I'm gonna need a bigger boat
5th March 2009 – 10.31 amMy plan to stockpile minerals looks to be working at the moment. I have bought a fair quantity of most minerals at good prices and getting them back to my industrial base lets me run several production lines without running out of materiel. Of course, I will need to keep on buying more minerals to keep my stocks replenished but it is little trouble to scan the market every so often. I may even be able to buy minerals from my corporation's miners, which is probably a good source to consider. What is quickly becoming trouble is collecting the minerals. I can spend a couple of hours collecting the minerals I buy, because even though I am keeping my focus within a moderate number of jumps I have to make several trips.
I may be missing something about ship options. Early on, I bought myself a Badger to make it easier to haul a small amount of freight around. The Badger is cheap to buy, quick to train to fly and suited my needs. However, it wasn't long before I could have easily used a ship with a bigger cargo hold to transport loot and other items back and forth between systems. Now that I am manufacturing and selling my own goods my need for cargo space is more pressing and even the increased capacity of a Badger Mark II isn't enough, with it filling up quickly with bought minerals. I have been looking for something bigger to reduce the number of trips I need to make and therefore improve my time efficiency.
I suspect that in order to pilot a bigger industrial ship or freighter I would need to advance a skill or learn a new one and be prepared to pay perhaps an order of magnitude more than the Badger. I poke around the market looking for something suitable, but I can't find anything. There are the standard industrial ships, with capacities of around 5,000 m3, and then there are the freighters, with capacities in the order of 750,000 m3. That's quite a gap between the two, which is also reflected in the cost of the ships. I don't quite have a billion ISK lying around at the moment. There are some ships with moderately sized capacities, but these are capital ships—carriers and the like—with highly specialised roles that require months of training and would be woefully underused as mere transport vessels.
I can't afford the ISK cost of the freighters nor the training cost of the alternatives, leaving me wondering where the mid-sized hauler is that sits comfortably between a standard industrial ship and a freighter. Surely there must be a market for such a ship, so I hope I am missing something.
11 Responses to “I'm gonna need a bigger boat”
You've fully expanded and rigged your Badger Mk II? It can hold over 20k m3 with max skill. Then use Giant Secure Containers for another 30% capacity.
The king of the T1 Industrials is the Iteron Mk V, which can haul 38k+ m3 fully expanded and (T1) rigged, before GSCs are factored in.
If that's not enough, try the Orca perhaps before a Freighter.
I have expanded my Badger and got GSCs in it, but I haven't got it rigged yet, which is a little too expensive for me at the moment.
I'll look in to the relative merits of training Gallente Industrial ships too. Thanks.
There is still quite a gap between a fully rigged industrial ship and a freighter, though, only apparently filled with specialist ships that cost vast sums of ISK and require significant amounts of training.
Agree - a lot of folks use Gallente Industrials due to the larger space available when rigged...
As it can take roughly double a Badger, its worth considering for the small outlay in training times.
Personally although I've got funds/skills to be able to rig my Gallente Iteron mk 4, I'm waiting until I have the Mk5 to do so to get maximum capacity (after all rigs are expensive!). Are you keeping all your salvage so you can manufacture rigs yourself - rig BPO's are cheap at 190K each... and also don't take too long to perform ME research on :)
What you want is to train for the Tech II Badger MKII, the Bustard Deep Space Transport. Not too much training, it has five lows so that with Expanded Cargohold IIs you can get the cargo space to around 23,000 m3. Couple that with Giant Secure Cans that give 900m3 extra each and your hold is almost 30,000m3 for minerals.
That is unrigged, and it comes with vastly improved defences, like 5-10 times more than a tech I industrial.
True, Gallente ships can hold more, but not a lot more. I'd stick with Caldari.
Agreeing with Kirith, again. You'll get more mileage out of maxing the Caldari industrial ships and the Bustard. If you decide to go back for the Gallente industrials, it's about 17-20 days of training that could be put toward any number of other skills.
You might decide to pick up the Iterons later. I've gone back and done so, but only after a friend gave me 10 Mark V's [two rigged] and the BPO.
If you need rigs, your corp might have the BPOs already trained and ready for production at a moments notice [and rough math indicates the parts for a T1 cargo rig are about 24 million].
