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===Cargo Space=== | ===Cargo Space=== | ||
Possibly the biggest selling point of the Orca is the huge amount of cargo space that it supports for a ship that “only” costs around 400 million | Possibly the biggest selling point of the Orca is the huge amount of cargo space that it supports for a ship that “only” costs around 400 million ISK. The ship has 4 different “containers”. The first is the cargohold. This starts off holding 30,000 m3, and can be expanded through modules, rigs, and an additional 5% bonus for each level of the Industrial Command Ship skill. Maxed out for hauling, you could fit over 90,000 m3 in the cargohold – not that I would recommend it (more on that later). This is the ONLY cargo hold on the ship that seems to receive bonuses from mods, rigs, and skills. | ||
The second “cargo hold” that the ship contains is a 50,000 m3 hold that can contain only mined materials ( | The second “cargo hold” that the ship contains is a 50,000 m3 hold that can contain only mined materials (unrefined Ore, Ice and Gas). If you try to drag modules or anything else into the ore hold, you’ll get an error message. | ||
The next cargo area on the ship is the corporate hangar, which holds another 40,000 m3. This can hold a mixture of items like the standard cargohold, but it is divided up into sections that match your corporate role distinctions, like any other corp hangar. The total corp space is | The next cargo area on the ship is the corporate hangar, which holds another 40,000 m3. This can hold a mixture of items like the standard cargohold, but it is divided up into sections that match your corporate role distinctions, like any other corp hangar. The total corp space is 40k – you don’t get 40k for each tab. Like any other corp hangar, you need sufficient rights to access the individual tabs. One exception is as follows: the orca pilot can access the corp hangar while the ship is in space, even if the pilot wouldn’t necessarily have the right permissions to do so while docked. Otherwise, someone could jam contraband or other random items into the hangar and you’d be stuck with it. | ||
===Ship Maintenance Bay=== | ===Ship Maintenance Bay=== | ||
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*Hulk/Covetor – 200,000 m3 | *Hulk/Covetor – 200,000 m3 | ||
*Mackinaw/Retriever – 150,000 m3 | *Mackinaw/Retriever – 150,000 m3 | ||
*Skiff/Procurer – 100,000 m3 | *Skiff/Procurer – 100,000 m3 | ||
*Osprey – 107,000 m3 | *Osprey – 107,000 m3 | ||
*Scythe – 89,000 m3 | *Scythe – 89,000 m3 | ||
*Rifter – 27,289 m3 | *Rifter – 27,289 m3 | ||
*Raven – 486,000 m3 | *Raven – 486,000 m3 | ||
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===Fitting service=== | ===Fitting service=== | ||
Besides being able to swap ships, the Orca has a fitting service – so you can swap modules while in space. Right click on the Orca to choose to Use Fitting Service. You can swap fittings that are in the cargohold of the ship you’re flying, or you can pull fittings out of the Orca’s bays. If you're flying the Orca, you can use your own fitting service if you first jettison a can with the fittings you want to equip into a JetCan. | Besides being able to swap ships, the Orca has a fitting service – so you can swap modules while in space. Right click on the Orca to choose to Use Fitting Service. You can swap fittings that are in the cargohold of the ship you’re flying, or you can pull fittings out of the Orca’s bays. If you're flying the Orca, you can use your own fitting service if you first jettison a can with the fittings you want to equip into a JetCan. Drones can also be swapped in and of a ship's drone bay. | ||
===Tractor Beam Bonuses=== | ===Tractor Beam Bonuses=== | ||
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===Survey Scanner Bonus=== | ===Survey Scanner Bonus=== | ||
Survey scanners on an | Survey scanners on an Orca get a 500% range increase, so you can how much ore is in every rock in over a 100km radius. This allows the Orca pilot to easily tag asteroids to mark those that are full or nearly empty, and better coordinate the miners. | ||
===Gang Links=== | ===Gang Links=== | ||
You can equip and use 3 gang links on the | You can equip and use 3 gang links on the Orca at the same time. However, the Orca only has 3 high slots so a tractor beam would have to replace one gang link. This is also going to depend on what you’re using the ship for – a mining support ship is going to have different high slots than an exploration platform (more on that later). Additionally, you get a bonus to mining gang links with each level of industrial command ship skill, on top of the bonuses you would get from the Mining Director skill, Warfare Link Specialist, and the Mining Foreman Mindlink implant. | ||
Since the ship only gets bonuses to mining gang links, we’ll focus on those for now. The three mining gang links are: | Since the ship only gets bonuses to mining gang links, we’ll focus on those for now. The three mining gang links are: | ||
*Harvester Capacitor Efficiency: cuts down on cap use for your mining lasers/harvesters | *Harvester Capacitor Efficiency: cuts down on cap use for your mining lasers/harvesters | ||
*Laser Optimization: cuts down on your cycle time for mining lasers/harvesters | *Laser Optimization: cuts down on your cycle time for mining lasers/harvesters | ||
*Mining Laser Field Enhancement: increases the range of your lasers/harvesters | *Mining Laser Field Enhancement: increases the range of your lasers/harvesters | ||
The | The Capacitor link is the least often used, since a tractor beam is generally more useful. The Laser Optimization link adds a large bonus to miner's yield and forms most of the Orca's yield bonus. The Laser Field Enhancement allows a fleet to mine the whole of many asteroid belts without moving, which is a large convenience. | ||
===Tank=== | ===Tank=== | ||
The Orca has a really nice tank. Out of the box, it has 10,750 shields, 6,900 armor, and '''46,000''' hull. Add your skills on top of that, like mechanic level 5, and this thing can actually be hull tanked. In fact, doing nothing but adding a Damage Control II to the ship will give you a huge buffer to ward off attacks. | The Orca has a really nice tank. Out of the box, it has 10,750 shields, 6,900 armor, and '''46,000''' hull. Add your skills on top of that, like mechanic level 5, and this thing can actually be hull buffer tanked. In fact, doing nothing but adding a Damage Control II to the ship will give you a huge buffer to ward off attacks. With a DCUII in a lowslot and a shield tank in 3 or 4 midslots, over 170kEHP can be achieved. If you really want to go crazy, you can get the thing over 270,000 EHP with good skills. You cut into your tank significantly by going with 2 cargo expanders in the lows (granting over 90k m3 in your cargohold with rigs though) so a DCU is generally recommended. | ||
