Observation: The Orca is of limited use in low and null sec space due in part to its capital like agility combined with limited defensive capabilities. I believe the industrial core mechanic plays a critical role in this issue.
Argument: There is too large a disconnect between the large core and the capital core which renders the Orca underwhelming for its role. Being stationary for 150 seconds, a capital level alignment time and limited defences makes the Orca easy prey and the risk to reward is not balanced.
Suggestions:
Reduce the cost to produce the Orca so that the risk is not so high vs the reward provided.
Adjust the large industrial core so that it is placed more centrally vs the medium and capital cores.
Reduce remote repair impendance in the medium and large cores so that the porpoise and orca have the possibility of being assisted.
The Orca was never designed for nullsec. It was designed as a very good highsec and j-space freighter, hangar, and miner. The Orca is supposed to be the best thing available for highsec mining, so destroying the value of the ship will really badly affect the ingame economy. Highsec miners are who would profit most off this change.
What does this mean?
While I do agree that the Orca is in a tough spot in nullsec right now, I really don’t think that’s a problem. If you want to mine in nullsec this way, there are far better options. Most notable of these is mining with a bunch of barges that deposit their hauls into the Rorqual. If you don’t have the pilots or infrastructure for this kind of operation, you wouldn’t be able to use your Orca either, because that would require a hefty defense fleet.
I am not sure that reducing the build cost of the ship would destroy its value. there is no value in having a load of orca’s because they are not good at mining. a mining fleet gets no benefit from dropping mining barges in favour of more orca’s.
For myself and many others, the Orca sits in a sweet spot. I dont play enough to require a rorqual but enough that the porpoise shows its limitations. It is hard to justify a 6+b capital industrial ship to support 2 hulks.
by reducing the remote repair impedance, the negative aspect (being stationary) of running the indy core in low and null sec space could be off-set by being able to assist the ship as they do not benefit from outright power of capital defence modules. this would potentially work as the orca ship maint array is capable of storing any ship within the size limit.
Alternatively, the bonus’s from the large cores could be adjusted to grant the orca the slight additional boost it needs to balance the risk/reward in low/null sec (resistance bonus maybe?)
reading this, I can see that you both agree with me that there is something wrong, and also provided a good example of why its wrong. If I dont have the pilots or infrastructure to support a rorqual… the orca is automatically excluded? despite sitting right in the middle between the rorqual and porpoise?
by that logic, would you field dreads if you had titans? frigates if you have cruisers?
Yes yes yes yes yes and yes I would. Frigates are more fun, faster to roam in, and cheaper than Cruisers. Titans are an immediate “come shoot me for good killmail” flag, whereas Dreads are ten times cheaper and do a good percentage of a Titan’s damage. Cruisers get blobbed to death, when Frigs have this really free feel to them.
A ship doesn’t have to have a niche everywhere. Examples of this include Hictors and Dictors in highsec (and j-space for the former and and lowsec for the latter), salvagers in highsec (for the most part), and heavy non-rolling T1 subcapital ships in high-class wormholes.
here lies the issue…
if a porpoise is caught… it doesnt really matter too much if it dies… its risk/reward is OK.
if a rorqual is caught… it has significant defensive capabilities that enable a reactive response… the risk/reward is OK.
if the orca is caught… its as slow as a rorqual and has limited defensive capability. its boosting ability is not significantly better than the porpoise, its 20% of a rorqual for 50% of the price… or its 2 porps for the price of 10. the risk/reward is totally off.
you already agreed that it is not in a good place… how can that be improved?
I am glad you agree, the cost of the orca is too high. its 20% of a rorqual for 50% of the price and its the only ship in eve i can think of where the price difference is so small to the next size up.
battleships are 10% the price of dreads, dreads are <10% the price of titans, carriers are <15% the price of supercarriers.
frigates are 10% the cost of cruisers, cruisers are 10% the cost of HACs/HICs… etc etc
the orca needs to be better to justify its price or cheaper… simple
I thought by this you meant to ask me if, by the same logic as the Orca’s current plight in nullsec, I would field dreads instead of titans or frigs instead of cruisers. The point being that these two fall under the same umbrella of thought, and if I thought that I would use a cruiser over a frigate it would then follow that I agree that the Orca needs to be buffed.
I do not think the Orca needs or even should have this change. Can you explain how you thought I was agreeing with you?