"I just never would have seen you as someone that likes mining."
"Why not?"
"You're a pirate."
"There is that. It's not a one or the other thing you know."
Perhaps because the PvP all the time voices are so loud, it is easy for some to forget that people who PvP and may be classified as something of a pirate might have other interests. Someone called my blog PvP focused. I rubbed my chin and pondered that for a bit. I don't see it as PvP focused. I don't actually see it as focused if I'll be frank.
Anyway, my Orca. I popped it out of the oven the other week and went to fit it. I immediately learned that my fitting skills were lacking in some areas. I'm sure that it is bad that I fit to the fit I want the ship to be in. However, I don't want to spend months working on support skills I don't need for a character that flies three ships. I plugged in various skills and let them cook. My industry alt is not much of a pilot and has many holes that are easy enough to fill in her ship fitting skills.
I decided to start using my Orca as it is designed to be used. As a mobile, industrial platform. I have two bases. One I just mine things at, but the other I do my building. I realized at some point that I could just move my own things in my Orca. The base value of the minerals would be a few hundred million and well outside the gank range for taking out a well fit Orca. I could also transport my Mackinaw inside of it and only move one thing around whenever I needed to switch bases. Then, I realized that I could also set up my Orca to do things like hold spare crystals and a flight or two of drones and hold useful unimportant things.
A trip to Rens and a long talk with Ren about fits, tank, propulsion(prop) mods and rigs led to my somewhat hybrid tanking travel Orca. I don't plan to carry anything that is worth it to other people to gank me but I also don't want to be overly gankable. I know that every ship can be killed. Heaven knows that is a clear and understood thing to me. That doesn't mean that a ship should not be fit well.
What was pushing me was the fact that I didn't want to turn into my first CEO. Discussing Orca kills, I pulled up this kill mail. I was no longer in the corporation at the time it happened. Even at the time, I could see that it was a terrible fit. I don't often comment on fits because they are not my strength. That situation was a can flip, a lot of not having a clue what to do, and a very sad explosion. That corp shortly thereafter wardeced them and the CEO left the game, sent one or two eve-mails through eve-gate and vanished.
I went and spent money on it. It is one of those times when one remembers that the hull is only one part of the cost of a ship. Large rigs are a bit more expensive then I am used to. Still, you buy what you need to buy to fit the ship properly. That was a very hard lesson for me to learn. I would have done a lot better earlier on if I had rigged my ships and purchased the meta level modules that I could afford at the time.
Although I have desired an Orca from my first week, I am glad that I waited.
One more little goal, checked off and I'm absolutely thrilled about it.
A trip to Rens and a long talk with Ren about fits, tank, propulsion(prop) mods and rigs led to my somewhat hybrid tanking travel Orca. I don't plan to carry anything that is worth it to other people to gank me but I also don't want to be overly gankable. I know that every ship can be killed. Heaven knows that is a clear and understood thing to me. That doesn't mean that a ship should not be fit well.
What was pushing me was the fact that I didn't want to turn into my first CEO. Discussing Orca kills, I pulled up this kill mail. I was no longer in the corporation at the time it happened. Even at the time, I could see that it was a terrible fit. I don't often comment on fits because they are not my strength. That situation was a can flip, a lot of not having a clue what to do, and a very sad explosion. That corp shortly thereafter wardeced them and the CEO left the game, sent one or two eve-mails through eve-gate and vanished.
I went and spent money on it. It is one of those times when one remembers that the hull is only one part of the cost of a ship. Large rigs are a bit more expensive then I am used to. Still, you buy what you need to buy to fit the ship properly. That was a very hard lesson for me to learn. I would have done a lot better earlier on if I had rigged my ships and purchased the meta level modules that I could afford at the time.
Although I have desired an Orca from my first week, I am glad that I waited.
One more little goal, checked off and I'm absolutely thrilled about it.
The orca is a fine ship but as soon as you intend to mine with more characters and/or people you will need two. One for boosting and one for hauling. You don't want to loose the mining bonus every time it has to warp.
ReplyDeleteBut since 4. Dec. there is another really nice method: Hauling with a Freighter.
I had some nice Corpmining events running lately with almost 30 Hulks grinding rocks. One Noctis flying around collecting all the cans to a bookmarked warp-in and one Freighter warping to the bookmarks collecting all the cans. Hauling freighters full of ore... that lights up my industrial heart ;-)
Oh my. I'm a small time thing :P. I already found out I have like six loads on minerals needing to be hauled. Whoops
DeleteI got some inspiration for my main Orca-fits from Jesters post on the topic (http://jestertrek.blogspot.de/2012/09/fit-of-week-travel-orca.html).
ReplyDeleteI modified it a bit namely using a rig to get the PG necessary for the travelfit so it can still use the lows of the tankfit.
And i use cloak and armor and hullreppers in the highs most of the time because i use mine as a mobile base.
Have fun with your new toy!
Well I use my Orca for mobility platform for my pvp alt as well as mining. I actually didn't get my 1st orca till I was in a 0.0 alliance and I was glad that I waited as well. I was guided to tank my Orca well and have a cloak on it. Even though I'm back in Hi/lowsec i still tank like it I was still in 0.0. BTW, loving your blog. I've been following it for the last few weeks and I enjoy the posts a lot.
ReplyDeleteThank you :)
DeleteMaybe I'm missing something, but what is so bad about the Orca fit? It is very specialized, true: single Orca-boosting and hauling for a small group of miners, and should steer clear of any dangerous situations.
ReplyDeleteBecause it was made of paper and he got can flipped and died in a pathetic fire during a time when miners were can flipped regularly.
DeleteThat's why I think that the problem is not so much with the fit as such, but with the pilot who took the ship beyond the limits of what it was fitted for.
DeleteI have to agree with Mr. Monakh for many reasons. First, having an orca in a fleet means you shouldn't have to jet can. He is boosting so the miners have range and the orca to just keeps range to 2k and follows the miners through the belt. This way fleet members just put the ore directly into the hold. Secondly, if you are flipped and you flip back, you just open yourself to being fired upon with no repercussions to the original can flipper. Also if your tanked for belt rats, you should really not get into a fight.
DeleteExcept that he was not doing any of that. He was hauling in cans, boosting, and mining with mining drones. He was flipped and sat there and died. No combat drone switch outs 'they didn't respond' no tank for backup. He just died, slowly, to a stealth bomber orbiting him.
DeleteA full cargo expanded fit makes me twitch. Its my opinion on it. I'm sure that there is a place for this for some people. Not me.
""I just never would have seen you as someone that likes mining."
ReplyDelete"Why not?"
"You're a pirate."
"There is that. It's not a one or the other thing you know.""
LAIES!!! Everyone who's ever undocked in EVE knows that you're either an "ebil PvPer who hates pussy-ass whiny entitled carebears," or a "carebear who thinks ebil PvPers go around on a daily basis stomping babies' faces in with boots covered in cowshit."
C'mon, you know better. ;-)