Lets talk mining battleships for the coming changes

You can bet your tootsies that gankers are rubbing their fly feet with the upcoming changes to mining being done at sites wherever there is a facility in a 0.5 system making it easier for them to stake out places where they can be lazy because they don’t have to search as much, they know just where to go.

A 0.5 system offers gankers longer Concord response times especially when they divert them before their gank (which is a common practice), and add to the stew that they know exactly where to go, and it is easier for them to avoid the authorities with slower reaction to the criminal response.

Consider this; depending on the amount of gank ships even ships with large amounts of ehp a freighter can be killed quickly, most freighters die in 0.5 systems in about 10 to 13 seconds and their HP is higher upfront with no reinforcement.

Total HP
Providence 156,000 HP
Charon 142,500 HP
Obelisk 164,000 HP
Fenrir 135,000 HP

So what to do?

A battleship gives you a platform to fight back, 2 of the most favorite battleships used are Rokh or Abaddon or even an Apoc, any of these can mine very well and best of all you can shoot back, problem is that they will also try to jam you so you can’t shoot, which leaves you with drones and auto targeting missiles to fight back.

Do fit protection
Do fit defense

And for God sakes have a hauler alt or Corp mate if your gonna BS mine and don’t fit cargo expanders which will make you more flimsy, do not jet can mine, this invitation your putting out for trouble, and absolutely do not use a tractor unit either, if you don’t have a dedicated hauler then just don’t BS mine if your not willing to be constantly running to dump off somewhere.

For those that do have support, shield and armor bursts from a command ships may help you survive an attempt, no mining drones, don’t use them, always, always think security.

Anyway good luck out there :slightly_smiling_face:

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If you do something do it right I always tell myself so here goes:
Best mining bs is a rokh and it is currently the only yield boost alphas have access to over the venture
You need to fit for mining that means full8 miner 2 lasers MLUs and because you’ll mine more than your cargohold can take some expanders.
The ship already has good stats for tank with it’s shield resist bonus all you need is a handful of tanking mods and if you’re really worried insurance and you’re golden.
Now on a more serious note if want to get alright returns on mining seriously consider leaving hisec go to null and mine better ores with a corp you’ll get boosts buyback programs access to blueprints to build stuff and so on.

Yup a Rokh can out mine barges in some cases, although I would still like something to fire back so I wouldn’t fit all 8 lasers myself, but that’s my paranoia.

It occurs to me that folk who do this are probably not really miners in the first place.

How that reflects on my Battle Orca is best not considered.

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I don’t know what problem you are trying to solve. Mining in a ganked Skiff or Procurer is superior in almost every way to a Mining battleship. They mine in places, like static asteroid belts and ice anomalies, where Gankers know they will be. A moon mining refinery won’t be any different than the ice belt for Gankers looking to find a target.

The only case where this makes sense would be for an alpha, who cannot multibox meaning it is only useful for alphas in a fleet. But regardless, the lock time of battleships makes fighting back with guns impractical. Better just focus on yield, and tank and let CONCORD do the fighting for you.

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Wow where to even begin…

-Less than 1% of gankers (more like statistically zero) will use ECM. Mid slots on Cats are sensor boosters and/or scrams.

-Lock times for BS are so bad (especially for Alphas), you’ll be dead or close to it before you lock, and good luck hitting a destroyer point blank with large guns

-Alphas can’t use auto targeting missiles.

-Your unbonused T1 drones likely won’t kill one ganker before you explode

-As an Alpha, you’re not supposed to have multiple accounts logged in, so you shouldn’t have a hauler alt.

Seriously, as an Alpha, if you’re AFK, you’re not going to shoot back anyway, and if you’re not, might as well mine in a Venture. You can buy somewhere around 700 Ventures for the same cost as 1 Rohk, and contrary to popular belief, gankers WILL target mining BSs on principle alone.

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What changes are you talking about? The moon mining changes that already happened and can’t happen in hisec anyways…?

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See, you’re both missing key parts and points, I posted that guns could be used BUT auto targeting missiles are best, they require no lock and the instant your aggroed you fire, drones don’t have to be fighters, they can be ecm drones, etc, also BS can be remote sensor boost to provide insta locks same as gankers doo doo with tornadoes and stuff, but Mr. Pedro that is black its hard to understand you when many times you say on the forums to “fight back” rather then try to nerf ganking, ganking isn’t going anywhere, so adapt, the point isn’t always yield, the point is to actually make it back with the goods, while it may take longer at least it will get done.

As far as alphas, that really wasn’t a post about how to do it as an alpha, procurer’s are great, but they mostly don’t shoot back, while the drone bonus is nice shooting back is just better, after all we are talking a 0.5 system, while nothing will save you from a well coordinated attack by multiple attackers (because lets face it, its not about profit), taking out even one attacker can save you because of lower DPS.

The Skiff can fit a Battleship-level tank and put out significant DPS with those drones. It is better in every way, other than requiring an Omega clone, than a mining battleship.

If however, you really do just want to shoot back with guns for some reason, just keep a combat ship in your Orca’s ship bay. When the criminals land on grid, hop into whatever fastlocking ship you want and start shooting!

Heavens no, in no way should anyone jump out of the seat of their orca, that would only see your orca flying off as someone steals it…black pedro, tisk, tisk.

Of course a skiff or procurer has great tank, but, this is only a glimpse into another way to do things, while not optimal it’s just another way if things do get hairy.

He loves starting in the middle of a topic as if it’s been discussed for months, when in fact nobody knows WTF. Forum etiquette is to include a link to your topic of discussion (dev blog or whatever), but he’s like the people who insist on writing everything in lowercase or all caps or no spacebar.

exasperated sigh

And some wonder why highsec miners fail all the time.

It is simple but I’ll telegraph it to you again. You mine away in your Exhumer - a Skiff if you are timid, a Hulk if you want to earn more and bait some gankers - dropping your ore into the Orca next to you. When the baddies show up, you instantly swap your Exhumer for something with guns out of the Orca’s bay. You shoot them. They explode. You swap back into your mining ship and carry on.

You mandated having a hauler on grid in your OP. Might as well use it to store the guns you are looking for.

Why wait for the coming changes? That belt was faster emtpy than this little guy could look.

Oh no sir, I get it, but the point is not to blow things up by baiting, it is only yo have a good set of choppers to bite if desperation necessitates it.

Then mine in a tanked Skiff if baiting is somehow verboten. It doesn’t change the point that switching to a combat ship from an Orca bay, or even just mining in a Procurer/Skiff is vastly superior to any mining BS you can theorycraft.

Best of luck out there. It seems like you are going to need it.

I’ll take all the luck i can get

Best offensive mining platform Dominix, I have used that back in Hulkageddon times.

Did some tests on the test servers, liked the Dom, it worked well, even tried ice mining for the hell of it.

ah and ive stolen orcas like that before…

No you haven’t. You leave an alt in your hauler at all times. Only a fool leaves an unpiloted ship in space and deserves to have it stolen.

Besides, you need the alt to provide boosts and drop the ore off at a station.

Mining efficiently and safely isn’t brain surgery people, although you’d might think it from how few miners use the Orca to pull the old switch-a-roo on the gankers. The Orca was made for such ship swapping shenanigans yet I’ve only had it done to me twice in almost a thousand highsec ganks.