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Mining

Introduction

Most systems in EVE have a number of asteroid belts in them. The asteroids in these belts may be mined to obtain ore. The ore may then be sold, or refined into minerals. If refined, the minerals may then be sold, or used in manufacturing A few systems also have ice fields. Ice mining requires special skills and equipment, and is not covered in this introduction.

Mining lasers

To mine ore from an asteroid you need to use mining lasers or strip miners. These all work in the same way... to use them, target an asteroid and fire at it. A laser cycle will take one minute, and then deliver a quantity of ore to your cargo hold. If there is insufficient space in the hold, then the ore which wouldn't fit is lost and the laser deactivates. If you stop a laser before it's one minute cycle is complete, a reduced amount of ore is collected.

The basic miner is not very good... train the mining skill and get a mining laser for better yeild. It is worth upgrading to using miner IIs as soon as you can.

Strip miners can only be fitted to ships especially designed for them (mining barges and hulks), which take more skills to operate. A strip miner takes three times a long to cycle as a laser, but delivers nine times as much ore as a miner II cycle. In terms of ore delivered per hour, a strip miner is thus equivalent to three mining laser IIs.

The amount of ore delivered is a fixed volume, and the volume depends on the model of laser in use, the skills of the operator, and perhaps a bonus from a specialised mining ship. See the mining laser comparison chart for details. As ores have different volumes, the number of ore units mined per minute will depend on the type of asteroid being mined, as well as the model of laser. See the ore table for ore volumes.

Mining drones

Mining drones are small drones which travel from your ship to an asteroid, mine it for a while, then bring some ore back to your cargo hold. They mine smaller amounts than a laser, and spend some time in travelling. If you use them it is best to reserve the closest asteroids for them, to minimise the time they spend moving between your ship and the asteroid. I rarely use them, and if my ship can use drones I keep some fighting drones in it for defence.

Ships for mining

It is possible to mine using the rookie ship and mining laser that you are given when entering the game, but it will mine very slowly. The first things to get as your available isk and skills improve are better mining lasers, then a better ship. Mining lasers take quite a lot of CPU to run them, so a mining ship must have adequate CPU.

The things to look out for when selecting a mining ship are:

The importance of these points will vary depending on what type of mining you do, and where you do it. eg. when mining with others who can deal with any attacks, or when in high security space, defence need not be big priority.

All races have a range of frigates which are aimed at being better for different jobs. Each race has one or two frigates that a new miner should consider. One is designed specifically with mining in mind, as it has a bonus to the amount of ore a mining laser will produce. This is usually best used when a different ship is used to transport the ore after mining it. The other has a enough CPU power to run mining lasers, and a large cargo hold so it will require fewer trips between the asteroid belt and a station to take your ore back. In the case of the Caldari, the Bantam has both a mining bonus and a reasonable cargo hold - it is an excellent mining frigate. Ships to consider are:

It is also possible to fit a mining laser on to an industrial ship. This has the advantage of having a very large cargo hold, but will be exceedingly slow as most industrials can only be fitted with a single laser. Industrial ships have few defences and are vulnerable to attack.

Types of asteroid and ore

There are a number of different types of asteroid, each of which produces a different type of ore. Every asteroid type has three variations, a standard one, and enriched one yielding 5% more minerals when refining, and a very rich one which gives 10% more. Ores have different volumes per unit of ore, which means that the quantity of ore mined per mining laser cycle will depend on which ore is being mined, as will the amount which will fit in a cargo hold. See the ore table for details.

Deciding which ore to mine

The ores themselves are worth different amounts, so when mining ores to sell it is worth looking at the current market prices in the system(s) where you will be selling. Remember that different ores take up different volumes, and and this should be taken into account when looking at market prices. The best thing to do is to work out the price of a given volume of each type of ore, and compare those prices.

eg. Let's assume that you are going to mine in a belt which has veldspar and plagioclase available in it. We'll also assume that the local market shows that you can sell veldspar for 4 isk per unit of ore, and plagioclase for 10 isk per unit. Veldspar has a volume of 0.1 cubic meter (m³) per unit, so 1m³ of veldspar is 1/0.1 = 10 units, at 4 isk per unit that's worth 40 isk. Plagioclase occupies 0.35m³ per unit, so 1m³ is 1/0.35 = 2.857 units (approx), worth 28.57 isk. At these prices, you would make more isk per hour mining and selling veldspar than plagioclase, even though plagioclase costs more per unit. (In practice plagioclase is more valuable than 10 isk per unit, and will almost always give you a better return than veldspar).

