So you don't think the recent changes have made it so that it costs more to gank miners? Or you don't think the quote above suggests they are using cost to balance the game?

you /can't/ use cost to balance the game because nothing is balanced by cost

a Vindicator is not ten times better than a Megathron, despite costing ten times as much; a Hulk does not mine ten times better than a Covetor despite costing ten times as much.

So you don't think the recent changes have made it so that it costs more to gank miners? Or you don't think the quote above suggests they are using cost to balance the game?

Before you could gank a mac with one cat. Now you need 2-3. It COSTS more. They have balanced the game so that it costs more to gank. How is this not a cost-balancing effect?

Sure I do. For instance, I know how to get a MSE on there, which does you a whole lot more good than an active booster.

Then the booster is even more meaningless. They have no clock to fight against and your active tank is insignificant compared to the DPS they can bring, even if they choose to go after your main resists. There's also no unavoidable loss so they can bring whatever they like. How many cycles do you think you'll get off when you're staring down the barrel of 5k DPS?

In short: don't fit an active booster. It does. Not. Help. You.

You're missing a rather important column in those screen shots. There's nothing to suggest that any of those actually group mine. The numbers don't lie, but all they're showing is that people like the solo playstyle. This is not news. It doesn't contradict that the Hulk is a better mining ship and that it excels in fleets.

This guy spelled it out right here. With the hulk he has to drop the ore every 104 seconds, with the mack you can mine for a much longer period without worrying about ore overflow, you can have afk breaks. Over a long period a mac user will mine more than a hulk user because they can mine and relax at the same time, resulting in much longer mining sessions.

I suppose you have not mined in low or null sec?

The Hulk, despite the purposedly applied annoyances, would have fulfilled its purpose ***IF*** some high sec mechanic would actually made them defendable by the fleet they are meant to always have around.

Actually Suddenly Boom is right.

So yes, Mack >>>>>> Hulk for fleets because it has no hassle at all, can always be used at peak efficiency, can always bring all the needed crystals, can get > 30k EHP before Orca buffs. You can easily reposition MAcks at distant roids with no logistics hassle and all of these advantages immediately and oppressively destroy Hulk viability, even in its own main job.

If CCP's goal was too make all the barges useful, they need to check again cause only the stupid fly the hulk now.

I suppose that, like Zishy, you are not familiar with the word GÇ£contextGÇ¥. He offered it up as something that could not be ganked by Catalysts. In highsec, the shield booster is a bad choice because it doesn't help any more (and in fact much less) than an expander would; outside of highsec, it doesn't help at all.

Yes, you would need a booster if you're caught alone, but that's completely irrelevant to the kind of problem he incorrectly claimed it could solve.

There are. ECM, logi, counter-ganking, mutual webbing, etc. etc. etc.

GǪand none of those are problematic for a well-sorted fleet to overcome. A fleet is not a goup of people solo-mining together GÇö it's a group where each person fills a slot and does a specific job. Again, that is what Zishy's picture show: people solo-mining together. If you do not intend to use a fleet properly then yes, a Mack will do a better job. This is by design. If you get your act together, then the supposed disadvantages of the Hulk become irrelevant and its advantages destroy all competition in terms of yield.

For some reason I immediately understood he's talking about 0.0.

Once again you theorycraft and speak out pure on paper reality. You can count those fleets on the tip of one finger

A fleet is formed by GAMERS (not serious RL logistics nutjobs) who want to do X to achieve Y.
As of now the :effort: of using Hulks vs the meager reward completely skews their viability. And most of all, cost vs zero survivability even when guarded.

Also, for being a fleet ship, Hulks are the ship that gets the worst from Orca buffs

It's days I only and exclusively find: Macks, Retrievers (even more than Macks!)

GǪmeaning his comment was both off-topic and full of bad advice. He was just flat-out wrong.

That's their problem. It doesn't mean the means and mechanics are not there GÇö it means they are not willing to use them and claiming that nothing exist is ignorant.

