Or a guy in a frigate could shuttle over a crystal set.

Again: the problem here is a lack of imagination.

For that matter, just how many sets of cyrstals are you going to burn through in that deadspace pocket, that you can't load up before the op and not need to resupply?

Works great in deadspace pockets.

I still don't understand where you're claiming the stops are. The hulk mines, dumps ore into the orca (or jetcans it to be tractored) and then keeps mining. If it burns through all its spare sets of crystals, a hauler or the orca brings it more. What exactly is stopping the hulk from achieving maximum yield?

So the Mackinaw gets just under 80% the yield of a Hulk. Those people who can properly defend their mining ops will enjoy a 20% higher yield per miner than those who think the best way to mine is to sit in an unsecured belt in highsec.

Welcome to balance. You want top yield, you give up tank and need a hauler.

Who is going to fly the frigate:

- The guy in the Orca, removing buffs from everybody.

- The guys in the Hulks, factually making 1 of them far less efficient than a Mack and (for deadspace pockets) having to run again 80 km inside?


Stop assuming everybody can always fly 20 men fleets with all the bells and whistles. It only empowers blobbers again and again, in a game already suffering from over-blobbing.

Fleet = 2 people upwards.
I can understand Hulks catering from Orca "worthy" fleets only and upwards but then it has to work with setups involving Orca + 3 Hulks upwards not just when you have abundant "no doers" paying a subscription just to sit idle somewhere waiting to deliver crystals.

Also, part of the efficiency is also in the number of accounts.
If you have to use say Orca + 3 Hulks + frigate vs Orca + 4 Hulks, you just lost up to 20% of efficiency.
[quote=Vaerah Vahrokha]Fleet at this point would be better using a Mack.

The problem is not "burning through" a set of crystals. As others have noted, that happens very rarely. But what happens much more frequently is that the miner needs to switch from one ore type to another. Maybe the Hemorphite rock is exhausted, and the only other thing in reach is Gneiss. If you don't have Gniess crystals onboard, you have to stop mining, warp back to the station, drop off the Hemorphite crystals, pick up the Gneiss ones, and warp back to the grav site. Even if there is an Orca that holds every crystal in the game, it's probably a good 40-50 km away, delivering crystals for some other guy.

I'll grant that this change could force miners to plan out what they are going to mine, but those plans often break down when you land in the belt, see what's actually close enough to mine, and as other people mine and pop the thing that you were planning on hitting next.

Uhmmm...How the **** will you properly defend a Mining ops with Hulks having a Underestimated defense?

Look at this cenario.......5 Hulks ( maybe half Yield half tank fitted With Orca support even Shield Harmonizing II Supported ) ....Sitting in belt best allready near / close below the Roid spreadline Orcas relatively Close to them to catch Ore and hand out Crystals if needed ( Each partitioning Corp needs a own Orca to give instant access to Crystals [ this relays on Mining ops from Alliances with certain Corps partitioning in the Mining ops] closely together to fullfill the job ) So....Cloaky Cov ops Target pointer warps in...Bookmarks the best warpinpoint for the gankers + - 1000 meters, A few minutes later a pair of lets say 2 or 3 Smartbomb fitted BC's warps in supported by 3 Catalysts giving firepower where needed and you'll see a big Killmail coming worth about 2 - 4 Billions ISK and nobody really nobody even a guard support can do against it Even Sebo Nado's can't fire until the attackers are all flashy red and this can take cause of Server delay sometimes up to 5 or more seconds which are really enough for the Smarties to get another Cycle out while Concord arrives.

So, that about Hulks need to get protection, and stuff, Think about it...relatively less effort for the gankers if they do and act properly and getting a Killmail worth of Billions.

Sincerly

Carola Kessler

Uhmmm...How the **** will you properly defend a Mining ops with Hulks having a Underestimated defense?

Uhmmm...How the **** will you properly defend a Mining ops with Hulks having a Underestimated defense?

Look at this cenario.......5 Hulks ( maybe half Yield half tank fitted With Orca support even Shield Harmonizing II Supported ) ....Sitting in belt best allready near / close below the Roid spreadline Orcas relatively Close to them to catch Ore and hand out Crystals if needed ( Each partitioning Corp needs a own Orca to give instant access to Crystals [ this relays on Mining ops from Alliances with certain Corps partitioning in the Mining ops] closely together to fullfill the job ) So....Cloaky Cov ops Target pointer warps in...Bookmarks the best warpinpoint for the gankers + - 1000 meters, A few minutes later a pair of lets say 2 or 3 Smartbomb fitted BC's warps in supported by 3 Catalysts giving firepower where needed and you'll see a big Killmail coming worth about 2 - 4 Billions ISK and nobody really nobody even a guard support can do against it Even Sebo Nado's can't fire until the attackers are all flashy red and this can take cause of Server delay sometimes up to 5 or more seconds which are really enough for the Smarties to get another Cycle out while Concord arrives.

So, that about Hulks need to get protection, and stuff, Think about it...relatively less effort for the gankers if they do and act properly and getting a Killmail worth of Billions.

