They’ll gank you with Catalysts and Taloses usually.
If they aim to gank your Orca then there is no guarantee that they won’t just bring more ships. The more tank you have the more players they need to bring. A larger tank then means they’ll be less able to do it, but it’s certainly never impossible.
Jenne’s fit mines more, but when you use ‘Augmented’ drones then you’re not only getting a higher yield, but you’re also advertising a higher value target to gankers. These drones aren’t cheap and gankers get to keep them, especially when the drones are out in space. So be careful when you use them, especially when you want to mine in 0.5 systems, which is where gankers will definitely take notice of you.
Not to mention how much it will set you back should you forget your drones in space. Others will pick them up as soon they see you warp off.
I actually have better yield with my Orca then my skiffs alts… with boost (30% actually) they have the same yield. with our rorq boosts (nullsec yes, 51%) they have better yield. With harvester mining drones, and rigs are :
Large Drone Mining Augmentor I
Large Drone Mining Augmentor II
Large Drone Mining Augmentor II
with one high slot for Drone navigation.
Orca is a nice ship, just consider having enough Tank in high sec until CONCORD shows up.
My preference is to have somewhat more tank than the “other Orcas” in the belts. I’ve lost one ship to gankers so far, but also survived several ganks. And from this experience am I now always fitting for some tank and not to completely max out yields. When everyone tries to max out yield may a bit of extra tank divert the gankers’ attention to others. If you upset them though then you’re only giving them a bigger challenge of course.
you can refit in combat fit when they warp in belt, so you can be usefull to your fleet and have dank tank when they gank (mobile depots, not sure the orca can refit alone without mobile depot tho)
Now that i’ve lost 2 orcas, i always keep scramble, ewar and ECM drones in bay; who knows…
This is fine and all, but not especially useful for the OP who is looking to solo mine with an Orca in highsec. The only advantages the Orca has is a massive EHP wall and the absurdly low APM required to mine, on order of sub-10 clicks per hour to mine. Your advice is good if you are actively mining in hostile space or multiboxing and paying attention to your game client, but if you want to just click once and wander off to watch Netflix or eat a sandwich like the OP does, then remaining constantly vigilant so you can refit when the hostiles shows up is counter-productive. He would be better off mining in a max yield Hulk or Mackinaw if he was going to rely on situational awareness, and refitting, to stay safe.
Honestly, for highsec I don’t think it matters how you fit it. I just quickly scanned the last two months of Orca losses in highsec and I can’t find a single one that was convincingly ganked while mining in a belt. There are a bunch of losses to small gangs (likely wars, killrights, duels or other ways to become a legal target), and a handful of losses to ganks while functioning as a transport carrying too much valuable cargo, but none that I can find where the Orca was mining/boosting in a belt. Unless you fit a bunch of bling modules, or use it to move a Fortizar or other valuable cargo, you are at near zero risk of being exploded. Fit for max yield, use T2 or cheap faction modules, and then add a modicum of tank (don’t anti-tank) and you will have no problem.
The problem with those drones is less that if we gank the Orca we can keep them, since that never happens anyway… It’s more that I will simply kill the drones with a single t1 catalyst
But you are absolutely right, that is a fundamental skill that should be maxed soon (it’s actually grinding in my queue as I type).
And yes, all of the comments about risk vs reward and the costs of those drones is absolutely right. In my case, I built them from components and BPs that I got through sites and events, so that mitigated the OoP cost for me, though they are still quite valuable.
I will also mention that I am never AFK when I mine and am quite careful about letting my drones stray too far from my ship so I can get them and myself to safety incase somebody I’m concerned about shows up.
Ultimately, it’s a choice about how you use the tools, and everybody’s perspective here is perfectly valid and helpful.
Yes, it is a very formidable solo mining ship.
… also I hope your Mach has enough tank to survive Concord, oh wait, it doesn’t. A proper Orca fit will out-live a single Mach tank vs. Concord all day. Also hope it was worth the loss of a Pirate BS.
The Mach doesn’t attack the Orca, genius. I use a Mach to bump the Orca into the next dimension. It’s called area denial. I don’t have to attack you to instantly put an end to your mining operation. Concord doesn’t do a damn thing about bumping. I can keep you bumped for days and there’s little or nothing you can do about it…
I hope you are planning on getting a gank fleet together when you are bumping the Orca, because iirc, bumping for the sake of bumping is considered griefing by CCP and is actionable.
If that were true I’d have had “action” taken upon me a very long time ago. You can bump someone as long as you want. What you can’t do is follow them through every system halfway across the galaxy and continue bumping them. At that point, it’s considered griefing. But I can bump you until the end of time in the same system. If you don’t take the hint and leave the system, that’s on you…
Having said that, I don’t do that to just anyone. I hate botters, multi-boxers, and AFK miners with a passion. If you have an Orca, freighter, and 14 Skiffs just sitting there, I WILL play space pinball with you until you either leave or log out. All you have to do is either orbit, speak up in local, something to let me know that you aren’t AFK and I won’t mess with you. However, if you are one of those pilots that attempt to jack with me or think you’re smarter, those are the pilots I bump until they finally give up and log out. And they deserve every single second of it…
