Miners to get new capital ship

N

NecroSen

Veteran X
EVE Online | EVE Insider | Dev Blog

According to this recent dev blog, a new capital ship specifically devoted to mining (built by ORE, same as the barges) is in the works:

ORE Capital Ship

Outer Ring Excavations has been hard at work over the last year to answer the rising need for a logistical mining support platform capable of surviving the rigors of the frontier whilst serving as a central command platform for mining operations. The ship fills this role by having the unique ability to compress ore and ice to a fraction of its original volume for transport and storage using the latest in advanced techniques. Additional abilities include:

  • Fitting capital tractor beam modules which can pull cargo containers from two hundred kilometres at a much faster velocity than normal tractors beams can,
  • Inherent bonuses to the range of survey and cargo scanners allowing it to survey asteroid belts at a glance from its position and the status of cargo cans for its mining gang and,
  • It can equip multiple gang links and provide significant bonuses to the mining foreman gang links.
  • Bonus to Capital Shield Transporter range per lvl of ship skill.
  • Like other ships in its class, the ORE Capital Ship will also:
    • Include a ship maintenance bay, corp hangar, a generous drone bay and cargohold,
    • Have the ability to fit a clone vat bay, and
    • Be propelled by its own jump drive to move between systems.

How does the ship operate?

The ship requires an Industrial Core module to function. Module activation facilitates the operation of the ship into its deployed mode. When in deployed mode, the ship's assembly lines and special bonuses are active and it can provide remote assistance, but it cannot move, warp or jump. The Industrial Core requires a skill to operate which reduces the fuel use of the module.

How does it compress ore/ice?

The ship has assembly lines which the capsuleer can activate for compression of ore and ice. Blueprints are needed to facilitate the compression process, thus turning normal ore into compressed ore in the same way manufacturing operates.

What will it cost?

The initial investment will be slightly higher to that of a carrier to build, at least two new skills will be required (one for the ship and one for the deployment module) in addition to the cost of the deployment module.
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Other changes on the drawing board include a revamp of various Mining Foreman links and improvements to the Survey Scanner UI.

So, if anyone's into pounding rocks or if your dreadnoughts are aching for some target practice, there ya go. :)
 
won't be long before the mine & whine gang bitches about having to learn too many skills to use it.
 
These things just scream bait. I think they're neat in idea and would be particularly useful in some parts of the drone regions, but they're just begging to be ganked. Now sitting in a POS (if they allow bonuses that way) and acting as a station in a POS, now that's pretty cool and useful.
 
Yeah they will get ganked. But, if they arent flying the ORE cap, they would have been flying a hulk.
And they will only be real useful in the belt, providing the bonuses and basically acting as a hauler.
How our guys mine is, they have alts in the surrounding systems and if shit comes, prealign and get out.
 
Helado said:
These things just scream bait. I think they're neat in idea and would be particularly useful in some parts of the drone regions, but they're just begging to be ganked. Now sitting in a POS (if they allow bonuses that way) and acting as a station in a POS, now that's pretty cool and useful.
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That's exactly what I'm thinking. I'm a miner and I'm not particularly excited about these things for that exact reason. It's just going to be an ore compressor and gang leader sitting in a POS for me, I'm sure as hell not taking a cap ship in to a belt, and I'm especially not going to put that thing in to siege mode outside of a POS. A Hulk free of obstructions can just warp out in time the moment a hostile jumps in, a capital doesn't stand a chance.
 
Well since so far it appears like the Capital mining ship wont even be able to use strip miners, you wont be solo mining with it. Its not made to be soloing. Its probally as capable as say a dread/carrier ratting.
You dont deploy it unless you have 2-3 people also with you. And honestly, how unlikely is it that you dont have a cyno alt. Or even a POS with a cyno generator hooked up.
damn greedy pirates!
 
I don't really see these things being used except by big 0.0 alliances deep in their own space where they get reports well in advance of hostile gangs. Otherwise mining cap ships would be too risky to fly.
 
-=TTC=-Spermme said:
Well since so far it appears like the Capital mining ship wont even be able to use strip miners, you wont be solo mining with it. Its not made to be soloing. Its probally as capable as say a dread/carrier ratting.
You dont deploy it unless you have 2-3 people also with you. And honestly, how unlikely is it that you dont have a cyno alt. Or even a POS with a cyno generator hooked up.
damn greedy pirates!
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Contrary to the pirates, most miners aren't in groups. It's usually you and your alt, maybe another guy if you feel like sharing; mining is like ratting, you don't want people getting between you and your ISK. Mining equipment needs to be usable solo if it's to be used much.

And seriously, most people won't have a POS with a cyno gen, that requires Sov 2. Most miners aren't in sovereignty-holding corps. As for the cyno alt, it's a matter of needing it online every moment you're mining(otherwise it takes too long to log in), which means you need a full account just for that.
 
well contrary to popular belief any person whos likely to own ANY capital ship, will have an alt. I dont know a single cap ship pilot in my alliance who doesnt have atleast one.
And i'm a hardcore miner. I have a hauling alt. I dont see what would be so weird about fitting a cyno gen on it.
A single miner isnt likely to be in 0.0 or 0.4.
 
