I like the differences between the barges and think it’s a good thing they are so polarised.
Covetor with paper thin tank and tiny ore hold has a significantly higher yield than the others and makes for the perfect barge in relatively safe situations with a mining fleet. Orcas and Porpoises with remote reps can keep it alive and store the ore in their hold, making up for all the flaws of the Covetor and enabling it to be the best group miner.
Procurer with the huge tank can take on battleships in null and survive (for a while) until backup arrives. The tank allows it to mine in situations where the other ships would be easily killed, but even though it has a lot of EHP it can still be killed.
The Retriever… I’ve never felt a reason to use one. It is nearly as paper thin as a Covetor which means it requires fleet support to keep it alive from belt rats and PvP. The huge ore hold means it doesn’t require fleet support to keep mining. So this ship has bonuses to mine without fleet support yet requires fleet support, which makes it a strange hull. If I’m with a fleet I’ll use a Covetor for higher yield, and if I’m solo or in danger of being dropped on I’ll use a Procurer.
The only reason I can see to use a Retriever is if you’re mining in a group with mining boosts, yet don’t trust the booster to give your ore back after you’ve stored it in their ore hold so you don’t want to use a Covetor. A very rare niche.
The polarised roles of the barges (and exhumers) is good in my opinion, as each of the barges specialises in a role and specialisation is good. But if I were to make a change, I’d double the EHP of the Retriever to further enable it’s role as solo miner.
Looking back at the original changes (sin) the thing I would have done is left the Hulk as more of an all out glass astriod eater for use in fleets.
And of course as mentioned kept off grid range for the mining command modules so the Orca can offload as well as not given the Orca the mining drones which was a huge mistake.
Down below @Daichi_Yamato is pontificating that the Skiff and Procurer have too much tank. What is the obsession with mining ships and making them weaker you ask? I’ll tell you. The game is fine. This is nothing more than a campaign to make game-play against miners even more lopsided. Went thru low sec again today. Dead, Dead, Dead. That’s where the shooter with the most bought skills and the best bought equipment win. And it’s a dead zone. No mining, no NPC stations and one guy trying to shoot me because I dared to enter. There are no Orcas, Procs, Skiff, etc. just one giant empty vacuum.
Orcas and mining ships out in the open mean freedom and free commerce. And most of the people here are trying to kill that by changing the rules by lobbying CCP. This is a lobby campaign to take down miners and turn hi sec into the waste lands that are null and low. And if we object strenuously, we’re butt hurt care bears like you were heckled. Or bots, or AFK bots.
Just remember Orcas are freedom and free commerce. They get their way in low/null sec lobbying for archaic rules, because we in hi sec we don’t care. They can have their dead militarized zones. Hi sec needs to stay as is - free.
Might as well call these Orca census reports. Null and low are dead and they have no Orcas or independent miners. Look at peak concurrent players. People are rushing in to play in the dead zones. Oh wait the zones are dead. Because …people don’t play there …because it’s dead.
Just a few places left so… you guys actually can screw up the entire map. So stop already.
Here’s novel idea!!! You ready???
Why not make more of the map have those little blue bumps. That means more players, more commerce, more Orcas and more fun. This is pretty simple stuff. If all the rest of the blue bumps go away you got nothin’.
Those bumps represent players. Assuming no big influx of new players, there is a finite amount of players.
To get more bumps, the bigger bumps need to be reduced to get people to spread more through the universe.
To make people move away from the safety of high sec, where those bumps are, high sec will need some drastic changes to make people prefer other regions instead.
Good luck with that!
That could work. I’m not saying it’s a good idea, but it would ‘make more of the map have those little blue bumps’!
I think you guys are gobsmacked that so much of Eve is a dead zone.
Is that what CCP wanted 12 years ago? I can see the meeting now…
“Well I think our long term goal should be to turn most of Eve into a dead zone”
“Good idea Jerry, let’s go to lunch.”
Of course not. They thought all the little bros would fly around having all their stuff blown up. And have all the miners sit still and have their ships blown up.
ATTENTION PLEASE: THAT MODEL IS NOT WORKING
Customers voted with their ships and stuff and moved else where. You can rationalize it all you want. You can misinterpret my comments all you want, low & null are dead. Very few people want to be there.
It certainly seems that the vocal crowd here who have tough looking avatars and set the narrative that low and null are where it’s real baby want to hobble mining ships even more. Well low and null are only “real” as in real dead zones. Where are CCP’s customers? In hi sec where there’s freedom to move and do what you want, when you want, how you want.
And the Orca and the mining ships are a big part of making it that way.
So start owning the dead zones that are low and null sec. That’s your legacy.
My legacy is hi sec and Orcas and I’ll own that any day.
As a fairly new player, getting ganked in a Venture on an asteroid belt {has to be just for fun, no profit in it] and in my battleship in an L4 storyline mission where no Pvp should be allowed [I was already low-cap and shield, fighting multiple pockets of battleships when the jerks found me somehow] has convinced me to NEVER go into low- or null-sec again with anything but a shuttle or blockade runner.
In fact, if I could find a ganker-hunting corp that was out to improve the player experience, I would give up my corp and join them, just for the pleasure of seeing these low-lifes suffer.
No wonder everything outside high-sec is so dead. The gankers won’t surprise ME any more in a mission in low-sec. I won’t be there…
The only reason you receive payouts for missions is because you are putting yourself at risk of being attacked by other players. No risk = no pay. If you just want to play to enjoy the mission, you can do that on the test server.
Despite appearances to the contrary I have learned a great deal from you in this conversation. I doubt I will be able to implement what I learned myself. I’m not that good.
You are the master of deflection. Responding in such a way that is believably associated to the subject or point but objectively erroneous. Still, it causes the other party to stop and restate the case or point and thus momentum is stolen. Brilliance.
That said, all secs being the same or should be the same is not the point in contention. That was deflection. The point in contention is that the low/null sec models have failed. Giant swaths of null and low sec are barren. I also stated that “you guys” are trying to make hi sec in the image of low and null.
So you accused me of what you guys are actually doing.
Brilliance. I salute you.
Notice though, no one has argued against the fact that low and null are dead and hi sec is freedom and thriving.
Then why are you asking to be catered to in hi sec? You don’t want hi sec to be like it is now free and thriving. You’re demanding that they change the game for you. That’s what catering means.
All you guys do is come here and harrumph, mock the other side, call them names and act like what you are demanding is the natural order of things. Now I’ve come along and broken it all down with confidence, charm, humor and darn fine writing. I’m breaking your narrative down…so…
You call me a bot, a whiner, etc. And then you accuse me of doing exactly what you yourself are doing.
Sharing here…
That’s not an effective response; it merely magnifies the baselessness of your position. All you had was narrative and its crumbling to the comparison of freedom vs. dead zones. That’s it, I’m not going to help you any more. You’re on your own.
They’ve called me a bot, they called me a whinner and they are accusing me of wanting to be catered to. My statement you quoted is true and correct.
I want nothing but the status quo. You can have the dead zones I don’t want them. I want hi sec freedom and my Orca. I want the status quo. There is no hypocrisy in wanting the status quo. They are mutually exclusive states.
