User talk:Karl vonMox

== The Purpose of the Porpoise – For Fleets Only? An Economic Analysis. ==

By Karl von Mox Chief Mining Director of the von Mox Mining Consortium

The Porpoise is a relatively inexpensive mining foreman platform designed to, as we are told in its Ship Database [1], “provide support to its allies though mining foreman bursts, remote shield boosters, and survey scanners”.

The question addressed here is whether the Porpoise can be effective as a stand alone mining platform, separate of its design role as part of a mining fleet. As it usually happens on EVE, deviating too much from the design intent in any specific ship usually leads to varying degrees of inefficiency. We have found that to be the case with the Porpoise, unfortunately, as this ORE ship is quite nice otherwise.

The issue at hand is how does the Porpoise compares with other available miners as a solo platform. This is a bit tricky as the various fit alternatives coupled with different user skill levels complicate the analysis. Nevertheless, we can accomplish the task at had with some basic reasonable assumptions.

Table I depicts a typical solo mining fit one might find for the Porpoise. It is in fact the fit found in our ship Pluton, which we utilize for high-sec long haul mining. Prices shown are the best prices found in the first two weeks in November 2022.

Table I: Fit for the vMMC-4 Pluton.

In Millions [Porpoise, vMMC-4 Pluton] 129.8 Reinforced Bulkheads I 0.013 Damage Control II 0.3749 50MN Cold-Gas Enduring Microwarpdrive 0.008 Compact Multispectrum Shield Hardener 0.275 Small Shield Booster II 0.412 ML-3 Scoped Survey Scanner 0.002 Medium Asteroid Ore Compressor I 15.8 Medium Industrial Core I 15.8 Improved Cloaking Device II 3.5 Medium Drone Mining Augmentor II 9.1 Medium Drone Mining Augmentor II 9.1 Medium Drone Mining Augmentor I 0.46 Ship Gross Cost: 184.6 Hobgoblin II x8 3.28 Salvage Drone II x1 0.852 Mining Drone II x5 2.74 Berserker I x2 0.1 Mobile Tractor Unit x1 9.1 Drone Cost: 16.1 Total Cost: 200.7

As prices go, 200.7 million ISK for such a miner is not so bad. As a point of comparison, a Tech II Skiff goes for about 169 million ISK (Jita), fully fitted for ore mining the price goes up to around 180 million ISK.

One big advantage the Porpoise has over other ore-destined miners is its capacity, 52,500 m3 , compared with 18,000 m3 for the Skiff – moreover the Porpoise as fitted above can compress typical ores thus has the ability to mine for long periods and bring in a lot of compressed material ready for sale.

So, how much money can one make with a Porpoise as a function of time? This is where we start to see the disadvantages. Table II shows what one could expect to profit from mining one full load (i.e. 52500m3) of several of the most typical ores found in high-sec.

Table II: Expected Profit for One Full Porpoise Load of Typical High-Sec Ores

The issue is how long will it take to fill up one full load in the Porpoise? Given that this ship has to rely on drones and the use of a Medium Industrial Core for a boost, the analysis involves several variables. Table III compares several drone and Industrial Cores alternatives.

Table III: Full Load Mining Times vs. Core and Drone Options.

So, the best time – just under 1 hr – can be achieve by dishing out 80 million ISK for Augmented mining drones (16 million each!), plus another 45 million ISK for a Tech II Industrial Core, an investment that breaks even after mining about 17 full loads, or a total of 16.6 hrs of mining [Eq. 1 and 2]

125 M investment/7.3 M Profit = 17.1 Loads Eq. 1 17.1 Loads/58 min/load = 16.6 hrs. Eq. 2

This is not the only thing. Depending on your skill level in Industrial Reconfiguration, you will need Heavy Water to fuel your Industrial Core, see Table IV.

Table IV: Industrial Core Fuel Consumption Rates and Costs for 58 minutes of Operation.

If you are not fully skilled in Industrial Reconfiguration, the fuel rate consumption will be higher. So you either have to buy the heavy water, or mine it yourself. An additional burden for Porpoise operations

But forget about that, the Industrial Core also allows you to compress the ore so maybe the fuel costs is just the price we need to pay for this feature, so then the question is how much profit can you make in 1 hr of high sec mining using other ships?

Table V shows a typical no-frills ore mining fit for our friendly Skiff. It is in fact the fit of our vessel vMMC-1 Chimera

Table V: Fit for the vMMC-1 Chimera

Now, it is impossible to mine 72,044 m3 in the Skiff on one shot. One will lose time going somewhere to unload the ore and come back for more. But the point is clear, we can mine say 68,000 m3 in the Skiff in the amount of time it will take us to mine 52,500 m3 in our Porpoise.

In conclusion, for high-sec mining, the Porpoise may not be the most effective in term of profit-time ratio. You can get more mining done with other platforms without the nuisance of having to procure Heavy Water on top of everything else.

Now, what if we decide to be risky. Say we could find a low-sec system where we could mine relatively unmolested (the Porpoise does have some self-defense capabilities that are better than the Skiff for example). This is an area where – if security concerns could be addressed – the Porpoise would be well suited instead of something like the Skiff, because of its large capacity and ability to compress. The Skiff would have to constantly come-and-go through potentially several stargates. So, how much ISK are we talking about? Some numbers are presented in Table VI.

Table VI: Typical “High Value” Ores Found in 0.4 Systems.

So, with some judicious choices, one could make 32 million ISK in 58 mins if one can avoid getting gangked in the process (the Porpoise should be able to handle low level rats and simply escape bigger more dangerous ones.)

If it were possible to stay hidden for and hide/mine/compress up until your heavy water runs out (4800 m3, or 12,000 units) how much are we talking about?   Some answers in Table VII

Table VII:  Risky Business

One would have to be willing and able to mine and dodge evil-doers for 5.5 hrs, maybe a startgate too far, but this would be something other miner platforms would not be able to do. One such soiree would almost pay for the whole platform. Interestingly the more expensive fit is not as profitable because it cannot mine as long as the one with the cheaper core.

In conclusion. The Porpoise is a cool miner, compression and drone booster-capable that unfortunately has a low profit/time ratio when mining the typical ores one finds in High-Sec. The platform can be a serious money maker in Low-Sec, but one needs time and one needs to deal with the usual security problems encountered there.