Got My orca =P

[Alptraum]

Ok finally completed the training, got the ship and all I can say is wow is this thing badass, it essentially is a pilotable spacestation, the shiphanger can hold up to 400,000 m3 which is about 2 hulks or a bunch of smaller ships..you could park a army of osprey miners in here.

the corporate hanger is pretty cool too allowing you to store 40k m3 worth of items in it, and the orca itself has a regular cargo bay of 35.5 m3 which holds an entire jetcan of ore and then a little bit, with 2 cargo expander 2's on it I was able to get up into the 50K+ m3 cargo range nearly 2 jetcan's of storage...now she does move slow as a turtle but still..this is one impressive ship for sure, and with the mining gang bonus modules u can bolt onto this puppy wow, you'll be pulling in tons and tons of ore in no time.

Ok thats my happy rant for the day :).

[Redbeard]

Cool man, do you mind me asking how you're using it? Like what is your group composition.

[Alptraum]

The basic plan so far is to jump into a very untraveled system where I've setup my mining operations, to prevent some gank squad from coming and trying to pop my insanely expensive ship...and I just tractor the jetcan's to the orca and load their contents into my ship..and when full zip back to base to dump...since its mining bonus is shared as long as were in the same system its all good, that allows me to use my other 4 toons to fly their mining ships and basicly keep filling jetcans till we eat the field dry and have to move to another on. As long as I use insta's im not having a problem with time for jumping back and forth. This freed up the need to dedicate one hauler to the mining op and instead lets everyone m

[RobinGBrown]

Grats on gettign to the Orca Alptraum!

I've been using mine as a mining base, I'm in 0.5 so not as much to worry about getting ganked but do have the skills for a decent tank on it.

My routine is to fly around looking for an exploration site with asteroids I can mine. Then I have my Orca pilot warp to the exploration site (or a belt if I didn't find a site), I have two miners who follow in frigates with salvage kit, they jump into the two hulks I have in the Orca's ship maintenance bay and start mining the roids, emptying their cargoholds into the Orca (or using cans if not close). Meanwhile I have a hauler who runs backwards and forwards emptying the Orca's hold. Once I'm done mining the Hulk pilots swap back to their frigates and salvage all the rat wrecks.

That's 4 accounts and that keeps me fairly busy (no breaks longer than a couple of minutes), when I reopen a fifth account I'll have an extra Hulk miner and I figure I'll strip a belt in under an hour and I'll be busy playing all that time. Gravimetric exploration sites are best as you get some really big asteroids that take forever to mine out, plus better rats.

Adding in salvaging makes a difference to your income, you'd be poppoing the rats anyway so why not make something from them?

I wish they made something like the Orca for multiboxing mission runners...

[Souca]

I neat little trick I learned tonight. Fit a webber on one of your other ships. Web you slow ships like freighter and they will align faster for a quicker warp. It's used a lot when getting freighters through low sec to a jump off point. You have a frigate at each jump gate to web the freighter so it can make the trip much faster and thus leave less time to be a target. Since webs are mid slots and most mining gear doesn't use the mids, you might be able to use this to help the Orca turn.

- Souca -

[d0z3rr]

Bet you're having a whale of a time with it, har har har.

[RobinGBrown]

Fit a webber on one of your other ships. Web you slow ships like freighter and they will align faster for a quicker warp.

Make sure you only do this with toons who are in the same corp though - webbing someone is a hostile act as far as CONCORD are concerned and they will nuke you instantly unless you're both in the same corp.

p.s. Does anyone like my new avatar or should I change it?

[Souca]

Fit a webber on one of your other ships. Web you slow ships like freighter and they will align faster for a quicker warp.

Make sure you only do this with toons who are in the same corp though - webbing someone is a hostile act as far as CONCORD are concerned and they will nuke you instantly unless you're both in the same corp.

p.s. Does anyone like my new avatar or should I change it?Change it? Why, it's perfect. Makes my jealous. I need to update mine.

I tried the webber thing, not sure if it worked though, will need to time it next time. Obelisks turn so slow it's hard to tell if it was faster.

- Souca -

[algol]

I tried the webber thing, not sure if it worked though, will need to time it next time. Obelisks turn so slow it's hard to tell if it was faster.

- Souca -
Wait, Obelisks can turn?

[Souca]

I tried the webber thing, not sure if it worked though, will need to time it next time. Obelisks turn so slow it's hard to tell if it was faster.

- Souca -
Wait, Obelisks can turn?actually I think they just rely on impact from space dust to nudge them. Once they are close enough they warp. I have seen the thing go into warp at least 15 degrees of alignment, was worrisome as I thought I was getting pulled to a bubble from 60 AU out.

Also, pull bubbles are fun to set up. If you ever are bored, drop a small warp disruptor on a gate back to hi sec about 20-25km behind the gate. You want to set it up so that the line from a source to the gate would pass pretty close to the bubble. If its a system with one other gate you just straight line it and can put it up to 25km behind. If there are more than one likely source, you can nudge closer for a higher catch rate. Anything 10km or further behind is enough to be annoying as it prevents jump on contact. I'd suggest you cloak up afterward since people will assume you are about to gank them if you are sitting nearby and not in the bubble.

- Souca -

[Muzzy]

About how much would you say you earn using an 2x hulks + an orca? ISK/hour or something :)

[Alptraum]

that would really depend where your mining 0.0 going after ABC or .5+ going after veld for trit, as well as if you have max skills for mining/crystals and using drones or just pure strip2 modulated.


