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Introduction to Mining

Gathering Knowledge on Gathering Ore

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Class Overview

What is Mining, and how do you do it?

Ships
Equipment
Types of Mining

Mining Yield
Mining Support – Boosters
Fleet Mining
Other Considerations

Threats
Efficiency
Skills

Q&A

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What Is Mining?

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Ore

Ice

Gas

Raw Product

Refined Product

End Product

Industry

ISK in your pocket

Perfect Refine List

EUni Buyback Service

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Mining Specific Ships (ORE*)

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Exhumers

Mining Barges

Expedition Frigates

Venture

* Outer Ring Excavations

Alpha

Omega

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Dual Purpose Ships & Past Miners

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Gnosis Battleship– Gas & Ore

Praxis Battlecruiser – Gas & Ore

All Corvettes

Frigates – Tormentor

Bantam

Navitas

Burst

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Expedition Mining Frigates

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Yield	-	+	+
Capacity	-	+	+
Survivability	+	++	++
Combat Drones	2 Light	3 Light	None
Cost	~500,000 ISK / Free*	~20M ISK	~20M ISK

Venture

Endurance

Prospect

Ore & Gas

Ice, Ore, Gas↓, Prototype Cloaking Device

Ore, Gas, Ice↓, Covert Ops Cloaking Device

A note on symbology – the “ratings” are subjective, and skill based. The actual values a miner can get out of their ships, are very dependent on skills and equipment. The ratings help compare one mining ship to another, but do not cover all possible combinations of skills and equipment.

Venture is the starting miner, and Alpha capable. It has low yield and ore capacity (compared to advanced mining ships – but still better than just fitting a combat ship with miners!). It has ok survivability by nature of being Frigate sized – it can escape a dangerous situation quickly, but can’t take a lot of damage if it can’t escape. It also has natural Warp Core Stability, making it harder for an attacker to prevent the Venture warping off. A big advantage of the Venture – it is very cheap, making it a good choice for even high SP miners, who are going into very dangerous situations.

Endurance and Prospect are a step up in terms of Yield and Capacity – indeed, a highly skilled Endurance/Prospect pilot, can rival Mining Barges in terms of yield and Capacity! They are quite a bit pricier than a Venture – however, they come with significant survivability upgrades compared to the Venture – the Endurance can use a standard cloak with no speed penalty (a T1 cloak normally reduces a ships speed by 90%, and a T2 cloak by 75% - making them easier for an attacker to de-cloak, since they move away from their starting position slowly)– allowing it to safely cloak up and move quickly around a hostile grid. The Prospect is capable of using a Covert Ops Cloak – allowing it to warp cloaked (but loses access to drones – a mining ship’s only means of defending itself if it has to fight). Expedition Frigates are Omega only.

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Mining Barges & Exhumers

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Skiff

Yield	++	++		+++
Capacity	+	+++		-
Survivability	+++	+		-
Cost	Barges: ~60M ISK		Exhumers: ~250-300M ISK

Procurer

Retriever

Mackinaw

Covetor

Hulk

Exhumers

Barges

½ Price Barge Program

There are three mining barges – and they are all unlocked by the same set of skills. Each of the barges specializes in one of the four main attributes of mining ships – The Procurer is the most survivable of the mining barges, the Retriever can carry the most ore before having to dock up and drop off ore, and the Covetor mines ore faster than the other two barges. In terms of cost – all three are about the same, being in line with the cost of an Expedition Frigate.

The Exhumers, are T2 upgrades of the Barges – and follow the same specialization format – the Skiff is the most survivable, the Mackinaw can hold the most ore in a single trip, and the Hulk is the highest yield individual mining ship. Exhumers carry all of the bonuses of their T1 Barge counterpart – and then add additional bonuses of their own, on top (straight upgrades from their corresponding Mining Barge).

Yield – Procurer/Skiff and Retriever/Mackinaw are in the same class of yield (note – the Retriever has a slightly better yield than the Procurer, but the Skiff and Mackinaw have the same yield). Expedition Frigates can achieve about the same yield as the Procurer/Retriever with high skills/equipment – but the Exhumer counterparts cannot be matched by the frigate sized cousins. Covetor/Hulk are the highest yield individual mining ships – they receive bonuses to laser cycle time that makes them get the same amount of ore as the other Barges/Exhumers, much faster.

Capacity – The Retriever/Mackinaw are the kings of capacity, with larger ore holds than the other barges/exhumers. A retriever/Mackinaw pilot, can stay on an ore field longer, without having to consider docking up to drop off the ore, or arranging hauling of the ore. The bonus loses some luster if the miner has dedicated hauling support – but a solo miner can spend less time hauling, and more time mining, in one of these ships. The Procurer/Skiff have good size ore holds – in line with the Expedition Frigates. The Covetor/Hulk have very small ore holds – in line with the Venture, which is exacerbated by the fact they mine so quickly. Covetor/Hulks need hauling support of some kind (more on hauling later).

Survivability – Barges and Exhumers are cruiser sized ships – so lose a bit of the speed compared to the frigate sized ships, in terms of both on grid speed, AND time to align to warp if danger shows up. The Procurer/Skiff are the high survivability barges, though – bonuses to shields make them able to take a lot of damage, properly fitted (and make them difficult to gank!), bonuses to drone damage make them able to fight back, and they are the fastest of the barges/exhumers – entering warp much faster than the Retriever/Mackinaw/Covetor/Hulk, if the need to escape arises. The other four barges/exhumers, don’t have much in terms of survivability – all four can be ganked in high sec with only a couple of ganking destroyers, and have little recourse to fight back, survive until help arrives, or deploy other countermeasures, before they are killed. The Retriever/Mackinaw do have a bit more survivability than the Covetor/Hulk – but not enough to make much of a difference.

Cost –Expedition Frigates (50x+ times the cost of a Venture). Barges ( 120+ times the cost of a Venture). Exhumers ( 5x the cost of a Mining Barge, 765x cost of a Venture)

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Types of Mining - Ore

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Ore is mined in cubic meters per second, and the rate of mining – yield – is improved with better skills and equipment. But payout is by ‘units”.

Ore is reprocessed into minerals, and those minerals are then in turn used in industry to produce goods.

All types of mining ships can ore mine (the contrast will be seen in ice and gas mining, where some types of ships cannot do each of those activities).

Asteroid belts are semi-circular ranges of asteroids. Most systems in the game have them, and they appear in fixed position asteroid belts, and random anomalies. Fixed position belts will refresh at each downtime – but not necessarily to 100% (a completely mined belt will take a few days to fully refresh) – anomaly belts are in random positions and not guaranteed in any one system at any one time.

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Asteroids/Ore by Empires

Amarr

Veldspar
Scordite

Pyroxeres

Caldari

Veldspar
Scordite
Pyroxeres
Plagioclase

Gallente

Veldspar
Scordite
Plagioclase

Minmatar

Veldspar
Scordite
Plagioclse

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Highsec Ores/Asteroids

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Ore Varieties

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Veldspar

Base (0%)

Concentrated

Veldspar

+ 5%

Dense

Veldspar

+ 10%

Tritanium

Rare 15% ore only found in nullsec in asteroid anomalies.

