A Scientist's Life in Eve

Hulkageddon or Mackinaw-ageddon – some timing and yield tests

by on Aug.02, 2012, under Eve online

Following a comment from my last blogpost I decided to respond more fully in a new post, which also happens to be my 300th post!!!

I decided to conduct my tests with with Strip Miner I’s to make it easy.  No bonuses and no mining implants were used in this experiment.  I will also only work in full cycles to make things easy too.

The Hulk

3 lasers with 180 second cycle time, 39,900 units of Veldspar mined in total per cycle, i.e. 1,330m3 per minute.  Now it only has 7,500m3 ore hold, and so can’t even hold two full cycles from Strip Miner I’s.  Following the suggestion (not to be used in hi-sec unless you want to be a series of easy killmails), we will be jetcan mining today.  Using a fully cargo fitted Iteron Mk V (i.e. 3 cargo rigs and all Expanded Cargo II’s in the lows), we can run for 11 cycles, i.e. 33 minutes (using the ore hold and 2 jetcans).

I timed warping from the belt to dock (it was 40AU for this experiment), docking, unloading the ore hold, switching to an Iteron Mk V, undocking, warping to the belt, collecting both cans, warping back to station, docking, unloading, switching back to the Hulk, undocking warping to the belt and locking a rock to start mining again.  This took 6 minutes (well, 5 minutes 57 seconds), and I’ll admit I could have shaved maybe 5 or 10 seconds off this, but in reality you’d probably be a bit slower if doing this repeatedly.

The outcome is therefore 39 minutes for a total of 43,890m3 of ore, i.e. 1,125.38m3 per minute.

The Mackinaw

2 lasers with 180 second cycle time, 35,118 units of Veldspar mined in total per cycle, i.e. 1,170.6m3 per minute from the Mackinaw, or around 12% less than the Hulk.  It does, however, have a rather large 32,500m3 ore hold.  I can go 9 full cycles with Strip Miner I’s before my ore hold is full and I need to dock, i.e. 31.6k of ore over 27 minutes.  This is also certified hi-sec friendly as I’m not jetcan mining and asking for griefers to can flip me.  Also, if a neut comes into the “safe” 0.0 system, I have my ore in my hold with me, whereas you have to warp away leaving most of it in a vulnerable can that the ebil afk cloaker can bookmark ready to pounce on you when you come to get it.

Again, I timed the whole warp, dock, unload, undock, warp, mine thing, and this time it was 2 minutes 30 seconds (again I could have saved maybe 5 seconds or more but didn’t bust a gut doing it).

The outcome is therefore 29.5 minutes for a total of 31,606.2m3 of ore, i.e. 1,071.4m3 per minute.

Conclusion

The Hulk can therefore produce 1,125.38m3 per minute against the Mackinaw’s 1,071.4m3 per minute, a difference of 4.8% which to be honest is not that much.

If you’re not jetcan mining, then the Hulk is the obvious loser, but if you do jetcan mine successfully, you can maybe get around 5% more ore with your Hulk.  However, it will take more effort to run, and will most certainly be much more risky to do so.

Parting thought

I’ll be there with you and will use my Mackinaw’s large ore hold to can flip you and greatly increase my mining efficiency.  By my calculations this will give my Mackinaw an additional 100% bonus to mining!  Who needs leadership skills when you can mine next to somebody who jetcan mines instead.