.

Drox

Two words: Insurance fraud will be back for a limited time!

Mining ship buffs -> more mining -> mineral prices fall. Ship insurance prices are updated periodically. In theory, if mineral prices drop significantly before the insurance prices update, we'll see a boom in insurance fraud.

AFK friendly buffs leads to more AFK miners, plus the lowered skill requirements. (Nevermind the added NPE content.)

I'm not saying that insurance fraud is guaranteed to happen, but I imagine that these changes are big enough that people will start dumping existing mineral stocks.

I found the quote in another thread, but they are apparently planning on tiericiding the Exhumer skill, so all 3 become available at Exhumers I.

Well it took four seasons for the Cylons to implement their plan, so let's assume that sisi is a work in progress?

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

Yes.

/Or/ you could have 2 alts, both in Retrievers/Macks for a higher yield (you'll lose a couple of cycles hauling every 10 cycles or so, but it should still turn out higher.)

Apart from, say, buffing mining ships to the point where you can have your max yield and a 30k EHP tank too.

Exactly.



It's like you are reading my mind.

Compare it to Ratting ships then. Ratting ships have one purpose. To kill red Crosses. They have to sacrifice DPS for Range/Tracking and Tank. The balance between the two is something that they have to figure out.

PVP boats have one purpose: To get the other guy dead. They have to sacrifice some things that make them effective at that in order to stay alive doing so.
One shining example. Falcons can be plated or not. Plated falcons survive better, unplated falcons do their job better. Falcons have only one purpose. To jam the enemy.

That's what miners get for whining when they could have just learned to tank their Hulks.

A Carrier is a Logistics ship without maneuverability. Of course it's tanky. It has to be. It's designed for Combat. A Hulk isn't designed to be a brick, it's designed to mine in a convenient manner. You want a brick miner, the Rokh's your toy.

A Hulk can be tanked enough that it can't be profitably ganked. If the gankers bring outside help (GSF bounties) to change that, and the Hulk pilot brings outside help (Blap Nado, RR, ECM), the gankers still lose at making a profit.

Price is not a balancing factor the way miners seem to think it is.

http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_related&kll_id=11888211

This 100b ratting ship got killed by a gang worth not more than 4-5b Isk. And that gang didn't lose anything significant.

Not true.

Mining income is driven by demand, or would be in theory, if there weren't gigantic stockpiles all over the place. Mining income is a direct result of market pressures and it's mineral traders that are in control of pricing.

I did. I even quoted it. Please explain assuming I'm clueless, as I apparently am.

No MLU Hulk: 30% bonus. Dual MLU Skiff: 23% bonus.

That's a 7% cost for durability and a larger ore hold. If the size of the hold is the issue, then of course Dave stark's comment should have mentioned that (i.e, when mining solo) , rather than being an apparent blanket statement.

But if I'm still missing something, please enlighten me. I'm trying to understand these "new" ships, just like everyone else.

Hulk - 3 strips * 1.15 (barge V) * 1.15 (exhumers V) = 3.9675
Mackinaw - 2 strips * 1.50 (role bonus) * 1.05 (exhumers V) = 3.15
Skiff - 1 strips * 3 (role bonus) * 1.05 = 3.15

I would therefore suggest:

Increase the PG on the Hulk and Mack by three megawatts, one for each additional slot they have over their T1 counterparts.

Reduce Mining crystal volume tenfold (to 5m3) to allow a reasonable number of ore types and the use of a can to manage the singletons.
or
Increase the cargobay to allow a large can as well as "active" sets of crystals.

I have no options for the icemining and Merc rigs...

can't find the new magic rigs in sisi. where are them?

as regards the cargo bay size..... I like it instead. I think it's made under the specific purpose of fixing the roles for each ship or in other words: no cargohold extenders/cargo rigs anymore which is an awesome news. If you want to solo/afk mine there's no way you can use a hulk now. There are specific barges with a huge ore bay for that and you can't use them for hauling either, which I guess is the second reason why they made a "ore bay" for barges instead of "just a bay"

also, I honestly can't see how you may say the crystal problem even exists. If you solo mine how long are you staying out there, 36 hrs without docking? I don't think so, so check your crystals before undocking and fly safe. If you're in a fleet, as you are supposed to be, the orca/hauler can keep all the crystals you want and give some to those who need them when necessary.