There are four varieties of each standard ore. Shown on the slide are the four varieties of Veldspar. All of the varieties of the same ore have the same volume – and therefore mine at the same rate – but the better variations of an ore, have a higher mineral content.

Each ore has a base variety (simply named as the ore itself), and a +5% mineral content, +10% mineral content, and +15% mineral content (this 15% variety is not common).

Moon ore has a base ore, a +15% variety, and a +100% variety that spawns with what is known as “Jackpot” moons – every time a moon chunk is detonated, the detonation has a chance to be a jackpot, replacing the whole field with the +100% variety of the ores in the chunk.

Some – but not all – types of ice, have increased ice mineral content varietiy.

Gas does not have varieties of a single gas type like the other types of mining do.

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Minerals from Ores

Veldspar – 100% Tritanium

Scordite – ~62% Tritanium, ~37% Pyerite

Plagioclase - ~71% Tritanium, ~28% Mexallon

Pyroxeres - 75% Pyrerite, 25% Mexallon

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Types of Mining – Ore - Equipment

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Mining Drone I

Mining Drone II

Miner I

Miner II

Miner Laser

Upgrade II

Miner Laser

Upgrade I

EP-S Gaussian

Ella Restrained

Meta Modules

Strip Miner I

Modulated

Strip Miner II

T1 or T2

Crystals

Various Types

+

A

B

C

Residue

Frigates

Barges / Exhumers

Ore mining equipment:

Frigate sized ships (Venture, and Expedition Frigates) mine or with Miner I/II. Miner II is a straight upgrade of Miner I – increased yield, same mechanics. Miner I/II require Turret hardpoints – Venture and Prospect each have two (plus a utility high power slot, which cannot be used to fit a third laser, because of lack of hardpoints). Endurance can only fit one mining laser – but is bonused to where its one laser is as effective as two on other mining ships. Non ORE ships with turret hardpoints can also fit Miner I/II – but do not have the bonuses to yield the ORE ships have (even on a Venture, a single Miner II will be as effective as multiple Miner II’s on a non-ORE ship), and non ORE ships do not have the Ore holds allowing multiple cycles of Ore to be collected without having to drop off.

Mining Barges and Exhumers can fit Strip Miners. Strip Miners have a significantly longer cycle time, but collect significantly more ore per cycle – the resultant yield is much higher than Miner I/II. All ships that can use Strip Miners, are bonused to reduce cycle time on them – but even a fully skilled and boosted Hulk’s cycle time will be longer than a Miner II.

Strip Miner II’s are not straight upgrades of Strip Miner I, like the Miner I/II relationship. Strip Miner II’s are “Modulated” – they can fit mining crystals to enhance their yield. THE BASE YIELD of a Strip Miner II, is LOWER than the yield of a Strip Miner I – you will actually mine LESS ore with a Strip Miner II, without a crystal, than just using a Strip Miner I.

However, Strip Miner II’s can load crystals, like ammo, which increase their yield to above a Strip Miner I. Each type of ore has it’s own corresponding crystal – and you must be using the correct crystal, to get the yield bonus. Mining Crystals are volatile – each cycle, they have a chance of taking damage, and when they are at 100% damage, they break, and a new crystal must be loaded and used. Crystals come in T1 and T2 varieties – T2 varieties have an even bigger yield boost, but have a higher volatility (they wear out faster). Crystals are linked to Ore Processing skills, and are unlocked at Level III (T1) and Level IV (T2) of the respective Ore processing skill – e.g. Veldspar Processing IV, is required to use a T2 Veldspar crystal.

Remember – a Modulated Strip Miner II without a crystal – or with the wrong crystal – will mine SLOWER than a Strip Miner I. If you cannot use all crystal types for the Ore in your area, it’s a good idea to carry a mobile depot, and a set of Strip Miner I’s, to be able to switch Strip Miners back and forth between ore types.

Mining Laser Upgrades are low slot modules that increase the yield of lasers (Miner I/II and Strip Miners), at the cost of requiring more CPU per mining laser. Another typical low slot module for mining ships, is a Damage Control – thereby creating a choice between tank (DC) and yield (another Mining Laser Upgrade). Mining Laser Upgrade II is a straight improvement on Mining Laser Upgrade I (more yield – but more of a CPU penalty).

Mining Drones can mine ore too, increasing the overall yield of your operation beyond just your lasers. Mining drones fly close to the asteroid they are mining, complete cycles, and then return to your ship to drop off ore. They are fairly slow, and the time flying to and from the asteroid, is lasers off for the drones – time they are not mining. If using mining drones, it’s best to sit close to the rock they will mine – and not use your own lasers on that rock (so you don’t mine out the rock quickly, and have to move close to a new rock for your drones to mine). Mining Drone II is a straight upgrade of Mining Drone I.

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Ore - Equipment - Crystals

Simple Ore

Plagioclase, Pyroxeres, Scordite, Veldspar, Mordunium.

Coherent Ore

Hedbergite, Hemorphite, Jaspet, Kernite, Omber, Yttirium

Complex Ore

Arkonor, Bistot, Spodumain, Eifyrium, Ducinium

Mercoxite Ore
Variegated Ore

Crokite, Dark Ochre, and Gneiss.

Common Moon Ore

Cobaltite, Euxenite, Titanite, Scheelite

Ubiquitous Moon Ore

Zeolites, Sylvite, Bitumens, and Coesite.

Exceptional Moon Ore

Xenotime, Monazite, Loparite, Ytterbite

Uncommon Moon Ore

Otavite, Sperrylite, Vanadinite, Chromite.

Rare Moon Ore

Carnotite, Zircon, Pollucite, and Cinnabar

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Ore - Moon Mining

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Ubiquitous

(R4)

Common

(R8)

Uncommon

(R16)

Rare

(R32)

Exceptional

(R64)

EUni Moon Mining Calendar

EUni highsec moons are in Slays

Moon ‘pops’ contain various ratios of standard (0%) ore and “Brimful” (+15%) ores with a rare “Jackpot” (+100%) pull.

Coesite = Pyrete + Mexalon + Silicates

Moon mining can only be done in 0.5 space or lower (including Wormholes). First, an Athanor or Tatara must be anchored at the moon mining beacon near each moon in the system – and there can only be one such structure per moon. The structure must be equipped with a moon mining laser. The owner/operators of the structure, set the laser to fire at the moon, blasting a chunk out of the moon, which is then slowly pulled to the structure. When the chunk of moon arrives near the structure (appx 150 km from the structure) – the structure can fire a blast into the chunk, fragmenting it into a large, spherical asteroid belt, which can then be mined like standard ore.

The owner of the structure sets the cycle duration – between 6 to 56 days to pull the chunk. Longer pulls, create fields with more overall ore in them. The fields last 2-4 days after being detonated, depending on how the structure is fit.

