Ice Mining Frigate Announced

Since the introduction of frigate holes people were wondering why they lead to shattered wormholes with ice-fields. After all, the only ice-mining capable ships were unable to access them. So it seemed to be an odd choice in design. However, it seems that it may have been intentional as the new ice harvesting expedition frigate has just been announced.

The new hull is named “Discovery” and is quite unique. While it possesses superior defence and cargo capacity to its cousin the Prospect, it lacks the unique covert ops cloak. Instead sharing the same cloak bonus that black-ops battleships have. This means they do not suffer from the a velocity penalty and have a shorter reactivation delay. Interesting enough, at full velocity while cloaked it may safely warp just after de-cloaking.

With proper ECCM bonuses it can still achieve a 1:1 ratio of signature to signal strength, making it practically impossible to probe without dedicated scout set-up. The Discovery sports a drone bay with enough bandwidth to support a squad of 3 small drones.

Here is the link to the forum thread by CCP Terminus:

Hello fellow Capsuleers!
CCP Terminus here to share some design stats for the new T2 Expedition Frigate. As some of you may know from the Evesterdam presentation by CCP Foxfour, this new frigate will be focusing on ice mining in the far reaches of New Eden. We think it will give a chance for the more adventurous miners out there to explore and mining valuable ice in places they haven’t had a chance to before, such as shattered wormholes and null-sec. So without further ado, here are the stats:

Discovery

Expedition Frigates bonuses (per skill level):

5% reduction to Ice Harvesting duration
4% bonus to all shield resistances

Mining Frigate bonuses (per skill level):

5% reduction to Ice Harvesting duration
5% bonus to Mining yield

Role Bonuses:

200% bonus to Mining yield
50% reduction to Ice Harvesting duration
50% reduction in Cloaking Devices CPU requirement
Cloak reactivation delay and targeting delay reduced to 5 seconds
No penalty to ship max velocity when using Cloaking Devices

Slot layout: 3 H, 4 M, 3 L, 1 Turret
2 Rig Slots, 400 Calibration
Fittings: 40 PWG, 280 CPU
Defense (shields / armour / hull): 1100 / 400 / 500
Base shield resistances (EM/Therm/Kin/Exp): 0 / 50 / 40 / 20
Base armor resistances (EM/Therm/Kin/Exp): 60 / 10 / 25 / 35
Capacitor (amount / recharge rate / average cap per second): 300 / 125s / 2.4
Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass / warp speed / align time): 420 / 2.4 / 1,600,000 / 5.5 / 5.32s
Drones (bandwidth / bay): 15 / 30
Targeting (max targeting range / Scan Resolution / Max Locked targets): 20km / 750 / 4
Sensor strength: 10 Magnetometric
Signature radius: 40
Cargo capacity (cargo / ore): 200 / 15000

The Discovery will also be able to fit one of three new frigate sized Ice Mining Lasers, which can only be fitted to expedition frigates. They have the following stats:

Ice Mining Laser I
Skill Requirements: Mining IV, Ice Harvesting I
Fittings: 5 PWG, 50 CPU
Activation Cost: 10 GJ
Optimal Range: 7 Km
Duration: 360s
Mining Amount: 1000 m3

Ice Mining Laser II
Skill Requirements: Mining IV, Ice Harvesting V
Fittings: 6 PWG, 60 CPU
Activation Cost: 15 GJ
Optimal Range: 8 Km
Duration: 330s
Mining Amount: 1000 m3

ORE Ice Mining Laser
Skill Requirements: Mining IV, Ice Harvesting I
Fittings: 6 PWG, 60 CPU
Activation Cost: 15 GJ
Optimal Range: 11 Km
Duration: 330s
Mining Amount: 1000 m3

Some notes:

• The Discovery mines ice slightly slower than mining barges, but mines individual blocks at a rapid pace with all its duration reductions.
• Standard ore mining in a Discovery will be about as fast as a Venture due to the 200% role bonus to mining yield, but will be slower than a Prospect.
• While the Prospect can fit the new Ice Mining Laser modules, and has an extra turret slot to fit two, it is still much slower at mining ice than the Discovery, and will require more trips back due to the smaller ore bay.
• The Discovery cannot fit covert ops cloaking devices, though it does get bonuses and penalty reductions to fitting regular ones.
• The Discovery and Prospect will be the only ship capable of mining ice from the frigate only Shattered Wormholes.
• We’re hoping the Discovery works well for ninja mining the more valuable ice from null-sec. With its speed, shield tanking, and cloaking bonuses players should be able to make runs into null-sec for some of the crunchier ice.

[ Original Dev Thread ]