Mining into cans

Mining fills the cargo hold of most ships (excepting industrials) so quickly that a miner who returned to a station each time the hold filled would spend most of the time travelling. To get around this, cargo containers (cans) may be placed in space and used to hold ore. Each time the mining lasers have deposited enough ore into the cargo hold, just move it into a can. Several miners working together in a gang can share a single can. When enough ore has been mined, make sure that you will be able to find your can(s) again (eg. make a bookmark for a can), go to a station and collect another ship with a larger cargo hold (an industrial). Use this ship to ferry the ore from the can to the station.

Jet cans

The simplest way to get a can into space is to just jettison something from your cargo hold - the first batch of ore delivered by your mining lasers is a good choice. This automatically creates a jettison container or jet can, which will be able to hold up to 27500m³. Beware that jet cans are temporary, and if left for too long in space they will explode, destroying any contents. (They also explode if emptied of all contents). If not attacked or emptied they can be relied on to survive in space for at least an hour. (I have never seen a jet can which lasted less than 90 minutes). You can set the name of a can, and setting it to the time it was created will let you see how old each can is. Unfortunately ore thieves can also see this, and may use the age of the can to estimate how much may be in it.

Anyone can put things into, and remove things from, a jet can. This makes them useful for group mining (eg. several miners can be filling a can, while another member of the group runs an industrial, taking ore from the can to a station). Unfortunately it also means that ore thieves can steal ore from your can. Beware of any large (eg. industrial) ships piloted by someone you don't know approaching your can. Concord (the police force) do not take any action against ore thieves, but do permit you to attack them. Once someone steals something from your can, a 15 minute aggression timer starts. During this time you can attack the thief without Concord interfering, though if you do so the thief will be permitted to fight back, again without Concord action.

Secure cans

There is another type of can available on the market, the secure container. There are several sizes available, and the biggest has a capacity of 3900m³. These may be taken into space in an industrial, anchored in place to prevent anyone else from taking them, and password protected so that only someone with the correct password can open them. Note that setting the password before you anchor the container will NOT work, and will leave the container accessible to everyone. Once entered the password is remembered until you log out, you do need to enter it on every access to the container. Cans may only be anchored in space where the security ratings less then 0.8 Again, remember to bookmark the container so that you can find it later. Setting a name for the container can also be useful.

Secure cans are strongly constructed containers and once anchored will last indefinitely in space. They can be attacked and destroyed, but can withstand more damage than any frigate, and in secure space such an attack will provoke Concord intervention. Secure cans are frequently used for ore storage, and may be seen in many asteroid belts. (They are not restricted to holding ore... eg. some people use them to leave ammunition caches at handy locations).

Asteroid belt mining

Most systems have asteroid belts, any of which can be mined. However the types of asteroid available in a belt is influenced by the security rating of the system, and the different races have settled areas of space which have some different asteroid distributions. High sec. systems will have an abundence of the low value asteroids, and the lower security systems have more valuable belts. The table below shows information from the "Roid grid" from ToxicFire's ore search web site http://www.fluidorbit.co.uk/.

SecurityAmarrCaldariGallante Minmatar
≤ 0.2HemorphiteHedbergiteHemorphiteHedbergite
≤ 0.4JaspetKerniteJaspetKernite
≤ 0.7KernitePlagioclaseOmber
≤ 0.9PyroxeresPlagioclase
≤ 1.0Veldspar and Scordite

Mission space mining

If you run combat missions for agents, they will take you into regions of space, and deadspace areas, not readily accessible to other pilots. When you have made such an area safe it is worth looking around to see if there are any asteroids there. Some mission areas contain large asteroids belts, a few of which will contain more valuable asteroids than that security system would normally have. As long as you don't report the mission completion to your agent you can mine these resources. Any jet cans you use should be safer from ore thieves than they are in asteroid belts, as they will not have a bookmark to your mission space.

Beware that there are still dangers in some mission spaces... although some are completely safe, some mission belts can be visited by the occasional rat (like normal asteroid belts). Some of the new missions being introduced may also contain traps for miners... I have mined a mission space and be told that something had triggered a trap which set off a powerful smartbomb. This appears to be associated with a mining cycle completing, resulted in varying amounts of damage to my shields. The worst such event did about 420 points of damage to the shields of the retreiver I was using. (Neither my drones nor my jet cans appeared to be damaged by the blast)

It is also possible for people to find your mission spaces by probing and scanning. Nowhere is totally safe, you should always be aware of what is around you.

For easy transport of ore from a deadspace, just complete the mission. This removes the deadspace region; the remaining asteroids etc. disappear, and your cans drop back into normal space. Remember to make a bookmark to one of your cans before completing the mission, as your agent provided mission bookmark is automatically deleted on mission completion.

Skills for miners

External links for other guides

If you find any errors, omissions or things which are unclear, please let me know about them in game, thanks -- Rogan Samish.
Last edit 2007-05-09