A thing or two about mining frigates

This was supposed to be a complaint about the modulated deep core mining laser but it turn out, I was wrong. But it lead to a nice comparison in mining values per time, which I am sharing with you now. At first, I wanted to show you that using that deep core mining laser on either the Prospect or Endurance was a waste of time but after seeing the numbers - well, you decide.

A Prospect with with 2x t2 modulated deep core miner takes the following times to fill the ore-bay:

  • Empty and no laser upgrades (2x 585mĀ³ per cycle): 25m38s
  • using 2x laser upgrades (2x 696mĀ³ per cycle): 21m33s
  • using 2x laser upgrades and t1 (Mercoxite) crystals (2x 870mĀ³ per cycle): 17m15s
  • using 2x laser upgrades and t2 (Mercoxite) crystals (2x 957mĀ³ per cycle): 15m40s
  • using 2x laser upgrades and t1 (any ore or moon-ore) crystals (2x 1131mĀ³ per cycle): 13m16s
  • using 2x laser upgrades and t2 (any ore or moon-ore) crystals (2x 1218mĀ³ per cycle): 12m19s

A Prospect with with 2x t2 modulated deep core miner takes:

  • Empty and no laser upgrades (2x 585mĀ³ per cycle): 38m28s
  • using 2x laser upgrades II (2x 696mĀ³ per cycle) you need to mine for 32m20s
  • using 2x laser upgrades II and t1 (Mercoxite) crystals (2x 870mĀ³ per cycle): 25m52s
  • using 2x laser upgrades II and t2 (Mercoxite) crystals (2x 957mĀ³ per cycle): 23m31s
  • using 2x laser upgrades II and t1 (any ore or moon-ore) crystals (2x 1131mĀ³ per cycle): 19m54s
  • using 2x laser upgrades II and t2 (any ore or moon-ore) crystals (2x 1218mĀ³ per cycle): 18m28s

A Prospect with 2x mining laser II takes:

  • using no laser upgrades (2x 293mĀ³ per cycle): 17m04s
  • using 2x mining laser upgrades II (2x 348mĀ³ per cycle): 14m22s

to fill the 10.000mĀ³ ore bay.

A Prospect with 2x mining laser II takes

  • using no laser upgrades (2x 293mĀ³ per cycle): 25m36s
  • using 2x mining laser upgrades II (2x 348mĀ³ per cycle): 21m33s

to fill a 15.000mĀ³ cargo bay (for comparison with the Endurance).


An Endurance with with a t2 modulated deep core miner takes the following times to fill the ore bay

  • Empty (no crystal loaded, 1114mĀ³ per cycle): 40m24s

  • using t1 drones (at level V): 35m52s

  • using t2 drones (at level V): 34m08s

  • Mercoxit crystal t1 loaded (1392mĀ³ per cycle): 32m22s

  • using t1 drones (at level V): 24m48s

  • using t2 drones (at level V): 22m27s

  • Mercoxit crystal t2 loaded (1532mĀ³ per cycle): 29m22s

  • using t1 drones (at level V): 23m01s

  • using t2 drones (at level V): 20m59s

  • Regular t1 ore crystal (1810mĀ³ per cycle): 24m52s

  • using t1 drones (at level V): 20m09s

  • using t2 drones (at level V): 18m34s

  • Regular t2 ore crystal (1949mĀ³ per cycle): 23m05s

  • using t1 drones (at level V): 18m59s

  • using t2 drones (at level V): 17m34s

An Endurance with with a mining laser II takes the following times to fill the ore bay

  • using no drones (at level V): 27m08s
  • using t1 drones (at level V): 21m37s
  • using t2 drones (at level V): 19m49s

An Endurance with with an ice mining laser takes the following times to fill the ore bay

  • using a t1 ice mining laser (at level 5): 18m59s
  • using a t1 ice mining laser and 2x ice harvester upgrade I: 17m07s
  • using a t1 ice mining laser and 2x figoris restrained ice harvester upgrade: 16m05s
  • using a t2 ice mining laser (at level 5): 17m24s
  • using a t2 ice mining laser and 2x ice harvester upgrade I: 15m42s
  • using a t2 ice mining laser and 2x figoris restrained ice harvester upgrade: 14m44s
  • using a t2 ice mining laser and 2x ice mining upgrade II: 14m24s

For comparison we take the mining barges (with 2x ice harvester upgrade if applicable) and let them mine 15 unit of ice in

  • Procurer: 15m22s
  • Retriever: 13m59s
  • Covetor: 10m29s

Mining drones with the Endurace mine the following:

  • Mining drone t1 x3 mine 140,88mĀ³ per minute
  • Mining drone t2 x3 mine 204,24mĀ³ per minute

What am I saying? Donā€™t underestimate the mining frigates!

