There's a lot of stuff in Kronos I don't care much about, like ship model changes, sounds, etc. There's new faction ships, which look good for PVP -- maybe I will get one -- but are not of any use in PVE. There's the industry changes. The ones to industry itself won't affect me much because I don't do much of it. They are largely good changes, though, in my opinion. Except for the "teams" thing. That one seems awful to me, trying to imagine running an industrial operation. Anyway, all in all I am pretty neutral to the whole expansion. And I don't think most of it will affect wspace very much.
The changes to refining, along with the changes to the POS refining modules, will probably be the biggest change for me and my corp, as well as the rest of wspace. We've dabbled in mining before, but currently it is not very viable. The hourly rate is not great, and that won't change. But there is always down time when we are zipped and don't want to open up. The main problem with mining is that it creates really huge volumes of stuff, with low value, that clog up our storage. If we mine a full fleet for an hour, that's about all we can store. After Kronos, we should be able to mine and compress, getting ten times the effective value out using Miasmoses. It is even possible that we might refine our own ore and manufacture something from it. This is something I need to look into. In any case, in Kronos CCP are finally abolishing the punitive automatic 25% refining lossage at POSes. Thus, refining and manufacturing is by no means out of the question.
Even if we don't mine more, I expect a lot of other wspace corps will. So, I am hoping for more targets, even if they are only the new jumped-up Skiff. My fondest dream is to perpetrate a mining-op massacre, solo, in a Onyx. I wanna be like Penny.
One ship that they are revising that we might use is the revamped Rattlesnake. Currently we use both Ravens and Gilas in our sleeper-killing PVE fleet. Snakes might fit right in there.
What else do I like? Well, CCP has announced hull-boosting rigs, as well as the ability to rig freighters. The combo looks good for autopiloting, or looked at the other way, a modest nerf to freighter ganking. Or, possibly, agility rigs for non-autopiloting. Either way, it's a welcome improvement to a tedious task.
They have announced that they will be revising the Deep Space Transports. A dev blog on that is promised but has not appeared yet. This has the potential to be something we use a lot. As I write this, I am moving stuff in and out of my wormhole using multiple runs of Epithal and Iteron V. Imagine a ship in between an Iteron V and a freighter in size and EHP. And which fits into sub-C5 wormholes. I'd buy that.
Finally, about the "Prospect". A Prospect is a tech II Venture (dev blog here). It is very similar to a Venture with just a few key changes:
- doubled ore bay
- large enough cargo bay to hold a mobile depot
- four low slots, but no built in warp-core stabilization
- covert ops cloak allowed
But will I use them? Hard to say; depends on the price. I am guessing they should cost about what other T2 frigates do, that is, about 20-30m. Right now most of the gas mining I do is not very constrained by the ore bay. Usually I mine in my own system, where a trip to/from a POS takes perhaps two minutes after mining for half an hour. The additional risk of loss (due to the price) does not really seem worth it to me.
In an alien system, travel time is a bigger deal. There, maybe I will want them. So, I'll think about it. Still, because none of my characters have Mining Frigate V, and none are mapped for it, I will probably just put it off for a while.
I really wish they had added a small additional bonus to gas mining. For example, 1% faster gas mining per level of, er, "Expedition Frigate" (that's the T2 mining frigate skill). Then I'd be all over them.
We ALL want to be Penny.
ReplyDeleteI think the most use of Prospect will be covops, low-mass ore/gas hauler.
ReplyDeleteYes, we definitely ALL want to be Penny...
ReplyDeleteNot that this is directly related to the summer expansion, but since it will affect finding targets, How do you feel about the NPC kill data being pulled from the API?
ReplyDeleteI am for it.
DeleteI have read through the thread on the forums and there are certainly good points made by many wormholers who are against. It basically boils down to this: you need the API to hunt better. In particular it is useful for finding C5 farmers to set up logoff traps. But really it can be helpful for anyone who hunts; you can monitor a chain remotely, as it were. So it does in a sense reward those who search.
On the other side, there is not that much going for it, except the notion that wspace should be mysterious. And yet, I find this compelling. I am romantic that way. Sites like wormhol.es, although useful to me, make wormhole space feel too known and too knowable.
And the discovery scanner? Argh! But it is a separate issue.
If there is a problem with people farming C5/6s with capitals -- and there is, IMO -- then that should be fixed. Separate issue.
If there is a problem that finding people is too hard, then make it easier. Separate issue.