Who is going to fly the frigate:

- The guy in the Orca, removing buffs from everybody.

- The guys in the Hulks, factually making 1 of them far less efficient than a Mack and (for deadspace pockets) having to run again 80 km inside?

The new player who can't really do anything else and we are meant to be helping get established easier perhaps?

The reason I'm not giving stats is because I want people to actually go onto the test server and try the changes out rather than just theorycrafting on the forums basing their opinions of numbers that they have no source for and screenshots that provide little context.


(Also I don't know what they are)

Seems like most people are fine with the changes, other than Vaerah

Oh noes, but that would mean we'd have to talk to other people, rather than using our fleet of alts to mine a belt.

Who is going to fly the frigate:

- The guy in the Orca, removing buffs from everybody.

- The guys in the Hulks, factually making 1 of them far less efficient than a Mack and (for deadspace pockets) having to run again 80 km inside?


Stop assuming everybody can always fly 20 men fleets with all the bells and whistles. It only empowers blobbers again and again, in a game already suffering from over-blobbing.

Fleet = 2 people upwards.
I can understand Hulks catering from Orca "worthy" fleets only and upwards but then it has to work with setups involving Orca + 3 Hulks upwards not just when you have abundant "no doers" paying a subscription just to sit idle somewhere waiting to deliver crystals.

Also, part of the efficiency is also in the number of accounts.
If you have to use say Orca + 3 Hulks + frigate vs Orca + 4 Hulks, you just lost up to 20% of efficiency.
Fleet at this point would be better using a Mack.

HTFU and stop complaining about having to make friends in a social game.

HTFU and stop complaining about having to make friends in a social game.

My point is: today we have choices even within the Hulks route. Choices are good.

What you and the other blobbers want is some crap canned WoW-esque 1 way to play and the rest is verboten.
Sorry I am for freedom of choices, I prefer having no single change than a buff that corrals gameplay in 1 canned direction.

What you and the other blobbers want is some crap canned WoW-esque 1 way to play and the rest is verboten.
Sorry I am for freedom of choices, I prefer having no single change than a buff that corrals gameplay in 1 canned direction.

In the Hulk you really do not need to store that many crystals. A couple of spares for the ore you are mining, and 4 or 5 for the next ore you are going to mine. Once you move to the new ore you need to off load the old crystals and get a few new ones for the next ore type. If you are in a fleet with orca or hauler support you can get the new crystals from those haulers or orca. You do that in the middle of a mining cycle so you got plenty of time. If you use a jet can, the orca or hauler pickes up the old ones from the can and drops the new ones in. With an orca, you can use the corp hangar. If you are solo, you will be docking alot, and that gives you a chance to get crystals.

Having a bigger cargo is thus just a convenience, not a show stopper. That said, I would like convenience of a 500 cu m hold on the Hulk too, but can live with a 350 cu m hold and 25 cu m crystals ( room for 13 ).

BTW, everyone knows that you can drag a crystal straight from an orca corp hangar to the miner, with no need to first put it in your hold?

It's hard to take you serious when we're talking about MINING, and having choices. The only choice I see with mining is which type of rock do you feel like shooting today.

Those like me did not need Hulks to "improve" or "be boosted", we mostly mine during Hulkageddons and defend my / ourselves. Only annoying thing was the lack of options (yes I really love options) about fine tuning yield vs tank but it was not a killer.

So the real problem is that they are giving you more options, but you don't want to use any of those other options, you want to keep doing the same thing you have been doing without CCP mucking it up.

That is fine and dandy for high sec mining, with those who like to bunch up there hulks, but when you are mining with no rorq/orca in the belt/grav, there is no easy way to change out crystals without having to shut down your mining and go get more. No one is going to want to be a dedicated crystal boy.

Just reduce the size of these things and be done with it.

Maybe because I am the only voice talking for those who won't field 20+ ships but for the majority who field 5-8?

I don't see how having somebody decide how much cargo hold or how much crystals hold (and this is fixed for all the ships) you can have may be defined as "more options". Cargo hold is not so important but crystals freedom is.
I don't see what absolute game breaking disaster happens if you are able to carry the crystals you could today.

That is fine and dandy for high sec mining, with those who like to bunch up there hulks, but when you are mining with no rorq/orca in the belt/grav, there is no easy way to change out crystals without having to shut down your mining and go get more. No one is going to want to be a dedicated crystal boy.

If you can't deal with the changes to the Hulk (like most will adapt to), then switch to the Mackinaw and use 3x MLU IIs. After all, it's all about options, and having more choices, right?

If there is no hauler, then the hulk will be warping back and forth to drop off ore. You can get the next set of crystals on one of those trips. The cargo is plenty big enough to hold the crystals for the 6 minutes of mining it takes to fill the ore hold.

If you have the orca visit the belt once every hour or so to pick up jet cans, it can drop off an hours worth of crystals in the jet can on each trip. The will be, what, 8 crystals at most? Those will all fit in the hulk cargo.