Shield recharge rate of my orca is 4500 secs - is this a problem?

To everyone on this thread:

I have now considered all your advice and comments to date. This is a summary, together with possible responses, just FYI. Thank you for your collective help. Any errors / lack of understanding remaining are obviously mine.

Q1. Is 4500 sec regen time for orca shields a problem ?
A. No. Orca tank is predominantly buffer-based; by definition = no regen. Adding passive shield tank would give minimal advantage but adding active shield tank would be useful.

Q2. What then would be best fitting options for an AFK mining orca (other than just not doing it) ?
A1. Start with separate travel & mining orcas (ie different rigs). [Anderson Geten]
A2. Have separate AFK & active mining orcas (ie different mods). [Wanda Fayne]
A3. Drop cap mod and add both hull tank and active shield tank to all active orcas. [Erethond]

Possible responses to above, noting these range from “standard fit”, via moderately blingy, to blingy fit.

  1. TRAVEL. Swap out existing mining rig and cap mod for prop options. Swap out all passive resists for active hardeners: EM / thermal / kinetic. Gives 3.5 AU warp, 10 sec align, 332k EHP.

  2. AFK. Build new orca with 3 x drone rigs (2 X II and 1 x I). Increase shield buffer with 2 x large shield extenders plus 3 x resists (EM, kinetic, thermal). Operate with 4 x mining drone II + 1 x combat drone II. [Rocket Hellfire; Dyver Phycad]. Gives 40 sec align, 295k EHP, 16.8 m3/sec mining.

  3. ACTIVE. Swap out AFK mids. Fit MWD & 4 x hardeners (adaptive / EM / kinetic / thermal). Operate 5 x augmented mining drones. Gives 10 sec align, 332k EHP, 23.5 m3/sec mining. (NB. Dropping MWD for fifth hardener bumps EHP to 368k).

Options 1 & 3 are pre-paid for (simply because I sold 1.8 billion of mixed minerals / ore / ice over this weekend) so I will probably do. For reference, 0.5 moon mining now provides all ores found in low sec (plus higher versions of all ores found in hi sec too). Using cubic bistot as example, it was selling this weekend @ 4118 isk/unit. Even using the blingy option of number 3, this orca would pay for itself on bistot after 60 hours total on-belt mining. By contrast, the much slower AFK orca would give a full hold in maximum 3 hours, so … as a “lifestyle” / game play option, it is just not that great an option vs the risk (including new NPCs) vs available tank. Now I know.