There are five “rarities” of moon ore, and multiple rock types within each rarity. The rarities are Ubiquitous (also known as R4 or Rarity 4), Common (R8), Uncommon (R16), Rare (R32), and Exceptional (R64). Moon Ore refines into moon minerals (also known as Moon Goo) – there are various types of moon minerals in each rarity. These minerals, in turn, are used in Industry Reactions, to create T2 ships and modules. R4 ore, also contains small amounts of basic minerals.

0.5 space (The only security of High Sec in which moon mining can take place), and Wormhole space, only contain R4 moons. Low and Null Sec moons can contain all five rarities of ore – but higher rarity ores are more likely as True Sec decreases. Any one moon has a fixed composition – fixed types of ores that are in the chunk, with fixed ratios (actual amounts are then determined by the length of the pull).

Moon mining uses the same equipment as standard Ore mining, with the exception of Modulated Strip Miner II crystals – each rarity of ore has its own crystal (and corresponding Ore Processing skill to unlock those crystals). Do note that while standard ore has one crystal per ore type (Veldspar Crystal, Plagioclase Crystal, etc) – the moon ore crystals work on multiple ore types, all of the same class (E.g. Sylvite and Bitumens are two different R4 ores, both of which use Ubiquitous Moon Ore Crystals to mine with Modulated Strip Miner II).

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Special Ore Mining – Mercoxit

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Deep Core

Mining Laser I

Modulated Deep Core

Miner II

Modulated Deep Core

Strip Miner II

Mercoxit

Mining Crystal I/II

Another special type of ore mining, is Mercoxit mining. Mercoxit is a unique ore found in Null Sec anomalies, which provides Morphite when refined – a unique mineral used in advanced industry.

Mercoxit has a unique mechanic – each completed mining laser cycle, has a chance of creating an explosion in the ore, which will inflict damage on any ship/drone/etc too close to the rock. The skill Deep Core Mining, reduces the chance of this occurring – completely eliminating the chance at Level V.

Mercoxit also requires unique lasers to mine – Deep Core Mining Lasers must be used, and drones cannot mine Mercoxit as a result (the damage cloud they would create would make that a bad idea anyway!)

Deep Core lasers can be used on any asteroid type – but have lower yields than their non Deep Core brethren. They are required to mine Mercoxit, but aren’t as efficient as standard mining lasers/strip miners, on anything else.

In the Frigate sized mining lasers, there are Two Deep Core lasers – Deep Core Mining Laser I, and Modulated Deep Core Miner II.

Mining Barges and Exhumers, can fit Modulated Deep Core Strip Miner II. There is no T1 deep core strip miner.

Both of the T2 deep core lasers, can equip Mercoxit Mining Crystals, to increase their yield while Mercoxit Mining. Like the relationship between T1 and T2 strip miners – Modulated Deep Core Miner II has a lower base yield than Deep Core Mining Laser I, but a higher yield when the crystal is equipped.

Modulated Deep Core Miner II, does create an interesting mechanic in standard mining – it can fit ANY crystal, not just Mercoxit Mining Crystals. As a Deep Core miner, it has a lower base yield than Miner II – HOWEVER, it’s lower base yield, plus the increased yield from an ore specific crystal, does result in a higher overall yield, than Miner II alone. Example – a Modulated Deep Core Miner II, with a Veldspar Mining Crystal (I or II), will mine Veldspar with a HIGHER yield than a Miner II.

Note this unique situation is because Miner I/II, for frigate sized mining ships (Venture, Endurance, Prospect), does not have a standard ore, modulated option.

For Strip Miners – Modulated Deep Core Strip Miner II can fit any crystal – but because Modulated Strip Miner II also can fit any crystal, and has a higher base yield than the Deep Core Strip miner – Modulated Deep Core Strip Miner II, is never a better idea mining anything other than Mercoxit, versus the standard Modulated Strip Miner II.

WARNING: Mining Mercoxit sometimes generate a toxic cloud which will damage your ship if your too close. Training Deep Core mining lowers the chance of the cloud forming

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Types of Mining – Ice Mining

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Ice Mining

Laser I/II

Ice Harvester

I/II

Ice Harvesting

Drone I/II

Medium Ice

Harvester Accelerator I

Ice Harvester

Upgrade I/II

No Meta Modules

1000 m³ per unit

Frigates

Barges/Exhumers

Blue Ice = Heavy Water + Liquid Ozone + Strontium Clathrates + Oxygen Isotopes

ce appears in cosmic anomalies (warpable without scanning down), and is only available in a fixed set of systems (they are shown with a blue line around them in DOTLAN maps). Ice anomalies will respawn four hours after being mined out.

Like ore – the product of ice mining must be refined before use in industry. Ice refines to isotopes and other ice byproducts, which are in turn used as both advanced industry inputs, and as fuel for a variety of advanced abilities – ships with jump drives use isotopes to jump between systems, ice products make fuel blocks which are consumed in reactions and by structures to stay powered, and a variety of other fuel uses. As a result – ice can be quite a bit more valuable than ore.

Different types of ice are available in different “quadrants” of New Eden. Better types of ice are available in lower security space.

Mechanically, ice mining is the same as ore – an ice field will have a number of ice asteroids in it. You lock the rock, and turn on your harvesters.

Differences from Ore:

Equipment. Frigate sized ships use Ice Mining Laser I/II instead of Miner I/II. Ice Mining lasers may only be fitted to Expedition Frigates - not the Venture, and not “any ship with a turret hardpoint” like Miner I/II. As a result, Ice can only be mined by Omega clones! Barges/Exhumers, use Ice Harvester I/II – the strip miner version of ice mining. This time, crystals are not involved with the T2 harvester – Ice Harvester II, is a straight upgrade of Ice Harvester I. These harvesters require a different skill than the Miner / Strip Miners previously seen.

The harvesters function differently than ore – rather than mining a certain volume (cubic meters) of ore per cycle, an ice mining laser will mine exactly one block of ice per cycle. Where ore mining can be improved by BOTH increasing volume per cycle or decreasing cycle time – Ice mining improves only by decreasing cycle time.

Therefore, the low slot Mining Laser upgrades are different/work differently for ice. Ore mining laser upgrades, increased laser yield (cubic meters) per cycle. Ice Harvester Upgrade I/II, decrease ice laser cycle time. Like ore equipment – Ice Harvester Upgrades, increase the CPU required to fit the lasers.

Between the expedition frigates – both the Endurance and the Prospect can fit Ice Mining Laser I/II – but the Endurance is bonused for Ice Harvesting, and the Prospect is not.

Ice has its own drones (And separate skills from the ore drones, to use them). The Ice drones require 50 bandwidth to use – so only Barges/Exhumers can use them (and not all of them at that!), and they can only use one at a time.

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Types of Mining – Gas Mining

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Cytoserocins

Mykoserocins

Fullerites

Gas Cloud

Harvester & Scoop I/II

1m³, 2m³, 5m³& 10m³per unit

No Meta Modules No Upgrades

Gas sites need to be scanned down.

