Narwhals.

Honestly I would rather see a set of industry based subsystems for our current T3 cruisers rather than introduce another hull.

Honestly, I like this idea purely from the fact that the skiff, as awesome as it is, really shouldn't be the best dedicated solo miner ship available for low-sec/wormholes/0.5-0.6 high sec. Don't talk to me about hulk/mack as hulk is really only good for fleet ops and the mack is for ultra carebears. The venture/prospect are also really for gas mining or when agility/running-away trumps minig yield.

We need something better. Orca is fleet support and hauling, doesn't really count. Rorq is limited in what space it can go into, is too expensive to risk, and generally sucks.

So, t3 miner fine - but don't use the orca as the template. In fact, don't let the max ehp go over 200K. Orca's max is 220-250K ehp? Skiff can get just above 100K ehp. T3 should have around 170K ehp active shield tanked.

The best solo skiff fit without fleet bonuses seems to have around a 22m3/second mining yield. T3 should have a max yield of 30 m3/second.

Single strip miner slot fine to force active play, but it should also have spare high slots for cloak and probe launcher.

Role bonus should include +2 warp stability, like DST's.

Max Ore bay capacity should be 20K m3 and drone bay should be 200 m3, while keeping drone bandwidth at 50 m3 as the drones here should be used only for defense/salvaging/logistics/ew and not for doing anoms or missions. The combat capabilities here really need to be defense only. Drone bonus should focus on drone hp and speed, not drone damage.

Honestly, I'd be fine if the cargo bay was scrapped all together - miners don't need anything but mining crystals and salvage from wrecks the drones create..so replace cargo bay with another bay that can only carry those two items.

T3 mining ships is a topic which comes up pretty regularly - almost always in a heavily overpowered Orca or Rorqual with strip miners format...

For a T3 miner however what we need is two new subs for each of the existing Strats, subsystems for which art assets have already been shown.
We would need a set of offensive subs with turret hardpoints and bonuses to mining laser and gas harvester yields (yield bonuses should probably aim for somewhere around 1k m3 per minute from Modulated Deep Core Miner IIs) and a set of (probably) Nav subsystems which offer large cargo and moderate ore bays (cargo including skills but pre modules should be around 2k or so to avoid conflict with the Blockade Runners (particularly if the Cargo sub were to be a defensive or engineering sub and therefore allow the use of both the covert reconfiguration and interdiction nullifying subs in conjunction)).

Shouldn't it be in suggestion forums?

T3 is based on sleepers wrecks. Do sleepers mine?

As already correctly pointed out, the OP suggestion is not T3 ship but T2 variant of Orca .

Real T3 IMHO will be T2 (Prospect?) with defense, propulsion and yield mods. Since propulsion mode is not really needed it can be exploration or scanning mode. Option to switch gas / ice or ore mining on the fly can be usefull in wormholes too, IMHO.

where is the balance here? Everyone would just aim for this ship and not fly anything else (much like what the hulk was a few years ago)

EVE isn't about training for endgame, it's about making choices.

A vexor dedicated to mining drones and tech 2 miner can achieve the yield of a retriever :P no ore hold though.

A vexor dedicated to mining drones and tech 2 miner can achieve the yield of a retriever :P no ore hold though.

Starting from the top no boosts included, but drones and the 5% mining implant. Fitted for max yield and nothing else.
Hulk 36.92/Sec
Covetor 32.11/Sec
Mackinaw/Skiff 29.77/Sec
Retriever 26.59/Sec
Procurer 26.45/Sec
Rokh 27.33/Sec
Vexor 18.91/Sec

Venture at 11/sec
Prospect at 14.48/sec

But you proposing mining stuff for combat hull which no sence at all. You have specific hulls for that so stay with them. And still i haven't heard anything solid such a reason for that ship and proper subs description.

Mining stuff for a combat hull is one way to look at it... Alternatively you could look at it as one hull which can, through the fitting of appropriate subs and modules, perform numerous different roles. Of course it doesn't perform those roles as well as a specialist vessel but its value is in its flexibility - which sounds to me like a pretty good definition of the Strats as intended (though perhaps not as used).

How would high sec mission runners if there was no ship greater than cruiser sized hull for their playstyle.

Mining ships are unfairly gimped. The skiff is a great ship but its really nothing more than a great faction cruiser with a single high slot.

Balance it, whatever, but we need a much longer playing arc for dedicated solo miners.