User:Antei thantonne
Mining Doctrine: Low-Sec Mining
Mining vessels are vulnerable to combat ships, and so Unistas sometimes hesitate to mine in low-security space. To be sure, mining barges and exhumers are slow to warp, have less capacitor than other ships, have little room for weapons, and spend most of their time at asteroid belts that potential aggressors can directly warp to. But this doesn't mean that it's unsafe to mine! Unistas can mine productively under threat, especially in an Orca-boosted Shared-Can op. The purpose of this page is to propose a fleet doctrine that provides maximum safety, and even the potential for PvP response, to AMC miners in low sec.
The doctrine boils down to a few simple rules:
Unistas should mine in Procurers or Retrievers, depending on the op.
| Procurer | Retriever | Covetor | Skiff | Mackinaw | Hulk | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Relative Mining Efficiency* | 81% | 88% | 100% | 97% | 106% | 122% |
| Effective Hit Points** | 60,000 | 14,000 | 11,000 | 67,000 | 30,000 | 23,000 |
| Price (isk)*** | 16,000,000 | 26,500,000 | 30,000,000 | 124,000,000 | 179,000,000 | 217,000,000 |
| Base Time to Warp (s) | 13.9 | 18.3 | 24.7 | 13.9 | 18.3 | 24.7 |
Updated for Kronos.
∗Relative to the Covetor (100%) assuming max skills and optimal fittings for mining. Your results may vary.
∗∗EFT calculation, using Tech I modules and intermediate fitting skills. Again, your results may vary.
∗∗∗Jita/Amarr best price as of 3/29/2014.
As the table above shows, the Procurer has better tank and time-to-warp than other barges, at a lower hull replacement cost. Procurers can fit a Damage Control unit in a low slot, and shield hardeners in mids, and still have enough room for a Survey Scanner and Mining Laser Upgrade to help with mining. For example:
Strip Miner I
Limited Adaptive Invulnerability Field I
Limited Adaptive Invulnerability Field I
Medium Azeotropic Ward Salubrity I
Survey Scanner I
F85 Peripheral Damage System I
Mining Laser Upgrade I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I
Medium Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
Hornet EC-300 x3
Hobgoblin I x1
Salvage Drone I x1
- I have fit this with T1 modules; upgrade to T2 wherever possible.
- The Mining Laser Upgrade and Survey Scanner can be replaced with other agility, shield or cap mods. However, the Survey Scanner will increase your mining yield significantly by avoiding excess cycle time, and additional low-slot defensive mods won't help that much.
- EC-300 drones are included to break the target lock on the opponents' initial tackler; these drones can be assigned to the control of whichever Procurer is being tackled. (They cannot be assigned to an OOC miner; this will tag that miner suspect.) If you don't have the skills to fly ECM drones, replace these with Hobgoblins.
- If you think you might like to "trap" an aggressor while the rest of the fleet re-ships into PvP response vessels, you might replace one of the Invulnerability Field modules with a Warp Disruptor or Scrambler, or both modules for scram and web.
If the FC thinks that the chance of miners getting tackled is high, then they should be in Procurers. However, the Procurer has two significant disadvantages, both of which are enhanced with the Kronos patch: the Procurer has the lowest mining efficiency of all barges, and it is fairly fast (160 m/sec, almost as fast as a cruiser), making mining aligned more difficult. In cases where miners are expected to mine in peace most of the time, an agility-rigged Retriever is a better choice:
Hisec Tanked (T1)
Strip Miner I
Strip Miner I
Limited Adaptive Invulnerability Field I
F85 Peripheral Damage System I
200mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
Mining Laser Upgrade I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I
Hornet EC-300 x3
Hobgoblin I x1
Salvage Drone I x1
- Has sufficient tank to survive a skilled solo ganker in 0.5 sec status or higher
- ECM drones are used as a deterrent as well as a chance to break target lock
- A singular Hobgoblin I will take care of hisec NPC pirates
Miners should mine in motion, aligned to pre-made warp-out bookmarks.
