I was looking to train into a porpoise, but the industrial command ships skill is fairly expensive. Is it worth it?
The skill is needed for the Porpoise, Orca, and Rorqual. So if mining is your jam, you’ll probably get a lot of use out of it over the long run.
No one can answer your question without knowing what your goals are.
If you are going to mine with a fleet or solo is a HUGE question, for example.
Back when I was just amassing ISK so I could buy higher end ships. I was mining solo like crazy. I just wanted to mine safely in high sec and get my ISK. I looked at the Porpoise and exhumers and decided they were not worth it. I went from Venture to barges and then went straight to Orca, which of course needs the Industrial Command skill.
The Orca is definitely worth it in terms of safe, profitable, solo mining in high sec. But if you go that way its going to be a while before you will doing anything else, or, its going to be a long wait before your Orca skills are up to speed or even get the Orca.
Best way to think about the Porpoise is to think of it as the cut-down version of the Orca.
Yes it has less command models and fleet features than a Orca.
But things most forget is;
Faster
Small
Can access C1 wormholes
That last one is key, as it allows you to support mining frigates (T1 & T2) where no other mining ships can enter.
It also handy for not collapsing wormholes.
Yes Orca is heaps better, but cost more to replaced and everyone knows where to hunt them, Porpoise is hard to track down if you know what you’re doing, and can get you into location the Orca can’t.
3 Likes
If you want to fly together with other mining barges - either your alt(s) or friend(s) - and want to massively increase the effectiveness of their mining by providing boosts, repairs, defence and a large ore hold, then the Porpoise is worth it.
I trained an alt into a Porpoise last year to mine together with another miner in a barge, and it makes mining not only faster, but also easier.
Covetor/Hulk + Porpoise works really well together as the Porpoise fills all the downsides of that barge (small ore hold, no defence, slow warping to drop off ores) while boosting the strengths so that it is almost equal to flying two Covetors in terms of yield… except with none of the downsides of flying two Covetors.
Porpoises can also make a mean fleet with Procurers, if you may want to travel into more dangerous areas of space to mine. It is a lot easier and cheaper to bring a Porpoise in that case, rather than an Orca.
Porpoises also fit in the tiniest of wormholes if I remember correctly, so for a mining fleet of Endurances, Ventures and/or Prospects I would also bring a Porpoise.
For mining boosts the Porpoise is only a tiny bit worse than the Orca, but it is much cheaper and more agile.
For solo mining I would recommend something else, an unboosted Procurer will mine faster and is easier to train into.
1 Like
porpoise is made for fleets. Just like the orca, if you are solo, in most cases you re better with barges or exhumers.
IMO it needs a bit of a buff, because it’s a BC-size with cr HP while other T2 BC have more EHP - but it’s mining so maybe this should not apply.
1 Like
I’m not sure it needs a buff.
The Porpoise is a strange ship with the mass of half a cruiser, the size of a BC, the align time of a destroyer and the cost of a BC. It’s hard to say what EHP would be fair for the Porpoise as it is hard to compare it to a certain ship type.
The best comparison would be with other mining ships, and when you compare it with the most defensive of the barges, the Procurer, it seems the Porpoise is pretty strong.
My Porpoise fit (max yield with mining rigs) has 73k EHP, which is not low. If I opted for shield rigs instead, I could hit over 100k EHP with T2. A Procurer fit for fighting or yield has a little less or similar EHP as my max yield Porpoise, or when the Procurer is fit for maximum defence around 90k EHP.
Sure, the Porpoise is a bit larger than the Skiffs and Procurers which makes applying damage easier, but in a tanky fleet with Procurers, Skiffs and Porpoises, the EHP of Porpoises is good enough that they won’t be the weakest targets. So I think their EHP is fine.
2 Likes
This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.