I am already training Caldari Industrial to V to get a blockade running Crane so that I can navigate low-sec with some measure of safety. Now that I have access to a high-sec POS the Crane isn't as necessary but the training will still give me access to the Bustard, which certainly looks like it will offer greater cargo capacity with its five low slots.
It's nowhere near as fast as the Crane, so if my wallet fills up enough I'll probably get one of each. I can trundle around high-sec with my Bustard transporting minerals and switch to a Crane for swifter transport of finished goods.
Now all I need is the ISK to support my expensive dreams of Tech II flight.
I also need to pay closer attention to my corporation colleague's helpful hints.
The T2 Industrials certainly offer more expanded cubage than the T1s, although only slightly for Gallente. After rigging, well, it depends, because the T2s only have 2 rig slots to the T1s 3, like all T2 ships.
After rigging, Amarr and Caldari T2 can haul 30% more than T1. Minmatar T2 is only 3.5% better, and Gallente T2 is actually 7.6% _worse_.
And since the T2 ships will set you back at least 40m, if you can afford one you can afford to rig your T1.
T2s are of course far more robust and survivable... but less insurable.
For hauling around high-sec I wouldn't bother with T2, unless you're already trained Amarr or Caldari and really can't spend the 17-20 days to cross-train Gallente Industrial 5.
It's all about balancing priorities, as usual!
Btek: "For hauling around high-sec I wouldn't bother with T2,"
I have to disagree. A tech 1 industrial can be popped in high sec by a disposable battlecruiser. A Tech II industrial Deep Space transport requires 5-10 times as much firepower. I never use tech I haulers except for the crappiest of stuff, and even then I reach for the tech II sooner.
Strange, I was considering this exact question just this morning =P
I think you guys are missing the point of the post somewhat - even with a fully modded and rigged industrial pushing 30k capacity, the jump up to a freighter with 700k+ cargo space is astronomical, as is the price tag of 900 million plus. The T2 industrials come with round about the same base capacity as the T1's, so not really much improvement there.
The only intermediate option right now is a Capitol Industrial ship (Rorqual and Orca), but these ships are designed to fulfill roles a lot more specialised than simply hauling junk around. Bit of a waste of half a billion isk if you're not going to use it to its fullest.
As the scale stands now, hauler progression is akin to combat pilots jumping straight from a frigate to a battleship. Where's the industrial equivalent of the cruiser class? Something with maybe 30-50k base cargo capacity, upgradeable to 100-150k through skill bonuses, mods and rigs.
Varakkys: I can see where you are coming from, but I disagree with your perspective.
For Caldari, hauling starts at the Bantam which can get up to 478m3 unrigged which is considerable for a frigate.
Then you have the Osprey which doesn't get a cargo bonus skill, but has a large cargo space and plenty of lows for cargo expanders, getting up to over 1000m3.
Then you jump to the tier 1 indy Badger. Significant jump to 8300+ m3.
Then Badger MK II at 13602 m3 unrigged.
And finally Bustard at 23165 m3 unrigged.
So you have a fairly linear increase from frigate to "battleship" classed hauling. The Capital ships are outliers to the progression because they are a completely different concept. They are not simply bigger battleships, they are vastly bigger constructs and as such have vastly superior capbilities. Compared Dominix to Thanatos; Raven to Phoenix; etc. So seeing the jump from Bustard to Charon makes sense in that regard.
Despite this, the Orca was introduced just to fill that space between the two, but they added other roles as well hence why it is so expensive.
Bah, I didn't mean to go on and on. TL;dr version: all capitals are an order of magnitude bigger than their sub-capital counterparts.
Yes, Varakkys, that was my general point. Although Kirith does a splendid job of showing the progression there is still a chasm of cargo space difference between hauling options.
Even if the discussion doesn't address my general point it never the less answers my call for extra hauling capacity superbly, for which I am most grateful. With a bit more training I will be able to get a better ship that can be expanded to a capacity that should be more than adequate for now, which is a good result.
I could train in Gallente Industrial ships but my need for extra capacity is immediate, which makes the few weeks of training time more of a concern. I also still need to train production efficiency and refining skills, at least, for my industrial career, so the couple of days left on Caldari Industrial V followed by Transport ships is the better option for now.