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First of all, thanks for the analysis.

I just wanted to add that most people reason in m3/time, a much more valuable information given the cargo size changes from ship to ship.

Do you mean, I should give a mĀ³ per second?

Or do you want me to do a comparison of the barges vs the mining frigates? I think the latter wonā€™t be good one since both ship classes differ so much and a Prospect is still a good gas-mining ship.

Take your mĀ³/s and multiply it by 60 to get mĀ³/min.

I agree with @YeuxVerts_Belle, time to fill the cargo hold is not really as useful as mĀ³/min.

Hereā€™s a hint, the mining laser has a cycle time of 60 seconds and the modulated deep core miner a cycle time of 180 seconds - always.

Or commonly known as one minute and three minutes respectively.

Actually, no, they donā€™t. Skills, boosts, hull bonuses, and maybe also some modules affect those times.

cubic metter per hour is also helpful to know how much you can get paid for per hour.(MpH)

The time to fill your hold (TtF) is a good indication on how often you need to be ATK.

@elitatwo

I think they want a comparison with closer to details like this:

For example: Mining just veldspar without boosts a Proc can mine approx 1.5 billion ISK in material in 72-86 hrs.
While a Skiff can do it in about 50 hrs.(roughly speaking of course)

Under boosts: A skiff can approximate about 9 to 9.5 full loads flying back and forth @range of 40AU per hour.
How many loads can that same active played short changing skiff do if it didnt fly back and forth
with access to the Orca Fleet Hangar?

Ask and answer these questions, then do a proper analysis of Barges vs Frgs or maybe Barges then Frgs, then Barge vs Frgā€¦with and without boosts.

(some of my previous numbers are round about, since market changes nad other things, 18 months ago you could say an unboosted proc needed 72 hrs flat to plex an account)

Edit: alternatively if you are looking to do a major piece on this you can mail me in game, we can share correspondence on numbers and testing.

No, they do not. There is no module or effect that changes the cycle time of the mining laser or modulated deep core mining laser.

Also and this is very important, there is never a reason so leave your mining frigates unattended. The nature of any frigate is that they are not the tankiest ships in the game but they make up for that by having a cloaking device bonus, very high mobility and many use cases, like ninja ice mining in deep nullsec while under fire from belt rats or sneaky hiding with your cloak on and moving away from your ice block at full speed.

The Endurance may not have a covert ops cloak but while you are mining your 15 ice blocks in 14 minutes and 24 seconds, you can make use of the probe launcher to probe the system you are orbiting that ice block in.

Multiply the mĀ³ values times 60 and you get an per hour value, that is how easy math can be.

I assume ā€œfrgsā€ is supposed to mean frigate?

Again this is a collection of time values that were supposed to be a complaint about the modulated deep core mining laser. The values that I collected were there to show that it is usually better to use the regular mining laser at all times on the mining frigates.

And a small love-anthem about the frigates themselves, since I donā€™t see them used very much or being discussed at all. The only thing you can see are some threads about rorqual-bot-muppets that need even more bot-able stuff to really ruin everything for everyone else.

The comparison to the barges was just to show everyone that the Endurance can most certainly compete with the barges when it comes to ice mining.

The frigates are for one-character players or casual miners whom want to contribute but donā€™t want to sit in a flying strip miner. That means, I donā€™t fly and Orca to an asteroid belt, vomit some link on an unmanned ship, warp that Orca away and man my mining frigate to mine with mining links.

If you want such a comparison, feel free to make one.

Mining frigates especially the endurance and prospect donā€™t get talked about much because they are skill intensive to use in the situations youā€™re using and their yield is about 3/4 of a procurer for similar isk cost even if they are a little more survivable.

Problem with mining frigates is that there doesnā€™t exist enough valuable ore for it. For example if you go through all the camps you can imagine and mine the most valuable ore in the galaxy you will still get just peanuts.

So they do not actually work at all in the job they were designed for (ninja mining).

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