Orca

From Galaxypedia

The Orca is a heavy Miner-Class ship.

Description

The Orca is the second-best non-limited Miner in the ship building menu, but it is not as good as the famous Galaxy. It features 6 Medium Mining Lasers, the most for a non-VIP, and non-Event.

Note that the Orca is the best non-VIP, and non-Limited ship, making it very recommended.

Sometimes seen in public servers, though not very often.

Appearance

The Orca is one of the few Miners in the game to feature a proper interior. Featuring a seat with many keys and computers around it, many crates, 2 radar screens, 2 lockers and 4 co-pilot seats with screens.

Advantages

  • Great armament of Mining Lasers.
  • 2nd best non-limited
  • High health tank, making a low number of small ships a minor threat.
  • The best regularly obtainable miner, and the third-fastest refundable miner, with the Woolly Mammoth being 1st and Santa's Workshop being 2nd.
  • Rather high top-speed relative to its size.
  • Takes a minimum of just over 3 minutes to fill its ore hold.
  • Has twice the mining speed of the Rorqual.
  • Due to its size and turret placement, it can actually mine, 5900-6.5k forwards.
  • Can make 100k-130k Credits per hour if you are efficient, making it very good with the more experienced player.

Disadvantages

  • Terrible maneuverability aside from the top speed. Not much of a problem with warp.
  • Massive target, allowing Spinals and Turrets to hit it with ease.
  • Requires a level 8 warehouse to build, which is expensive for a new player.
  • Requires 2000 Uranium, a rare and expensive ore. There is a strategy to get it (WITHOUT HACKING) if you are using the M-class. (See strategy)
  • Due to its size and turret placement, it can only shoot 4100–4300 studs backwards.
  • Slow docking speed. Very annoying if you are trying to escape a NPC or enemy player.
  • A huge target for Pirates due to being the second-best Miner on the build menu, though
  • this is not a problem with a private server.

Strategy

  • Don't mine during a war.
  • If you have a Private Server, mine there instead.
  • Find large ore fields to fill your ore hold quickly.
  • Warp away from aliens, as they sometimes chase you. If it is a Punisher, your best bet would be to rush back to your Starbase and despawn. The Starbase can finish it off, even if it is level 1.
  • To get the Orca as fast as possible (With the M class) Is that you mine the materials Iridium, Carbon, And Silicate and transfer them to your warehouse. Use 7-8K on the rarer materials (Except for uranium) and get 22K more credits. Then, sell the M class for its standard 40K. With the extra 22K, you will have enough to buy all the uranium you need and enough money for the manufacturing fee. Tested and done in 1.6 Hours. (Editorial Note: This strategy is not related to the use of this ship. Additionally, this is not a recommended strategy if you do not have a back-up or replacement Miner that is relatively on par or better than the mining efficiency of the M Class. It is advised instead to attempt to find the occasional large ore chunks of uranium around Frion I if it is level 3, in a public server; or otherwise exchange salvaged Plasma Batteries for uranium upstairs of terminal D in Mega Base.)

Version History

  • Explosion Damage nerfed in an unknown version without any further notice.
  • Explosion Damage nerfed even further in an unknown version without any further notice.
  • Cost increased in version .69a.
  • Ore Hold reduced from 7500 to 5000 in version .70a.
  • Ore Hold increased from 5000 to 6500 in version .72a?
  • Cargo hold increased from 500 to 700 in version .75a5
  • Shield reduced from 8000 to 7500 in version .75a5
  • Shield and Hull reduced from 5,000/7,000 to 4,000/4,000 in version .75a10.
  • Ore Hold reduced from 6,500 to 6,000 in version .75a10.

Trivia

  • The Orca takes inspiration from the EVE Online ship of the same name
  • Previously was a better nuke than the E Class, basically one of the best ship nukes in the game, along with Galaxy and Prototypes. This was especially effective in Galaxy Arcade because it could be spawned at any base.
  • Can make around 8.5k-10k per run depending on loyalty.
  • Killing an Orca with 0 bounty gives a 40k bounty increase, making this a nice target for pirates.
  • Used to cost about 166,032.2 credits after buying enough uranium. The 5,000 uranium costs 110,000 credits?.
  • Used to cost 15,000 uranium, making the Orca cost nearly 700,000 credits. It was cut down to 5000 Uranium shortly after, and it now costs 2,000 uranium.
  • The Orca's explosion damage was nerfed many times due to dealing too much damage, the original pre-nerf explosion damage can deal about 7000 damage to a starbase, it was then nerfed to about 3000 damage to a starbase, and then nerfed yet again to about 1000 damage to a starbase, these nerfs were not mentioned when the explosion damage nerfs happened.
  • It takes about 45 runs with a Mammoth or Rorqual if you are doing it with credits and takes about 4 hours to get it with those ships
  • the fastest way to get an Orca is to sell the M class, and get 13k more credits. you can loot to make the process faster.
  • It takes about 4 minutes and 20 seconds for one mining run with this insane miner.
  • As of version .75a10, The Orca is the only miner with a total of 0 Cargo Hold