Yes. And the effort pays off. A tiny bit of effort will also give them far more than zero survivability. The purpose of the Hulk is to achieve maximum yield. It does exactly that when supported by a fleet. If you GÇ£YGÇ¥ is something else than GÇ£get the most mineralsGÇ¥ then yes, the Hulk might not be the right choice. This is by design.

Yes? And? People like to solo mine. Macks and Retrievers are the solo mining ships. What's the problem?

"Tiny bit of effort"... tiny enough that nobody bothers and Hulks now are deep blueball 0.0 material.

Because now Hulk is the new Procurer.

And that's what they were designed to be. "Glass cannons" for roid munching.

The hulk was better than every other mining ship in every single way (except ice mining perhaps). The current mackinaw is not better than any other ship in every single way. Actually it's not better in any way. It's a ship for compromises. Which happens to fit what the solo afk miner likes to do.

The tiercide was not meant to make all the ships equally used. It was meant to create roles for every ship. And that's what it has done.

That kind of goes against the whole "tiericide" CCP project.

Care to demonstrate how replacing the One King To Rule Them All with another goes along with tiericide?I can foresee a majority going for the Mack but it should be 60% not 90% (then 7% Skiffs). Ofc the numbers are taken out of my ass but they quite describe what's easily visible in both ice and roid belts in The Forge and around Rens.

Of course, after all we have those T2 battleships that are so fitting a role and... wait, there are more titans than T2 battleships (so a dev blog said).

So, making all ships get a role is one step but making them played is good game design.

CCP should rethink their game design before the go ahead with further Tiericide else it'll be just the same fail we have today, just with different ships being neglected and others being the king.

Forgot you are the resident forum mod, deciding what the others can and cannot post.

The world is full of means and mechanics...

"Tiny bit of effort"... tiny enough that nobody bothers and Hulks now are deep blueball 0.0 material.

I don't see a problem (see? I also go off topic, sue me).
But I do see how Hulks are seriously not worth it even for fleets.

That kind of goes against the whole "tiericide" CCP project.

I'm merely stating the fact that while everyone is talking about suicide ganks, he steps up with a nonsensical fit and claims that it is enough to protect against a catalyst gankGǪ and when called on it tries to get away by discussing a completely different and completely irrelevant scenario.

so don't be dishonest by claiming that there are none.

Again, it's no surprise that people who have consistently shown a preference for solo and AFK work has a matching preference for the solo and AFK ship.

No, it really doesn't. It's fully in line with tiercide: they are to mining ships what tier-3 BCs introduced to that class of ships GÇö more oomph at the cost of almost everything else. Glass cannon is an excellent parallel and it shows perfectly with the idea that each ship has its own role and speciality.

Any ship can get past the clouds. Timing.

Well, I'm talking about making L4 Recon 3 actually pay. Yeah, you can run it with a lot of ships, but which of the ships that can make the crossing can ALSO effectively harvest the ore? The missions pays by rapidly munching rocks at the end.

You say ANY SHIP can make it. If you are suggesting that a Hulk can make the run, post an un-photo-shopped screen snap and I'll gladly eat my words.

I suppose your idea of Tiericide on BCs will involve making a Tornado alpha 15% more than a Cyclone right? In exchange of some asinine UI titillating of course. And when they will fail you'll tell it's just intended?

Actually 15% is quite huge when you start multiplying it by every hulk in a fleet. Let's say corp A uses 10 mackinaws with full fleet boosters etc. They can mine (in theory) about 1000k m3 per hour. If they're mining arkonor that means about 350m isk per hour. On the other hand corp B is using 10 hulks and they're mining about 1150-1200k m3 per hour. Which translate to about 410m isk per hour. Tell me again why the hulk isn't worth it.

P.s. Those numbers were pulled from the eve isk per hour calculator.

Edit: Disregard the m3 per hour. Forgot to account for the reduced cycle times >< Isk per hour should be accurate though.