I feel like there needs to be a Large (Battleship level) Mining ship(s) added as the next step in progression past Exhumer/Barges for High sec, utilizing mining laser technology. I think a T2 variant of this BS/Large ship could include a siege module for longer range, faster cycles and even more tank, at the cost of committing you to grid for 30sec to a minute. I also think a Dreadnaught/capital ship as a further step that is restricted to non-HS space would be a good.
I also think a handy item to add to the game would be a deployable ore compression module, but it is limited to only being able to support the mining rate of 1 ship, and cannot be picked up while it is in the process of compressing ore, and easily scannable. The deployment time should also be 30s-1min. This way its not an automatic replacement for a command ship, but does give some benefit to solo miners who are just mining on their own, with Retrievers and Procurers (and their T2 versions) benefiting the most from this, but even Hulks and Covetors could make use of this in a pinch.
Until now, most sites don’t allow a Prospect to use it’s full hold either, while those sites that do have enough gas to fill it spawn rats that wreck a prospect in a single volley, and would kill a barge over a longer time given they usually have 4~10 warp disruptors and the new barge alignment is so poor you won’t get out before they tackle you, so you need to voluntarily warp out and give up on the gas before the rats spawn. There’s a reason all gas huffers are align time tuned
I’d acutally say the opposite. Once the site’s been started to mine, it would be good to despawn it after the last ship warped off grid. Gas sites with rats inside are a death trap, and as the rats aren’t on dscan and can’t be combat probed either, the only way to check whether or not there’s rats in the site is to warp there. If you tuned your prospect for align time and tank, and warped cloaked and were lucky you might be able to get out again before they lock and kill you, but with a porpoise or even barge, you’re just dead. And there’s nerds that warp into the gas sites just to cause the rats to spawn, i.e. don’t even want to mine or gank or whatnot, they just want the next player that warps there to get clapped.
I aggree, the Exhumers will have battleship grade tank, why shouldn’t they also be getting battleship grade signatures and battleship grade inabilitity to solo for a prolonged time (cap instability, insufficient local repairs, …).
already exists, it’s called Rorqual.
Ore Compression Array? Refinery?
Outside of a Citadel, such an asset cannot exist for the obvious reason that the ore inside that asset would be asking anyone in that solar system to wreck the deployable and take the ore. The amount of isk in form of Veldspar that you can load into the cargohold of an assaul frigate/t3d/t3c… might be neglectible, but the amount of ore in form of Compressed Veldspar is definitely not. So why not grab ourselves a little killmail for the deployable and on that occation the expensive content?
Yeah, I’m saying they should make big versions of the no rat gas sites. But they shouldn’t make the total gas spawn more, total gas should be the same. I actually like the idea of gas barges, but if you’re going to risk it in a ship that can’t align fast, you should be rewarded with bringing in a full hold instead of “oh man, it’s gone, got to warp”
Someone somewhere, lost in this thread, already suggested it, but I’ll echo. Please add a L4 Security agent, and why not a distribution agent for ORE. In their null-sec space, of course. We can assume they have their own interest to protect after all.
Could help with the availability of the ORE modules, if security and distribution mission runners are also involved, not just mining mission runners.
You say this yet the Proc loses 2 mids for a single low, and gains no extra shield / armour. The Skiff just flat out loses a mid and a couple of thousand raw shield / armour / hull (really?!) HP … AND you DOUBLE their mass and reduce their speed. Can you explain to me the reasoning for these changes which seem to be the opposite of your listed end goal.
I’ll explain it to you: Your Proc has less base shield, but it can now mount larger shield extender modules, as the powergrid was increased, yielding in more buffer then it used to have
It’s also slow, but the actual movement speed of a mining barge barely ever mattered anyways. What matters is the align time. If you decide that your align time and/or speed is more important then your tank, you can instead now mount an Afterburner that is appropriate for a Mining Barge, which allows the barge to move faster then it previously did, and, if it wasn’t moving, to pulse the barge into warp, thereby undoing the agility nerf.
It’s up to you: Want tank, then it’ll be tankier then before but slower. Or want more speed, then it’ll be faster but less tanky.
No more Procurer cheap tackleboat, and that’s good.
I don’t know why ccp can’t just focus on making updates that are fun and exciting. I’m just not excited about these changes, you get something small and lose more.
Dump the waste, no one likes it. Focus on making changes people are excited about.
The Procurer previously had an agility to be in warp in 10 seconds.
It now takes 15 seconds.
With the loss of 2 mid slots for the Procurer and without reason to fly faster, it makes very little sense to put an afterburner on it just to shave off a few seconds of align time for something that should not have been increased this much anyway.
The Procurer should not be the slowest aligning barge - it is supposed to be the barge most suited for combat and it used to be the barge with the best combat stats including agility. Now the Covetor is the most agile barge. Why?
How can this be true when you’ve removed two of the mid slots from a Procurer that are very useful for multispectrum shield extenders, etc, yet increased the overall HP by a mere 500.
I tested the new setup, and even with 1600mm steel plating in the one extra low slot provided ( which maxes out the power unit anyway so wont work ) , I get less EHP than my current 61,000. Where is this ‘significant increase’ ? All I see is a decrease.
@CCP_Psych
Can you please provide some context as to why you are removing the mids on the procurer/skiff and nerfing their speed into the ground?
To me it seems that you are limiting the players’ fitting options when you are removing the mids (especially now that you have nerfed the speed so severely that a propulsion module is needed!!!).
As for the nerf to the speed, this seems strange. The procurer/skiff are clearly the smallest ship models of the mining barges/exhumers, yet you are giving these ships the highest ship masses of any mining barges/exhumers - this seems higly illogical!!!
Therefore, I would like to hear your thoughts about these balance changes.
The waste generated by your feverish activity in the belts adheres to the coating of your ship, consolidates to form an extra protective layer and thereby increases your resistance to penetration.
It does slow the ship down even further though; something you should take into account when calculating your ‘run away’ strategy.
My Procurer currently has 4 mid slots and ALL of them are devoted to shielding. Now I’ll be down to just 2 mid slots…why on Earth would I want to devote one of them to an afterburner just to counter the 5 second increase in align time ? That then leaves me just ONE mid slot for shielding.
And all of this nonsense under the guise of significantly ‘increasing’ EHP ! Am I gonna get a free Brooklyn Bridge as part of this alleged ‘update’ ?
Yeah, like 5 Hobgoblins are gonna see off half a dozen Catalysts each firing 400 DPS…all before Concord shows up 7 seconds later. In reality they’d be lucky to take out one of them in that time. So what does it conceivably matter that the drone range is doubled ?
Plus, I always wait for NPCs to get close anyway before using drones…as the Procurer is so slow that I can’t be bothered spending 50 years going round checking half a dozen Serpentis wrecks for loot. All of which even more makes the drone range increase irrelevant.
In the case of the Rorqual, I think having it focus on its originally intended purpose of being a Support, booster ship for miners is correct, as well as an advancement beyond the orca. I’m suggesting a capital mining ship, following tech based on mining lasers as a logical progression past the Large Battleship class mining ship, with superior mining capabilities, but lacks the ability to hold more than a few cycles worth of ore, requiring it to rely on support ships like Orcas or Rorquals to transfer the Ore and compress it.
I think that’s the T1 version, Cilla. I just did a quick check on my Catalyst, and its ‘offense’ reading is ~760 DPS. I do have alts that use T1, but one of them has just finished training into T2.
It’s only ISK, after all, and T2 may be necessary if some of your ships get any tankier. I’m prepared to make that sacrifice for the sake of preserving genuine conflict within HIghsec. I’m just that much of an Altruist!
