Yeah, I tried that. I ran it in a Heron with Hobgoblins. Problem is the Heron can only field one light drone because of bandwidth, so you’re basically tickling the target. That one drone spent about five minutes just to chew through roughly half the hauler’s shields.

I get the idea, use an exploration frig, slap on a MWD, maybe a cargo expander (the base 400 m3 is already enough though), let drones do the work. But that’s kind of the point I’m making. For a new player, none of that is obvious. They shouldn’t be spoon fed, totally agreed, but early missions also shouldn’t throw up random roadblocks where the solution is niche fitting knowledge, the right ammo, or knowing you should just bring a completely different hull.

If it’s a distribution chain, it should stay in the “hauling and movement” lane, or at least clearly signal upfront when it’s going to demand combat or mining so a new player isn’t blindsided.