Lyavite in Incursions

Lyavite

Lyavite is the fake kernite ore, used for mining missions and incursions. (introduced years ago to stop people from just buying the ore needed)

All the mining missions have fake versions of regular ore, where Lyavite is the fake version of Kernite. The volume is the same for both the real and fake version, which is 1.20 m3 per unit and can only be put on the market via contracts.

Unlike the real ore, the fake ores cannot be refined into minerals and only has value for the mining missions and in the case of Lyavite, for one of the vanguard sites in incursions.

For vanguard incursions you need a stack of 255 units (306 m3) for each Nation Mining Colony site.

Practical value of Lyavite in Incursions

A stack of Lyavite will net all members on grid roughly 10 million ISK, which for the whole fleet adds up to over 100+ million ISK for a full vanguard fleet. (given the usual price of 800,000 - 1,000,000 ISK it means it pays for itself ten times over for you and hundred times over for the whole fleet)

Mining crystals

Kernite Mining Crystals are as effective on Lyavite as they are on Kernite. (each "fake" mission-type ore benefit from the original ore's crystal bonus)

Acquisition

You can get the ore from the level 2 mining mission Unknown Events or from the special asteroid that spawns inside the Nation Mining Colony incursion site. As with all valuable things in EVE you can also get it from the market (contracts in this case).

Contracts

The easiest and fastest way of obtaining Lyavite is to simply buy it off of contracts. (either in the incursion constellation itself or one of the tradehubs)

As with everything in EVE, you can just pay someone else to do the work for you, thus getting what you need while doing what you want. A stack of Lyavite (255 units) usually goes for 800,000 - 1,000,000 ISK. Considering how much you make running incursions, it's often more economical to simply buy the ore as it doesn't pay more to stop and get it yourself compared to continue running.

Unknown Events

This is a level 2 mining mission that can be gotten from any level 2 mining agent, regardless which space you're in. So you're not restricted by regions like you are for Kernite itself.

The mission is to mine 5,000 units of Lyavite (6,000 m3) from a single asteroid. In order to keep it respawning you just have to make sure you mine no more than 4,999 units from the asteroid and it'll respawn fully after the next downtime. So once you get that mission you can milk it for a week, mining the asteroid daily.

An easy way to make sure you don't mine it out is to simply fill up the ore hold of your favourite mining ship to the point where it cannot pull more ore than you can safely take without mining out the asteroid. Regular veldspar ore is good for this, as it is 0.1 m3 per unit (means whatever m3 you need filled, you grab 10 times as much ore), so you can just pad your hold with that until you reach the desired amount.

Ship	Ore hold	Details
	Venture (5,000 m3)	Either fill up the entire hold on this ship (4,166 units in 4,999 m3) or put in 1,040 units of Veldspar (104 m3) and get exactly 16 stacks (4,080 units in 4,896 m3).
	Procurer (12,000 m3)	Fill the hold with 61,860 units of Veldspar (6,186 m3) for 19 stacks (4,845 units in 5,814 m3) or 60,010 units of Veldspar (6,001 m3) for maximum (4,999 units of Lyavite in 5,999 m3).
	Retriever (27,500 m3)	Fill the hold with 216,860 units of Veldspar (21,686 m3) for 19 stacks or 215,010 units (21,501 m3) for max yield.
	Covetor (7,000 m3)	Fill the hold with 11,860 units of Veldspar (1,186 m3) for 19 stacks worth, or 10,010 units (1,001 m3) for max yield.

Multiple mining agents

It's very profitable to line up several mining agents, so when you make the daily Lyavite run, you do multiple sites in one go. As such, finding agents close to each other can be very lucrative if you want to get as much done in as little time as possible.

Use the Agent Finder or show info on various corporations to find out if they have several agents nearby, as there are several corporations with two or even three agents in the same system, or even station. And sometimes if you have enough faction standing with the empire in question, you could find systems with several corporations who all have a handful of agents in the same system.

Nation Mining Colony

Obtain the Lyavite by mining the special asteroid within the Nation Mining Colony site itself. (this is how CCP designed it to begin with, in order to make this site different)

The problem with doing it that way is that not only is the asteroid 60 km away from where you warp into the site, everytime you extract ore from the asteroid, there's a chance of additional ships spawning. And once you have enough ore you'd have to make it back over to the refinery which won't be any closer than if you had just warped into the site.

So the combination of the downside of actually mining the ore, coupled with the fact that you'd have to reduce the efficiency of at least one ship to get someone capable of mining it in the first place, nobody does this anymore. While you could have people warp in and mine for you, the asteroid disappears if you finish the site so you'd have to sit there and keep it open, protecting the miners while additional spawns pop up.

Mining drones on someone in the fleet

With a full flight of Mining Drone II drones it is possible to mine enough Lyavite while running to finish the site. It would only take one cycle (60 seconds) of a full flight of tech two mining drones to get enough to finish the site. The problem is getting the drones there and the inconvenience of the additional spawns, plus the fact you sacrifice the ability to use other, more useful drones.

Either you have to fly closer to the asteroid, which is 60 km away, drop off the drones for the mining and risk pulling aggro away from the fleet. Or if you have the skills to send them out that far, get within drone control range, launch the drones and let them slowboat to the asteroid to mine, then slowboat back to you. The trip can take up to two minutes one way, so you're looking at a minimum of 5 minutes doing it that way.

However you decide to do it, there will be additional spawns, the drones may take aggro and get killed, or worse pull aggro away from the main fleet. So while it's possible to do it this way, it's generally frowned upon due to the downsides.

Mining out the entire asteroid

If you do decide to mine out the asteroid, it will have 75,000 units (90,000 m3) of Lyavite in it, which is 294 full stacks and some leftovers.

The ships you use will need to be fairly tanked and to keep the spawns down to a minimum they should preferably use as few strip miners as possible. The regular fleet will also need to remain, or portions of it, to protect the miners while they mine.

If you do this with a regular Procurers and an average mining yield of 1,000 m3 / minute and miner, then it would take one miner an hour and a half (90 minutes) to mine all the Lyavite from the asteroid. For two miners it would take 45 minutes and for a group of five miners it would take 18 minutes.

Even if you use Skiffs with a yield of 1,500 m3 / minute it would still take six miners to get it done in something like 10 minutes.