Please read the entire thing, don’t go down to the bottom and start ranting
I have a proposal to add a new type of mining ship. The mining Skiff! a step up from the Venture, but still smaller than a mining barge. it will be able to use one Strip Miner, and it will have more ore storage than a Venture. I think it should have around 7500-10000 m3 of ore storage. It should have a drone bay to help defend against rats. For balance, it will be rather small, around 10 to 15 m3 with 10 to 15 mb/s of bandwidth. I think it should have the shields, armour, structure and speed (200-250 m/s) of a destroyer. Plus, it should be available to Alpha clones.
Pros:
Strip miners
good ore hold
beter defences than a Venture
faster than a mining barge
Cons:
Slow
smaller ore hold than mining barge
weaker than mining barge
In my opinion, this would be a step up from the Venture, and it would help people like me who like mining. Plus, it will give us alpha clones a better taste of whats its like to use a mining barge and provide more incentive to go Omega.
Hm…tank of a destroyer and no warp core strength bonus…sounds like a juicy target. I like it. Bit confusing in the nomenclature seeing as we already have a Skiff.
The question is whether or not it would actually provide incentive to go Omega for the barges. Alphas are restricted to using only the most basic ship in the ORE line, It would follow that any Omega-restricted upgrade would be a large improvement.
As long as the mining yield is not better than a venture, I have no problems with new gimmicks for Alphas. It’s important that Alphas don’t get any option to influence the economy more than today.
all given, giving a ship like that with strip miners but not an increase in yield over the venture is kindda counter-intuitive.
i would go as far as saying that you could allow them to fly expedition frigates without affecting the market as the yield will still be fairly low (all t2, all V char tops out @ 15m3/sec).
but it would add a stepping stone or mining ‘‘endgame’’ for alphas.
Letting Alphas train mining frigate 5, electronics upgrades 5 and expedition frigate 1 would give them access to the Endurance - without the cloak. Alphas can already train Ice Harvesting level 2 so they would have T2 mining lasers or T1 ice mining lasers. The cargo capacity and yield is substantially better than the Venture which would meet the OP requirements without requiring a new ship. The skills would also unlock the Prospect but, without the covert cloak, it’s not likely to be a popular choice.
I’m not opposed to letting Alphas fly better mining ships since the activity is self regulating - mine too much and the price drops.
The ore yield of the Endurance is actually below a Venture. Its gain is the larger ore-hold and third light drone in bandwidth. It is slightly slower than a procurer for ice. That’s with the tech2 Ice Laser and maxed skills.
All of this discussion is moot. Perhaps if there was a subscribing Beta Clone which expanded Alpha’s industrial ability.
As I said before. Giving Alpha’s additional mining ships/skills would only extend progression style play. The sensation of wall/barrier is again reached. Progressing in Eve is not the ship you fly, but the people you fly with. That is why it should always be limited.
CCP is unlikely to design yet another mining vessel of any type.
As far as I am concerned we should have just one Exhumer, the Skulkinaw and One T2 Frigate The Prospectance. PvPers you may now start your OP rant right here.
Crazy idea here.
Join a corp that holds space and controls POCOs somewhere.
Keep alpha mining and skilling as close as you can to barge. Save every isk until you can Plex, start training PI skills on the primary toon. With your additional PI income you need to mine less to plex again. Keep repeating the process until all 3 character slots are doing PI with L4 skills. With 15 planets of Passive income Plexing gets a lot easier. Over the next 6 months you skill the characters to Command Center and Interplanetary Consolidation 5. With 18 planets and max power you are passively pulling in nearly 70% of your plex income mostly passive. All that time you got to play for no cash out of pocket and can continue to do so.
I have to say, although I support Indy playstyle this is really not practical because here it is, the ore bay is too small for strip miners, 2.5 to 3 cycles of the strip miners and your done, believe me when I say that the venture is far superior to this and this type of ship would only frustrate people because of the long cycles of unsupported strip mining boosts and the small ore bay.
I’ve fitted a venture with deep core strip miners, in a mining fleet boosted, then it shines, alone, the strip miners are too slow, if you do some tests the miner II keeps easily up with a barge if set up and good skills, barges are ok but I really like my mining frigates venture/prospect/endurance, I’d much more think it practical for CCP to open the expedition mining ships then for strip mining ship with only 2500 more m3 cargo, just doesn’t come across as practical.
Endurance with 1 T2 laser and 2 mining laser upgrades will outperform a Venture with 2 T2 lasers and 1 minng laser upgrade by about 8%. With my skills 9.28m3/s to 8.52 m3/s. You’ll pay an extra 30 million ISK for the hull but it represents progress and I’ll argue that a sense of progression is critically important during your first 6 months or so in this game. After that, if you’re still playing, you’ve likely established some social connections and set some strategic goals for yourself. The $10/month for a subscription is pretty trivial for the entertainment value this game can provide once you’re established.
An 8% improvement in mining yield isn’t going to disrupt the markets and, to be honest, I’d rather see fleets of Alphas mining moon goo than solo Rorquals or bots.
Just a few numbers for venture vs expedition frigates:
numbers is with an all V character
Venture max yield (deep core miner w. crystal, drones + drone rigs): 13m3/s (index 0%)
Endurance max yield (deep core miner w. crystal, drones + rigs) : 16.3m3/s (+25%)
Prospect max yield (Deep core miner w. crystal) : 14.8m3/s (+13%)
Procurer max yield (t2 strips w. crystal, drones and rigs) : 25.6m3/s (+100%)
The procurer is used as a comparison, i don’t think alphas should be allowed to use barges in general, but definitely not anything higher than the procurer if it were to happen.
So comparatively enabling expedition frigates for alphas would give a decent sense of progression, both cargohold and yield wise, without risking any noticable change in the industrial sector.
In relation to your Venture/Endurance/Prospect numbers.
What does the ship do with standard ores and T2 fittings vs each barge T1 strip miners? Mainly because Alpha’s can’t fly with Deep Core Miners but also because If we were to consider unlocking just Endurance and Prospect to them we’d still be locking them away from ice without subscription.
That is one barrier I think alpha’s should never cross. They already can’t get ice, they already can get most ores and can’t use Deep Core lasers. We’d also need to unlock mining frigate 5 for them (which I really don’t see why not) to make the access to Expedition Frigates which I would limit to level 1 in testing as they already gain effects of a Venture at level V and this just becomes slightly more on the cake.