I know that there has been a lot of talk about the topic in same other threats, and Many of you have experience in this too. So directly, what things can you get from hunt and blow the NPCs minnig haulers ? worth it ? … and if so, what do you have to do to get out unscathed and dont die in trying ?
Are we talking about pve or PvP here, because those are going to very different conversation’s mate.
PVE …
You can get hurt, they call in support fleets which can be quite powerful.
AFAIK the rewards are meh.
yea the suport fleet … but if a player can blow up a “retriever” or any T1, T2 miner ship, for example, at a time, and get out of the judment of the fleet… ?
I may be wrong but I think the only reward comes from blowing up the npc hauler that shows up periodically. IMO the rewards aren’t worth the effort and the whole thing is wasted deadend content that could have been good but has been left to rot.
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Cheap method is a T3D with MWD and combat scanner.
Shoot the hauler, mwd away from the group at top speed, scanning for where the convoy warps to.
warp to 100 on bookmarked hauler, mwd away from the group for a while then warp to hauler bookmark and blap.
Do not do this if the response team is battleship it’ll eat you. Probably not good for caldari version of the rats either.
As far as rewards, hauler may have ore and the strongbox has chance for harvester BPC’s and the fancier mining upgrades in addition to the skins. The mining boats have a chance for the mining upgrades and ore. For ore, have a hauler alt come back and collect it if you want that. I’ve seen upwards of 100k m/3 of ore in a hauler before, but results may vary.
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Couldn’t you just use a stealth bomber with polarized torpedos on the hauler and warp off when it dies?
I guess the biggest problem here is exactly who warp scrams and what is their response time.
there were already videos on that:
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thanks… and thanks for other answers too
Hy, one of my current main activities is killing NPC haulers, so I guess I can answer most of your questions.
First, you asked for the loot. If you kill an hauler, they normally drop a stronghold box (of the specific mining corp) with a chance of ~90%. The wreck can also contain ore with a chance of ~50%. The ore drop differes extremely. It can be a few thousend m³ or a really huge ammount. The biggest ore drop I got from a single hauler was 180.000m³ (normally its ~ 40k).
The boxes always contain a permanent skin for a mining hull.
- Venture, Prospect etc: 1 Mio. - 4 Mio.
- Mining Barges / Exhumers: 5 Mio. - 20 Mio.
- Orca: 100.000 Mio.
Its natural that skins of lower value drop more often than the ones for the big hulls.
Beside the skin there is also a chance to get a second (rare) item. - Mining Laser Upgrade: 300 Mio. - 400 Mio.
- Harvester Mining Drone BPC: 300 - 350 Mio.
So either you open the boxes OR you simply sell them. You can sell the boxes for 25 - 30 Mio. in Jita. When I sell boxes for this price, they are normally sold within 24h. In average I can farm 2 - 5 boxes per hour + the mentioned ore.
To the method:
I only kill T1 haulers in High-sec because they drop the same boxes as T2. The only difference is that T2 are harder to kill and the bounty (200k for T1; 500k for T2) but I never got a bounty for killing a hauler so far, so its maybe bugged. Anyway, we dont hunt for the bounty.
If you only kill T1 in high sec, forget the “Microwarp” or “volley” methodes, just scan-flyin-kill-loot-flyout.
Everything you have to know is following:
1, Scan the system with combat probes. Warp to the hauler (or to the mining fleet and wait for the hauler).
2, Get in close range and scramble the hauler. If you attack the hauler (it does not change your security status), all NPC mining ships try to warp out to a save spot (thats why you have to scramble the hauler). If the miners are out, a response fleet appears. In high sec either:
- only frigate fleet (most of the time)
- only cruiser fleet (~10%)
- frigate/cruiser mix fleet (very rare)
The frigate fleet uses up to max. 2x warp disrupter!!! (-2 warp core strenght)
The cruiser fleet uses up to max. 2x warp scrambler !!! (-4! core strenght)
Cruiser/frigate max 6!!!
So choose a ship with proper tank to survive ~30 seconds, fit 2 warp core stabis and thats it. Watch the overview what kind of response fleet is coming in. If you see only firgates, just tank the damage, kill the hauler, loot the box and warp out (come later with a hauler to loot ore). If you see cruisers, warp out asap, dont mess with them.Thats the reason why you should use a battlecruiser, because battleships are to slow to warp out before the cruisers start to scramble. And yes, cruiser fleet ripps BSs apart (insane damage, EWAR, NOS etc).