There are two types of Gas, dependent on the type of space it’s found in.

K-space (known space), has Cytoserocins and Mykoserocins. Cyto and Myko are used in combat booster production, and in some advanced industry applications (Battleship and capital ship production). These types of gas are found in very specific areas of space (specific regions and constellations).

J-space (wormhole space), has Fullerite gas. Fullerites are used in the production of T3 ships and subsystems.

Both types are found in Cosmic Signatures – sites must be scanned down with probes, prior to warping to the sites to begin huffing. A player can probe down a site and bookmark it’s location to come back with mining ships later, or fit a mining ship with a probe launcher directly (most common on the Venture, for this option).

Both types of gas have their own dangers involved – Cytoserocins has a chance of exploding at the end of each harvester cycle, causing damage to those around the cloud. Fullerite gas are guarded by sleepers – difficult NPCs that will spawn at the gas site, between 15 and 20 minutes after someone initiates warp to the gas site.

There is no need to refine gas – the mined product is used directly in industry.

Gas uses equipment unique to mining it – it does not share skills or equipment with ore and ice mining. There is only one type of gas equipment – the high slot Gas Cloud Harvesters. Each level of the skill Gas Cloud Harvesting, allows a player to fit a single gas cloud harvester to their ship – 1 harvester at level I, up to 5 harvesters at Level V.

Though both Expedition Frigates can gas mine – the Prospect is bonused to gas mining, where the Endurance is not (The opposite condition of ice mining).

There are no drones, or low slot upgrades, for gas mining.

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Mining Yield

Example:

Ores have varying volumes:

Residue: Ore wasted/thrown out every cycle (This only applies to T2 mining modules)

https://ore.cerlestes.de/ore

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(Exceptions - Ice: 1 Block = 1000m³ per Harvester per Cycle, Gas: 1/2/5/10m³ per harvester per cycle)

(382m³ per 54sec)*2= 764m³ per 54sec [1 cycle]

0.1 m³/unit Veldspar

0.35 m³/unit Plagioclase

0.15m³/unit

Scordite

Yield for Ice is simple – 1 block of ice per cycle. Improve ice yield, by lowering cycle time.

Yield for Ore and Gas can be calculated by multiplying per harvester (mining laser or gas cloud harvester)’s single cycle yield, times the number of harvesters on the ship, then dividing by a single cycle’s cycle time. This provides the ship’s yield, in cubic meters per second. The single cycle yield and cycle time for a mining laser, can be found by mousing over the module next to the capacitor, or on the module’s info panel. A gas cloud harvester does not display yield characteristics in its module tooltip – only the info panel displays the information.

It’s important to understand yield calculations – at least conceptually – to decide what to mine. Ore has varying volume per type of rock – for example, Veldspar is 0.1 cubic meter per unit, whereas Plagioclase is 0.35 cubic meters per unit. Since mining laser cycles are in cubic meters of ore – a different quantity of Veldspar is mined per cycle of a laser, than Plagioclase.

A common mistake for new miners, is to see that a single unit of Plagioclase sells for more ISK on the market, than a single unit of Veldspar – without realizing that mining lasers will mine 3.5 units of Veldspar in the same amount of time they mine a single unit of Plagioclase.

Ore needs to be valued in terms of ISK per CUBIC METER – not ISK per unit, therefore.

A miner needs to consider the highest value for their time when mining for ISK. External tools – especially the slide’s linked Cerlestes site – does the calculations for a budding miner – by entering a fixed volume of ore, and a refine rate (78.2% is a high sec “perfect refine” rate that can be used as a baseline, for example) – Cerlestes will calculate the ISK value of the minerals in that volume, of each type of ore – showing which Ore is truly “more valuable” in terms of how mining is actually done (cubic meters per second).

REMINDING AGAIN – Ice does not follow this metric – Ice Harvesters will mine in units/second, NOT cubic meters per second (one block per completed ice harvester cycle).

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Hauling & Compression

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Miasmos

42,000 m³ Ore Hold

Freighters

435,000 m³+

Veldspar x1000

100 m³

Compressed Veldspar

1 m³

Blue Ice x1

1,000 m³

Compressed Blue Ice

100 m³

Gas can be compressed but it’s generally not a good idea due to loss.

Moon ore can only be compressed in space with a boosting Orca on grid.

Even before that, a miner must consider how to handle unloading a full ore hold, to be able to continue mining – warping to station to drop off ore and warping back to the belt, is time not mining!

While the ORE ships have their dedicated mining hold – a miner who spends a lot of time on the belt, will fill that ship many times over – and you don’t want to make multiple round trips, between where you were mining and where you are bringing the ore, to move it all.

There are two ships that can really make short work of mining hauling – the Miasmos – a Gallente T1 industrial ship with an Ore Hold many times larger than even that of the Mackinaw, and the king of High Sec hauling – freighters.

The Miasmos can obtain an ore hold size of up to 42,000 cubic meters, at Gallente Industrial Level V. It can carry several loads of one mining ship in one go. It’s not the fastest of ships – but it’s not the slowest either. As a T1 industrial, it’s fairly fragile as far as hauling ships go – so one should use caution hauling large loads of valuable ore, when flying a Miasmos. It’s definitely great as a ship to ferry ore from the belt to a station in the same system, though.

Freighters have massive holds – a freighter fit for survival instead of cargo capacity, can still exceed 400,000 cubic meters of STANDARD hold space (hauling anything – not just ore!). A fully cargo expanded freighter can exceed 1 million cubic meters of cargo space – though at the expense of EHP, making the slow-to-enter-warp freighter, a much easier gank target.

There are certainly other types of hauling ships that can support mining – but these two examples are typical mining support haulers.

Ore Compression: Standard Ore (not moon ore), and ice, can be brought to an Athanor or Tatara with a refining service module equipped, and compressed (right click the ore and select “compress” at an appropriately equipped structure). Compression significantly lowers the volume of ore, to be able to fit many loads of ore in the same volume as it was before compression.

Ore compression requires 100 units of ore, and creates a new volume of ore dependent on the type of ore. Veldspar, for example, is 10 cubic meters per 100 units (0.1 cubic meters per unit) – those same 100 units compress down to 0.15 cubic meters in a single unit of Compressed Veldspar – 66.7 times more ore can be carried in the same ship load, for Veldspar!

Ice compresses a single unit of ice, into a single unit of compressed ice – but at one tenth its original volume.

In both cases, no mineral content is lost – the single unit of compressed ore, has as much mineral content as the 100 units of uncompressed ore, and the compressed ice has the same refined content as its uncompressed variety.

Compression simply makes moving large quantities of ore, much easier. As a result, it is far more common, to see compressed ore for sale in trade hubs, than uncompressed ore – most haulers, will compress ore before loading it into a transport to bring to market.

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Mining Booster Ships

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Porpoise

Orca

Rorqual

Boost Strength	+	++	+++
Drone Yield	++	+++
Ore Hold	++
Fleet Hangar	+	++	+++
Ship Maintenance Bay	N/A	++	+++

Mining fleets are not only supported by haulers – but by another class of ORE faction ships – Industrial Command Ships, also known as Mining Boosters.

