the mining marauder is still not a very good mining ship. mainly because it heats things too fast, so that the roids get used up and you get less ore per mining-expedition than if you were using a centaur.

please make the ship reduce the amount of heat generated by its main beam. either that or make 'non-weapon slots' and give it 2 large ones.

Isn't it the mining beam that determines how much heat it adds to the roid?

Partially yes, but when multiple beams are mining the same 'roid, they have a synergistic effect - if one beam would heat the 'roid up 1 degree in 1 second, then two of the same beam would heat the roid up less than 2 degrees in 1 second. As the MMaud can only equip one L port mining beam, while the Centaur or Behemoth can equip 2, the Centaur or Behemoth will have a better extraction/heat ratio.

I agree that the MMaud needs to be made better for Mining. Giving it a second L port would probably be easiest. Another option would be removing the S port and giving it a total of 3 L ports, which would allow it to have the best extraction rate, better than the Centaur or Behemoth.

[edit]
And a recent, related thread: http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/12077
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They need to buff up ALL the mauds...

Actually, with respect to mining and roid heating, what I've discovered and trialed, is that the roid is only heated at the rate of the one beam which hits it first - any other beams after that will gather, but not add to the heating effect.

I agree with fooz, in general all marauders need buffing. I've used the mining marauder, and its lack of maneuverability when full and its frailness bother me far more than having just one beam.

3 large port marauder... and then people complain about the scp...

The devs should just have put ports that can only fit scanners/miningbeams in stead of adding also weaponports. It just makes balancing to dmned hard...

PS: if mm with 3 large ports get added, then i would fear the tripple jack maud (which is even more powerfull then the tripple flare one)

Except that the MMaud's maneuverability sucks. Which is OK, mining ships don't have to be nimble. So if 3 L ports does make it scary in combat, just nerf its maneuverability even more.

Really, Nya13? How often do you go mining in the Mineral Marauder?

problem with nerving its manouvrability is that your tunring it into a heavy ship instead of a medium one.

i dont care if its manueverable. what are you doing, running racetracks with 60 heliocene? running from bots?

if you want to mine where there are bots use a centaur.

im just hoping for a small simple tweak or something,

if ship==mineral_maud: self.L.heatrate=self.L.heatrate*0.5

Instead of a "special rule" for a particular ship (which I'm never a fan of) why not buff all Mauds with an extra 10 cu of cargo space and the mining Maud with +20 cu?

I don't fly Marauders, basically because that they are outperformed by Valks in combat easily.

I say go ahead and give the Mining Marauder 3 L ports but make it a little less maneuverable, but with good straight-line turbo like the Behemoth.

Then I might actually use a Marauder to mine with.

uhm, my reasoning is very simple.

anything that has anything to do with combat is complicated, because it upsets the balance, and someone will always exploit it to p0wn n00bs etc etc. so make a change that will not affect combat in any way.

3L? someone would use it to swarm without mercy. or they would make a jack maud, equal to monkofakan's flare hornet. or they would put 3 megaposi and .. whatever. i dont know. nobody knows. thats the point. changing combat stuff is unpredictable and upsets the balance and results in 10,000 moronic posts to the board about how the 'balance is ruined, im cancelling the game, etc etc etc'

changing +20cu, that is irrelevant, because as i said before, the 'mining expedition' is what im worried about. i can get 100+ cu of denic out of a certain sector with a centaur because it heats less than the marauder, in which i can only get 40 or so crates before the roids are all heated to like 60kelvin. if you add 20+cu i still have to jump around to a bunch of different sectors (systems even) to get as much ore as quickly and easily as with a centaur. which is the whole @#$@#$ point, the 'mining ship' should be more useful for mining than a 'non mining' ship, the centaur.

I think I posted this somewhere else, but I sat down and thought about what is essential for a mining variant. You're not going to be moving around much, so speed and maneuverability are not critical. You might see some combat if you're mining in an area with hive, but at the same time you need a fairly large cargo hold, but not an ungodly large one since the roid's heat limits that. Also, 1s, 2L seems to be the ideal weapon port configuration. (i.e. the CENTAUR)

Therefore a mining variant would ostensibly trade turbo speed, torque, thrust, and as a last resort, armor, for an increased cargo hold and additional weapon ports.

Why not acknowledge that the Marauder (or the Warthog for that matter) just isn't the best choice for a mining variant? The Centaur or Ragnarok would make much better mining variants imho, or even a Behemoth with an additional s-port.

I actually really like the idea of a Ragnarok mining variant, since this ship currently has no special variants, doesn't have a huge cargo hold to begin with, and it's got the 2 extra s-ports to defend itself from Hive.

Tunguska Mineral Ragnarok
4/-/-/5/4, +700 Tunguska
Armor: 14,000
Cargo: 50
Weapons: 3s, 2L
Mass: 15,000 kg
Thrust: 320N
Torque: 7.0 Nm
Turbo Speed: 180 m/s
Turbo Energy: 55

Check out the other variants here:
http://www.vo-wiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Ragnarok

There are different mining scenarios so different ships will do better than others. But the 'mineral marauder', itself, which is what this whole thread is supposed to be about in the first place, is not really optimal for any of those scenarios - the centaur is. With a small modification it would be closer to optimal for peaceful bot free mining in low-action sectors.

I agree with you 110% ananzi, that was a typo :p. Fixx0red

Ragnarok has NO CARGO HOLD to speak of... how you going to bump it up to 50u and yet make it MORE maneuverable than a maud? makes no sense... I say no.

Rag already has a good balance of ports and maneuverability, so i say don't mess with it.

A tunguska mining MAUD would be a good idea though.

I would suggest just giving a mineral pizza cutter just two L-ports, OR giving it two L-ports and an S-port and severly nerfing the maneuverability. I don't care what ANYONE says, an empty rocket maud is FAR too maneuverable. Putting two L-ports and an S-port on it would make it far too devestating for a 'mining' craft.

Tunguska Mineral Marauder
4/-/-/5/4, +900 Tunguska
Armor: 9,500
Cargo: 65
Weapons: 1S 2L
Mass: 6000 kg
Thrust: 250N
Torque: 7.5 Nm
Speed: 65
Turbo Speed: 190 m/s
Turbo Energy: 55

As that it should be more effective than it's competitor - the Agresso - in mining, but less effective in combat than a taur (as it should be)

taurs all have infiniboost, mining requires infiniboost.

do any of you people actually mine? i think this thread should be closed to anyone with less than mining 8.

The Tunguska Aggresso Centaur doesn't have infiniturbo.