About how much would you say you earn using an 2x hulks + an orca? ISK/hour or something :)

[Muzzy]

that would really depend where your mining 0.0 going after ABC or .5+ going after veld for trit, as well as if you have max skills for mining/crystals and using drones or just pure strip2 modulated.


About how much would you say you earn using an 2x hulks + an orca? ISK/hour or something :)Well I'm aming for the same 2x hulk + orca setup with max skills. Would be nice to know how much you can earn in 0.5-1.0 sec :)

[Redbeard]

My maxed hulk can make roughly 10m/h if i dont have to haul mining veldspar. Youre going to be blowing through rocks with that group though, youll miss a lot of time on empty cycles...

Hard to calculate.

[RobinGBrown]

I can strip out a whole belt in about an hour with two hulks and an orca - but you need a hauler as well to shift the ore.

Thats in a 0.5 system where the belt just respawned (so small asteroids)with only tech I crystals, single mining laser upgrades, and exhumers IV.

I'd guess it's about 100-150,000 m3 of mixed ore

Just ballpark figures from memory - will try to sit down and do a proper estimate when I next go mining

[Redbeard]

My guys are first and foremost working on missions (well learning right now but getting them into golems is my first goal) but after that I want to get a mining op setup myself.

I am hoping to haul in the orca and have 3 hulks... I figure while the orca is docked and dumping ore theyll miss out on the bonus for a bit but not having a dedicated hauler might make up for it. Not sure yet.

[Duane]

My guys are first and foremost working on missions (well learning right now but getting them into golems is my first goal) but after that I want to get a mining op setup myself.

I am hoping to haul in the orca and have 3 hulks... I figure while the orca is docked and dumping ore theyll miss out on the bonus for a bit but not having a dedicated hauler might make up for it. Not sure yet.

I'm working on getting my group to mission together as well. My main account needs about a month to fit a CNR well but in the mean time I'm running a regular Raven or Drake. The second account is my hauler/salvager and I'm getting it ready for a salvage Hurricane loadout. That will only take about another day or two. The third account I'm going to train up a Domi with since you can AFK a lot of stuff with a drone boat and even use assist with the drones on the main character.

[RobinGBrown]

I am hoping to haul in the orca and have 3 hulks... I figure while the orca is docked and dumping ore The Orca aligns a _lot_ slower than a hauler - probably not too bad if the station you're dropping off at is in the same system but if you like to mine in a system without stations the Orca would be slower than doing two runs in a hauler.

A more important decision is as to whether or not you want to use an extra account for a hauler. I'm planning on five accounts which would give me three hulks, an orca, and a hauler.

I'm getting closer to having my mission team online, will be transferring my second hulk pilot tomorrow so then I'll have two accounts each with a hulk pilot and a mission pilot.

@Redbeard & Duane - Do you have enough rep for lvl 4 missions already? My 'main' mission runner can only get level 2 missions and it seems as if you have to do a TON of missions to improve rep and get to level 4 (I do have some social skills to increase rep but still a long way to go)

[Duane]

I am hoping to haul in the orca and have 3 hulks... I figure while the orca is docked and dumping ore The Orca aligns a _lot_ slower than a hauler - probably not too bad if the station you're dropping off at is in the same system but if you like to mine in a system without stations the Orca would be slower than doing two runs in a hauler.

A more important decision is as to whether or not you want to use an extra account for a hauler. I'm planning on five accounts which would give me three hulks, an orca, and a hauler.

I'm getting closer to having my mission team online, will be transferring my second hulk pilot tomorrow so then I'll have two accounts each with a hulk pilot and a mission pilot.

@Redbeard & Duane - Do you have enough rep for lvl 4 missions already? My 'main' mission runner can only get level 2 missions and it seems as if you have to do a TON of missions to improve rep and get to level 4 (I do have some social skills to increase rep but still a long way to go)

My main character is three years old (playing on and off) so I have a 9.6 standing with the Caldari Navy.

[Redbeard]

Im at 6.3 for republic fleet (and yes its an older character). The nice thing is that the main can share rep gains with his fleet mates so my main picks up the mission, we do it, and my alts are slowly working their reps up too. When they get high enough.. If i draw two missions i dont like on my main, instead of waiting 4 hours before i can reject the 2nd one I can just draw a mission with one of my alts.

I did the math with my friend one time... if i dont have the orca hauling too then yield will be greater with 3 hulks and 1 hauler than with 2 hulks, an orca, and a hauler. I think we calculated you needed 5 or more hulks before it was worthwhile dropping a hulk for the orca... but i dont remember the exact numbers we came up with.

[RobinGBrown]

Yeah, going by gut feel I'd have said that on a ISK/hour basis you'd be better off with a Hulk instead of an Orca unless, as you say, you're running 5 or more Hulks.

For me it's the convenience factor - the Orca has huge tractor range, great capacity and can hold two hulks in the maintenance bay, provides drone support, has a ship fitting facility, and stops can flippers from stealing your ore. Swapping the Orca for a Hulk wouldn't get me any of that. Plus it's a stepping stone on the way to a Rorqual.

As to missions, looks like I've got a lot of rep grinding to do with my team, oh well... at least they'll be well skilled by the time I'm done.