Orcas should never have been turned into mining vessels

[Valiran_Teleros]

I actually had an idea WRT Orca/Rorqual mining a couple weeks ago that came to me when I was thinking about excavator drones:

@Valiran_Teleros

Excavation in the context of mining is basically digging away all the dirt, rock, and other undesirable matter between you and the valuable minerals you’re after, right? What if, instead of being super-mining drones, excavator drones allowed mining frigates/barges/exhumers to pull much larger amounts of ore from an asteroid at once? It would be a mechanical representation of the excavator drones cutting away all the dross and waste material that the mining ships would normally have to work through to get at the valuable ore within.

Just to clarify, this wouldn’t be adding additional ore to the rock the drones are working on, it would be decreasing the amount of time needed to completely strip an asteroid of all its valuable ore. Theoretically speaking, if you didn’t cap the amount of increased yield per cycle the excavators gave, you could have someone with the Exhumers skill at 5 could fill up the entire ore hold of a Hulk with just one cycle from a civilian mining laser.

Logically speaking, there would be a limit on how much of a bonus could be applied to any given asteroid, for the purposes of gameplay integrity and sanity alike.

Giving this idea further thought, I began to wonder if it would be a better idea for all mining drones to function this way instead of their current role as tiny independent mining lasers.

I have no idea if this change would be good or workable, but I’m sure it would curtail the glut of AFK mining Industrial Command Ships that is apparently afflicting EvE without reducing them to uselessness. Any constructive feedback you all could give me would be appreciated.