I'm a little late to the thread, but couldn't help but comment after I got my own Type 8 last week... At first I merely wanted the Type 8 because of its looks and because I already had all the other Lakon ships (so... to complete my collection). Well, then I started to look for good uses and right now I can say that the Type 8 is one of the best mining ships I have.
At first I favored the ASP Explorer for mining because of its amount of hardpoints: this allowed me to use all three types of mining using one single ship. Maybe 4 if you also want to account the abbrasion blaster as a 4th type. The only con was the somewhat limited cargo space (64 ton). So eventually I did more experimenting and ended up utilizing the Python: this got me 128 tons of storage. The only caveat of the Python (vs. the ASP-X) is the cockpit: it doesn't give you the same kind of overall surrounding view, it's more limited and focussed towards the front of the ship.
Well... as mentioned: right now the Type 8 is my absolute favorite....
- The amount of hardpoints allow you to utilize all 3 types of mining (laser, sub-surface & core mining (with abbrasion blaster)).
- The cockpit gives you a wide surrounding view, this makes it quite easy to look for the asteroids you want to go after (very important after doing a 'ping' when looking for cores).
- Because it's a SCO optimized ship you don't get flung around like a loose cannonball whenever you boost.
- And because it's a large ship its standard speed isn't all that high (approx. 100 on my end); this also makes it a lot easier (and more relaxed) to navigate asteroid fields.
- In addition... thanks to that same large size it can also haul more cargo than my Python could (though I chose not to do this; instead of an extra rack I like to bring a Scarab SRV with me just in case).
I engineered / upgraded all important parts like the power plant, power distributor, surface scanner and of course the FSD and right now I got a nice ship which can jump further than my other mining vessels, makes it easier to travel bigger distances within systems and it's quite capable to manouver around an asteroid in order to place all the charges to get a little b00m out of it.
Best part? I didn't even have to bother with a custom paintjob because the default color scheme really matches well with the color of the mining gear.
