Incoming Changes to the Orca

Industry Gameplay Center Mining & Extraction
498

Since you don’t like the AFK-ability of the Orca, i don’t see your problem making those Rocks smaler.
Smaler Rocks = less AFK-ability

Right, except the price spike over 10 ISK in between.
Which means either:

  • There are still big Stockpiles around
  • Too much Veldspar in Belts/to easy to get
    or both.
    So reducing the amount of mined Veldspar would help out to further decrease the Stockpiles.
    That can be achived by:
  1. reducing the avaiable amount of Veldspar, aka exchange big Rocks with small ones. Which would also:
  2. create less AFK-ability. Basically hitting two Birds with one Stone.

  1. I can’t be selfish in that case, because i’m not using Barges, only Orcas. So it’s the exact opposite. In that case i would actually ask for a buff of my Competition!

  2. “Repairing EVE’s Economy” is right now tried by CCP through the drought Phase. So asking for an even greater reduction of Veldspar availability, follows the same path. Which includes the reduction in AFK-ability: more APM, less people willing to do that.

So telling that this would reverse the repair of the EVE Eco. makes no sense. If making Tritanium less avaible is reversing the repair, the the drought Phase itself would be also a reverse. But since the drought is the “repair”, it would reverse itself in your “logic”. That is a Paradoxon.

And since i know you like to go OT with the Skiff:

It wont!
Example Numbers:
You have a Rock that has a 10k Size. Your Skiff needs 20 Min. to finish that Rock.
Now you give that Skiff a 25% buff in Yield.
That 10k Size Rock is now mined out in 15 Minutes.

So you got the same Ammount for less Time Investement. That would actually be a good thing.
It doesn’t hurt the Economy because there still only 10k avaiable.

Now you cut that rock down to 2k Size.
Your Skiff will mine those 2k in 3 Minutes now.
That’s less Time investment for you, less Veldspar on the Market. That also would raise the Veldspar Price, giving you more Money for your (less) Time Investment. Win/Win Situation.

499

Which would punish people flying Skiffs just so you can keep AFK Orca mining while you watch Netflix or take a shower or PvP on an alt…

:man_facepalming: Oh man, nice try.

You’re suggesting that exhumers get a buff (which would increase the amount of minerals entering the market, which would hurt the economy right now) in order for the Orca (which you use) to be left alone. This change will not only hurt the economy (which CCP is desperately trying to fix) but it would also make life more annoying for people who mine in exhumers. So what you’re actually suggesting is that everyone else suffer so you can continue AFK Orca mining.

That’s selfish. Gimme a break dude. Seriously, c’mon now.

While at the same time increasing the flow of minerals onto the market by buffing the mining yields of exhumers. This is not a parsimonious solution. This is not a cogent solution. This solution requires changes to three different ships as well as working at cross-purposes to the rebalancing of the economy - all to accommodate your Orca mining playstyle.

Just give it up already. I’m not trying to be rude here, but you’re very transparent.

[quote=“Zayisha_Andara, post:498, topic:298741”]If making Tritanium less avaible is reversing the repair
[/quote]

That’s not what I said. Try being honest from this point on, so we don’t get the thread locked again.

Bud, you started those discussions which you now deem “off topic” because they didn’t go so well for you. Stop posturing and being dishonest.

Oh great, so we can increase the flow of minerals onto the market by 25%. That’ll fix the economy!

No, there’s many billions upon billions available. There’s more than 1 rock in each asteroid belt, and there’s more than 1 asteroid belt in the game dude.

Seriously, just stop.

Your solution is incoherent and lacks parsimony. You are performing mental gymnastics in order to justify your harmful behavior.

500

Let’s do a recap.

Goal: make the Orca less AFK-able
That means: make it more interactive = more fun

You press for an Orca change. Ok, you made that obvious enough.
The Question is: change the Orca in which way. Let’s see what we could do:

Get rid of all Mining capabilitys
Not an Option. That would revert the Orca back to a 100% AFK Ship.

Reduce Yield
Would just do the opposite by improving AFK-ability. Large Rocks, also smaler, would last longer = more time for being AFK.

Buff the boosts
Not an option. Would only buff Barges/Exhumers = bad for the Economy (as you told us).
Sidenote: Buff the Tank-Boosts for Barges/Exhumers wouldn’t affect Economy. So that would be something positive to do. +1 on that. But that’s not the Topic here.

Nerf the boosts
Does not affect the Orca at all. No change in AFK-ability.

Change Tank
No change in AFK-ability.

Change Speed
No change in AFK-ability. Orca is already extremely slow. Chances are people wouldn’t even notice.

reduce Cargohold
Sounds first like more APM, but is not. Can be easily compensated. So no change in AFK-ability.

