Right now they're far too hard to get even to Advanced Miner. I'd suggest splitting them up a bit more.

Basic Miner 1: 100 cu
Basic Miner 2: 3,000 cu
Basic Miner 3: 10,000 cu & Unlocks the BHM
Intermediate Miner 1: 25,000 cu
Intermediate Miner 2: 50,000 cu
Intermediate Miner 3: 125,000 cu & Unlocks the BHM2
ADV Miner 1: 450,000 cu
ADV Miner 2: 1,000,000 cu
ADV Miner 3: 2,000,000 cu
Expert Miner: 5,000,000 cu

The mining badges have four levels for each rank, not three. Plus, the existing badges look great, so it'd be a shame to not use some of the existing artwork.

For that reason, I'd propose going with the following values instead. It also makes the distribution a bit more even and logical.

Basic Miner I: 200 cu
Basic Miner II: 1,000 cu
Basic Miner III: 5,000 cu
Basic Miner IV: 10,000 cu (& Unlocks BHM)
Intermediate Miner I: 20,000 cu
Intermediate Miner II: 50,000 cu
Intermediate Miner III: 100,000 cu (& Unlocks BHM2)
Intermediate Miner IV: 200,000 cu
Advanced Miner I: 500,000 cu
Advanced Miner II: 1,000,000 cu
Advanced Miner III: 2,000,000 cu
Advanced Miner IV: 5,000,000 cu
Expert Miner: 10,000,000 cu

Note that BHM currently unlocks at 15,000 cu. My first draft of this proposal shifted it up to 20,000 cu (Intermediate Miner I being the more significant milestone), but then I decided no harm in rounding down to 10,000 cu considering how much of a pain mining can be before unlocking the Behemoth Heavy Miner.

Advanced miner should unlock a 3 L port no turret Mining dent. Anyone who invests that much time in mining earned something big.

THM - Trident Heavy Miner

-3 L port
-No Turrets
-Shields

600k hull

Room for max 2 ships on board

1000-1200CU (discuss) no turrets, thinner hull, 2 less docking bays == more room

+1 to alternative routes to owning a Trident.

I would add a built in Advanced Scanner- not that anyone who mines that much would need it.

I would also go with 600 cube and reduce the overall dimensions of the vehicle. The reason is that while a lot of griinding would be required, there are imo substantial differences between this and the current M.

1) Not only would this be virtually free, but it would come with a substantial gain in credits as the ore is continually sold. Where the M requires the purchase and transport of large quantities of widgets.

2) Near zero risk. Not only would the player not be obligated to gain access to any of the conq stations, but they would be almost entirely safe the entire time they are working.

3) 3 Large ports! Though you would need Trident specific mining beams... I would think that 3 Megaposi or agt and a 4000 charge battery might have a chance of dropping Trident or Hive Queen shields.

4) This ship would be able to mine in bot sectors with impunity.

Therefore, I think the THM should be not a balance model based on the M, but an entirely lower tier model.

+1 to OP. I had exactly the same thoughts about the current state of mining badges.

-1 to CrazySpence. While I'm not opposed to the idea of a new variation of trident dedicated to mining, the only way to acquire it should be via manufacturing. Shields and being able to dock ships into it make it too multi-purpose and too useful for combat, defeating the very definition of "dedicated."

The THM should have no dock. I'd suggest a smaller ship than the type M, with something like 600cu cargo space. And yea throw in a mineral scanner.

I don't think a turretless 2 bay dent with 40% less armor would be very useful in combat other than getting killed for sure if things got hot.

The list lazily to the left manuever works on avoiding the L ports so unless you fight a lot of stationary targets it's kinda shit and that was the point.

Manufacturing is the worst thing in VO so another way out would be nice although mining is the second worst thing so *shrugs*

THM, if it exists, shouldn't have any dock. Otherwise people would use it too much as a mobile station for healing and reloading. That alone makes it too useful for combat, especially with shields to protect it from light fighters.

How about a Heavy Miner Moth Mk3 with 4 large ports, a builtin mineral scanner, and 220cu if we just wanted more end-game rewards for miners?

We don't need more moths.

+1 to the THM, although I think it should have a trade badge requirement too. As far as the problem people have with the reps and reloads, simply make it keyless, so only the owner can dock. Also in view of the fact that it has no turrets, I think it could have 1200 cu capacity.

The THM would have to be able to dock at least 1, otherwise the owner wouldn't be able to move ore from his ship to a station.

Just don't put shields on the thing. Combined with the lower armor and no turrets, you'd be more a target than anything else.

I think the fact that the you'd have to have a fairly high mining level to get it, would be a similar level of investment to manufacturing.

e.g. I have "ONLY" a Basic Miner III badge and about another 500k cu to go for BM4. So far, that's translated into a mining level of 16. Additionally, 500k cu at even 160cu per load represents 3125 trips. If each trip costs about 5 minutes (which is about the average), getting the THM would 'cost' the player roughly 260+ man hours to gain one. I don't have stats for building a type M, but we should try to use man hours to compare.

I think it would need shields. The point is, I think, to be able to mine in any bot sector with impunity. It would not be good for combat because of the slow turning and speed in general of the trident. Also, should the shields go down the reduced armor would go that much quicker.

Ive been playing for less than a week and I have just over 10k cu left before I reach basic miner 2. I think lowering the requirements would make it "too easy". As a brand new player I'm finding the grind to get my behemoth a worthy goal. It does take a bit of work and it is very monotonous, but at the end I'll have my Moth. That being said I do think Miners need another unlock somewhere up the tier to another mining ship with about four times the cargo space. The same amount of weapons, speed, etc.. as the Moth would do. But how about giving it a permanent Hive collector escort, that would re spawn on a station if it got destroyed? I image the collector bot would auto target any roid that the player targets and would function as if the ship had an additional small mining beam, and if the player ship targets an enemy the bot would take a defensive posture and help to protect the player.