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Über Miner Luvin’

This last week we got our first concrete look at part of what is coming down the pipe in the near future. In a combined announcement from Outer Rim Excavations and Deep Core Mining, the new Orca was presented to the universe. It has the news wires all in a tizzy about it’s various aspects and roles it can perform. As with any new product, there are both fans and detractors. I tend to remain pessimistic about improvements until I actually see them, but I also have to admit that this really has me excited. It is at the core, a Mining Command Ship.

From the released information the specs are impressive. It will still likely have some tweaks before we see it in production, but the possibilities are phenomenal. I’m not privy to all of ORE’s and DMC’s research and test data, but what I have seen is a good start. The ship is laid out with the following information:
Ship Bonuses

250% bonus to tractor beam range [70km means you'll need long range targeting]
100% bonus to tractor beam velocity [1km/sec means just over a minute to drag from range]
500% bonus to survey scanner range [125km means you can tell what people are mining?]
99% reduction in the use of gang mods
Multiple gang mods can be fit without command processors

Skill Bonuses

3% increase in mining foreman links per level
5% increase in cargo capacity per level [meaning w/ T1 rigs will hold just over 90,000 m3]

The announcement mentions a material cost of approximately 400 million and a BPO cost of 1 billion. The initial BPO specs could change, but they indicate a total cost to own all part BPOs of around 7 billion. I would expect that the ship initially debuts for about 800 million to 1 billion and eventually will settle down closer to 600 million.

The specs also list a cargo capacity of 30,000 m3 + 30,000 m3 corporate hanger + 400,000 m3 ship maintenance array. It can effectively haul two rigged Hulks, but not a battleship.

The press release has been met with a lot of discussion ranging from cargo space adjustments, the need to buff this and that aspect of the ship and the general “it’s a crap ship that doesn’t meet my needs” opinions.

The ability to fly the ship is based on a new skill called Industrial Command Ships which means going back to school to fly it. Most of the rest of the skills I’ve studied before. If they change the skill requirements, I’ll probably have to get back to hitting the books hard.

Good Grief

It’s been a busy last couple of days. I have been perpetually thwarted by every attempt to undock. First it was a family emergency that required more than my passing attention to the information being fed down the hardwiring. Then there was a business trip to meet with a potential client for ongoing mineral sales. He was wanting to buy consistent quantities of certain minerals on a guaranteed schedule at or above market rates. The problem turned out to be the client’s backers were slightly less than reputable or even honest. It wasn’t shaping up to be a good time.

I managed to get back into the Lou Ferrigno and get several million units of Veldspar, Scordite and Kernite mined. Now that I have the standings with those Tash-Murkon Family posers, I can refine for more than I can sell the ore for. I don’t have the manufacturing skills yet to produce much with it, so I go for the profit. As I was making trips back and forth to the station, I would check the available mission ops for something interesting. The next to last trip in I noticed they were offering a chance to retrieve some minerals for war and knew the area would offer some Gneiss as well. I’m all for working through kind of ore I can get, so I pulled my records on the area and saw some battleship sized baddies.

I have been putting this off for some time, but I finally broke down and fired up heavy missile training. I hoped this would help it go a bit more smoothly. I checked my training times to make sure I could get it finished before the mission offer went away. Knowing that it was going to work, I flew off to make the last couple of jumps on the last sales trip. I’ll have to let you know how the heavies work out in real world practice. I might miss the missile-per-second firing rate of my seven little assault launchers.

Freedom!

While continuing to learn how to reprocess modules more efficiently, I’m back in the Lou Ferrigno for several more sessions with my favorite space rocks. I like to think of my self as a Asteroid Psychologist taking rough rocks and releasing their inner potential. What was once merely a rock in a limited and captive environment, being stifled by the gravity of a local celestial body is given purpose and passion. Who knows how far they can go.

They could end up in your next shield extender, afterburner or rifter. They have almost unlimited potential. And to think so many people want to put a stop to it. All the time I hear, “Don’t mine.”, “It’s not worth it.”, and “In defense of these poor rocks we are declaring open season on you and your hulk.” It’s enough to make me almost want to cry. Why would people be so completely ignorant of the untapped promise locked in these modest, unassuming rocks.

