Teasing the Rorqual Changes to Come

Yes I'm a little behind with this news but a few recent conversations reminded me to post this.

Within the details of Day 2 for FanFest 2016 was this little gem:

The Rorqual will be rebalanced later this year. It will receive AoE links, a defensive superweapon, and brand new, powerful excavator superdrones. Details and further information can be expected later this year.

Area of Effect links, A defensive SUPERWEAPON and Superdrones, Awesome. The Super drones do look fantastic and I've also seen/heard mention of being able to use the Rorqual as a Jump Bridge but no matter how much I search my log files and my internet history I cannot find corroboration so I can't say more than that.

Still have six Rorquals, hopefully I'll be able to sell five in a few months when these changes go live. :)

*UPDATE*

Seems the Rorqual change(s) have been pushed further again. Annoying but I'd much rather they spent the time getting things almost perfect or working first time rather than have to suffer through patch after patch.

Still, bugger.

Rorqual News Sighted!

I was reading the CSMX Summit Two minutes and on Page 20, the Capital Ship changes, the following paragraph appeared:

What is this sorcery, is CCP acknowledging there is a capital ship called the Rorqual! I do believe they are. Huzzah!

Drone Miners eh, well that fits with what people have been guessing is coming. People have wanted large mining drones/fighters for the Rorqual since it came out. Be interesting to see this.

An invulnerability button too, that locks a fleet in place, prevents them taking damage until help arrives. Interesting, I wonder if it could apply to only mining vessels or if combat ships would be protected too. Would be a great way of trapping an attacking fleet with a small bait one and then dropping a larger one on them.

Ah, the possibilities.

I'm most happy the Rorqual was mentioned with positive information. Last years minutes were lacking information but at least this year we get a paragraph. Perhaps next year we'll get two!

I like my Rorqual, and the other six I own. No I don't use them all for mining, I bought the others at various excellent prices over the past year. I'm holding onto them in a couple of locations ready for sale on contract when they get good again.

The (two) billion ISK whale

His Story

 

When I started playing it was the Arbitrator that I wanted to fly, I loved the look of the ship and the drone bay on the ship appealed to me, after all I could picture drones flying in/out of there.

 

Next it was the Orca, I can remember buying an Orca for 800m ISK in 2010 but having to leave it for two weeks because I had no characters who could fly it. The ship was a beautiful sight and really helped me when I started my mining empire and continues to serve me now as a short trip bulk hauler or a general support vessel.

 

 

Then in 2012 I was in need of a capital sized support vessel for my mining operations (now in Providence). There was only one choice and that was the Rorqual, instead of buying off the market I actually mined and produced ship myself in a low sec location and once finished I fit her and jumped to her new null sec home.

 

The Rorqual

 

The Rorqual was unique, at the time, in that she could compress ore and ice (using the Industrial Core) to make it smaller and thus easier to transport AND she transformed into a structure like ship. Fit out with Cargo rigs and cargo expanders you could fit 137,000m3 into the cargo hold, 50,000m3 into the Fleet Hanger and a truly massive 250,000m3 into the Ore/Ice hold.

 

 

The Rorqual could also fit the Clone Vat bay, a Titan is the only other ship that can fit this, and it allows pilots to create a clone in the Rorqual that can then be "jumped to" at any time, but only once. the clone would be removed from the Rorqual and put in space but you could not redock with the Rorqual and then use it again later.

 

The idea is solid, imagine being able to clone jump to a Rorqual, participate in a large scale mining operation and then clone jump back. No need to have clones near to the Rorqual, you just jump to it and then grab a ship from the massive Ship Maintenance Hanger and start mining.

 

Alas it never worked like this, the Rorqual was unfortunately relegated to being a off grid booster and Ore/Ice compression service. Rarely did they leave the safety of a POS and rarely were they fit to survive in space, let alone under attack. I do remember, during the invasion of KBP7-G by PL in ~2011 that a Rorqual was used by PL to setup a staging tower, supported by their sub-capital fleet.

 

Aside from that I've never seen a Rorqual outside of a POS that hasn't been picking up Ore/Ice or is moving back/forth to station. There have been "Battle Rorqual" fits and I recall there is a player who excels at using one, but it's very rare to see a Rorqual outside of a POS.

 

The Future

 

Since the introduction of the shorter development cycles for releases the Rorqual has found itself in limbo. Ore/Ice Compression has been made available to all via Station Services so you no longer need to do this, and consume Heavy Water, in the Rorqual. Clone Vat usage has been viable but the recent change to Jump Clones nerfs this as well now.

 

The Rorqual really is a ship without purpose, sure it can still be used for mining and the bonus you get for activating the Industrial Core when boosting is worth using the ship but having this as the ONLY benefit really puts a question to the viability to the Rorqual.

 

CCP did say, many months ago, in a post that the Rorqual was going to be "fixed" but they could not do anything until other changes in game and the "back-end" were complete. I can't remember where I read that, but I'm pretty sure it was on the official forums by CCP Fozzie... but I could be wrong about that but I know what the message said just not where I read it or who posted it.

 

Citadels are coming, other changes are happening but still word on the fate of the Rorqual is non-existent.

 

Come of CCP, please give us an update on the fate of the Rorqual.