Yeah I did the same, although I did actually apply the CCU which isn't something I'd usually do for an unreleased ship

I definitely feel this makes the mole obsolete. Obviously won't know for sure until it's in game but I'm struggling to come up with any reason why a crew of any size would take the mole over the arrastra assuming they had access to both, but maybe once it's actually flyable the extra size and bulk will mean it is preferable to take the mole for some jobs, idk.

I do feel that both the prospector and Orion still have a strong enough niche that the arrastra doesn't make them obsolete at all though, imo

It's definitely close enough in price to an Orion to raise that question.

The Orion seems like the kind of ship you park in an asteroid belt and just go to town on, and have other ships come to it for support, like maybe a hull c come to collect the refined resources, maybe a herc or something to resupply, etc. so the Orion can keep nomming on asteroids.

The arrastra though seems a bit more active, plays more like any other mining ship, just bigger and with a built in refinery so you don't need to worry about quant timers, etc. which is more my style for sure.

One adds the rust purposefully I believe

Why would you need to preserve API calls though? It's not like anyone would be dumb enough to limit API calls on a site that only lives because of user created content, right?