Yes, mining needed a sturdy ship, and a ship with a large cargo. But that's not really what is happening there. We're getting, really, 3 sturdy ships (two on the level of a battlecruiser, one on the level of battleships -with the size and speed of a cruiser-), and 2 ships with a large cargo bay (17500 for the skiff, 37500 for the mackinaw). And both these ships actually reach about, apparently, 80% of the yield of a hulk.

As I said before, and I cant emphasize that enough, it means that the miner who was careful enough to not get ganked, who used orca support to drop his mineral, wont gain anything from this update. The players who were doing good wont see their situation improve, but instead the value of their yield diminush, as "bad" miners get a safer and easier life and flood the market.

actually when you consider a hulk already reaches 17k m3, the skiff ore bay isn't large at all. and the mackinaw's been trimmed to just over 31k m3.

More PowerGrid is always good.

On the storage issue, I again beg to differ.

There are 3 storage issues that are intertwined with each other and need to be properly addressed (balanced) with ALL the Barges / Exhumers in terms of storage:

1. Crystals. Crystals were originally designed when these ships had hugely expandable cargoholds. This is no longer the case. They need to be reduced in size. As was previously suggested, 5m3 is an excellent size number.

2. Cargohold. Cargoholds need to be at least big enough to hold T2 crystals for 3 Ore types + 1 Spare (Barges) or 5 Ore types + 2 Spares (Exhumers). At 50m3 per T2 crystal, you're looking at a 300 - 2,250 range. At 5 m3 per crystal, the largest cargohold of 500m3 is very adequate and has enough room for containers to sort new / used crystals.

3. Ore hold. Ore holds need to hold 2 fully boosted, T2 strip yield cycles as a baseline. This has nothing to do with being AFK or solo mining. It has everything to do with these being specialized ships and filling their roles properly. The Ore hold has received the most attention so far as I can tell. And it looks like 4 of the 6 ships have adequate OH's.

The arguments of "it's just a temporary spot between the ship & hauler" carry no weight as CCP could just as easily 'auto-jettison" it to space bypassing those specialized holds all together.

In a fully boosted fleet, you are constantly moving Ore - even with a 2 cycle hold - either to a hauler or a can. This only allows you the advantage of waiting for that hauler to make a return trip if the others around you fill up the hauler before you do.

One could also make the argument that you must stagger your strips (with more than 1) and you must jetcan mine because your Ore hold is barely adequate to hold 1 strip worth of Ore. But again, this really holds no weight and completely, again, breaks the purpose of these ships.

Considering how long it has taken CCP to address the issue of rebalancing these ships, and that they will likely never revisit it again, yeah, we're going to make sure that it's a well implemented update.



This. However, given that this update is les than 2 weeks away ......

looks like i need to do manual comparisons in game between live and test now to compare tanking stats

[edit]
test server confirmed - overall hulk resistances are lower.. but i'm level 4 .. but sisi is showing 25% EM for level 4 not 30% for level 4.. so something isn't right

actually resistances are based on mining barge, not exhumers.. so it is really really wrong. i bugreported

yeah i think they're messed it up based on the dump.. dump says it should be 7.5/level

Seriously the Hulk Bay was further reduced in size? Can you double check that?

500 to 350 m3 - what's up with this sh|t


What's the big f'ing problem with us having the ability to carry a full set of crystals? If we are going down to 25m3 each, ok then the Cargo needs to be 975 m3.

Of course, with the hulk being a fleet ship, you could store the spare crystals in the support ship...

I'm just under the impression that one of the goals of the changes is to make the Hulk a fleet ops ship, rather than a solo ship. Mostly because that's been explicitly stated.

Why? The Mackinaw will probably yield more once you take dropoffs into account.

37k m3 vs 7500 (or Jetcans and switching ships)

They dropped it down? Or did I screw up in reading basic numbers (entirely possible).

... The Mack's Ore bay is like the only change they got right. There is literally no problem with the cavernous bay on a ship designed to have a cavernous bay.

The problem is that it's massive tank takes away from the Skiff's role, and the Skiff's big Ore bay takes away from the Mack's role.

