If you've got the skills for a Prospect, you've got the skills for this little gem. Intended to be the Wormholers best friend, allowing Wormhole residents to harvest ice from Shattered Wormhole systems, it turns out this little frigate is also as good as a Skiff or Mackinaw, indeed arguably better, at harvesting ice in known space too. The Hulk will remain the king however, but it's survivability is so poor that it's only the foolhardy that still use it.
I'm not one for crunching numbers hard, whether that's apathy or intellect I'll let you ponder, so I thought I'd just compare its performance to my usual Boosting Orca/Skiff arrangement. Without boosts, it takes the Endurance just under a minute to harvest one block of ice but with boosts, it's down to 36 seconds! That's only 5 seconds longer than the Skiff. Take into account my Expedition Frigate skills are at 4 and my Capital Industrial skill is at 4 and it can only get better. Add to that the 15K m3 ore hold, same as the Skiff, and it's mobility orbiting an ice block at 1K m/s, it's just as ungankable as the Skiff. Moreover, the training time and overall investment is much, much lower than the Skiff, giving newbros a way into ice mining very early in their EVE careers.
I really only mine ice when I need fuel, but the addition of this ship will be good for industrialists everywhere. It does beg the question though, do Exhumers need to be looked at again?
