I am using a t2 laser with t2 crystals and no implants. I am trying to see if there increase of ore mined for the skiff or if they end up mining the exact same amount in the same amount of time.
The Skiff gets a mining cycle time reduction for each lever of the Exhumers skill, an extra low slot for a mining laser upgrade and a larger ore hold reducing the need to return to unload.
The Skiff is also a lot tankier.
However, it is expensive and a nice kill mail for s bored ganker. It’s not immune to being ganked, but if fitted well is a tough bugger with a good ability to do damage.
Yes, the Skiff will output more m3 than the Procurer, else why would there be a T2 variant if there wasn’t an advantage…
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I happen to have similar T2 fits for Procurer and Skiff on Pyfa. With the same (high skill) character:
[Procurer, Procurer]
Damage Control II
Mining Laser Upgrade II
Multispectrum Shield Hardener II
Multispectrum Shield Hardener II
Republic Fleet Medium Shield Extender
Survey Scanner II
Modulated Strip Miner II, Plagioclase Mining Crystal II
Modulated Strip Miner II, Plagioclase Mining Crystal II
Medium Drone Mining Augmentor II
Medium EM Shield Reinforcer II
Medium Thermal Shield Reinforcer II
Hobgoblin II x5
Mining Drone II x5
Effective EHP 64.7K
Mining yield (total): 23 M3/S
Price (Pyfa estimate): 74.8M ISK
[Skiff, Skiff]
Damage Control II
Mining Laser Upgrade II
Mining Laser Upgrade II
EM Shield Amplifier II
Survey Scanner II
Multispectrum Shield Hardener II
Multispectrum Shield Hardener II
Republic Fleet Medium Shield Extender
Modulated Strip Miner II, Plagioclase Mining Crystal II
Modulated Strip Miner II, Plagioclase Mining Crystal II
Medium Core Defense Field Extender II
Medium Drone Mining Augmentor II
Mining Drone II x5
Salvage Drone I x5
Valkyrie II x5
Effective EHP 85.6K
Mining yield (total): 26.5 M3/S
Price (Pyfa estimate): 269M ISK
You’re looking at roughly a 33% increase in tank with this fit and a 15% increase in yield for a 260% increase in price. If you’ve been playing long enough that the extra 194.2 million ISK doesn’t matter - enjoy your Skiff but don’t bother insuring it - platinum only pays out 30% of the hull cost!
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I wasn’t sure if the barge bonus stacked onto the skiff bonus which is why I asked. I ASSUMED that the skiff would pull more ore but you know what happens when you ASSUME, so I asked.
Mining Barge bonuses (per skill level):
5% bonus to ship shield hitpoints
2% reduction in Strip Miner and Ice Harvester duration
Exhumers bonuses (per skill level):
4% bonus to all shield resistances
2% reduction in Strip Miner and Ice Harvester duration
Role Bonus:
50% bonus to drone damage and hitpoints
The only bonus to actual mining is the the duration and the bonus is the same for both so I thought maybe the skiff added its bonus to the barges bonus for a 4% reduction per skill.
Thank you @Terak_Romaller and @Do_Little for your helpful responses. That was what I was hoping and the extra cost will be worthwhile in the long run. 
A skiff is not as much of an opportunistic target as say, a Hulk. It can fight back, and requires a lot more DPS to kill before concord responds.
So someone has to want to gank you, otherwise they’ll move on to a softer target that requires fewer ships.
It’s no guarantee, it just changes the odds a little.
If you do find yourself being attacked by players, remember to overheat your tanking mods.
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Exactly. Your best defence when mining in a Skiff is someone else mining in a Hulk (or a even better a Mackinaw) in the same belt.
The wolves go for the weakest in the herd.
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You have to have Mining Barge trained to level V before you can start Exhumers, so as soon as you can actually fly the Skiff you get a 14% reduction in cycle time. At Exhumer level V your total reduction is 20%
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Insurance is just an insult and a joke, like a poorly thought out gimmick that was a good idea in somebody’s head and got slapped into game with nobody paying enough attention to veto it.
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Insurance is simply a bet that your ship will explode within 90 days. Whether or not you take that bet has nothing to do with the value of your ship, only the size of the stake and the probability of explosion.
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Another advantage of the skiff compared to the procurer is it’s ability to hold a 3rd set of drones.
So you can have one set of mining drones, one set of combat drones and one set of ECM drones
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It’s not though. It allows for newer players who have recently acquired a tech-1 ship to protect their investment which is massive for them. It doesn’t scale to more veteran players in T2 ships as by that time they should have ample resources and know the game enough to cover or avoid the loss of their more expensive ship.
It also allows differing game play scenarios for players like me who was willing & able to take the risk to fly around in a platinum insured Covetor focusing on yield (which I would lose occasionally no big deal) over to a tank focused Skiff. No way in heck can I fly around in a Hulk like I did with the T1 Covetor as the risk/reward from the insurance payouts dictates so.
