Originally by: Lyvanna Kitaen

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I had a thought about the size of the ship maint bay. (I posted this with my alt in another thread)

I know that CCP has stated that the 200000m3 size was dictated by their desire for the Orca not to be able to carry battleships. However, the size of the bay is limiting its use in its primary role as a mining command ship. It really needs to have space for a couple of Hulks and a decent sized hauler.

A couple of alternatives:

1) You could increase the bay size and limit the bay to industrial type ships only as in the Rorqual. I'm not all that hot on this option because I would also like to use my Orca as a mobile exploration base which requires it to be able to carry cov-ops and exploration site running ships.

2) You could increase the bay size but limit the size of individual ships to <200000m3. This keeps the flexibility of loading many types of ships but disallows carrying battleships (the stated aim of the smaller bay)

comments?

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Originally by: CCP Chronotis

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general replies to some questions and clarifications

Clarifications

1. The Orca uses stargates and does not have a jump drive.

I realise this can get confusing with the various tiers of capital ships out there and the mixed referencing of it as a sub-capital or command ship. Its a Sub Capital Industrial Command Ship (SCICS), I have spoken!

2. The Orca can have 3 gang links active by default

I never mentioned this in the original blog but it was designed this way. In all honesty, you only ever need the mining laser range and duration links as the activation cost link is not really all that useful.

3. what's this about the x-large ship assembly array?

All current large ship assembly arrays which are only anchorable in low sec are being renamed to x-large assembly array.

A new large ship assembly array is being added with Quantum Rise which can be anchored in high sec and allows manufacture of battleships, freighters and the orca.

Fixes

1. The required skill for Industrial Command Ships to be changed from Mining Foreman to Mining Director 1.

This was honestly an oversight on my part. It should require the same minimum skill as the mining foreman ganglinks.

2. The sensor strength is silly

it has been reduced to more sane values. (Not that being jammed is a huge drawback.)

3. The capacitor recharge was a little too high

This has been reduced a little to more normal levels so we do not have a really high recharge rate.

4. Why does it not require capital corporate hangar bay component to build?

it should and we are looking at adding 4 of those to the material requirements.

Things we are looking at changing

1. Increasing the drone bay capacity to 75m3 and bandwidth to 50 mbit/sec

This is not a bad suggestion and we are looking into it.

2. Increasing capacity of the corporate hangar bay to 40,000m3

This is a reasonable increase in capacity without making the ship overly powerful.

3. Adding a 4th med slot

This is being looked into to add some flexibility and shield tanking potential.

General Opinions and Responses

1. It is a 'jack of all trades' and master of none

This is more a symptom of its primary bonus being cargo capacity rather than having a special ore hold which we would like to add in the future (along with special holds for other ships such as fuel bays for dreads and so on).

The addition of the ship maintenance bay which is not big enough to carry battleships (on purpose) but carry 2 hulks makes it role also swap a lot between general hauler and mining specialist and it suffers the same as the rorqual to an extent.

I believe in the future we will have much more focus for the ships with the addition of special hold for example then the intended role is much more defined than its less intended roles.

2. Why does it not mine?

This is deliberate, now is not the time to be adding giant asteroid eaters and we firmly believe that mining whilst not the most interactive or exciting mechanic (we have plans to address that) is a social mechanic and introducing ships which can swallow whole belts would be more harm than good. However we are not ruling out specialist ships in the future where a good niche is found for them.

3. Why does it not compress ore like the rorqual?

This comes down to balancing of the cost effectiveness. The majority of reasoning behind wanting it to compress is for veldspar specifically and we have plans in motion (which you have read about in the past) which will ease this issue specifically.

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Originally by: Baracke

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I am still confused as to why there has to be a hanger on the ship. It really doesn't serve a logical purpose.

It would make more sense to have 4 or 5 high slots for 2 or 3 links and 2 tractors. Also have a large non expandable cargo hold. Think for a minute, these ships should be nothing more than off the shelf freighters cut down to save manufacturing time and money, and allow corps to have a collection point during the mining ops for the haulers to pick up the ore. Keep it simple. Throw in the benifits for have a mining director onboard with his links and you have a great industrial support ship. I guess you could have a drone bay but why? Your sitting in the middle of a mission field or asteroid belt having a drink and watching the paint dry as the miners fill cans.

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