So a couple of questions for the community…When an Orca pilot is giving out those great boost to the fleet and all of the miners are bringing in the extra ore, and the I would assume somehow the Orca pilot is keeping up with whose minerals are whose, how does the Orca pilot make isk from this? It is obvious if this is a joint Corp op that most likely the ore is split somehow in a predetermined manner, but my question is as follows: is there a pre-determined pay off to the orca pilot that most know about and accept or is it something that is determined by the fleets as they are made and agreed to before the first ore is taken into the orca’s hold? Thanks for the help
I think it depends on the situation and who are involved etc. The orca pilot could just be an alt skilled up just to boost and probably won’t need isk, or if ore is sold a percentage is given to the orca pilot
Once CCP Rattati removes the ability for Orcas to mine in the next quadrant, an Orca pilot will get absolutely nothing for their time if they decide they want to boost others.
If you are currently training the skills for an Orca, you should stop.
If you haven’t purchased one yet, then don’t .
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Got a source for that?
Oh no wait, you are the new face of SOLITUDE SAMMY, Legit HyperN et, partyinmypants, SoldMyChar ForISK and Doctor’s Assistant aren’t you! 
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Normally an Orca pilot gets nothing out of it. Most Orca pilots would or should have a mining alt on grid so they are getting ore, spending the boosting charges and are just being good players by sharing the boosts. So players that receive orca boosts will tip the orca pilot. That tip helps the Orca pilot to cover boosting charge costs. If the Orca pilot is part your corp, they are just doing it because they are a team player.
I personally liked boosting strangers that came to the belts. It is just the neighborly thing to do.
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What does an Osprey pilot get out of fleeting up? They’re not killing any ships. All they do is help their fleet members, which is completely useless… /s
Orcas, even if they weren’t able to mine at all, would be a fantastic addition to any mining fleet that any miner would like to have.
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They don’t usually get a benefit, unless others pay them for their time. They can pull in a significant amount with mining drones, but most people I know cheat I mean multibox and use an Orca on an alt in conjunction with a mining barge or frigate.
If Orcas are going to lose their mining capabilities, then there will be no way an Orca pilot can make ISK, and we might see an uptick in multiboxing or Orcas who charge for their time. I still plan on getting one, if only because I enjoy helping miners.
Take care of people and some of them will take care of you.
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Sure, they would be welcome by the miners leeching off the Orca pilot, but there is zero reason for the Orca pilot to do it since they will get absolutely nothing out of it.
Just like there’s zero reason for an Osprey pilot to be on a fleet as they get absolutely nothing out of it either by supporting their allies. Oh right, supporting their allies, that’s what the pilot gets out of it.
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felt like the original post made it clear that I was not really talking about allies per say, but if not I apologize, however I meant if you were just putting together a fleet and was going to be the orca pilot, or if you joined a put together fleet should you pay the orca pilot. Of course anyone whom has friends and allies wants to help them and would most likely be given something for their time if they truly are friends.
If you’re looking to make ISK as an Orca pilot for a fleet, you should tell them you charge for your services. Otherwise the only thing you’ll get out of it is the satisfaction of doing a nice thing for others, plus whatever you can grab with your mining drones.
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I didn’t know there’s a cost involved with the mining boosts. I’ll have to do some research on it and start tipping the Orcas who help me out.
People keep talking about tipping the orca pilot, but when I used to do mining ops in Eve university, it was usually the orca pilot who oragnized the op, kept track of fleet participation, reprocessed the ore, sold it, and then paid everyone out (taking a cut for himself). And, afaik, that was the best way to do it. Miners weren’t constantly warping back and forth to station, and the maximum amount of value was extracted from the ore. Thus, orca pilots didn’t just give boosts, they acted as mining foremen.
I don’t know what’s a standard cut for an orca pilot to take in this case, but I certainly think that they deserve more than “one share” because of the cost of their ship and the amount of work they have to put in relative to everyone else. But I digress.
IIRC, fleet participation didn’t track what people mined (that would be a huge pain in the ass). Instead, they logged ship flown and time in fleet into a spreadsheet that was automatically set up to calculate their contribution. You might be able to find a current one online, but the first page of google results returned a bunch of old ones. So you should either go through it with a fine tooth comb to make sure it’s up to date, or you should just use it as a guideline as you make one from scratch. Also, Eve university would probably be nice enough to share theirs if you ask them.
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Mining Equipment Preservation charge, Mining Laser Field Enhancement charge and Mining Laser Optimization charges are the charges Orcas use.
Those charges are about 310 to 416 every minute for every boost the pilot has running.
Edit; prices of charges corrected.
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That’s…wow. That’s a lot. Now I understand a bit more of the reluctance some have to take their Orcas out for one or two miners, though none of them ever mentioned the cost.
Stars and stones, that’s expensive.
Careful with commas and/or points for decimals, those aren’t the same in all parts of the world.
From your post I might almost think that the Orca is paying millions of ISK for running boosts a few minutes, while I seem to remember from ingame that it’s only a couple thousand. Or I’m remembering wrong, that’s also possible.
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Yeah, I think he’s using commas as a decimal. Even if you paid 1,000 isk per charge (which is on the high side) and had 4 boosts running, that would still only come out to 240,000 isk/hour.
The Orca pilot is usually flying multiple barges as well. Once you have three barges, you get more out of adding a links ship than adding a fourth barge (and then add as many barges as you want).
Okay, if those commas are meant to be decimals, that makes a little more sense. I was sort of wondering how Orca pilots afforded to fly at all.
It’s worth it much sooner, as the Orca itself can mine too. If you have no other mining links on grid, I would bring a mining booster as second ship already. Or in case you’re using Procurers, bring the Orca as first ship as the Orca does it all better: survivability, ore hold and yield.