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I like the Skiff in belts with smaller rocks, less wasted time. In gank friendly space I will stick to the procurer, it is cheaper and does well enough. Adding a couple of mining drones to your fit means you can make up for the lost production, while still have a rat guard.
Each barge has one real life purpose:
Retriever: 110% for afk moon mining in an op.
Covetor: For true active mining in low sec (low sec is the most dangerous), max yield fit. You will need a combat alt (same or different account) to shoot the rats. Like the Hulk below this is paired with a second covetor and a purpoise.
Procurer: For 110% afk mining in high sec.
Hulk: For true active mining in null nec (null sec is less dangerous than low sec), max yield fit, paired with a second Hulk and a cloaky orca. Always fit with higgs rigg and aligned to a TAC/safe.
Mack: For Semi afk Moon Mining (be in voice at least) in a fleet with shield boosts. Drop the survey scanner and get your shield resists up for bombs.
Skiff: For active solo mining in belts where the rats are dangerous and no allied combat ship/boost/logi for the rats.
you can add 2webifiers on the hulk, then chain web the next hulk in a chat( like logis) reducing the hulk to 9m/s. Just don’t fit point though 
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Aye never thought of that. Even though I do it for my freighter all the time. Good thinking.
Pyfa, all 5’s, no drones, max yield fits:
Procurer max m3/s: 18
Skiff max m3/s: 21.9
Procurer Price: ~76mil isk
Skiff Price: ~225mil isk
Porcurer max m3/s including drones, but only using Strip I’s: 18.3
price: ~44mil isk. Plus no need to spend time changing crystals to deal with different types of ore, and no investment in buying crystals, etc.
For straight up solo mining, there’s a reason people are using Orca’s and the Porpoise drone fits. They are only moderately slower, and cost half as much in Omega subscription.
I enjoy mining, as it is what originally brought me to the game, but something needs to change, especially with the Skiff.
It would be easy to say “nerf the max yield of the Procurer”, but that downward pressure then simply has people switching to Ventures or similar, and the Procurer becomes a relic. You can’t continue pushing down and nerf the Venture also, simply because it’s output is so poor that players would probably swap back to mining fits from the pre-barge days.
At 250+million isk, the “risk” of using a Skiff does not outweigh the rather small increase in ore yield. The yield needs to be increased, or the price needs to be cut in half, especially since the Skiff appears to have been designed to be a more solo/defensive mining ship. Once you tank the Skiff out, the difference in yield compared to a max yield Procurer goes upside down, to where the Procurer is pulling in more (again, excluding drones for the numbers). Given, a fully tanked Skiff is going to get you up towards the 100k EHP mark (the one I have is showing 91k), but I have to disagree with the other comments regarding ganking.
Gankers may appear to be after easy kills, and some of them are lazy in that respect, but if they are after the “isk destroyed” value on the killboards, they’ll drop the Cats and switch to Tornados.
With the yield numbers being so close and the prices having such a wide spread, the Procurer is easily the better option.
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This is pretty straight on. In fact if you just assume your going to get blapped a few times it makes much more sense for the solo highsec miner to just fit out a retriever and get to mining. You will make back all your isk spent on that fit in a few hours and replacing it with insurance is a very minor obstacle.
Maybe also try doing things like setting contacts, watching local and dscan etc you might get caught once in a blue moon.
Key point here is play the game, watch local, dock up if afk and you wont need to rage about mining ship losses.
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Use whatever you want. Your ability to sniff out an incoming gank before it lands and GTHO before it lands is more important than which ship you decide to use. If you don’t want to be ganked, pay attention. If you don’t care about getting ganked, use the cheaper ship. In my 8 months of this game, I’ve never been ganked in highsec no matter what I was flying but then, I don’t fly anything worth ganking into the “road to Jita” paths.
I disagree on Retreiver for solo highsec mining. If you just assume your going to get blapped a few times it makes much more sense for the solo highsec miner to just fit out a max yield Covetor. There’s not many ganks where a Retreiver lives but a Covetor doesn’t and Covetor has a bit more yield.
I see the point of both the Procurer & Covetor & their T2 counterparts, but don’t really see the point in the Retreiver or it’s T2 counterpart. I guess big orehold for low/null sec but for hisec large orehold is useless as you can mine faster just jetcanning & using a Miasmos.
Another strategy in addition to checking d-scan & local, higgs rig, etc is to join a mining corp that many hang out in one system/HQ a bit out of the way/away from Jita. Then people in local really pop that aren’t an alliance member & can warn each other in their channel when ie: Goons are rolling through.
This also means added security on the belts in addition to concord as ally mates will be out hunting those that do pop on local in ships that aren’t mining barges.