ORE have had a monopoly on mining vessels for too long. They, ORE, have become complacent, not improving their ships capabilities or adding new functions to keep up with threats or the increasing demand for more space harvested resources. To this end, I believe Sisters of Eve or another well organized group of engineers need to step up to the plate and offer alternative mining ship designs to compete with ORE… Should this happen two things will likely follow, Prices will drop on already available ships… and ORE will be finally prompted off their collective butts to improve their ships. A third possibility would be a war between ORE and whoever decides to provide the much needed competition… but could that not also provide new opportunities and incentives to improve on the ships we already know? Competition is key to improvement and growth. Let’s have some.
First you have to make mining not suck…
Personally, I do not believe there is much to improve with the Skiff and Mackinaw and their respective T1 counter parts.
And I also don’t believe that mining sucks. It’s the most basic activity in EVE that does not need any thrills or advanced extraction methods to be enjoyable in its own way. More thrills and advanced features only make things more annoying and more tedious (carriers or PI as examples).
Wasnt overly long ago the T2 ventures came out.
I love the sentiment, however from a game balance perspective, any rival Corporation would only end up producing ships that compete on looks, but not on mining.
In order not to completely replace the current barges, exhumers, expedition frigates and rorqual, they couldn’t be better at mining.
Perhaps they could be worse at mining, but have some offence capability (ie. more than drones), so that you could fight off drifters, etc.
All depends on what you propose they should do differently, but it certainly won’t be just mining better.
More likely the companies would compete on playstyle. Perhals move Coveror/Hulk and Orca to the new company - focus on fleet mining while the other hulls remain with Ore - focus on solo mining.
Either way, you would end up with the exact same range of options and capabilities - the only thing that would change is the corporate logo.
I think CCP needs to nerf the excavator drones a bit more to discourage multibox Rorqual fleets but, other than that, mining seems to be in a reasonable place. Much as I’d like to see the passive leadership skill boosts return, I don’t expect it to happen.
I don’t think something that much good for the mining ship line could come come out of this, the only thing that has not been done, which don’t really means it’s missing, is a subcap mining ship capable of locking itself in place.
Imagine a “marauder” type mining ship, not good without locking itself in place, vulnerable with both tank lowering and a timer to get out of it, but with hulk with mid-strong orca boost mining yield, 20-25 km range and unable to recieve boosts or rep, ore hold around 30k.
But just slightly different ships from the 3 existing barges I dont see interesting as is.
They made the Excavator drone therefore I am sure whoever has a beef with ORE will have the goons knocking down their door .
Nothing is “locked in place” when it gets hit by a Mach…
There’s plenty of competition with ORE, you can use any races’ battleships to mine ore instead. If you use a domi to mine you can have both heavy drones and mining lasers 
or use a tempest and have both missiles and mining lasers
Can’t believe you forgot about the Rokh for mining.
I also don’t believe mining sucks… but I also think it should not be ignored or worse, nerfed into dumbness. I have made suggestion after suggestion for new things for 14 years now… that might be added… and while the Venture and T2 variant, the Prospect, were suggestions of mine, the majority of suggestions on how to give miners some more interesting things to do have been ignored. Instead we get “improvements” like a hulk with two miners instead of three - a mack that no longer has an exclusive ice role - smaller cargo holds and the addition of unmodifiable ore holds, and creating more ISK sinks for the orca in the form of foreman command charges. Sure ice drones are a nicety… but wouldn’t you like to see some additional interesting harvesting types with new materials for creating even more interesting new items? ORE is not protecting our interests… They’ve been bought off by corrupt political leaders or worse, enemies of industry.
PS balance is an illusion.
Mining does suck. That doses’t change that it needs to be done sometimes. When I mine in High Sec space I do it while I am doing something else, like RL stuff. Writing 6000 word essays and things like that. I have no problems doing it that way.
Mining is going to continue to suck forever. There is no way to make it fun.
Medo
Actually. You can lock an orca in place by surrounding it completely with giant secure anchor containers. Putting baby in a corner (cage).
I think this belongs in the fiction portal part of the forums.
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