Boosters can fit modules called command bursts, that will improve the mining capabilities of every mining ship in their fleet, in a sphere around the boosting ship.

There are three varieties of mining booster ships – each one is progressively stronger than the one before it – and progressively more expensive as a result. You’ll also notice the comparison categories have changed a bit from earlier – we won’t compare Yield, Capacity, Survivability, and Cost so much this time (through all are still considerations!). Our categories this time, are Boost Strength (the main purpose of these ships – improving the mining capabilities of the fleet around them!), Drone Yield (booster ships can’t fit mining lasers – but can use drones to help mine the ore with the fleet around them – and properly fit can do so at very high rates), Ore Hold (each of these ships has an Ore Hold like other ORE faction ships), Fleet Hangar (a special hold on these ships that can be accessed by any member of the pilot’s fleet), and Ship Maintenance bays (specialized holds that can carry fitted ships, which other members of the fleet can board from the command ship, and store their active ship).

The first industrial command ship is the Porpoise – roughly Cruiser size (it’s a medium ship that has some characteristics like small ships). Out of the three mining booster ships, it has the weakest boosts – but still improve a fleet’s mining capabilities beyond a fleet with no boosts at all!! It’s mining drones are also the least effective of the three booster ships – but fit and skilled for drone yield (at the cost of survivability), it can rival Mining Barges and Expedition Frigates for individual yield rates. It has an ore hold significantly larger than that of a Mackinaw, to be able to help handle hauling for a small fleet it accompanies. It has a small fleet hangar, that members of the fleet can drop ore into, or pick up supplies from (e.g., spare mining crystals). The Porpoise has no Ship Maintenance Bay.

The second industrial command ship, is the Orca. The Orca is the king of High Sec mining boosting. The Orca is sized somewhere between a Battleship and a capital ship. It’s large size is accompanied by a very tough hull – it can be fit for a large EHP value for survivability against Ganks! But it’s large size also comes with slow speed/align time, making it vulnerable to attack in lower security areas of space, if it is not appropriately supported with a response fleet. Other than speed, it is a significant upgrade from the Porpoise – it has much stronger boosts, much more capable mining drones (its drone yield can exceed that of an UNBOOSTED Skiff or Mackinaw, if fit for drone yield rather than EHP, and with high drone yield skills – but it still cannot rival a Boosted Skiff/Mackinaw, or even an unboosted Hulk). It’s ore hold is massive – making support hauling for even a large mining fleet a possibility (it can store numerous full Barge/Exhumer loads of ore, make less frequent drop offs than those ship types, and haul even a large fleet’s day’s work if the ore is compressed before moving it). It has a very good sized fleet hangar to support ore drop-offs and fleet supply. It is the smallest booster ship with a Ship Maintenance Bay, allowing it to store even a couple of cruisers / mining ships for the fleet to use (this function can also be used for mining ship survivability – a mining ship can turn off their lasers, dump their ore into the Orca’s fleet hangar, and then store their mining ship in the Orca, if there is an immediate threat of the mining ship being ganked – great for Mackinaws/Hulks that are vulnerable to ganks!!).

Then there is the Rorqual – we won’t really get into all of the mechanics of the Rorqual in this CORE level class. The Rorqual is a fully capital sized ship – complete with its own jump drive, and an inability to travel to High Security Space. The Rorqual’s boost strength, however, exceeds even that of the Orca, and it has much larger holds than the Orca in all three categories. The Rorqual’s true draw, however, is in its drone mining bonuses – the Rorqual is unmatched in mining yield, versus any other ship. A Rorqual fit for yield, with good drone yield skills, will outmine even a Hulk, several times over.

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Mining Boosts & Compression

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Mining Foreman Burst I/II

Mining Burst Charges

Mining Foreman Mindlink

Asteroid & Moon Ore 100:1

Ice & Gas 10:1

Porpoise – Asteroid Ore & Gas

Orca – Asteroid, Moon, Mercoxit Ore, Ice & Gas

When an Industrial command ship is boosting, it activates a Mining Foreman Burst module (there are T1 and T2 varieties, with the T2 having stronger bonuses to boost strengths). Ships can utilize more than one boost at a time, and can be rigged to add additional command burst slots than the hull by default allows. The Orca being a standard consideration for boosting, for example, can use three bursts at one time.

There are three types of charges that can be fitted to the Burst modules, as ammo. Each type provides a different effect to the fleet. Each cycle of the Burst module lasts for one minute, after which another charge is expended. With leadership skills leveled up, an industrial command ship’s bursts will last longer than that minute, in case the pilot has to reload, or go to drop off ore.

Bursts affect all fleet members in an area of affect around the boosting ship. The size of that sphere, is determined by the boosting ship’s bonuses, plus the skills of the pilot. A max skill Orca, for example, can boost all ships within a 49.4 km radius of the ship!

Mining Laser Field Enhancement Charge is the first type of boost. It increases the range of the mining lasers of the fleet around it. The charge symbol is the mining laser with the arrows beneath it, denoting extra range for the laser. This allows fleet members to mine farther away, and therefore move around less. The charge also increases the range of survey scanners, to support the fleet’s larger mining range. Mining bursts don’t impact mining drones – so the boosting ship won’t boost its own drones – but it will boost its own survey scanner range. An Orca can easily survey scan an entire asteroid belt in one shot!

Mining Laser Optimization Charge is the second boost, and the king of mining boosts. It reduces the cycle time of all mining lasers on the ships it boosts – dramatically increasing the mining yield of the fleet. It also reduces the capacitor usage of mining lasers, so the faster mining ships don’t drain their capacitor with mining cycles occurring more frequently. It’s symbol is the ¾ circle arrow, denoting faster cycle time. Again, the boost only affects mining lasers – the boosting ship’s drones do not mine faster.

Mining Equipment Preservation Charge is the final boost. It reduces the volatility of mining crystals for the boosted ships. This makes mining crystals on T2 modulated mining lasers (Modulated Strip Miner II, and the two Modulated Deep Core varieties), last significantly longer. This is a HUGE benefit to miners running T2 crystals, as T2 crystals cost more than their T1 versions, AND wear out much faster. Boosters should ensure people are using crystals in the fleet before running this charge, as it has no effect on mining lasers that don’t use crystals. It’s symbol is the gem, denoting its effect on crystals.

An industrial command pilot can increase the strength of the effects of their boosts, by an additional 25% beyond that provided by their hull (e.g., Orca has inherently stronger boosts than the Porpoise) and their skills, by using a Mining Foreman Mindlink. The Mindlink is a slot 10 implant the boosting pilot must have in their active clone, to get the additional boost strength.

For high sec miners, a “Perfect Booster”, is an Orca pilot with max Orca/Boosting skills, and a Mindlink implanted.

