I have recently saved up enough ISK for an orca, and was planning on getting it because a lot of people in my Corp have one. However, I have noticed that orcas don’t really produce much on their own, and I’m not planning on getting an omega alt anytime soon, so is it really worth it? I have barges and exhumers and usually my corpmates with orcas are always around to give mining boosts when needed.
If you’re actually at your computer and paying attention use a Retreiver. Best balance of yield, ore hold, and cost.
Some folks prefer a procurer because it’s harder to gank. It means more trips to the station though.
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The orca is useful for things other than just mining or giving mining boosts.
It can be fitted as a rather tanky hauler.
It’s can mission run up to lvl 4s depending on skills.
If you don’t want to warping to station while solo mining it will take long time to fill up.
But yeah if you are with corp mates mining with Thier orcas it’s better isk to do that.
The best untold secret use of an Orca is as a poor man’s freighter. 288k ehp. 10s align time with 3.0 AU/s warp speed.
And about 120k m3 storage plus can carry up to battlecruisers if needs to transport a hull you dont fly.
This will take your industry to the next level without needing all them SPs in freighter
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Thanks for all the help! I’ll probably be buying an orca after all. I wanted to save up for a freighter too, but the orca kinda kills two birds with one stone.
Look into using the mwd cloak trick to get it to align within 10s…without the cloak obviously tho I think you can fit one.
Otherwise your alignment time is insane…like what. 52s?
As long as you fly the orca right then it is a great stepping stone to a freighter and much faster.
It’s like a good armored transport in high sec. Better than DSTs for the most part.
Fixed that for you.
If your Orca has less than 500k ehp you deserve to get ganked.
It’s absolutely worse than a DST in terms of actually not getting ganked and having your stuff pay for someone else’s next Tornado.
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Please don’t buy an Orca to use as a freighter and please don’t use that foolish align time fit.
5 minutes on zkill reviewing CODE. Ganks should be enough to explain why. Slow-ass, tanked out Orcas survive. Paper thin align time Orcas do not.
But it’s your 1.2 billion isk at the end of the day.
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Thanks for the help! I’ll make sure I choose a good fit.
Please be careful with it. I’ve used orca’s in ways they were never designed for but I have the alt’s to support it. Fly safe with that investment. 
I second this .
Only once had an attempt on me that failed. I guess they never bothered to scan me first lol
Battle Orca is also something you can try out. 
Hell yeah. I used to use one for soloing the emerging conduits.
750 DPS (more than my drake) and you could either go passive tank with an insane recharge rate or active with 79/83/84/81 resists and 420k ehp.
Drone control was an issue after each spawn but apart from that it was sweet.
What’s that fit? Best I’m seeing for me is around 385k ehp.
What do you have in the high slots ?
3 mining bursts, tractor, salvage, remote shield booster I think. Away from pc right now, but pretty sure that’s right
As I stated before my orca is used for transport of ships/stuff and for combat.
It has shield bursts in the highslots
You don’t get it. ONE MWD makes your orca align faster than a freighter.
sure, using one mid for MWD reduces your tank. But not to the point of making it “paper thin”.
BS.
Like most of hauling, the issue is not your tank ; it’s the ratio between your value and your tank.
I see, yeah I was just thinking of the mining fit. I can get more ehp with the shield bursts. Thanks.