If the argument for not being able to carry a full set of crystals in the Hulk is that it is meant to be the fleet mining ship then why do the Mackinaw and Skiff also have a 350m3 cargo bay?

All of the mining ships should be able to carry a full set of crystals at a minimum. I do not mind having a tiny cargo bay but if that is the case further reduce the m3 of mining crystals appropriately.

I don't think a crystal needs to be any bigger than 0.1m3 and they could reduce the cargo hold to 10m3 if they were readlly worried about hulks being used as haulers.

Doesn't help unless you can use a can to manage them there.

So you are going to take in less ore per hour because you want to see your hold fill faster?

The Mack is probably going to yield more Ore per hour if you take into account the time you take in warp with the Hulk or it's hauling ship.

So im not sure if i missed it or not but are the values i am reading base values with skills? For instance the mack has 31k ore bay for ore with perfect exhumer 5 and MB 5 skills?? Can this go up with cargo expanders or are they introducing specific cargo expanders for the ore bay?

With the small cargo bays i don't see why anyone would bother to use cargo rigs or cargo in low slots unless you would need to hold more crystals but seems like waste to me.

lol .. who knows. it certainly would have fixed several issues..

I wan't the Mack to have enough Ore bay that it comes out ahead any time you don't have a second account hauling. That's what it's role is. It should be great at that role, just like the Hulk and Skiff are great at theirs (though the Mack is also great at the Skiff's role, and the Skiff good at the Mack's atm).

Oh well, I guess the Mack's gonna be a HS boat (can flip proof).

The tank issue is separate. If the Mack had a tank similar to the current SISI dump Hulk (topping at ~22k), the Skiff would be king. If the Skiff's ore bay was then reduced to ~2 un-gang-bonused cycles, it would be a toss up.

The Hulk has the most Yield Measured by Roid->Cargo. Which is nice, but you need a Hauler.
The Mack should have the most Yield when measured Solo, Roid -> Station.

Maybe getting the numbers right for the Ore hold would be too difficult, I don't know, but that's how I envision the yield-cargo balance between the Hulk and the Mack.

Give 'em an active tank bonus and they'll be fine in 0.0 or give them a resist bonus and further reduce their raw HP.

There are bunches of ways to make them tanky vs rats but flimsy v people.

From the look of it, I don't think the Hulk's losing any of its ability to tank rats (I could easily be wrong. I don't have SISI installed due to space constraints, and I'm way too stupid to try modding Pyfa)

The Hulk should be vulnerable to gankers unless actively flown. It should not be able to tank a gank. That's the Skiff's job.

You got a T2 fit Catalyst in your tutorial?

It should be profitable to gank a Hulk. Otherwise the tanky ship is worthless.

Bring back insurance and we'll be doing it in Cruisers and BCs. Until then, it's Dessies all the way.

If the Hulk can fit for yield and enough tank that you're not going to be profitably ganked, why would Skiffs get used at all?.

Yeah, in Low/Null/WH, the EHP of a tackled ship that can't shoot back is so very, very important.

aaand how would that affect the value of the Skiff's EHP in Low/Null/WH?

EDIT: I want all 3 to be useful in all areas of space. I'm fine giving the Skiff a WCS bonus, but I want it to be a viable HS ship as well.

Where did I say the Mack should have its Ore bay reduced?

The Mack is designed for Mining unsupported by a Hauler. The Orca is Hauler support, whether you call it solo or otherwise.

AFK Mining without Risk is a terrible idea. At the moment, the SISI Mack has enough tank to do that, meaning that the Skiff has no role.

The Mack and Hulk can do that fine.

Especially the Mack.

I'm talking about the Dead Drones costing him replacement cash. Not missing cycles.

Again, making ISK AFK without risk is bad game design. The Sentryboat makes a pittance compared to the AFK Mack (current SISI build) and runs the risk of losing money on the project if he gets bumped in the first few hours of the session.

Yes. I know what AFK means. "AFK" Mission ships allow you to alt-tab away for a little bit, but you have to keep an eye out for spawns. They don't allow you to actually leave your computer without risk.

The current SISI Mack build costs too much to gank, so it won't be ganked, so sitting it in an Ice belt and wandering away for 45m at a time is perfectly viable and safe. That's not good game design.