Well… nothing much left when it comes to making a change to the Orca.
But since you see something we all don’t see…

Tell us, which Change should the Orca receive?
And yes, we know… making it less AFK-able. Tell is how !

3 Likes
501

AKA: “I’m losing the argument, let me try to reset the chess board.”

Ummmmmmmm actually yes. If an Orca had the same EHP as a Covetor, I promise you, you wouldn’t find many people AFK mining with Orcas anymore.

Yeah I’m fine with that. The problem isn’t that the Orca is AFK at all, the problem is that the Orca is AFK and mining.

For the rest of my thoughts on Orcas and mining, just read my blog.

502

You would just find nobody with orca anymore.

This is NOT making it less AFK but instead making it useless. Thank you for affirming once more that your actual goal has never been to make it more active but instead as I wrote days ago, to make it an easy target out of pure spite.

5 Likes
503

And this is where you go off the rails.
Because this proves your entire argument about AFK is just a red herring and what you really want to do is just wreck the Orca, make it a pure AFK alt boat, and destroy all the active Orca miners.

4 Likes
504

Well, you might see it as competition. I don’t.
In my Country “Let’s do a recap” means: let’s see what we have so far. Let’s do a quick Sum-up.

Back on Topic:

That will not happen.
And even if, that would also result into a reduction of Orca production costs to keep it balanced.
So either what Anderson Geten said would happen. Or Orcas would still floating around being AFK. I see Corvetors sitting (and dying) in Ore and Ice Belts AFK all the time.
So no change in AFK-ability. Just less Ships needed in HiSec to Gank. Which is not the intention and missing the Topic.

For all others that are sticking to the Topic.
Switching to an idea that slipped into my Mind:
The Problem i see in making the Orca less of an AFK ship being not achivable, without taking away one of it’s Roles.

So maybe that could be done by reworking the Orca and reduce it’s Cargohold.
Basically take away the Hauler Role (and give that to a new Ship. Like a Miasmos T2 Version).

How could the rework look like? How to balance?

  • Reduce production costs (like 350M to 400M ISK)
  • Make it have slightly bit more Tank than a Skiff
  • Buff the Tank-Boosters
  • reduce Cargohold/Fleet Hangar
  • greatly reduce Ore Hold
  • Buff speed/agility
  • adjust lock time/signiture/etc.

Basically rework it into a Fleet Support Exhumer (and rework the Porpoise into the smaler Mining Barge Version). Bringing the Orcas AFK-ability to the same Level as Exhumers.

If Command Destroyers/Cruisers are on par with Destroyers/Cruiser, why not have that with the Porpoise/Orca and Barges/Exhumers?!

I would keep the Drone Mining to give Players the option for a different mining Style.
And also to not force them to Skill into the same Stuff like Barge/Exhumer, since you already have to go intothose Fleet Support Skills.

Just an idea. Did i miss something? Let me know what you think.

2 Likes
506

says the one who claims that making a ship useless is an adequate change for a balanced gameplay

Also the one who always answer with dishonnesty when asked genuine questions. People asked you what was your solution and they are still waiting.Instead you propose to remove the ship

Yes you literally said that removing the EHP of the orca would change its afk ability, and you gave an example of covetor EHP. That was just completely wrong as the orca would actually be not played anymore.

Personnal attack.

1 Like
507

Not sure I understand how that goal as expressed (ie. make it more interactive), equates to more fun, especially given the approaches discussed in this thread.

Seems the approaches in this thread result in just more of exactly the same thing, with no change (at leasr no increase) in the fun of mining.

That idea is one where the more AFK nature of the Orca is balanced by the need to also have at least one other mining ship, which requires higer APM. So the net outcome of the change isn’t really about the ship, but reduces the ability of a player to play with low attention.

However, just pushing the Orca back to an alt only role wouldn’t be a great outcome. Requiring alts in order to min/max is a direction that CCP have been moving away from.

1 Like
508

I never made that claim.

I never proposed that.

I never suggested that Orca EHP be nerfed.

You just agreed that nerfing EHP would reduce AFK Orca mining.

Another wasted post, sad.

Sadly I don’t see this changing very easily unless mining is moved to anomalies which put out considerable environmental damage and spawn Triglavians/Sleepers/whatevers to shoot at the fleet, necessitating that Orca’s be actively flown as gigantic Industrial logistics platforms. Because players, especially HiSec miners and just miners in general, will always trend towards the most AFK/low-attention solution, which is right now the Orca or the Retriever/Mackinaw.

