Ice harvesting

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Ice Mining is the process of mining ice field (commonly called "ice belts"). This mined ice can then be refined into fuel for Player Owned Structures (POS) and Capital Ship Jump Drives. Ice mining can only be done with specialized modules (ice miners) which can only be fit to Mining Barges and Exhumers. Unlike ore mining, ice miners mine one block of ice (with a volume of 1000 m³) per cycle; as it's not possible to increase this yield, the only way to mine ice more efficiently is to decrease the ice miners' cycle times.

The ice mined from ice asteroids can be refined into ice products, which are in turn used to fuel jump drives, manufacture fuel for player-owned starbases (POS), and light cynosural fields.

Note: the Odyssey expansion (June 2013) changed ice mining considerably. Before the expansion, ice belts were permanent features in a system, with thousands of ice asteroids spread over hundreds of kilometers. This was changed to much smaller (10-20 ice asteroids each with 50-200 units of ice) dynamic belts which disappear once mined out, and then respawn four hours later.

Advantages of Ice Mining

• Reduced attention required by the miner when compared with ore mining.
• Ability to be self-sufficient for POS fuel.
• Easier to mine without a dedicated hauler (longer cycle times mean fewer trips to the station).
• Fun factor of 4-hourly 'Ice Rush' when a belt spawns, as dozens of miners rush in to clear the belt.

Disadvantages of Ice Mining

• Reduced ISK yield compared to ore mining. While ice commands similar prices to ore, it's not possible to mine ice continuously due to the 4 hour respawn timer on ice belts.

Ice Belts

A map of the Metropolis region from dotlan. The Eygfe system has an ice belt, as shown by the thin blue ring around its box.

Ice belts can be found in every region of New Eden, but only in certain systems (a good place to see which systems is dotlan). Each of these systems contains one ice belt, which spawns after downtime, disappears once mined out, and then respawns four hours later. Unlike asteroid belts, ice belts are a type of Cosmic Anomaly, meaning they will appear in a different location in the star system every time they respawn, and can be found using your ship's onboard scanner (but do not require scan probes to find).

Ice Asteroids

There are twelve different types of ice asteroids, split into three categories: faction asteroids, enriched faction asteroids, and standard asteroids.

• Faction asteroids (Clear Icicle, Glacial Mass, Blue Ice, and White Glaze) refine to small quantities of Heavy Water, Liquid Ozone and Strontium Clathrates, but large amounts of their respective faction's isotope (Helium Isotopes, Hydrogen Isotopes, Oxygen Isotopes, and Nitrogen Isotopes). Each of these asteroid types is only found in the regions of space controlled by their respective faction (so, for instance, Blue Ice only spawns in Gallente space, and contains Oxygen Isotopes, which are used to fuel the jump drives on Gallente ships and to manufacture fuel for Gallente POSes).
• Enriched faction asteroids (Enriched Clear Icicle, Smooth Glacial Mass, Thick Blue Ice, and Pristine White Glaze) work the same way as regular faction asteroids, but contain more of the same materials. These asteroids are only found in nullsec (in systems controlled by their respective factions).
• Standard asteroids (Glare Crust, Dark Glitter, Gelidus, and Krystallos) contain large quantities of Heavy Water, Liquid Ozone and Strontium Clathrates, but no faction isotopes. These asteroids are only found in low-sec and nullsec.

Assuming perfect refining skills, ice asteroids refine to the following:

					Faction isotopes
		Heavy Water	Liquid Ozone	Strontium Clathrates	Helium Isotopes	Nitrogen Isotopes	Oxygen Isotopes	Hydrogen Isotopes
Faction	Clear Icicle	50	25	1	300
	White Glaze	50	25	1		300
	Blue Ice	50	25	1			300
	Glacial Mass	50	25	1				300
Enriched	Enriched Clear Icicle	75	40	1	350
	Pristine White Glaze	75	40	1		350
	Thick Blue Ice	75	40	1			350
	Smooth Glacial Mass	75	40	1				350
Standard	Glare Crust	1000	500	25
	Dark Glitter	500	1000	50
	Gelidus	250	500	75
	Krystallos	125	500	125

Ice Mining Mechanics

Main article: Mining

Ice mining works in much the same way as ore mining: equip a ship with ice mining modules, approach and target an ice asteroid, and activate the mining module. At the end of each cycle, one unit of ice will be deposited in your ship's cargo or ore (yes, it holds ice too) hold. However (unlike ore mining) ice mining modules and only be fit on Mining Barges and Exhumers, and mining drones cannot be used.

Also, all ice mining modules mine one unit (1000 m³) of ice per cycle; in order to increase the efficiency, you want to decrease the miner's cycle time (see mining yield for details).

Skills

Main article: Mining skills

The core skill for ice mining is the (appropriately named)  Ice Harvesting, which reduces the cycle time of ice mining modules by 5% per level. Train this to level V to use the Tech 2 ice miner.  Mining Upgrades is needed to install mining upgrade modules (which further decrease the cycle time of ice miners).

Retriever

The following skills are the minimum skills required to pilot a Retriever.

• Astrogeology III
• Science IV
• Industry V
• Mining Barge III
• Mining IV

Ice Harvester

in addition, to harvest ice, the following skill is required.

• Ice Harvesting I

With these skills the miner can acquire 1 piece of ice, per Ice Harvester, every 300 seconds (5 minutes).

Improving Cycle Times

Skills

Further training in Ice Harvesting will decrease the cycle time by 5% per level to a maximum 25% reduction in cycle time. Minimum cycle is therefore 225 seconds.

Tech 2 Modules

With Ice Harvesting 5 it is possible to use the Ice Harvester II module. This has a base cycle time of 250 seconds reducing to 187.5 seconds with the skill bonus applied. Ship bonuses , depending on what barge/exhumer you are using, can also affect harvesting. (bonuses are noted further down)

Ice Harvesting Upgrades

(Using the Retriever as an example)

Cycle times can be reduced further using Ice Harvesting Upgrades. These work in the same way as Mining Laser Upgrades, but reduce the cycle time instead of increasing yield. A T1 upgrade provides a 5% bonus (10% CPU penalty) and a T2 upgrade provides a 9% bonus (12.5% penalty). To minimise cycle time the aim is to fill all low power slots with these modules for a combined cycle reduction of 27%. [Note: Training up Skills:Industry#Mining Upgrades|Mining Upgrades will reduce the penalties as well as allowing use of the T2 upgrade at a higher level.]

Personal experience: I found that when fitting my ship with the Ice Harvester Upgrade IIs I ran out of CPU with 3 active and was unable to fit the two T2 Ice Harvesters. The issue was resolved by using a cpu upgrade rig (there were leftover calibration points) and training higher levels of Electronics.