Mining Lance remains worse than useless.

[DemiserofD]

I was hoping that with the release of PP2.0, they'd go back and revamp the more useless powerplay modules. The mining lance, in particular, is bad. Really, really bad.

• Mines about 1/4th as fast as a class 2 mining laser, so if you sacrifice a C2 slot for one, you're going to reduce your mining speed by 75%.
• Uses about 2.25x the energy of the modified C1 mining laser, so if you sacrifice a C1 slot(the most efficient option available), you're going to significantly cut your mining speed, especially when you reach your distro cap.
• Does 8 DPS at 2000m max and uses 1.75mw, compared to an efficient small beam laser, which does 12 DPS at 3000m max and uses 1.06mw; if you want to fight, it'll cut your DPS by around 50%.

Who would use a weapon that is half as good at mining and half as good at combat? In practice, the mining lance isn't worth using for either.

If anyone earns 250k merits to unlock this, it'd be a real slap in the face to see those stats.

Suggestions

The most straightforward solution would be to just make it C2 instead of C1. Buff its stats to be equal to a C2 mining laser, but to do as much damage as a C2 Fixed Beam Laser. That would buff its damage up to at least be reasonably decent, and it'd be longer ranged than a normal mining laser, making it an improvement there, as well. The modified C1 would still be more efficient and have more range, but it'd mine much slower. It also wouldn't be mandatory because it'd still mine the same rate as the normal C2.

Stats:
Class 2
Damage: 16/second
Distro Draw: 3
Range: 2000

I considered making it engineerable, but if you engineered it for G5 efficient it'd still use more distro draw than the modified mining laser - which is much easier to access - which means you'd be sacrificing mining speed for a minuscule amount of damage, so that's really not a valid option. Combat is optional for miners, mining is not.

This is basically the only simple stat change that will make it worth using without directly competing with the modified mining laser.

 

[Chaines]

I use the mining lance in my turreted pirate hunter hazardous mining ship. It is indeed not efficient at all but it allow me to shoot at pirate and mine asteroid at the same time. It is is sole purpose I think.

Most of powerplay modules need to allow engineering to make them somewhat competitive with other modules.

 

[GroG79]

There is no point in a long range mining laser. There never was.

 

[DemiserofD]

There is no point in a long range mining laser. There never was.

It helps more than you might think. If you're running 2 C2 mining lasers, you'll finish mining the rock in about 30 seconds, so if you can start mining ~5 seconds sooner, you're speeding up your mining rate by about 16%!

The only problem is mining lances mine 1/4th as fast as c2 mining lasers, so if you're running, say, 3 c2's and 2 c1's, that extra 16% is only on the ~16% of your total mining capacity made up by the mining lances. So instead of 16%, you increase your mining rate by...2.6%.

Buffing Mining Lances to C2 could really make a difference for the players who truly want to maximize their mining effectiveness!

 

[something]

You compare a class 1 weapon to a class 2 weapon and act surprised that the class 1 weapon has a worse performance?

 

[Greasetrap42]

You compare a class 1 weapon to a class 2 weapon and act surprised that the class 1 weapon has a worse performance?

I believe the OP point was certain PP modules aren't worth the effort. Such as the mining lance. It is supposed to be a reward.

If you read the OP they were suggesting it get upgraded to a class 2 module, making it a useful reward.

 

[Kissamies]

I use the mining lance in my turreted pirate hunter hazardous mining ship. It is indeed not efficient at all but it allow me to shoot at pirate and mine asteroid at the same time. It is is sole purpose I think.

Most of powerplay modules need to allow engineering to make them somewhat competitive with other modules.

And they do, but the Lance as a mining tool does not. It's a real dire niche item. The only real benefit was the range, but in these days there is a pre-engineered version that does that even part better. If it could be engineered, I'd go lightweight and finally have that "just in case" mining laser in my exploration ship. Some explorers love to have them for emergency material extraction, but I don't because it's too heavy unengineered.

I have killed a pirate or two with Mining Lances, but that was mostly to see if it could be done. Really not a weapon you'd want to count on.
Edit: Also I was kind of hoping that a lot of PP weapons would get at least one size or mounting variant with PP 2.0, but unfortunately not. Great update otherwise.