The way mining (currently) works and scales, I don’t see how they can accomplish this. Right now mining scales very well. Double your output with two characters. Triple your output with three. Add an Orca and put 33% on top of that. Put two Orcas and one can haul and you never lost boosts! Oh, the Orca can mine as much as a Skiff, while mostly AFK, and has 3x the EHP? Why mine in a Skiff then? Get an Orca. Get two Orcas! Three! FOUR! Once a ship becomes the “apex”, nobody will use anything else. There needs to be roles and balance.

509

The problem comes from the blurry definition of AFK, as already explained it’s not he same as APM and for the good reason that APM is basically yield. It looks like the people who use that term arctualkly have no idea what this, which was BTW already proven by their usage to describe people with low activity.

You can’t just say that AFK bility is “it can be put AFK” because actually any T1 indus can do that. Which is what I wrote here :

If you define AFK-ness as the ratio of the rate it acquires resources when AFK over the rate when ATK, then this needs to be set for perfect skills character and a given tame frame. eg a 100% AFK15 means that if you are AFK for 15 min you still get exactly as much resource as if you were ATK. But then the element of comparison makes no sense, as which value is important will be up to everyone.

So the notion I was using (when comparing to the covetor) is the APM, as Actions Per M³ : what is the range of actions needed to mine a given volume of ore. As I already wrote, this APM is actually higher on the orca if you want to fly it actively than on the covetor, because the orca needs to move to the rocks. (though if the rocks are average bigger than the covetor hold, it needs to empty its ore more per m³ mined than the orca needs to change target so it becomes the opposite).
Actually that makes more sense than comparing per minute since per minute is not a meaningful

You did. Read again. You said that making it covetor thing would make it less AFK while it actually would make it not used. So you made the stupid affirmation that making it useless is as good as making it non AFK, therefore admitting your original goal was not to make it non-AFK but actually useless.

No. Just, no.

Liar.

Liar again.

Why do I see exhumers along with orcas on dscan ? Yes, because you actually have no idea what you are talking about.

It’s not. You just don’t understand how it works

Which, there are already.
Therefore, your only goal was to make the orca useless out of spite.

2 Likes
510

I really think that the biggest issue with the Orca is that CCP has made it a jack of all trades ship. I know that lots of people are happy that they only need this one hull to do tons of jobs, but the problem is balancing it with other specialized ships.

I think that in the end, the best way to balance the Orca is going to require taking a saw to it and cutting it up into different specialized hulls. An ORE Battlecruiser that has its boosting and maybe mining abilities, an ORE frieghter that has its massive holds and tractor bonus, and if we get the dynamic and dangerous ore anomalies you talk about, maybe we get a logi hull that has some mining as well.

Not 100% sure how you run your fleet, but you could do something like; 1 ORE BC to boost, 1 ORE Freighter to haul, X barges to mine. That way you never lose boosting and still have solid hauling capability.

I think the best way to introduce this would be like what they did with carriers, you can still fly one and it gets changed into the ship based on what you have fit. The only issue is a BC and a Freighter are not the same cost so I would be upset if I lost nearly a billion in value just so I could have the BC.

511

So, what does the hauler do in-between hauls? The hauler has to mine also, at which point we are now back to a miner that could potentially be used AFK
A logi mining hull has to be drone based, since otherwise it can’t be both. Which is why the Porpoise & Orca are both mining drone based. (Note that this also means you need to match any changes to the Orca on the porpoise, given that it is just a smaller Orca).
So even if we do this splitting up into specialised hulls, which is a T2 concept anyway, we still end back up at the problem that we are ‘allegedly’ trying to solve. Which means it’s pointless doing this, the issue is not that an Orca is a jack of all trades ship that can boost while mining, the issue is the ability of the Orca to AFK for long periods of time while still mining through that time.
Which is where much simpler fixes like a single mining drone rather than five drones deal with that. If it strips the rocks out in 5 minutes, and you AFK for half hour periods, now you lose 5/6’s of your yield doing so. Which means you stop doing so.

Because a boosted skiff mines far more than an Orca. Scipio’s own testing still showed the Skiff mined more if I remember the figures from the live test and this was an unboosted Skiff. Orcas get no benefit from mining boosts, the Skiff does, so that’s why you don’t just infinitely scale only Orcas if you care remotely about yield.
As for how you reduce alt use, additional APM. But additional APM that is not just make work clicking. Removing auto cycle or stuff like that is just stupid.

1 Like
512

Liar. Read again. I never suggested that Orca EHP be reduced.

Liar again. Yes: Orca boosts increase mining speed by 33%.

no u

Liar out of spite.

So… a Porpoise? More AFK/low-attention mining?