Mining boosting ships are also bonused for shield boosts – all ORE ships, including the boosting ships themselves, are typically shield tanked ships. A boosting ship running shield boosts, can dramatically increase the survivability of itself (these boosts do affect the boosting ship!), and their fleet around them. A booster needs to consider what mix of boosts to run – an Orca for example, can only run three command bursts, so would have to give up one of the mining burst types, to run a shield burst, unless the Orca devoted rig slots to gain additional command burst slots!.

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Fleet Mining

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	Bring Your Own Can (BYOC)	Shared Can (SC)
Who Hauls?	You	Fleet
How Are You Paid?	You Sell/Use Ore	By FC, By Time Mined
Best Benefits?	Higher SP	Low SP
Boosts/Compression	Generally Available	Available

A fleet will typically have at least one boosting ship, at least one hauler, and any number of mining ships. The addition of the booster maximizes the yield of the individual miners that make up the bulk of the fleet, and the hauler allows those miners to stay on the field with lasers on, the whole time the fleet is operating.

Other roles may be present depending on circumstance – for example, pickets may be used to sit on the in gates to the system being mined, to have advanced warning of any threats (e.g. War Targets). A mining fleet in more dangerous space, may employ a combat wing to address threats to the fleet (or the miners may have combat reships nearby to be the combat screen themselves, when necessary).

EVE Uni has two typical type of mining fleets – Bring your Own Can (BYOC), and Shared Can (SC).

BYOC mining is typically informal, ad-hoc, day to day mining around campuses – players who would otherwise mine alone, mine in a fleet (e.g. a Campus Standing Fleet). One or more players may be boosting, allowing the rest of the fleet to benefit from increased efficiency mining. Otherwise, the players all act independently – in a BYOC, you haul your own ore, you keep your own ore – just as if you were mining alone. The social interaction is fantastic, and the possibility of boosts are great!

A Shared Can is typically what is run in an organized mining fleet. The organizer will typically ensure roles are filled (Ensure boosters and haulers are available, in addition to any other special roles such as pickets). The organizer and/or Fleet Commander (who may, but does not have to be, the same person) will scout out mining locations ahead of the fleet, in order to ensure the fleet is mining the most lucrative sites. During the SC operation – all product mined is collected by the fleet (haulers will drop off ore and contract/deliver/trade it to the organizer, or the designee to collect the ore). The individual fleet members do not keep the ore – instead, the ore is sold (for example, to a campus buyback program) – and the proceeds are divided amongst the fleet members, in proportion to the time they spent on the fleet (personal hours worked divided by the total hours worked by all members of the fleet, times the total proceeds for the shared can). Sometimes, portions of the fleet’s proceeds are donated to a campus, to the owner of a moon ore station, or diverted to other sources prior to the remainder being divided – as would be detailed in the fleet announcement.

Since fleet members haul and keep their own mined ore during a BYOC – a BYOC format, would have higher individual benefit, to higher skill point miners – a fleet member that can mine twice as fast as another fleet member, will earn twice as much. A Shared Can, however, benefits the lower skill point miners – no matter if a fleet member is flying a Venture their first day in EVE, or a max skilled Hulk – all fleet members are paid the same for the time they work. The fleet’s average yield effectively drives the profitability of the fleet – and only a small handful of high SP pilots in Exhumers can lift a fleet of lower SP pilots in smaller ships, to high yields/profits!

Most notably, however – fleet mining is a fun, social experience. Most high SP pilots won’t think twice about the fact they are earning less than they might mining on their own – helping newer players is always fun, and mining in fleets is always better than mining alone.

A player multiboxing multiple accounts, can gain many of the efficiency benefits of fleet mining – e.g. a player multiboxing an Exhumer and an Orca at the same time, can have the Exhumer’s lasers running non-stop, while the Orca boosts and hauls.

If there are multiple boosters – the best in-range boost of any one type, is what is applied to each ship. Boosts of the same type from multiple boosters, do not stack.

There are multiple methods for hauling in a Shared Can – in the absence of bigger ships, a Miasmos or two may be used making constant runs. Multiple Orcas may do the hauling alone – where all mining fleet members stay close enough to the Orcas to dump ore into their fleet hangars, Orca pilots periodically transfer that ore to their Ore holds, and when Orcas fill up, they make drops at a local station (while the other Orcas continue the boosts for the fleet). Fleet members may jettison ore into space, which is then tractored in by the Orcas and held in their holds. Fleets may also have freighter support, where a freighter periodically picks up from the orcas on the field, or from Enormous Freight Containers dropped at the mining site as the fleet lands (a fully cargo expanded freighter can carry four EFC’s at once, all filled with ore!!!).

Fleet members should strive to spread out their lasers during a fleet mining event – if there is little ore left in a rock, and multiple people mining the same rock – only one miner may get the last of the ore in the rock, and the rest of the miners wasted a cycle that could have been mining from a different rock. This is more important as the size of the fleet increases – but it also becomes harder to find a rock not being mined as the size of the fleet increases!

Fleet members should strive not to mine any rock the boosting ships have their drones on – especially Orcas, are slow, and when they have to move to a new rock – not only do they do so slowly, but the area their boosts affects, changes (the sphere remains centered on the ship that just moved!) – and that might put fleet members that had positioned themselves in range of boosts, suddenly out of range!

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Ore – Now what?

Refine It

Self-refine – Not a good idea unless you have perfect V skills.
EUni Perfect refiners – EUni has a list of people with perfect V skills and they will refine for you.
Moon Ore – Dairek’s Chateau in Slays
Asteroid/Ice/Gas – Furiams Furnace in Stacmon, Averon ?

Sell It

Sell on the open market or to EUni mates.
Sell to the EUni via the Buyback program.

Horde It

Compress and keep for a later date.

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Mining Etiquette

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In general, do not mine a rock that someone else is mining. The exceptions are:

Ice Mining – Ice mining is basically a free for all.
Shared Can Fleets – as all the ore is going to the FC it doesn’t matter who mines it. Yet it’s best to spread out your lasers.
Gas Mining - Like Ice mining it’s a free for all.

Generally any time you are keeping what you mine (BYOC, Solo) it is 1 miner → 1 rock.

Official EUni Stance:

A rock should not have more than two active lasers mining it. If a pilot has both lasers on a rock, another pilot should not mine it. If a pilot has 1 laser on two different rocks, then another pilot can put 1 laser on each of the same rocks (making a total of 2). Mining drones do not count as lasers.
When boosters are present (E-Uni or neutrals) and actively mining with drones, other pilots on the grid should not mine the same rock. Do note that this does not mean boosters can ask other pilots to move from rocks that are being mined (Boosters can ask, but pilots do not need to acquiesce).

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Mining Threats

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NPC’s

Gankers and/or War Targets

Pirate Strongholds

Forward Operating Base (FOB)

Join a Pirate Stronghold Fleet !!!!!

Make ISK!!!

Drones out shields on!!!

The first, are NPCs. Most frequently, miners will face belt rats – pirates with strength based on the security of the system, that randomly visit mining fields. In higher security areas of space, they are just a slight annoyance – mining ships with combat drones can easily dispatch them (low skill point pilots in ventures may want to be wary, but a well fit Venture can even take care of High Sec belt rats). In lower security areas of space, the strength/size of the rats increase, and miners may have to consider retreating and coming back with a combat ship to clear the field, before continuing mining.