ViRGE said:
That's exactly what I'm thinking. I'm a miner and I'm not particularly excited about these things for that exact reason. It's just going to be an ore compressor and gang leader sitting in a POS for me, I'm sure as hell not taking a cap ship in to a belt, and I'm especially not going to put that thing in to siege mode outside of a POS. A Hulk free of obstructions can just warp out in time the moment a hostile jumps in, a capital doesn't stand a chance.
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You ever consider that they might convert asteroid belts from warpable points into exploration sites at one point? :bigthumb:

Will these ships be allowed to operate in hisec space? Since it won't be able to hurt a fly, unless it's allowed to use fighters, I don't see a reason for banning it..

edit: nm, no they cannot..
 
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According to the thread related to this, the devs have revealed their initial specs: the ship maintenance array is expected to be 600k m3, but restricted to barges, exhumers, industrials and transports. The cargohold will be something around 25k and the corp hangar 10k. Not sure if there are any cargo bonuses involved. (Those numbers from a post by CCP Chronotis)

The way compression works is the ship will need to deploy into Industrial Mode, where it can't move and such, for its assembly lines to come online. Then you load the minerals along with a blueprint, similar to manufacturing, into the assembly lines. The output is compressed ore "batches", with each batch equating to the refining amount of an ore, and one batch by itself will refine at any station for an equal amount of minerals as the normal ore would fetch you. Each of these batches, however, would be 1/5th the size of the refining amount of its raw ore.

The example given was Mercoxit. 250 Merc compresses to 1 batch of Compressed Merc, and the size of the batch would by 2k m3, rather than 10k m3 for the raw Merc.

People are already griping that there's not enough space in the cargohold, corp hangar or the SMA put together. Some have called for more cargo space in general, others for a complete removal of the SMA in favor of an "ore cargohold" of equal size. The main worry is that their hulks would only be able to mine for about 10 minutes before the cargoholds of the ORECAP were filled completely, and the whole operation would be a waste of time.

Just as some of you point out, a lot of folks there don't see the point in having the cap at a belt, even for the bonuses. Others speculate that both miners and capship pilots won't want to waste the effort in training all the required skills, which will likely be something like was screenied here (shots from the test server).

BTW, there's also screens of the attributes of a fighter-sized mining drone.
 
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It sounds like its intended to compress the ore, then hand it off to transports for delivery to a station, not actually hold the ore.
 
-=TTC=-Spermme said:
well contrary to popular belief any person whos likely to own ANY capital ship, will have an alt. I dont know a single cap ship pilot in my alliance who doesnt have atleast one.
And i'm a hardcore miner. I have a hauling alt. I dont see what would be so weird about fitting a cyno gen on it.
A single miner isnt likely to be in 0.0 or 0.4.
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Of course most miners have alts, and those alts are part of the mining group earning their keep. If you're using the cap ship, you need another alt on another account that can create the cyno field. I don't know about you but I like all of my accounts mining so that they're all earning ISK and maximizing my profit potential.
 
haniblecter said:
It sounds like its intended to compress the ore, then hand it off to transports for delivery to a station, not actually hold the ore.
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Which is really, really stupid. If the cap ship can't move the ore itself, why not just turn the ore compressor in to a POS array, and save miners the grief of all the training and running another character?
 
ViRGE said:
Which is really, really stupid. If the cap ship can't move the ore itself, why not just turn the ore compressor in to a POS array, and save miners the grief of all the training and running another character?
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Yeah and why cant you have a module you can deploy that can enter siege and knock out pos's.
Oh yeah, because thats stupid.
 
Reading some more of the dev posts makes it seem like they want it to be sitting in a belt with a bunch of miners with you giving bonuses and compressing ore. Meanwhile your using the bonuses to tractor in cans from your mining buddies. Only problem is that because of the siege cycle, that's 10 minutes that you could really get fucked, even with a scout unless you have a full defense. It's definitely going to be a risky venture to compress in a belt.

I still think it could be useful as such, just don't know how many will take the risk. For now I think it'd still be massively useful as a portable mining station in systems where you have a POS. Jump in to system POS, bonuses are currently system wide (although they said they want to change command ships and this one as well to move bonuses to on grid only), and you can compress ore in safety while you use your fully expanded itty V alt to haul. Dump compressed ore into a POS SMA/CHA or use a carrier doing constant jumps to a station if you are doing some insane mining.

I guess I don't see the size being an issue unless my maths are way off (I haven't mined in a long time). A perfect skilled hulk pilot with great bonuses does what, 4500 m3/cycle, even with a massive amount of hulks, you're going to have to worry about stripping belts faster and moving to new one's while the capital is stuck in siege than filling up all the available space in the ship. IMO.
 
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