Posted - 2009.09.15 21:32:00 - [3]

 

1. A orca pilot with perfect skills boosts your yield by a bit less than 50%, thus at 3 pilots it doesn't make a big difference yield wise and if you have 4 pilots or more orca gets better

2. yes, if you mean the corp hangar not the ship maintenance bay

Posted - 2009.09.15 21:51:00 - [5]

 

Originally by: Crain Fraggs

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1. A orca pilot with perfect skills boosts your yield by a bit less than 50%, thus at 3 pilots it doesn't make a big difference yield wise and if you have 4 pilots or more orca gets better

2. yes, if you mean the corp hangar not the ship maintenance bay

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Excellent, that's exactly what I was wondering.

Is there somewhere that lists the size of the new ore bay on the Orca? Or do I have it all wrong, and there's no special "ore bay"

Posted - 2009.09.15 22:30:00 - [7]

 

Edited by: Bellac on 15/09/2009 22:32:54
Strictly number crunching gives exactly as posted above, but you also need to bare in mind the logistic advantages of having an orca in the gang which also increases laser range to around 23km , has a scanner with something around 130km range and a 70 km tractor beam.

Add to this the ability to refit ships in space, the ability to carry spare crystals and drones, the ability to swap ships completely to something other than a hulk, the ability to move more than 170,000 m3 of ore per load, and the ability for pilots to drop ore directly into the corp hangar, IMHO it actually becomes more viable in an even smaller gang than 4.

You definatey will not be dissapointed IF you regularly mine alot and get an orca, but be warned, to get the most the pilot needs a mining forman mindlink.

It is worth getting EFT tool and messing around with the requirted setups and skills etc to see exactly what it can offer

Posted - 2009.09.16 02:40:00 - [9]

 

Edited by: Baka Lakadaka on 16/09/2009 02:40:56
The Orca pilot should be moving ore around between the hangar, the ore bay and the cargo hold to maximise efficiency.

Miners and haulers can directly access the corp hangar, so you don't need jetcans. The Orca pilot makes sure there's enough space in the corp hangar for the miners to deposit, but also makes sure there's a full load for the hauler when he arrives on site.

Ore and Ice can go in any of the 3 bays - but only Ore and Ice can go into the Ore bay. (you may need to read that last line twice - I know I did).

Posted - 2009.09.16 10:11:00 - [11]

 

Edited by: Echo Mande on 16/09/2009 10:29:17
Edited by: Echo Mande on 16/09/2009 10:17:58

Originally by: Mara Rinn

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With three pilots in "real world" mining scenarios you get far greater productivity having two in Hulks, third in Orca.

From the point of view of the folks who just string a bunch of bonuses together, the Orca could be replaced with a third hulk and you lose about 10% productivity. From the point of view of folks who actually want to haul the mined product to station and gather more than three Hulk cargobays full of stuff, just saving the Hulks the trip back to station means the orca is boosting productivity by merely existing.

With just two pilots, the benefit of having one in an Orca is that you are immune to can flippers. If the second pilot is controlled by the same player as the first, having the Orca available means much less interaction is required since the Orca just continually dumps ore into the corporate hangar, and you haul stuff back to station once every half hour or so.

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All of this. I use 2 hulks and an orca for my mining and having the orca along as mobile secure jetcan as well as booster is a huge plus. An additional but lesser bonus is that the orca can carry the hulks around so my miners can scout for belts quickly in frigates until they find something worth mining. At that point they move to a good mining spot, the orca warps in, the miners board their hulks and get to work.

Incidentally my orca isn't set up for max carrying capacity. I'm using an Istab-2 and a 100MN AB to get the orca into warp from 0 in about 12 seconds. The hulks jetcan while the orca's away but that's never more than 2 cycles.

Posted - 2009.09.16 17:08:00 - [13]

 

Originally by: Baka Lakadaka

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Edited by: Baka Lakadaka on 16/09/2009 02:40:56

Miners and haulers can directly access the corp hangar, so you don't need jetcans.

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This is only true if the hauler is in your corp. Fleet members can dump into the corp hanger, but only corp members can access what's in there. There is currently no way to configure the ship to allow fleet member access.

Posted - 2009.09.17 11:40:00 - [15]

 

Keep in mind that without an Orca you will need a hauler. So in some cases Hulk + Orca can be better than Hulk + Hulk/part time hauler. For 2 hulks + Orca it's really not much of a choice, given the Orca can do double duty.