Forward Operating Bases (FOBs) are threats that miners should also be constantly aware of. When a FOB spawns in a system – “Diamond rats” – NPC’s with a diamond symbol in their name, spawn with it. Diamond rats are CCP’s advanced AI rats – the rats are stronger, have more abilities, and work together (e.g. can form response fleets, where attacking one causes other, more powerful NPC’s to arrive). FOB Diamond rat patrols can scram – preventing mining ships from escaping, and even a well fit Skiff can be taken down due to inability to escape, and the strength of the rats. Miners should use The Agency to check for FOBs (Encounters > Pirate Strongholds) when entering a system to mine – and note the Agency window is only completely accurate, when you are sitting in the system. Miners should also D-scan, to look for diamond rats appearing – FOBs can even spawn in the middle of the time you spend on a belt.

The second type of mining threat, is other players. In High Security space, with CONCORD protection available, player threats come in the form of gankers – players who use cheap, high damage ships (the Catalyst and Thrasher are two common choices), to take down a miner faster than CONCORD can arrive. Procurers and Skiffs are wonderful choices for Barges/Exhumers, because the number of gankers required to take a well fitted Procurer/Skiff down, is often not worth the cost/effort (that doesn’t stop people who just want a kill, though!). Other mining ships are far more gankable – even a Mackinaw or Hulk can be taken down by only a couple of ganking destroyers, before CONCORD arrives!

Mining ships protect themselves with drones – and in a worst case scenario, if all other options have failed against a player threat – the miner may try to fight back. Procurer/Skiff again win in this category – with a +50% drone damage bonus, these two ships can actually pack a serious punch – but won’t do too much against ships larger than Frigate/Destroyer size, and won’t even always win battles against ships of those size. Escape is still the best option.

Miners often carry Hornet EC-300 drones – these Electronic Warfare drones, have a chance of breaking a target’s, target locks – if successfully deployed against an attacker that is pointing/scramming your ship, a broken target lock means a broken point/scram. Be sure to align to your escape point, and be constantly spamming warp once you deploy the drones, to take advantage of any window the drones may buy you. Success is not guaranteed with these drones.

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Staying Alive !!!!!

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14 Mining Ships in 6 days in Slays / Stacmon!!

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Staying Alive !!!!!

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Mine smart during war

Don’t mine in Stacmon/Slays*
Be very aware of ‘Local’
D-Scan D-Scan D-Scan

Mine aligned / orbiting.

Watch ‘Local’ chat for threats.

Don’t mine in your most expensive ship.

Clean Clone
Bookmarks

Safes
Perches

Attend the Intro to Venture Mining class.

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Mining Efficiency

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Field Layout, Bookmarking

Jet Canning

Belts can be mined out (players, NPC miners)

Belts can be over mined!!!

To the left, is the layout of a typical ore asteroid belt – a semicircle of rocks. The symbol at the bottom center of the picture, is the asteroid belt’s beacon – if a player commands their ship to warp to the asteroid belt, they will land at the beacon. The beacon, however, is around 30 km away from the rocks – requiring most miners to slow boat to the rocks before they begin mining (Max orca range boosts can allow strip miners to reach rocks from that range, but that’s the edge case in this conversation).

Since asteroid belts are static – they never move – a player can create bookmarks on the belt, to use at a later date. Dropping a bookmark at the edge of the belt, where the rocks at the very end are still in the range of your mining lasers – and then another bookmark along the belt at around double your laser range from the last rock – creates a series of warp in points you can use to mine an entire asteroid belt – ensuring every rock is in range of at least one of your bookmarks. This allows a miner to land on the field and immediately start mining – and is especially beneficial, when a miner is solo, and has to make multiple trips to and from the field, to drop off ore as their hold fills.

At the lower right corner, Jet Canning is displayed. Sometimes a miner wants to continue mining after their hold is full, and not stop to drop off right away. Selecting an item in your inventory, right clicking ,and selecting “Jettison”, creates a container in space with a volume of 55,000 cubic meters. The container spawns within 1,250 meters of your ship. You can continue to fill it after it spawns. You can create another container every few minutes. This allows a miner to keep mining, then come back later with a hauling ship, and haul all the ore off at once. A few considerations for Jet Canning:

Jet cans only last for 2 hours, at which point they despawn – along with everything in them. Right click and rename your containers, and put the EVE time they were created in their name, to ensure you don’t forget how long they have left.
Jet cans can be “flipped” by other players – even players who don’t own them, can take the ore/items out of them, at the expense of being flagged a “Suspect” (in High/Low Security space). This does not invoke CONCORD wrath in High Sec. It DOES allow other players to shoot at them – but in a mining ship, you don’t want to pick a fight. The result for miners, is stolen ore. Be aware of this possibility.

The upper right corner of the screen, displays Short Cycling. This is the use of a survey scanner – which displays the amount of ore left in nearby rocks – and some knowledge of how mining lasers work, to increase your mining efficiency even further. A mining laser (Miner I/II, Strip Miners, and Deep Core miners of all varieties) can be manually deactivated mid cycle – and the miner will gain ore equal to the yield of that portion of the cycle. For example, if a single laser mines 1,000 cubic meters per cycle, and is turned off 40% of the way through the cycle – the miner will gain 400 cubic meters of ore – 40% of the ore of a full cycle. A miner can use this mechanic in several ways, and with a few considerations:

Combining a survey scanner with short cycling avoids wasted cycle time. Imagine a miner has a single laser yield of 1,673 cubic meters per cycle, and has two lasers attached. Using the pictures in the slide, one rock has 7,503 cubic meters of ore. If the miner is using both lasers on that rock – the miner will fully mine the ore out, in (7503 cubic meters / (1673 cubic meters /cycle/laser * 2 lasers ) ) = 2.24 cycles. After the first two full cycles, only the first 25% of the third cycle, will only mine any ore. Left to cycle the full third cycle will still use up the entire mining cycle’s time – but will only return that .24 cycle’s worth of ore – all that is left in the rock. If the miner short cycles the last cycle, turning their lasers off after 25% of a cycle – the rock will be depleted, and the miner can immediately move to the next rock – saving that 75% of a cycle’s time.

The calculation for short cycling in this manner, is (Ore Volume Remaining in Rock / (Per laser cubic meter yield * number of lasers)).

Not everyone enjoys doing the extra math to gain this efficiency – it’s an available mechanic, but by no means required.

The larger the rocks being mined, the less effective this is. Rocks that average less than one cycle of ore, will waste cycle time on every cycle. Rocks with 55.3 cycles of ore in them, will only lose cycle time every 56^th cycle.

Many miners who don’t like to do the short cycle math, like to put their lasers on multiple rocks – one laser on each rock. This reduces the impact of wasted cycles, by making only one laser lose cycle time when its rock is low on ore – and increasing the number of cycles each rock requires, diminishing the impact of lost cycle time (see last bullet point).