==Uses for the Orca== | ==Uses for the Orca== | ||
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The obvious use for the ship is to support mining ops, but how? | The obvious use for the ship is to support mining ops, but how? | ||
The Orca has a couple of disadvantages in a mining op. First, it's a ship that could be mining: an Orca pilot has most of the skills they would need to fly a Hulk, except for the Exhumers skill. An orca with full bonuses (Industrial Command Ship 5, Mining Director 5, Warfare Link Specialist 5, Mindlink Implant) would have roughly a 25% bonus to each activated mining link. So an Orca needs to be boosting at least 4 other miners to be worthwhile in terms of mining yield. | |||
Secondly, the cargo space isn’t enough to support 4 or more hulks mining a belt. Even if you fit it for max storage, it holds about 180,000 m3 of ore (remember, the ship bay only holds ships) between the cargohold, orehold, and corp hangar. That’s about 6 and a half full cans worth of ore. Not bad, but a large mining op will fill up 6 cans quickly. And if the Orca has to warp back to a station to keep dumping ore, that negates the link bonuses, as they deactivate in warp. Losing a range bonus halfway through a strip miner cycle can waste a lot of ore if the roid drops out of range. Not to mention that the inertia and warp speed modifiers, while faster than a freighter, will still make your hulk feel like a frigate in comparison, so constantly moving the ship isn’t a real option. A dedicated hauler is still required. | |||
However, the Orca has many bonuses on top of mining yield. The range link is invaluable, as it cuts down on how often you have to move your mining ships to new targets, considering the speed of most mining vessels. Someone out of range is mining 0 ore. | |||
Second, the range of the tractor beam on the Orca makes it great for pulling in cans to a central location, rather than having haulers slowboating around belts to scoop them up with pitiful range tractor beams. Or even worse, requiring mining ships to haul their own ore back to station. Also, the orca can tractor the rat wrecks to a central point as well. Many mining ops have more than one hauler. If one of them is in an orca, not only do miners get the bonuses, but the haulers can be reduced in number since they have a single warp-in point to keep offloading ore. One hauler on top of the Orca can keep dumping the ore, and if he equips a salvaging unit, can provide additional income to the op, without having to chase down wrecks. Another advantage of the huge range on the beam is that the orca can pull in cans when a can flipper is in the system. | Second, the range of the tractor beam on the Orca makes it great for pulling in cans to a central location, rather than having haulers slowboating around belts to scoop them up with pitiful range tractor beams. Or even worse, requiring mining ships to haul their own ore back to station. Also, the orca can tractor the rat wrecks to a central point as well. Many mining ops have more than one hauler. If one of them is in an orca, not only do miners get the bonuses, but the haulers can be reduced in number since they have a single warp-in point to keep offloading ore. One hauler on top of the Orca can keep dumping the ore, and if he equips a salvaging unit, can provide additional income to the op, without having to chase down wrecks. Another advantage of the huge range on the beam is that the orca can pull in cans when a can flipper is in the system. | ||
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===Wormhole Support=== | ===Wormhole Support=== | ||
Flying your expensive ship into a wormhole, assuming you’ve got one that can support the mass of the ship, requires serious nerve, but it can provide you with a mobile platform for refitting, swapping ships, storing loot, and repairing. Many corps set up | Flying your expensive ship into a wormhole, assuming you’ve got one that can support the mass of the ship, requires serious nerve, but it can provide you with a mobile platform for refitting, swapping ships, storing loot, and repairing. Many corps set up POSs for this sort of thing, but the orca doesn’t require all the logistics that keeping a POS fuelled and online would. Plus, in the Uni, the chances of you having the proper permissions to set up a POS are slim to none. | ||
Fit reppers/repper drones, and a cloak. Stay cloaked in a safespot until needed. Uncloaking should only be done when there are no ships in the system outside of your fleet. | Fit reppers/repper drones, and a cloak. Stay cloaked in a safespot until needed. Uncloaking should only be done when there are no ships in the system outside of your fleet. | ||
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===Missioning=== | ===Missioning=== | ||
Running two accounts in missions, one of which is flying an | Running two accounts in missions, one of which is flying an Orca, can be helpful. In combat missions, you can provide non-mining link bonuses to your other character, and tractor the wrecks to a central point while the other character fights. Clear the room, and then head back to the orca to get your salvage ship, or refit your combat ship right in space. Since all the wrecks are already together, you can fit 8 salvagers instead of the usual 4 salvagers + 4 tractor beam configuration, and quickly salvage everything. | ||
For mining missions, the benefits are obvious. You can semi-afk your way through the mission and never be in danger of your can expiring. | For mining missions, the benefits are obvious. You can semi-afk your way through the mission and never be in danger of your can expiring. | ||
Occasionally you may get a courier mission that requires a huge amount of storage for hauling, particularly some of the storyline courier missions. Instead of needing a freighter, the orca can fit the bill. | Occasionally you may get a courier mission that requires a huge amount of storage for hauling, particularly some of the storyline courier missions. Instead of needing a freighter, the orca can fit the bill. | ||