I’d love to see a porpoise, orca update that allows a modified mining laser. With fleet members able to compress their own, the ore hold feels obsolete on the ships. No adjustment to high slot numbers would make pilots decide on how they support the fleet but also gives them the opportunity to fill their holds. Or making more variations in drones, maybe make it where the laser can only be activated when industrial core is active. Just something that make sense for pilots to fill their hold while others are compressing their ore for themselves when you’re there
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And so the abuse of mechanics begin…
@kayah are you really this naive?
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the correct conclusion is that “shipboard compression” was a bad idea to begin with because it absolutely devaluates the mining command ship’s job down to a total “afk alt”.
The solution would be to remove shipboard compression again and specialize the mining command ships in being “mobile refineries” with boni to tractor, ore hold, local compression and fleet-support of the mining ships, like a ship maintenance bay that can hold Combat ships, a huge drone Bonus to help defending the miners against small ambushes and clear out NPCs and remote-shield boni to keep them repped under fire.
Oh wait, thats exactly what the Orca does.
So yes, all they need to do is removing that bad idea of all ships in the area being able to compress within their own cargos and Porpoise/Orca have a nice role again with an important job to do for the pilot. Maybe even buff them a bit in their abilities to support the fleet better, to reward this dedication.
But that would mean CCP would have to acknowledge that shipboard compression was a bad idea. And I highly doubt that will happen.
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So the mining ships would all have to slow boat 70km to and from the Orca every few minutes to compress? Everyone would need their own Orca alt because that slows production like you wouldn’t believe. At least I can warp to a station to unload. Can’t warp 70km. Either remove compression completely or leave it as is.
Hulks only work when they can do shipboard compression. Their holds are way too small for anything else.
I guess I may be. I don’t think in terms of exploit. Not looking for a way to abuse the mechanics; but balance the use of the large ore hold for a smaller corp or fleet I guess.
It’s funny that you say that.
Those ships have had tiny holds for years before remote shipboard compression was a thing.
Was mining impossible back then?
The Orca has a tractor beam bonus and boosts to increase mining laser range. I’m sure you could figure something out.
I agree with Syzygium, remote shipboard compression was a mistake.
It’s unlikely to be reverted as miners would revolt, but it was a mistake nonetheless.
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No, but they would bring along alts that flew the largest Ore freighters in the game. Before then, they would buy Ore Canisters which were huge and held a lot of ore. They required skills in anchoring.
My point is- Hulks have always needed help. We went from Ore Cannisters to needing an Ore Hauler alt to needing compression from a Hulk.
If you take away shipboard compression, you’ll see Hulks carrying their own Orca alt. It’s always been like this. Hulks need something else to hold its ore. This account isn’t very old, but I was playing a long time ago. I may have missed some steps in this progression since I had a really long break, but I can assure you that Hulks don’t operate all by themselves.
Are you saying Hulks stored their ore in other ships with large ore holds like an Orca?
Because they can do so today too and could do so if remote shipboard compression did not exist.
Which was my point.
There is no need for remote shipboard compression for Hulks to be useful. Even with only an Orca, with or without non-remote shipboard compression, the Hulk can do a great job. Just jettison or store that ore in the fleet hangar of the Orca.
So… every two minutes of mining, I need to fly up to 70km to an Orca, store the ore, and fly back to the rock to continue mining? 140km round trip at the very slow speed a Hulk flies every two minutes? That’s quality mining to you?
No. No Hulk pilot will do that. The Hulks will just multibox their own Orca ship to always sit close behind.
Plus, no Hulk is going to store his ore in an Orca that is not part of his own corp. Removing shipboard compression kills Orcas because no one will trust them- they will become Corporate use only.
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Ah, so your solution is to have the Orca move closer to the Hulk when remote shipboard compression doesn’t exist?
Looks like you can find solutions after all!
Exactly. No more having fleet Orcas. Ever. Every single Orca will be personal. Orca alts for everyone!
Not really. Fleet Orcas are always useful for their boosts.
You could just use a Retriever or Mackinaw with large ore hold if you don’t trust the booster with your ore, while still benefiting from their mining boosts.
That’s what I do when I fly with other boosters; I use two large hold barges instead of yield barge + booster.
That will only happen until the Hulk pilots train up the Orca skills. It’ll take a bit, but Fleet Orcas will vanish without shipboard compression. they will become Personal Orcas.
And I like receiving boosts from such ‘personal use’ boosters even though they’re not my own.
Fleet boosters will always be used, regardless of whether they have compression or not.
You don’t know how mining works, do you? Not even a Corporate Orca can be used for compression. Moon Mining spreads out the rocks over a great distance. They can be 50km or more from each other. No one Orca can be reached by other ships so that kills all Orca compression for the entire corporation. It will slow moon mining like you wouldn’t believe.
You clearly hate mining and want it to be nerfed into the ground. This will do it. This will end moon mining. Ice mining and moon mining will require everyone to have an Orca alt.
“Oh, but fleet buffs!”
Not good enough without compression. I’ll get my own fleet buffs from the Orca I’ll skill an alt up to. I don’t need any fleet buffs from anyone else when I have my own Orca. It wouldn’t take me long to get an alt up to speed for that.
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My corporation seems to handle it just fine in null sec with multiple boosters and one compressor per moon.
The only difference ‘no remote shipboard compression’ brings is that the role of compressor is no longer AFK.
Which I think is a good change.
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Wait… You just said one compressor per moon.
So your one orca flies around reaching every single mining barge in a few seconds, compresses the ore, warps to the next ship, compresses, warps to the next ship, compresses, etc…?
I’m calling you out for lying. No Orca can move fast enough to compress around a moon mining site. Every two minutes for a Hulk. Absolute nonsense. The Hulk would have to jet-can all of its ore which leads to theft in High Sec. Null Sec couldn’t even operate like this because you all have to scatter when a fleet rolls through. All that jet-canned ore is forfeit.
No, you are saying, “We use shipboard compression just fine so that means that removing it would work just as well.”
Try it. Just once- tell your corp to 100% stop doing shipboard compression the next time you mine a moon in null. Let me know how long it takes your Orca pilot to quit.
I won’t share the details of our moon mining setup but I’ll give you one hint:
It’s not the Orca that moves.
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Now I know you’re lying.
Hulk mines for 3 minutes… flies for 10 minutes to and from the Orca… mines for three minutes… flies for ten minutes to and from the Orca…
While everyone else spread out around the site does the same.
Mean while, I mine for three minutes, compress, continue mining without a break, compress, continue mining without a break, compress…
I’ll make so much more than any Hulk without shipboard compression that has to fly to an Orca.
You would rather accuse me of lying than optimise your mining setup, I have shared enough info.
Last hints: your hulks can keep mining and the warp drive is considerably faster than slowboating for 10 minutes.
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