Orca and Rorq: Bring Balance CCP!

[Salt_Foambreaker]

A regular mining operation, from day one for new players is a balance between mining and hauling.

One of the core dynamics of the game.

Unfortunately the Orca and the Rorq BYPASS this dynamic because these ships have THREE ROLES:
Mining
Hauling
Command Ship

Having THREE ROLES on one ship is plain dumb and overpowered.

Change the Orca and the Rorq so that ore mined is placed in the MAIN HOLD NOT THE ORE HOLD.

This forces miners using these ships to undertake the EXACT SAME EFFORT as miners using the traditional miner/hauler dynamic as well as preventing the endless AFK mining that occurs when these ships are used with one mining drone per asteroid.

[Mark_O_Helm]

Then all mining ships should place the ore in the cargo hold, wich makes no sense.
A meaningful change would be to switch the capacities of the cargo and the ore hold.
Wich will not happen.

[Bronson_Hughes]

I agree with your “multiple role” conclusion, but I feel that the solution is to, instead, remove the one role that is already covered in abundance by other ships:

Mining

Orcas and Rorquals shouldn’t have bonuses to mining, and Excavator drones should be removed from the game (since the Rorqual is the only ship that can use them). Let them provide bonuses and act as ore drop-off points, but don’t let them also be miners in their own right.

And I say this as someone who, whenever they mine in hisec, mines in an Orca.

/fin

[Salt_Foambreaker]

Honestly that would be my first choice, I don’t like the wthroflstompersolomobile in any form, gathering or combat.

My second choice is to make it so you can’t just park some super tank ship, point each drone at an asteroid and leave it run like a PI site.

Meanwhile other miners, including holy grail new players, are moving the ore to an alt or teammate every few minutes because their ships are single role ships.

Obviously the current mining meta is train Orca, forget all those “other” “low level” “not endgame” “newbie” ships

[Scoots_Choco]

@Salt_Foambreaker

My second choice is to make it so you can’t just park some super tank ship, point each drone at an asteroid and leave it run like a PI site.

This is the stance that CCP has recently taken. The did this by reducing the volume of Ore contained in nullsec Anomalies by up to 66%.

This means that the rocks will pop more frequently and require players to move around more regularly. This is especially a big indirect nerf to players who multibox excessive numbers of Rorquals. Before this change, they were able to set up an Rorqual and go AFK for 2-3 hours at a time while their Excavators slowly worked through the larger rocks.

I believe this kind of indirect nerfing approach is better than just throwing Ore into the Cargohold for no reason. Especially given how disproportionate of an impact it’ll have on Ice and Gas mining, as well as certain types of Ore, like Mercoxit.

[Salt_Foambreaker]

Regarding the Rorq and null mining, agreed, at least we should wait and see how it all turns out.

However in empire space the Orca will just be more of a problem as a result.

I also was not suggesting this be changed on all mining ships, not sure if that was clear.

[Nevyn_Auscent]

@Bronson_Hughes

I agree with your “multiple role” conclusion, but I feel that the solution is to, instead, remove the one role that is already covered in abundance by other ships:

Mining

CCP deliberately gave them the mining role so that there was an active component to their play, otherwise they literally sit in a belt and require no attention at all except to warp in & out, and start boosts, given how long boosts last… it becomes the epitome of AFK play at that point.
Giving them mining actually decreases their AFK play.

There are much better solutions than removing play from the ship to solve AFK play, if AFK play is even actually occurring in a large enough volume to require change.

[Solonius_Rex]

@Salt_Foambreaker

Unfortunately the Orca and the Rorq BYPASS this dynamic because these ships have THREE ROLES :

Problem is, the Rorqual was pretty useless before the excavator drone introduction. No one wanted to risk 1.5 billion ISK just for a booster/compressor, when they could spend 600 million isk for an orca that can warp, and didnt need to stay on field forever because boosts lasts for certain time periods.

There is no real meaningful play for the rorqual. And so i say, get rid of them completely.

[Complex_Math]

If you nerf the Rorqual, would it lead to players unsubscribing? And if this would cause people to unsubscribe- I think the chances of CCP implementing it would be low.

[safira_jomita]

Then we should take out all turrets from support and logi shipsz as they have 2 roles also. They should only repair, or assist, not bring DPS.

[safira_jomita]

Speaking on pi , it should be changed or removed, as a player has passive income with few clicks a week?