This would just be more AFK/low-attention gameplay. Also we already have freighters in the game and people already use them for mining. In order to justify a specialized bay, it would have to be larger than the current cargo capacity of a freighter (this is how ore holds and PI holds are balanced on, say, the Miasmos and Epithal), making the AFK/low-attention worse.

Or you can just have one ship: the Orca, which can haul ore, and provide boosts and just switch between mining & mining boost mode and logi & shield boost mode. I don’t see how proliferating ship types into multiple, AFK/low-attention platforms solves the problem of… AFK/low-attention mining.

This is not very parsimonious. You’re taking 1 ship and splitting it into multiple ships and creating a lot of redundancy and overlapping function with pre-existing ships. The solutions you present don’t solve the problem of AFK/low-attention mining, it just splits AFK/low-attention mining across new platforms.

I didn’t say “boosted Skiff”, I said “Skiff”. A boosted Skiff would be two ships, and therefore an unfair comparison* to an Orca - which is one ship. Thanks!

513

Never said that. An orca in its current state fills up pretty quick with even a moderate fleet. I would expect that they would just drop into the belt, tractor cans or make the rounds, and then jump back out.

That was my thoughts too, which would allow me to have my drone mining ship :slight_smile: . If this ended up happening I might even forego the BC and spider tank a group of drone miners.

Not sure how we are back at the same problem. The hauler couldn’t mine, just like a normal Freighter can’t, and the logi hull would have an ore bay significantly smaller than an Orca, so it can’t AFK mine.

EDIT: shouldn’t say “cant”, rather not effectively.

As much as I hate the idea of reducing my drone count, I agree this would help with the issue as it is currently described. Looking at my previous AFK evaluation, I would say you put it on similar grounds as a retriever/mackinaw.

I don’t remember if these numbers are T1 lasers or T2, but a max boosted Skiff with Highwall 5% and no drones mines 38.5m3/sec, a max Orca with T2 drones mines 24.75m3/sec, so about 1.5x an Orca at least.

Not a whole porpoise, porpoise lite. A ore hold on the scale of a procurer and no fleet hanger. Lower yield than a barge but makes up for it in boosting.

Could also see this as a fleet defense ship instead, giving it no mining bonus but a drone damage bonus or giving it missile hardpoints.

Again, no mining capability. The current freighters are not giant AFK miners for this specific reason.

The general idea to reduce the AFK problem is that the mining half wouldn’t have a large hold and the large hold half wouldn’t have mining. I idea behind proliferation is to add some options to the fleet, should just give up on that dream since every time I say anything it gets shot down :slight_smile:

514

Liar, you literally wrote that this would reduce the AFK bility.

Well thank you for proving you are talking out of your arse.
My Orca that I’ve not used for a year boosts my mining speed by 67.8%. So yes, you actually have no idea what you are talking about.

Now you re saying an orca has a zero yield, since boosted skiff + orca mines as much as a boosted skiff.

If you want to Compare one to one, then what is the difference between orca+ orca and orca + skiff ? Yes, the difference is the skiff yield. When you want yield, you look at correct value, not arbitrary bad value. Next time you claim that actually a skiff mines less than a venture, because it can remove its lasers ?

You are again talking out of your arse. No wonder you were saying low APM is the same as AFK.

Get your facts straight and get an experience on a topic before trying to formulate an opinion. You are just pathetic with your constant spin and spite.

1 Like
515

Yeah I kinda thought you might try that argument.
I’ve now included your follow on statement to prove yet again how in bad faith you are arguing, when you clearly were talking about more than one Orca & so was I. Therefore we can talk about boosted skiffs as a fair comparison.
Which do mine more.

And do what in-between. Either the Hauler pilot has to sit around and twiddle their thumbs if the fleet isn’t just perfect sized for it to produce enough to fill it up in exactly the time it takes to do a drop off, or it becomes an alt/afk boat. Which is bad and why the hauler would have to mine and it circles straight back to the AFK problem. Either way you create an AFK ship, as current freighters are an AFK/alt ship and therefore part of the issue also that Orca’s solve in their current form.
And why splitting the Orca into multiple ships does not fix the issue.

1 Like
516

I never suggested nerfing Orca EHP.

:yawning_face: Implants are ships.

Nope.

This is not true.

Personal attack. Calm down.

But it’s still a role that would be relegated to either AFK/low-attention players or alts.

But you’re still just proliferating AFK roles.

Nice try with that bud, but no cigar. In one statement, I’m comparing the mining capabilities ship to ship. In the other comment I’m talking about scaling. Please up your game. Thanks!

517

Not arguing, just looking for clarrification. Is this like the industrial core for the Rorqual or the T3D modes? If the industrial core, is it two different modules?

Also, for the mining & mining boost mode, what effects are you intending?

Don’t like the forum TiDi!