1) solve the "not enough power to warp to the destination" problem, (or is it really not a problem?)

2) make my retriever able to survive long enough to run away (increase effective hit points without sacrificing too much of what little speed I have - if that's possible).

This is not a problem.

You should be using strip miners in your high slot.

For your mid slot, pick a limited adaptive invulnerabiltiy. That raises your shield resistances.

For your low slots, you want a damage control (the suitcase thing - it raises resists for shield and armor), at least 1 mining laser upgrade. For third lowslot, you may want another mining laser upgrade (usually abbreviated MLU) or a beta reactor control : diagnostic system (this adds more power and shield regeneration).

For rigs, you want a medium core defense field extender, this adds to your shields. For the other 2 rigs, i usually recommend picking resists to offset the damage types that the belt rats do.

Lack of capacitor to warp properly:
This isn't uncommon with some ships for people with bad skills. You want to improve your capacitor boosting skills(energy management/energy systems operation) and train warp drive operation to higher levels to reduce the cap consumption of warping.

Other misc complaints:
I don't see why you're complaining about the speed or seem to think, that has anything to do with how fast you reach warp. First of all it's a mining ship. It's supposed to stand relatively still and shoot at immobile targets. Speed isn't going to help you here. Initiating warp is agility based. It starts when you are going towards the target and reach 75% of your max velocity. What matter there is your ability to change directions and accelerate. The larger your ship the longer this will take when starting from 0. The only way to initiate warp fast with other than small ships is to stay aligned to a target, which means flying towards it going at least 75% of your max velocity.

For your mid slot, pick a limited adaptive invulnerabiltiy. That raises your shield resistances.

For your low slots, you want a damage control (the suitcase thing - it raises resists for shield and armor), at least 1 mining laser upgrade. For third lowslot, you may want another mining laser upgrade (usually abbreviated MLU) or a beta reactor control : diagnostic system (this adds more power and shield regeneration).

But you also gave me some good ideas about how to prepare for a quick exit if needed. I could align to something and stand still. Then if the need arises, select "jump" or "Dock." That way I don't have to worry about the time it takes to turn around and all of that.

An Invulnerability Field will make a big difference to your available HP but I find I get slightly more EHP out of a Medium shield extender - which also has the advantage of being capless. Not only that, it doesn't show graphically and therefore can lead to a few more gank attempts failing as the assumption is likely to be that you aren't fitting tank.

The more important thing the Damage Control does is increase your Hull resistances. A Tech 1 DC improves the resists from 0% to 50% across the board and that effectively doubles your structure HP.



To align to something you need to be moving at 75% of your ship's top speed. If you're absolutely static (0m/s) then the direction your ship is facing is meaningless because a vector of 0 magnitude is a point and a point has no direction.

Given the retreiver's vast hold you're not likely to find a belt which you can track along for long enough to fill it while remaining constantly aligned at 75% max velocity and therefore you may as well find yourself a useful spot from which to work and stay there.

This might help, cheers...C:

http://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Glossary

Thanks very much. That was most educational. As far as aligning goes. What I meant was that I would point the ship to the jump gate or station that I wanted to jump or dock so that all the ship has to do is accelerate forward towards the gate/station and warp. The ship would not have to spend time turning around and such. That has to cut some time off from running away. You don't think?

Actually no. That mistake is easy to make though for people who don't understand how the game works. Ships in EVE are balls with a velocity vector. A stationary ship therefore has no facing. What you see on your screen is just a graphical presentation for your benefit. For the game it's just a ball/dot and reaches warp in equal time no matter what direction the target is. It's important to understand that the game only cares about, that you have a velocity vector going towards the target@75% max velocity. That means zero velocity doesn't help at all, but the closer to that 75% max velocity your ship appreaches the target, the faster you warp when the order is given.

Honestly, if you fit them both for maximum yield a retriever can mine 1093m3/minute while a procurer mines 1002m3/minute. In that configuration a procurer will have something like 5x the buffer/EHP of the retriever though. If you "tank fit" the retriever for maximum EHP it goes up to 22.2k EHP which the procurer still almost triples, and your mining yield drops to 844m3/minute.

Within that context the only reason I see to fly a retriever is the ore hold and how it cuts down on cycles "lost" to unloading. That advantage, however, is somewhat diminished if you compare a tank fit retriever with a mining fit procurer. The procurer might only hold 43.63~ of the ore that the retriever can hold, but it also mines ore almost 20% faster. The procurer being able to align/get into warp faster can also help reduce some of the retriever's ore hold advantage as well by getting you back to the mining (slightly) faster.

If you're in a situation where you can play to the retriever's strengths as a mining ship then it's certainly not a mistake to fly one, but all things considered these days I wouldn't fly one in most situations simply because it's more gankable, more expensive to replace, and its primary advantage over the procurer is easy to reduce if not outright negate.

On the other hand I suppose that discussions like this just go to prove that CCP did a pretty good job balancing the ships. If either the procurer or the retriever was a clear winner for solo mining it likely would never have happened.

Your yield will still be greater with the increased cargo hold of the retriever. The procurer will have to make more trips that will decrease the overall yield.

If you are mining in hisec you 'll find two dangers, rats and gankers, 4 hobgoblin can deal with any rats, you don't need tank. As for gankers... a retriever is not a juicy target and the ganker will be destroyed too. You don't hunt barges for profit and the fun it provides is very limited and balanced with the pain of security status grind.

To sum up use 3-4 hobgoblin and fit for max yield.

Wow. Not only did I get great advice on fittings, but I also got to see philosophical points of view on why one set of fittings may be more useful than another set. It made me wonder if anyone had codified a doctrine for mining and mining entities?

A doctrine is a codified set of principles, rules, and guidelines that inform how an entity operates under varying conditions and tactical situations. It lays out the entities' policies for money spent on R&D, training policies, equipment procurement, load-outs for varying situations, etc.

Has anyone seen any links to such a codified doctrine written up by EVE Online players?

Wow. Not only did I get great advice on fittings, but I also got to see philosophical points of view on why one set of fittings may be more useful than another set. It made me wonder if anyone had codified a doctrine for mining and mining entities?

A doctrine is a codified set of principles, rules, and guidelines that inform how an entity operates under varying conditions and tactical situations. It lays out the entities' policies for money spent on R&D, training policies, equipment procurement, load-outs for varying situations, etc.

Has anyone seen any links to such a codified doctrine written up by EVE Online players?

http://www.isktheguide.com/

If you are mining in hisec you 'll find two dangers, rats and gankers, 4 hobgoblin can deal with any rats, you don't need tank. As for gankers... a retriever is not a juicy target and the ganker will be destroyed too. You don't hunt barges for profit and the fun it provides is very limited and balanced with the pain of security status grind.

To sum up use 3-4 hobgoblin and fit for max yield.

Wow. Not only did I get great advice on fittings, but I also got to see philosophical points of view on why one set of fittings may be more useful than another set. It made me wonder if anyone had codified a doctrine for mining and mining entities?

A doctrine is a codified set of principles, rules, and guidelines that inform how an entity operates under varying conditions and tactical situations. It lays out the entities' policies for money spent on R&D, training policies, equipment procurement, load-outs for varying situations, etc.

Has anyone seen any links to such a codified doctrine written up by EVE Online players?