The Current TQ Hulk can Tank 0.0 Rats with 2 MLUIIs. Is the new SISI Mackinaw less tankey with an active tank than the TQ Hulk? Serious question.

~80m in Modules on a 300m Hull? Oh, the Humanity. (You can even get by with all T2/meta if you're facing the right rats).

Who needs to be Cap stable? Your tank only needs to last long enough for your Valks to kill stuff. Or you can fit a small buffer (easy to do in either the SISI Mack or Hulk, rats not being known for their alpha) and warp away for a Drake. Either way, the Skiff doesn't have any usefulness in 0.0

I just fitted up some 2 MLU Hulks with T2 SSBs, no Cap mods, and Ark crystals, and they were stable.

The trick is Passive hardeners.

YAY! Cheap Minerals!

Miners realize that a higher average yield means they just have to do more hauling for the same income, right?

Except for T2, Faction, Meta, and Rigs. And plain T1 stuff doesn't drop as fast as minerals because the overhead (amortized BPO cost, factory slot cost, etc) takes a larger percentage of the purchase price at lower mineral prices (though I doubt the affect is particularly noticeable, so I'll give you T1 items as a wash for miners).

So yes, if Miners never buy T2, Faction, Meta items or any rigs, the Isk/Hr is irrelevant. What's that? A Hulk is a T2 item, you say? Really?

Keeping the Hulk still has the opportunity cost of its current market price.

Anyway, there's no real link between minerals and various items whose price is determined by factors entirely unrelated to mineral prices.

What I meant was that keeping it robs you of the opportunity to sell at the current price, not the price that you originally paid. Whether it's worth keeping it or not isn't what I was talking about.

So have anyone else noticed that a max yield Hulk (3 MSMII, 2 MLUII, +5% implant, 5 Mining drones II) along with a perfect Orca boost (or Rorqual) will yield more ore per cycle than it has cargo hold space? Meaning you will need to stagger your mining lasers and be unloading ores roughly once every minute.

This is of course if they don't make ore holds affected by expanded cargoholds / cargohold optimizations, which chances are they wont.

From my tests last night:

3x MSMII : 4538 m3/cycle
+5% implant: 226 m3/cycle
5x drones II : 562 m3/cycle (drone interfacing IV)
total 5326 m3/cycle

Orca boost + drones: 8659 m3/cycle (69.976%)

Rorqual boost + drones: 10,041 m3/cycle (98.9189%)


Using the following for boosts formulas:
Orca Link Bonus = 0.025 * 5 * (1 + 5 * 0.1) * (1 + 5 * 0.03) * 1.5 = 0.3234375
Cycle Time = 180 * (1 - 0.3234375) = 121.781
Yield Bonus = (1 + 0.15) / ( 1 - 0.3234375) = (1 + 69.976%)
Rorqual Link Bonus = 0.025 * 5 * (1 + 5 * 0.1) * (1 + 5 * 0.10) * 1.5 = 0.4218750
Cycle Time = 180 * (1 - 0.4218750) = 104.062
Yield Bonus = (1 + 0.15) / ( 1 - 0.4218750) = (1 + 98.9189%)

Hmm. I'm getting confused now. Does this mean the Mackinaw is largely a redundant ship now then if the Hulk gets better yield when mining ice?

Who uses Mackinaw & Hulk in low or nul sec???? Covetor is the ship to use there at present pre-'rebalancing'.

I think the ships are pretty much what CCP intended, and not what I hoped for. Personally, I don't see a reason to use anything but a Hulk in my fleet.

If you don't have skills to gank tanked ships maybe you should continue ganking those untanked ships. Getting friends should help too.

And again, if you think Skiff is useless with its role what role you would give it? Tanky mining ship isn't acceptable because you say it's useless role.

If one only looks at game mechanic I would say one cycle would be fair enough, but I see an ergonomic reason for a hulk to be able to fit more than one cycle: with only one cycle to fit the monotonic hand movements will increase with at least a factor of 2 to 3. This will cause an significant increased stress on the mouse hand. I am aware this does not matter if you just mine for an hour or two, but for any extensive mining op this will make a significant difference.

In your OP you wrote " there's no reason the hulk shouldn't have an ore bay equal to the skiff's."

But what reason exist to increase it then?