It outclasses in tank yes, but not in yield. So the issue is, other ships have not enough tank. Because its yield is definitely not an issue.
The balance is that, its yield is just worse than the other barges and exhumers, and its cost is like 50 times a barge.
Give barges and exhumers +10K ehp and you will have more barges and exhumers. The issue is that the barges/exhumers are designed to be farmable by suicide gankers in HS, therefore people just did what gankers claimed they should do : use the more tanky ships.
And now gankers come crying that people tank their mining ships. The irony.
There are suppose to be trade-offs though - you probably shouldnât be able to sport a essentially gank-proof tank and mine the same as all the other choices. Granted, the Orca isnât the best in every metric, but there is a reasonable case it is a little too good based upon the apparent usage. And speaking of metrics, if you normalize yield by player clicks/player attention, the Orca just dominates the mining choices.
Sure, buffing the other ships is one solution, but if the real metrics are consistent with Daichiâs observations, then CCP probably should take a look and make an adjustment either way.
Flying a paper-thin Hulk should be rewarded (you know, risk vs. reward and all?), and that means the difference in yield between a Skiff/Orca and a Hulk should probably be significantly greater. They should have much better yield over the safe choices, whether that means lowering the yield of the safe ships, or boosting the yield of the riskier ship.
And Rorqs, well, all I will observe is that after 4? major nerfs, the silly things still completely outclass the other options. CCP has completely failed at making them a viable mining command ship (at least, they barely are used for this purpose), and instead just added a popular uber-miner that are the overwhelming source of minerals in this game.
So yes, while maybe there are still bigger problems with this game, Orca and Rorq balance is something CCP should at least look at. My guess is that they probably will in the near future when trying to figure out how to implement some resource scarcity back into the game.
Itâs not gank proof. Itâs suicide-ganker-who-care-about-money proof, if fit correctly.
I thought the proc was designed for that ? So itâs okay as long as ⌠?
No. The barges are designed to be â â â â , the orca is designed to be good. That is the issue. The issue is that the barges are BAD.
Sure if you want to make random statistics out of your arse, you will eventually be able to.
And indeed, we have a choice between â â â â -covetor, bad-retriever, and almost correct procurer. The first two being designed to explode the moment a fly decides to bat an eye. Only the proc is correct tank-wise, and its yield (boosted) is the same as an orca.
Itâs not orca and rorqual only. Itâs the whole mining activity that should require⌠well, more activity in order to be considered lucrative. And the mining barge should be better than polarized sitting ducks. There should be things like local effect in place when you mine, so that people need to position themselves. like explosions that damage the drones, or slow them ; or AOE that prevent warp while you are in it, or reduce your resists.
People donât netflix mine because itâs an interesting activity. They do it because the activity of mining is designed to make you use few repeating activities.
And the same for suicide gankers : ganking people should require timing, planification, and management of your ship, instead of warp fleet, preheat guns, pre activate guns, click on the first item of the overview.
They should need to move their ships in the field, avoid AOE damage, instead of warp just on the target.
and BTW, no orca players are not AFK. If they were AFK they would lose their drones to trigs.
Yes, that is the problem. The Orca is good - it does everything well. The rest are bad. Buff the rest, or nerf the Orca so there is a choice or trade-off again⌠Nothing should do everything. What are you disagreeing with here?
That isnât a statistic. You can easily calculate the number of clicks to mine x amount of ore of the various ships. I havenât done it, and maybe should, but the Orca is easily way ahead given the large hold and ability to split its yield over more rocks.
Well, like most aspects of balance in this game, only CCP has the numbers to decide if there is an issue, or what kind of game they are trying to make. All the players can do is bring an apparent problem to their attention like the OP has.
Pedro, your claim is BS. Itâs more expensive to gank ; but itâs not gank-proof. A naked orca is 150k ehp for 670M isk ; a naked proc is 33k ehp for 16M isk. The ehp cost is 4k5 isk/ehp for the orca ; 485 isk/ehp for the proc, so almost ten times better for proc. retriever is 1700 isk/ehp so almost 3 times better than the orca ; even covetor is 2500. The difference is, the orca can fit tank, while the covetor and retriever canât .
No, it warps and aligns slowly, and it has bad yield, and it is subject to rats killing its drones.
Totally agree besides the âapparent problemâ. Because players already complained for ages that barges are bad because of their crap tank. Orca is the solution to âminers being sitting ducksâ
BTW I donât think suicide gankers in HS were of any impact on that, rather the trig squads were much more effective at making players consider tank.
When mining, the cost of a replacement hull coupled with the likelihood of loss has to be taken into account when calculating yield. If this werenât the case, nobody in hisec would bother mining with an OrcaâŚyet they are actually quite common.
Given how easy it is to suicide gank Hulks and Macks in hisec, this reduces their effective yield compared to an Orca considerably.
Itâs all about risk reduction. Hulks have a higher yield, sure, but there is much more risk associated with that yield, as it should be. But the low-risk, low yield option is supposed to be the Procurer/Skiff, not the Orca; they are so much harder to kill compared to Procurers/Skiffs (not to mention the absurd ore capacity) that any kind of mining bonus makes them a better choice in the long run.
And who cares about warping fast. Solo mining a hulk would have to drop ore off every 2-3 cycles. An orca can stay on grid mining for hours, take travel time into consideration ans now the orca out does the barges.
Ok fine you have far spread anoms, you warp a fleet of hulks to 1, you fill up in 2 cycles and spend the next 3 minutes warping to the station then back to get more ore. You fill up again in 3 minutes to spend another 3 minutes warping to and from the station. Mean while a person in an irca has been mining 100% of this time and getting more m3/min theb your hulk because of travel times.
Or you jet can and have people dedicated to moving the ore ? like 2 freighters with a MTU, I donât know.
Or you have enough ships to not need to empty the hold before the field is clean ?
Or you have access to a structure on grid (moon mining) which allows you to warp on it, deliver, and warp back ? Which anyhow your orca must do if the ore are too spread ?
So yes, the warp speed, and lower align, are a minus for the orca. Just because it does not matter for YOU, does not mean it never matters.
Jet canning can lead to you ore being stolen, players are risk averse and want to avoid that so its not done as often. If you have so many ships you can clear a belt without running out of ore hold good for you, most people done run 300 hulks though. As for warping rock to rock on feild you can fit a mwd on an orca, which also helps with align time.
lol. factually true but practically of no effect. Unless they steal in a miasmos.
Ice belt is 100 retriever holds.
Weekly moon ore (assuming you want even the crap ore) is 125 retriever holds.
Or you can fit hyperspatial rig, thank you. Does not change that the warp and align are minus points.
All it says is, itâs an advantage for the orca, because the covetor canât even fit a compact 50MN.
