Could a solo miner make decent ISK before the Age of the Rorqual?
Yes. Rorquals are not required for mining…
From what I’ve gathered on community consensus is that solo miners in anything BUT a Rorq cannot compete with a Rorq on the market.
It’s not the yield/hour in debate, but the ISK/hour.
From what I understand the massive influx of Rorqs deflated ore prices so drastically that it simply isn’t worth anyone’s time to solo mine in a barge unless they’re after the few things a rorq can’t mine (merc).
Sounds like a nullsec krab problem to me. I happily make billions mining in high sec without having to worry about 500 Titans being dropped on me at any moment…
no
but we paid our plex anyway
play the game was not so bad as people think it is nowadays
Mining before Rorquals were lots or barges and exhumers in belts and ore anomalies with a Rorqual in a POS boosting them to have great yield. You could engage those barges and exhumers without having to have dozens of bombers or Kikimoras.
In case you didn’t know, Titan dropping isn’t a thing anymore. And the moment you say “High Sec” any other other activity besides mining makes more ISK in high sec.
I do miss being able to off-grid boost inside a POS shield with the Orca…
Yet I still make billions mining. To each their own I guess…
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On one account?
That won’t come back but what should come back is that you only have 1 Rorqual (now on a resource grid) and lots of barges around it.
Yeah I’d like to see the Rorqual and Orca put back in their place as support ships rather than solo miners.
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let me tell my experience
wen i started playing plex was like 300+++ million isk
you had to mine at least 2 hours ++++ day to get one
no orcas, it was the barge era, multi lazor barges
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I almost forgot about that. That’s another thing they need to bring back, the old style mining lasers. They sounded like giant bug zappers…
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Lets see…
…back in the early days we used battleships with mining lasers and secure cans, and indie transports to haul back to nearest npc station.
But back then there were on 4 frigates, 4 cruisers, 4 battleships and 4 indie freighters.
There was no destroyers, battlecruisers, no T2 or T3.
There were learning skills, no alpha, no CONCORD, etc, etc…
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A solo miner always could make decent ISK. Still can now. Without a Rorqual.
You need to decide if you mean “decent” or if you really mean “the most”. Best volume per hour is still an industrial command ship boosting a fleet of exhumers with a hauler. Rorqual fleets, and mining in an Orca solo or an Orca alt blob, are both manifestations of either risk aversion, or wanting to mine afk/semi-afk, or both.
They’re AFK and botter’s favourites because the ore bays allow you to interact with them relatively infrequently.
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There are still high sec bot fleets using apocalypses here and there. One’ll get mentioned on the forums every so often. They’re way harder to gank than a barge, so the botter puts risk ahead of yield.
Just as boring.
You make it sound as if only 1 person can sell ore at any given time in all the markets in new eden.
There is no “Competing” in any real way other than measuring your E-peens. You, as well as any other miner in a mining barge alone, can take their ore and sell it on the market, for a near-100% profit.
Thats really up to the individual who is doing the mining.
For a brand new player who cant even go into a rorqual let alone afford one, mining barges may be worthwhile to them if it brings in more isk than running level 1 security missions and getting blown up becuase they dont understand how to fit their ship.
For a veteran who owns a fleet of 10 rorquals, a single mining barge yeild may not be worth their time and they may prefer to go with a rorqual.
Yes.
You could even make decent ISK in a Badger fitted with one mining laser. Or a battleship with a whole bunch of them fitted.