Short cycling is also used in large fleets, when multiple miners are on the same rock, to diminish lost cycle time across the entire fleet – if 10 miners are on a rock with only half a cycle of ore left on it, the first miner to complete their cycle will get the ore, and the other nine miners will get nothing for their cycle time. If all ten miners are short cycling their lasers periodically, the ore will mine out sooner, and those 10 miners can all move to the next rock with little to no wasted cycle time.

Strip miners have a base cycle time of 3 minutes – and even a fully boosted Hulk still has a cycle time of over a minute! Lost cycle time with strip miners, is a serious matter!

Don’t short cycle too early/often when you have crystals installed – if a rock as .24 cycles of ore, make sure to go above .25 cycles! When you short cycle, your lasers calculate potential for volatility damage as if the full cycle occurred – constantly cycling your lasers on and off, is a good way to eat up your crystals! On the same note – when mining in a fleet with multiple people on one rock, don’t short cycle TOO often, for the same reason.

Short cycling too quickly, is also a good way to drain your capacitor – your ship uses capacitor each time your lasers start a cycle!

A cycling module has a white progress bar that moves around the module icon, and faintly displays a line radiating out toward that progress bar, every 10% of the cycle. Using these 10% lines, in addition to the 25%, 50%, and 75% points that are pretty easy to determine on the circular module progress line (quarter circle, half circle, three quarter circle points) – a miner can get a good gauge of how far through their cycle, their lasers are.

SHORT CYCLING DOES NOT WORK WITH ICE. Ice is mined at a rate of one block per cycle, and you get nothing for short cycling on ice. It does work with both Ore and Gas.

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Mining Skills

Harvester Skills

- Mining (to 3+)

- Deep Core Mining (Mercoxit only)

- Ice Harvesting

- Gas Cloud Harvesting

Mining Upgrades (to 2+)
Astrogeology
Ore-Specific Crystals

- e.g. Veldspar Processing

- Need Level III/IV

- 21 Total Crystal Skills

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Ship Skills

- Mining Frigate (to 1)

- Expedition Frigates

- Mining Barge

- Exhumers

- Industrial Command Ships

- Gallente Industrial (Miasmos)

- (Racial) Freighter

Shield Tanking Skills

- Tactical Shield Manipulation

- Shield Management (to 3+)

- Shield Operation (to 3+)

Please don’t just read every single skill off to the class. Point out some interesting ones, and speak to categories in general.

Harvester skills unlock the harvesters, and increase the yield with them – e.g. Mining V is required to use T2 Strip Miners, and each level of Mining increases ore laser yields by 5%.

Mining Upgrades IV is required to use T2 Mining Laser Upgrades (both ore and ice), and each level reduces the CPU penalty from the upgrades.

Astrogeology increases ore yield by 5% per level. Astrogeology V is required to fly Exhumers.

There are 21 total Mining Crystals – 16 standard ore types, and 5 moon ore crystals. Each crystal requires Level III in its corresponding Ore Processing (e.g. Veldspar Processing, Common Moon Ore Processing) to use the T1 crystal, and Level IV to use the T2 crystal.

Ship skills unlock the respective ship types, and provide bonuses to the ships they unlock. For example, each level of Mining Barge, decreases the cycle time for each of the mining barges, AND provides extra bonus in that Barge’s specialty (more shields for Procurers, more capacity for Retrievers, even further cycle time reduction for Covetor). Mining Barge V is required to fly an Exhumer (Exhumers are T2 ships, and nearly all T2 ships require Level V in the T1 counterpart skill) – and each level of Exhumers provides additional cycle time reduction and role benefit, to the Exhumers. Mining Frigate V is required to fly an Expedition Frigate (Again – T2 ship!).

Shield tanking skills increase EHP. Tactical Shield Manipulation is a big one, since it unlocks T2 shield hardeners. Shield Management/Operation/Compensation increase effectiveness of shields. Some fits use passive shield modules instead of the active hardeners, due to fitting limitations – these are unlocked and improved by the Damage type Shield Compensation skills.

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Mining Skills, Continued

Fitting

- Power Grid Management (to 2+)

- CPU Management (to 2+)

- Shield Upgrades

- Shield Rigging

Boosting

- Leadership

- Wing/Fleet Command

- Mining Foreman

- Mining Director

- Shield Command

- Shield Command Specialist

- Cybernetics V

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Drones

- Mining Drone Operation/Specialization

- Ice Harvesting Drone Operation/Specialization

- Drones (to 2+) (Determines how many drones you can fly)

- Light Drone Operation (to 2+)

- Drone Avionics (to 2+)

- Drone Interfacing (to 2+)

- Drone Navigation (to 2+)

- Drone Sharpshooting (to 2+)

- (Empire) Drone Specialization

- Advanced Drone Avionics (Hornet EC-300)

Fitting skills are important for mining ships – mining ships are typically tight on PG/CPU, and fitting skills can be the difference between a T1 and T2 tank. Shield Upgrades helps with shield module PG usage. Shield rigging reduces shield rig penalties - which are typically increased signature radius, making your ship faster to lock and easier to hit. Increasing Shield Rigging skill, reduces this penalty when you fit shield rigs.

Industrial Command Ships need boosting skills. Leadership, Wing Command, and Fleet Command, increase the range of boosts (the last two of those skills take SIGNIFICANT time to train). Mining Foreman increases the duration of boosts, and Level V is required to start training Mining Director. Mining Director increases the strength of boosts, and unlocks the T2 burst module. Shield Command and Shield Command Specialist, have the same benefits/relationship, for the shield burst modules. Cybernetics V, is required to use the Mining Foreman Mindlink.

Mining Drones and Ice Harvesting Drones each have two skills – a “Base skill” that improves the T1 drone, and a Specialization skill – which requires the base skill at V to train – that unlocks and improves the T2 drone.

Drones increases the number of drones you can have on the field at one time – train this to V if you are going to use drones.

Light Drone operation improves light scout drones – which mining ships use for defense – once trained to V, Gallente/Amarr/Caldari/Minmatar Drone Specialization can be trained to unlock T2 light scout drones.

Advanced Drone Avionics must be trained to use the EC-300 jamming drones.

Drone Interfacing increase the damage of your combat drones – AND INCREASES THE YIELD OF MINING DRONES.

Drone Navigation makes drones fly faster – reducing lost time traveling to/from your ship, from/to the rock they are mining.

There are other skills that benefit miners, than those on the two slides. This is just a collection of some of the more useful skills, to highlight how much effort a serious miner needs to put in.

AGAIN – please do not just read these lists off to a class, use the notes and your own knowledge, to determine what you do want to talk about here. Let the class ask questions in Q&A for what you don’t cover, and reference the slide deck from the wiki for more, on their own.

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Learning More

AIR Mining Missions
Agent Mining Missions
Join Mining Fleets

BYOC and Shared can Moon Mining fleets in Slays

EUni Wiki
Just ask someone!

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