Thunderbird 2
O is for orsum. Well, perhaps. O is definitely for Orca though.
30000m3 Cargo
40000m3 Corp Hangar
400000m3 Ship Array
Coupled with an alt with maxed leadership skills and you have a perfect home away from home. The ship array will hold one or two HACs and/or a mackinaw or hulk, and several stealth bombers, frigates or covert op ships…
If you want to go crazy with cargo expanders and rigs, you can break 100000m3 in the cargo bay. I may actually be in love. Yes, it turns like a brick and flies like one, but good lord, for anyone wanting a mobile base you can’t do much better…
Good grief. Does my subconscious yearn for a oldsmobile the size of a continental plate over the latest whizzbang speed dramiel/inty fit? Thunderbird 2 was always my favourite… and this may just be the EvE equivalent.
The only down side is you have to jump the blasted things into lo or null sec gate by gate… too damn big for a carrier. NSTAAFL well and truly in operation 🙂
Fly Smart
H
Aggressive Logistics 
If I recall correctly, I though an Orca could only fit industrial ships and barges into its bay? I could be wrong though.
@TG I can think of a couple of ninjas that would be fairly unhappy with that…. if their blogs are anything to go by 🙂
OMG! YOU IZ HACKER!!!!!111!11one!!!
no, but seriously. How are you able to keep your post as the VERY top one for so long?
Grats on that!
😛
But yeah, Orcas are pretty awesome. I was specced Industry/Mining for most of my EVE career, and still love mining, so that came in insanely useful….but I suppose even outside of Wormholes they’d be useful as a mobile hangar.
Haven’t really started to think about my Orca like this except in the last few days.
For 330m or so I should take it out a lot more than just the occasional mining op.
Grats on the Orca.
btw, stick a Damage Control on it, and a couple Reinforced Bulkheads….You can hull tank for QUITE a while, considering that it can have at LEAST 200k EHP.
don’t bother shield tanking it IMHO. That’s only adding a couple hundred (at best a thousand or two) EHP.
granted, it’s a bitch to repair afterwards, but still.
Oh, and fit a MWD for making warps go faster. I just picked up on this myself.
What you do, if the Orca is at a dead stop (so won’t work if bumped, undocking, etc), you hit the align button, turn the MWD on for ONE cycle, and it helps the damn pig to align a little bit faster.
Enjoy the Orca! it’s an awesome lit–huge garbage scow!
Have you hugged YOUR Orca today?
@EV Good point regarding the DC. I tend to operate in the never leave home without one kinda way (did you see that Paladin kill btw o.0).
I have no idea re the post. Either I submitted when the moderators and everyone else was asleep, or posting from as far away as New Zealand introduced some lag somewhere along the line. No l33t haxx0r skillz. Honest 🙂
Yep, ninjas love them for quick ship changes.
As do explorers. Taking one into losec or null is risky, but provided you scout and fit correctly it makes a great base as it can easily fit an ishtar and covops and maybe a spare PvP ship or two.
It takes a grid rig (ACR) to do it but fitting a MWD is a *very* good idea. As already mentioned this will get you into warp in 10 secs, rather than the Orca’s sad align. It also means you can MWD/cloak making escape possible unless bubbled or decloaked.
As errantventure said, hull tank is where its at for Orcas, so lows should be DC and cargo expander or a reinforced bulkhead for more buffer. Drones probably warriors and/or ECM to give you a chance of escaping a lone tackler.