I’m a solo miner. New orca is fitted as primary hauler (hi sec only) with secondary option of drone mining. Just discovered however that recharge time of my shields is 4500 seconds. That can’t be good, right?
Travel works well: 2.40 AU warp; 399 m/s speed + 10 sec align time with MWD; EHP of 272 k (306 k with adaptive on); cap stable. Mining also works reasonably well: 5 mining II drones gave 16 m3/sec - compared to 16.8 on retriever using 3 MLUs and T1 crystals.
Problem: was testing mining in 0.5 system and could not tank 3 NPCs; drop in shields was slow but real yet recharge afterwards was almost non-existent; how can I fix yet keep my travel / mining stats? Note: adaptive was NOT on during testing; could this module just be left on permanently? (I’m a noob; wouldn’t know.)
FIT:
Large Drone Mining Augmentor I
Large Transverse Bulkhead I
Large Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizer I
Improved Cloaking Device II
Drone Link Augmentor II
Small Tractor Beam II (offline)
500 MN Cold-Gas Enduring MWD
EM Ward Amp II
Thermal Dissipation Amp II
Kinetic Deflection Amp II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Capacitor Power Relay II
Damage Control II
[Modelling suggests swapping out Velocity for Field Purger II would reduce recharge to 3375 secs.]
Not really. The time indicates how long the shield would take to recharge from 0 to full capacity. The shields constantly recharge at a rate indicated in the fitting window’s Defense section (change the Active Defense section in the top left in that section to Passive Shield Recharge).
You could fit an active shield booster. You can also fit shield recharge modules like the Purger rig you mentioned or Shield Power Relays or Flux Coils, but they won’t help a lot since the Orca has a low base passive recharge rate. The best approach for you is to recall your mining drones and destroy the NPC with combat drones.
It was easier and cheaper to train and buy compared with dedicated freighter-alt (due to natural mining progression).
It is more versatile than freighter, with cross-over of several different ship / cargo / ore hauling capabilities. The focus of the old forums on the orca as merely a flying brick that provides boosts just lacks imagination. The 10 sec align time in particular works really well in making this ship more “nippy” than my miasmos - except when leaving stations (haven’t worked out how to dump the tethers yet).
The only problem appears to be that you can’t AFK for any length of time if you take the hybrid route that I have?
That is what I did in the end. It was just I was surprised that an orca, given its “legendary” tank status, could not in fact keep its shields up at the same time as deploying a complete flight of mining drones.
I’ve tried again and it will tank 2 NPCs with the adaptive on, but that in turn does deplete the cap - ever so slowly.
I will try your “passive shield recharge” idea - no idea what that is yet.
shield and capacitor have a recharge rate that depends on the actual percentage of shield/capacitor you have.
That means that your shield recharge rate is lower when high on shield, but reaches its peak @25% of your max shield. Same goes for capacitor.
an orca can tank several rats and remain around 98-95% shield, with correct amplifier
if you shield/capacitor goes below 25%, it “breaks” and will recharge much lower (resulting in remaining @0%)
You could also carry a mobile depot and just refit your ship as needed. Or just dock up at one of the many NPC stations or citadels and do same. Advantage there is you can probably find a public Athanor and compress all your ore.
Doesn’t your capacitor power relay also gimp your shield recharge time? But really, the orca’s “legendary tank” comes from its plentiful ehp making it difficult to gank in HS, not it’s amazing dps tank (since it doesn’t have that).
Also, train engineering and shield skills for amount and recharge time. One adaptive invul should not deplete your tank and you should not need to use cap recharge mods.
sounds like you bought isk and injected into something you have no idea how to use. I’m going to suggest you get a mining barge and learn how to use that if highsec rats are a problem to an orca. If you mined your way up to an orca surely you figured out a few ways to deal with the rats no?
no, shield power relays do have a penalty to shield boost amount though
Agree on the suspicion of injecting and not knowing how to pilot the new shiny ship. And good catch on the CPR, it’s shield boost that gets penalized, not shield regen. The Shield power relays do gimp cap recharge and for some reason I thought they were mirrors of each other.
In any game that lasts long enough, people will have to take break, that means being AFK.
Any game that is designed considering players can’t take a time AFK for extended period has some design flaw .
So, there will likely be a “sweet spot” below which my shields will not degrade further, even if NPCs were left to their own devices for an hour or so? I can probably live with that, at least as a theoretical concept. The practical implications however, of effective non-regeneration of shields afterwards, is a novelty I would still have to get my head around. But, it does suggest non-flying of combat drones during solo mining could be viable.
EDIT: shields appear to be stable at around 74%; based on damage from 2 NPCs & without turning adaptive invulnerability on.
I thought about that, but core to fittings that would be useful to me appears to be rigs. I have one for each of drone mining, tanking and travel. After that, there appears to be little I could swap out from low slots, other than replace cap recharge with either a bulkhead or a shield recharge mod?
The point of the mids was to provide me as passive a tank as possible. But, open to any specific suggestions you may have.
Good suggestion. Just checked and Shield Operation is V and everything else at IV. Can’t see what is specific in engineering to my issue.
Cap recharge is only way current fit is cap stable. However, I’m beginning to rethink whether that actually matters. I can probably live without that mod but would more likely put a bulkhead in low instead, as a change in my tanking tactics.