Alright. But then, I’m pretty sure people docked in station can go AFK. They may not be AFK, but they can. AFK is bad, right ? So what about not being able to be docked for more than 2 minutes in any station, when logged in? Automatic undock after 2 minutes.
I’m not serious of course. I’m just pushing a bad arguments to some extreme, while holding it to consistency. And I was bored : the game kept disconnecting me for the last 10-15 minutes. It is back to normal now, so off I go.
False equivalence.
The Venture, unlike the barges, is a nimble mining frigate that survives belt rats by sig/speedtanking enemy damage. The other two mining frigates too.
Barges follow a different path. Procurer and Skiff have the defences to just take most of the damage and kill the rats with drones. The other two barge types rely on a friendly Porpoise or Orca to give them not only mining boosts, but also shield repairs and drones to kill the rats.
Did you ever wonder why barges, apart from the huge yield, are so weak? And why the Orca/Porpoise fills all the things that barges need, such as drone damage, shield repairs, extra ore hold and mining boosts?
CCP created those ships to rely on eachother. They want people in barges and mining boosters to fleet up.
Yet here we have solo Orcas…
And some of us do not want to do that. It has always been possible to play this game solo; I did not join Eve until I realised that it was genuinely possible. I have zero interest in fleeting up, as I have zero interest in social interaction with people I do not know and cannot trust. Before anyone starts dribbling Massively Multiplayer etc, etc, at me… other people are the environment. Yes, sometimes untalented idiots gank me and win because there are four of them and one of me (or one person running four accounts because that makes them a heroic space bully). Fine, that is part of the game. But CCP knows that there are quite a lot of people like me - solo players. Their false assumptions are a) we can be nudged/bullied into playing cooperatively; and more fundamentally false, b) that will somehow make the game “better”. CCP should simply be grateful that someone like me is prepared to pay them every month to play their game, and leave just enough crumbs in said game on which the solo player can feed.
And the argument that Orcas should not be able to mine has been comprehensively demolished earlier in this thread, several times over.
And there are mining ships for that too!
For example: While the ship is specialised for ice, the Endurance is perfect for solo mining. Large ore hold, can speedtank any rats, easy to move around, nimble, cloaky.
And I fly one. I refer you back to my earlier points about operating at range, esp in systems where there are no docks.
Bottom line - Orcas are not ruining the game. Just because “there are other ships that do this or that” does not rebut the basic fact that all the anti-Orca assertions are unfounded.
Imho that title goes to Null Sec and WH. Having extensive experience in both. Especially wormhole sites are off the hook when it comes to risk vs reward. You rake in billions on a single evening and all you have to do is keep an eye on the probe scanner for fresh connections.
Same goes with null sec. Keep an eye on intel and local channel and thats about it. Gila or Ishtar drones out and time to watch some expanse.
If we look at the Covetor. It really has not changed since late 2004. It basically retained its core design. Going from 3/1/2 to 2/1/3 - its mining yield roughly remains unchanged as “three times” benchmark. Then, given that the Orca was not really introduced until 2008 - the claim that the Covetor hull was designed for “Fleet Use” is patiently false. The Shield RR abilities of Mining Command ships are meaningless when their is no eHP buffer for the Covetor to withstand burst DPS attack.
The 2012 was essentially spoon-feeding miners to pre-moulded fitting options. Because it would been too difficult and slow to rebuild the NPE (or any other tool) to provide the most basic education that underpins Ship Fitting. The trade-offs between; 1. Performance, 2. Defence and 3. Mobility. To me, mining ships rob players of this valuable lesson.
Why are mining ships weak in their defence? Because they were designed in 2004 when there was no concerted aggression against miners. Plus there were then the options/alternatives of Four Empire mining cruisers were on par with the yield of Retriever until the 2012 update.
I’ve mined a lot and have not yet seen an NPC do a ‘burst DPS attack’ that could kill my Covetor. The NPCs in null are tough, but not that tough. Unless you have a dread spawn.
Or are you talking about PvP? It depends on the enemy.
I’ve held a Hulk (first time I was using that thing) alive long enough against a roaming assault frigate with my Porpoise to push him off with enough drone damage. Without shield remote reps it surely would have died.
A larger PvP ship or group would indeed easily kill a Covetor or Hulk with enough burst damage regardless of shield reps, but that’s what you have Skiffs and Procurers for.
While the non-skiff, non-procurer barges do not have a lot of raw shield HP, they do have enough resistances when fit well to sustain damage when remotely repaired.
We are talking “orca” so orca are mostly used in HS, not in NS.
and in HS the highest danger is actually other players, who are protected by concord until they attack.
But you can say they are NPC since many have the same intelligence. And yes they do burst damage.
I’m sorry for having another perspective and taking into account more than high sec alone.
In fact, most of the Orcas I see are in null and my mining experience is in null. I have considered the ups and downs of the Orca in null to see if it was worth upgrading from a Porpoise. Is it then strange I take null sec into consideration when talking about mining ships?
I did see Orcas elsewhere, killed one in a wormhole, saw a lot of them in high and strangely enough none in low sec yet. But that could be due to me rarely being in low sec.
Apologies accepted. It’s difficult to remain in the context.
Especially when it’s your imposed context. How should I know? 
(I thought the context of this thread was ‘changes to Orcas’, to be fair. Not ‘changes to Orcas in high sec alone’.)
Not mine, but the context of people who actually complain about the orca. They are either HS gankers or HS miner who can’t afford an orca. They actually have no idea of the activity of an orca, even going as far as claiming it’s an “afk ship” - which everybody who used an orca know is wrong, unless you want to have a very low yield, and therefore is an absurd argument as any industrial with a miner is also an AFK ship in that case.
That’s a lot of assumptions. And also wrong.
I’m a person who has concerns about the Orca yield. I’m neither a HS ganker, nor a HS miner. I can afford an Orca and have a very good idea of the activity of an Orca, which is indeed not an ‘afk ship’ but certainly requires less input than mining barges that need to work with a limited ore hold.
Keep telling yourself that, it makes you win the argument.
No, your ignorance is what makes me win the argument.
You’re confusing an opposing view with ignorance.
Anyway, I’m done here. Call me when there’s a real argument.
For ice mining though, its true. And HS gankers hate that.
They say AFK is so bad its a gankable offense, or should be (unless cloaked)( eyeroll). Of course this is just an excuse to make stuff blow up for low IQ jollies, done in full knowledge that mining is so boring going AFK is often for preservation of sanity. But they cannot easily gank an AFK pilot’s orca, and that makes them rage.
That was my point. You have no opposing view but false facts.
You keep missing my point and then claim I don’t have one.
etc.
Fact : barges have ■■■■ tank, ■■■■ fitting. They are sitting duck that can’t evade incoming attacks in HS. They take ages to reposition so you need to use tricks to make them able to stay aligned. to the point that CCP even added rigs specifically because they are so shitty.
Fact 2 : orca has much lower yield than barges and exhumers. Even considering 0 drone travel time, max yield a orca is half the yield of a covetor. is lower than a proc.
So NO the yield of a orca is not a problem.
Claiming you are concerned with the orca yield, when its effective yield is a quarter of the covetor yeild, is BS.