I use a Myrmidon with blasters, armour tank + 1 repairer. It has enough CPU to fit 2xstabi + combat probe launcher (200+ cpu). It has ~ 450 dmg. It can easily tank the required damage.
Here some other hints:
- I sometimes (only 2 times so far) see blue mining fleets (the normal ones are white). Dont attack them, they dont react like the others do.
- Sometimes (only in some special systems) you will scan down NPC Ventures, fly in and realise that they are (red) Guaristas. Warp out asap, they will call an entire fleet of 20 - 30 ships as response.
- If you escape a cruiser fleet dont scan the system again. You will scan the same fleet on its save spot. If you warp in you are daed.
- As said, attacking a hauler will not change your sec status. You only get a penalty for the corp status. -0,01%. Thats like nothing. You can kill dozens of haulers from a specific corp, doing only one LVL 1 mission will you get back to the old standing.
- If you have to wait for a hauler: Haulers will come in shorter periodes to exhumer than to barges than to ventures.
If you want to try, I would recommed you to start in a 1.0 system with the mentioned Myrmidon. The chance for a cruiser response is very low here. You will learn very fast how it all works.
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I guess you are talking about the empire faction fleets here, have you not seen a battleship mix one? The pirate faction fleets definitely have a battleship response fleet and I am sure I have seen a Joint Harvesting one.
I have nerver seen a BS response in high sec (normal corps). As I said, the Guaristas are a compleately different topic! They dont drop boxes, they call their fleet even if you dont attack them etc.
Mabye you scanned down NPC miners and saw batteships on the same location in your scan result. In this case you scanned down a large “resource wars” site.
If you really have BS response in High (what I doubt), then just warp out as with the cruiser fleet.
Errr yes they do. I’ve made the odd billion off pirate skins.
Thinking about it the Joint Harvesting battleships I saw would have been on SISI before the mining teams hit TQ … its quite possible they got nerfed.
Almost good.
From my experience fleet composition doesn’t rely on system sec status - I’ve had lots of BS fleets in high highsec.
Frigate fleets wil occasionally disrupt and scram. You may be in for a suprise especially when they jam/neut along.
Cruiser fleets come with tackle frigates. BS fleets usually come with cruiser and frigate backup.
Fleet colors correspont to your standings. Blue for positive, white neutral and red for negative. Fleet response and standings are irrelevant. If you attack they respond with force and the fleet composition is random.
Guristas and Blood Raider fleets are the same in terms of response, but they have a “built in” negative standing. Response triggers right when u land on grid.
Isk/hr wise isn’t great but if you dig into it with different tactics it can be really fun.
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I have dark memories that I got a BS fleet in Aurcel (0,5) once. But I cant remember if it was a normal NPC corp or pirate. I normally only hunt in 1,0 - 0,7 systems. In 0,6 - 0,5 the chance to get a cruiser fleet (and waste time) is too hight.
When I started to hunt haulers, I used a full tank ship, set a mobile depot and refitted my ship with stabis after I killed the hauler. I learned that I never need more than 2 stabis for a frigate fleet. Maybe they also sram somethimes, but then only with one scrambler (-2), so it makes no difference if 1 scram or 2 disrupters.
Other than response time and it’s trigger there is no difference between empire and pirate response fleets. Both can spawn any composition of response fleet.
Scram chance on frigates is actually low and lasts only for a short period but if you get caught by two frigates it may be long enough for you to look for a new ship 
If you’re only after a T1 hauler a polarized bomber with expanded launcher is a best choice imo.
Did them ages ago ship of choice was Gila for t1 hauler blap before response fleet lands.
Approach hauler overheat all the things align out scram shoot kill warp out d scan for when response fleet warp out, warp back in scoop loot and drones that sometime I don’t wait to return,
Gila have launchers tractor beam tp webs sebo,s ab damage mods and rigs and some warp rigs with zero tank.
Spawns are usually frigs than cruiser frig combo and lastly bs cruiser frig as toughest one.
Killing t2 hauler would always yield more stuff than t1.
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Did this in a carrier once. It was a mistake.
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this response is awesom, you have experience a lot of this, you tell here a complete “basic guide” about the topic.