What good is the type AII crystals for asteroid belt ores? The answer might seem “uh, duh, it’s better than the regular type A, you get 18% instead of 15%.” So you get more yield per cycle and that means more profits, yaaay!
But while that might be good for moon goo or the null sec ores, when it’s something like Veldspar or Pyroxes… if you wanted to mine Veldspar in a barge, why would you bother? Sure extra yield is extra yield, but an extra 3% of a cheap ore is a tiny bit of cheap ore.
That might be useful if the crystals lasted a bit longer, but they have a 12% volatility. So they are more expensive than regular As and they don’t last as long. But you make a bit more yield… just so you spend that bit of extra yield to buy the more expensive crystal? You not only have to make more money than the price of the A II crystals, but you have to make more than the price of the crystals PLUS the yield you would have gotten if you just went with Tech I and was like “I don’t care about crystals”
T1, and sub-T2 meta give good ore pool maintenance, ORE gives the same, but much better m3 yield.
T2 and crystals can give better yield than the lower meta lasers/strips, but the Type-B gives the highest yield of all, but also has the highest chance of wastage also.
If you compare to what yoh mined before the new crystals, the new give better for tge same amount of time.
So depending on if you have time, you can use the lower meta and ORE you allow you to mine the full field, the Type-A crystals are a little less effective, but will clear a field faster.
The type-b crystals will yeild the best and clear fields the fastest, but can waste a lot of the extra bonus ore that was added to the fields.
So depends on time vs risk vs yield, and players have to decide which way they go.
Moon mining with time limits will have the same issues, and it short time limit and small fleet, they’ll use T2 and T2 type-b to mine as much as they can before its gone.
The thing is, type AII cost a lot more than the type AI, making me wonder what the point is. Sure the yield is a bit more then AI since it’s 18% more yield than 15% and that’s good for moon ore, but for cheap ores it’s just 3% on a cheap ore.
Imagine two players mining in high sec alone. Both don’t have barges. They buy and outfit their barges, with the only difference being their high slots and cargoholds. Player 1 fills his Retriver with cheap high sec ore in t1 strip miners and doesn’t care about reloading crystals. He does this for days at a time and he manages to avoid getting ganked despite these things being a magnet for gankers.
Player 2 uses 2 T2 Strip Miners with type AII crystals and gets his 18% bonus on the same ore. He carried 15 crystals and mined every day until 14 crystals burned out. His ship also survives.
Both players then sell their ore. Player 2 makes almost 18% more (not quite, even if he had a +200% bonus, he wouldn’t make triple the ore since the time aligning every time he was full isn’t cut in third, but with a large orehold, the bottleneck is mining the rock, not aligning, so pretty barn close to 18%).
So player 2 comes out ahead right? Well this is the part where the cost of the crystals come in. Type AII crystals are a lot more expensive than AIs. So while player 2 might have been able to replace the cost of his crystals and strip miners, I’m not sure he’s actually ahead of player 1. I’m sure he would be for moon goo, but I’m less sure for high sec ore. Or even low sec belt (as opposed to anomaly) ore…
As said its player’s choice if they use T2 crystals, T1 crysrals or faction or non-crystal options.
Cost of T2 are always more than T1, as they use T1 as part of manufacturing.
It should be noted a type-a t2 yields rough the same as the type-b t1, with lower wastage, nothing yields as high as type-b t2, for productive use.
So as said before its a choice of yield vs time vs risk vs wastage.
It should be noted time will give more mined resources over time. Wastage gives faster yield, and yield costs time and risk. Risk costs you in time or isk.
So it’s down to how the player mines as to which method they go.