Hey Fenris — I really enjoy EVE, and I had one small ship-balance suggestion.
I think the Miasmos would make an excellent introductory mining-support hull if it had two minor additions:
Integrated Mining Surveyor
Ability to fit one Mining Foreman Command Burst
This would create a very natural support progression:
Miasmos → Porpoise → Orca
I realize the Outrider already occupies the “single command burst” role, but I think it does so in a meaningfully different way. The Outrider is a dedicated mining destroyer that can contribute real mining output while providing a single boost. The Miasmos would instead be a beginner logistics-oriented support hull: poor mining yield, large mining hold, no compression, and a single weak support option.
I do not think this would make the Miasmos overpowered. Mining burst modules have substantial PG/CPU requirements relative to a hull like the Miasmos, so fitting one would involve a real sacrifice. Its burst effectiveness could also remain completely unbonused, leaving the Outrider and especially the Porpoise far superior as actual command ships.
What this would do is give industrial pilots a basic fleet-support option before Industrial Command Ships, while making the Miasmos’s existing mining hold and mining capability feel more coherent.
I have been using a Miasmos alongside a Pioneer, and it already works surprisingly well as a primitive mining-support ship: the Pioneer does the serious extraction while the Miasmos mines slowly and acts as an on-grid ore storage. An integrated surveyor and one command burst would formalize a role the ship already naturally performs without replacing the Outrider, Porpoise, or Orca.
Another option is to just make a variant (like the Quafe variants of same ship) or a specific ORE model that would still have a beginner friendly price. In this way you wouldn’t be assigning to a main sequence hauler features that none currently have.
The Miasmos is a simple Gallente T1 hauler though, and not really fit for this role.
An entry-level mining foreman ship is an interesting idea, if it were an ORE ship. But isn’t the Porpoise already a good fit for that as T1 cruiser-sized ship?
We have a very natural support progression that way:
Porpoise → Orca → Rorqual
With the Porpoise as a cheap accessible small ship for people who don’t want to risk big things like Orcas or Rorquals. I much prefer flying a Porpoise myself instead of my Rorqual.
Alternatively a smaller command ship is not a bad idea either. The smallest ‘command’ ships in the game are command destroyers, which also makes a good entry-level mining foreman. But as you noticed we already got that last year in the form of the Outrider.
If you’re looking for an unbonused mining foreman ship with very low skill requirements, have you looked at the Gnosis? It could do what you want it to do, besides having a huge ore hold on top.
Thx for reply. I guess I just feel the secret sauce would be the combo of
Cheap and newbie friendly (Gnosis is still relatively expensive for newbies)
Huge ore hold for collecting and helping corpmates to stay on grid (gnosis hold is tiny in comparison)
Ability to participate in operations, perhaps even low-yield low attention (mining scanner & command burst)
In truth, it’s pretty good already in terms of 1 & 2, but it would be a really nice bonus to have a little more participation.
I see some players have already suggested a small packaged ship bay so indy haulers could pack a venture around in it. I feel there’s already a sense that this ship could be a little more useful and is a bit of a missed opportunity.
but the gnosis is an all in one ship basically that requires zero skills
if a newbie can’t buy a ship thats less than 100m after playing for a bit, thats their fault.
just looked.. its ranging from 40-99 mil on the market. (not counting jita)
The truth is that command bursts is not a very newbie-friendly role.
To do well in it you want to have invested many skill points in a supportive skill that otherwise does little for yourself. And an entire fleet only needs one character like that.
In the fleets in null sec that I fly in it’s usually veteran characters or players with specialized alts to fly shield, armor, information and skirmish links, I do it often. And the newbies can join in any helpful T1 ships they can fly.
Luckily a mining fleet too has multiple players, so only one player needs to have a bit more SP and ISK to help the rest.
But even then a miming foreman Gnosis doesn’t require any SP besides the mining foreman skill.
Sure, you won’t have both links and a good ore hold on one character until you train a bit more into the Porpoise, but mining is a cooperative task anyway so one of you could be flying a Miasmos to carry the ore away of the others so the rest can keep mining, until you get access to compressors.