[Lugh_Crow-Slave]

As much as I agree when it comes to the orca even being against its rebalance. I will point out you are still better off with one orca one hauler and a fleet of hulks so it’s not like there is no balance at all.

I would rather their mining bonuses be removed and have them replaced with full shield and skirmish links.

[Anderson_Geten]

I agree with the covering of several roles, I disagree that this is an issue.

I think the issue, is that they cover the exact same role, just orca is worse at it : they should cover a very different way of doing that role.

what I propose : keep the same yield for drones ; but increase their cycles to like 5 minutes, or 10 dunno. so they have 5-10 times the hold,and if they are mining the same rock, or if they are out mined by a barge, they will lose on the volume.

This would be true for mining drones, ice drones, excavators, and ice excavators.

This would also be a neglectible increase to effective yield, since the drones would need to move less, per unit mined.

The idea is that they become specialized in mining big rocks, not small ones. Fitting a survey scanner on orcas would also become interesting to not waste 9 min mining a roid that had 1min of yield only,

IMO the cycle time should be :
excavators 20min ( = 4 indus core cycles)
orca 5 min
barges 1 min
venture 10s

from venture base, the cycles are *1, *6, *30, *120 in terms of cycle duration, giving each ship a role : venture is better at cleaning the small dust, rorqual/orca are better at eating enormous/big rocks, barges and exhumers are better at eating medium rocks.

This also means that people who take the time to visually identify the rocks size, can optimize their mining without having a survey scanner.

[Bronson_Hughes]

@Nevyn_Auscent

@Bronson_Hughes

I agree with your “multiple role” conclusion, but I feel that the solution is to, instead, remove the one role that is already covered in abundance by other ships:

Mining

CCP deliberately gave them the mining role so that there was an active component to their play, otherwise they literally sit in a belt and require no attention at all except to warp in & out, and start boosts, given how long boosts last… it becomes the epitome of AFK play at that point.
Giving them mining actually decreases their AFK play.

I don’t disagree with you there. Giving them mining roles definitely decreases the level of activity involved in piloting them.

But the issue here as I see it is that the solution to one problem (AFK gameplay) introduces another (largely invalidating other mining platforms for most uses), and that doesn’t seem like very prudent game balance.

I’d personally live with more AFK gameplay out of support platforms if it meant less of a mineral faucet paying hefty dividends to the richest players.

(To clarify: my motivation in wanting to strip mining roles from Orcas and Rorqs isn’t about AFK gameplay, it’s about industry, economics, and the power of wealth.)

[Nevyn_Auscent]

@Bronson_Hughes

(largely invalidating other mining platforms for most uses)

An Orca has 40% of the yield of a boosted Hulk.
Or the same yield as an unboosted retriever. (for about 20 times the cost)
How does that invalidate other mining platforms.

[Bronson_Hughes]

@Nevyn_Auscent

@Bronson_Hughes

(largely invalidating other mining platforms for most uses)

An Orca has 40% of the yield of a boosted Hulk.
Or the same yield as an unboosted retriever. (for about 20 times the cost)
How does that invalidate other mining platforms.

Because Hulks are paper thin, whereas Orcas are much more durable.

It’s not about raw yield, it’s about the fact that you generally have to replace Orcas far less frequently than you do Hulks.

Heck, in that regard, even Covetors outperform Hulks. They’re even more paper thin, but they cost considerably less to replace.

[Nevyn_Auscent]

@Bronson_Hughes

Because Hulks are paper thin, whereas Orcas are much more durable.

Ok, and?
That’s a player choice, that’s not invalidating a hulk, that’s players choosing to value tank over yield.

[Anderson_Geten]

I agree with you both : it’s a matter of tank, and it does not invalidate that orcas should be valid mining vessels.

I already suggested to add 10k base hp to the shield of the barges. Someone told me that it would be better to let players fit modules instead, but then I think it would become harder to balance - because that would need also to balance the slot layout.

BTW I also think it may be interesting to add a ore hold boost to the command burst that reduces the degradation of lasers (the one nobody uses).

[Salt_Foambreaker]

Yes, lets repeat the mistakes on the other ships.

/facepalm

[Frank_Truck]

@Anderson_Geten

I already suggested to add 10k base hp to the shield of the barges.

A whole 10k? My Orca has ~260k tank and that is not even an aggressive tank fit. I agree with @Bronson_Hughes the mining is the problem, its a huge tank command ship and having it mine too just outclasses all the other ships. Add in the 5 drone 5 asteroid method and this ship nullifies the veld changes one bot takes over for another.