Who Needs Isk

I moved a bunch of my Tritanium to market today. I’m still using a Badger II as I don’t have the resources to use a Charon yet or the skills for something like an Iteron V. The result is that I move about 1.6 million minerals per trip. At the current market rate, that means I’m getting about 4.9 million per trip. As it’s only 6 jumps, I’m ok with making the jumps and moving it to sell it.

Having made some isk, I was contemplating going back into the field to make some more roids cry, but somehow got distracted by a item link to a Drake battlecruiser. Suffice it to say that 31 million later, I’m right back where I started isk-wise. I’ve never owned a BC before and barely have the skill to fly the thing. I have the tank and support skills, but haven’t spent much time learning the weapons systems. As a primarily industrial character, I didn’t use much beyond the occasional assault launcher or 150mm rail gun. So now I have a very well tanked passive drake without any launchers. Hilarity never ceases.

Refined Tastes

I couldn’t resist the title now that I have for the moment completed my mission grind. I now have enough standing with the local corp to refine my ore at 100% before taking it to market. For weeks I’ve just been sitting on my rock collection while I ground through mission after horrible mission to get enough standings. An unexpected bonus is that I have enough LP to pick up one of the specialized social skills from the LP store [nothing else of interest to a non-Amaarian pilot]. Now that I have my 6.7 standings, I’m refining on every trip out. The next major hurdle is getting it to the right market.

Speaking of refining, I’m finishing up Refinery Efficiency V so that I can start training Scrapmetal Processing and Ice Processing. Of course this also necessitates training Hydromagnetic Physics and Metallurgy. It really bothers me that inefficiency would take so much from the modules and fittings that I want to refine.

Jetcan Update

I’ve updated the Jetcan price list. The low-sec and 0.0 ores seem to have backed off a bit in over-all value, but they are still great investments. In high-sec, Veldspar and Scordite are running neck-and-neck with each other and only slightly behind Kernite. The vast quantities of Veldspar and Scordite asteroids within easy reach make it a very attractive situation

Personally, I’ve been sitting on my ore as of late, while the market fluctuates as well as while I grind through some missions for standings. I’ve built up quite a collection of ore, but I’m a bit reluctant to move it to market. Maybe I’ll train Freighters first…

The Occasional Missioner

I hear a lot of people talking about mining as a means to be able to do missions or support a PvP habit. I’ve always viewed missions that way. It’s a necessary evil for mining. You could concievably mine without ever running a mission [check out the macro mining isk-boys] but as a complete miner, you will conceivably need to refine some ore at some point. Then it’s nice to have a better than 6.7 standing with an NPC corporation. How do you get that if you are a dedicated miner?

To be sure, you can use connections to get a little bit closer, but at some point you’ll need to actually run a mission to even get started. Given that a large portion of mining training has not been in combat related skills, doing missions for standings can be a slow process. I’ve approached this rather in the same way that Dee Carson talks about training your learning skills. I do a mission now and then as time allows or when I’m done for the day with all of my mining trips.

I have skills to mine well in an Osprey, so that allows me to also pilot a Caracal. The tank is shield tank is also something that I’ve trained based on needing to survive in belts. Drones as well. The only thing missing is the weapons skills. I evaluated missiles v. gunnery skills and opted to go with the missles. This was based in part on the desire to possibly use a Drake or even Raven later on down the road as well as the ability to do mission specific damage.

So I mostly run level 1 and 2 missions for standings. Occasionally there is a level 3 agent that offers courier misssions that I can run for a bit more standings. Finally there is one other use for running missions, the LP store. There are some great mining implants that can be had from those stores. Not much else that a miner needs from the LP stores.

Profit by Jetcan

I tend to mine by jetcan. By working in a fairly backwater, dead-end systems, I can jetcan mine in relative privacy and without a lot of interference. This led to me calculating my yields and profits in terms that I could relate to. While I could count cycles of ore mined, I quickly lose track of which beams have cycled and how many times. It’s much easier to keep track of cans that I’ve completed.

At the end of the day I can easily tally how many cans I’ve mined and approximately how much it is worth. While I almost never have a can of only one type of ore, it much easier to make an approximate valuation based on complete can ore breakdowns.

I’ve added a list of ore values by jetcan to the sidebar on the left. These are calculated based on a 100% refine and a weighted average of prices for the refined minerals. Of note is that Scordite is currently the best of the cheap ores in high-sec and Jaspet is pretty much crap all-around.

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