If you mine from a stand-still, as you would in high-sec, you will be vulnerable to being scrammed and webbed by aggressors before you can warp away. On the other hand, if your ship is aligned towards a warp-out point, and moving at least 75% of its maximum speed, you can warp out immediately at the first sign of trouble (If that's what you want. Procurers also make great bait for aggressors—more on that later). This means that constructing alignment bookmarks is an important part of mining in low sec. For low-sec fleets that Clutter Fonulique and Antei Thantonne host, we will supply you with a container of asteroid-belt and/or ore-anomaly bookmarks at the beginning of the op. The bookmarks have a particular naming format, modeled after Agony Unleashed's format, that looks like this:
Examples:
=V-1= WI Left
Planet V, asteroid belt 1; warp-in point on the left side of the belt, with "left" defined from the perspective of being inside the belt curvature.
=V-1= WO Left Back @1000km
Warpout point, 1000 km past the left-side warp-in point. Miners aligned to this point can warp out immediately.
#HHJ# WI.1 Sunward
Warp-in point on the sunward side of a Hedbergite-Hemorphite-Jaspet ore anomaly. We may set up multiple sets of warp-in/warp-out pairs; this bookmark belongs to pair #1.
[IX PTS] DOCK Above
Insta-dock bookmark at the top of the Pator Tech School station orbiting planet IX. It's always a good idea to use your own bookmarks for stations rather than the client's warp-to point; the game can warp you well outside the docking ring for the station, and if you have to burn the remaining distance while on an engagement or other timer, you may be vulnerable.
[IX PTS] IWO @800km
Insta-warp-out (or insta-undock) bookmark for Pator Tech School station.
SAFE P5 2AU or
DEEP SAFE P5 18AU
Un-aligned safe spot. Closest celestial is planet V, 2 (or 18) AU away. Deep safes are always greater than 14.3 AU (maximum D-scan range) away from any celestial.
Clutter or Antei will give each miner a Container full of mining bookmarks, and probably a belt/warp-out assignment, at the beginning of the op. Miners will then warp to the appropriate warp-in point, and then always "Align To" one of the two opposing warp-out points. In this scheme, miners are only vulnerable while they are reversing direction, switching between a "Fwd" and "Back" bookmark (or, in the case of mining an ore anomaly, between the "Sunward" and "Outward" bookmarks) because they have reached the edge of the mining area. The alignment axes are set up to maximize the distance between miners and the warp-in beacon that aggressors will typically use to reach the belt.
Orca and Hauler support should be provided by out-of-corp characters.
Orcas and haulers are the most expensive, slowest ships in the fleet. They typically shouldn't be flown by Unistas, to ensure their safety during high-sec travel. In low-sec ops, the Orca should be posted within the docking range of a station if possible, or within 1 km of a gate leading to a high-sec system. Station and gate guns will deter aggressors, and no one should be able to take down an Orca before it docks at station.
Miners should control only one character, and be prepared to do opponent research on the fly.
Pilots in low- and null-sec and in wormhole space need to learn a lot more about other pilots flying in their system than high-sec miners typically do. For example, when we see an unfamiliar character in Local, we nearly always:
- Right-click on their name, "Show info", and check their security status, employment history (which gives their character's age) and bio;
- Search for their name on a public killboard like zKillboard, to see whether they have a history of aggression against PvE pilots, to try to determine what kinds of ships they fly, and to see whether they are associated with any other pilots in system; and
- Use D-Scan to try and determine what they're flying now.
Even though your Overview is set to tag pilots with negative security status, it is not safe to assume that pilots with positive security status won't aggress you. Low-sec pirates often repair their security status regularly for exactly this reason—to give you the false impression that they are friendly.
As you might imagine, this means you'll be spending quite a bit of your time managing information. It is difficult enough to do this while mining with just one character. Don't try it with two.
Unistas should have combat ships—including EWAR, heavy tackle, and/or damage-dealers—in system.
Low-sec mining offers a unique opportunity to initiate PvP! There are a variety of reasons why we might counter an aggressor. If one of our mining vessels is pointed or scrammed, we might act to save it. Or, if we are being harrassed, we might act to convince pirates to leave us alone. Or maybe we just want a good fight! In any of these cases, the types of ships we use will depend on the specific situation we're in. I recommend miners have a few different ships at their disposal:
ECM: The Griffin
Electronic countermeasures (ECM) are the most effective method of denying an aggressor a fight in low-sec, and also the cheapest. And the easiest for under-skilled pilots to fly. Here's a pretty standard fit:
'Malkuth' Rocket Launcher I
'Malkuth' Rocket Launcher I
Limited 1MN Microwarpdrive I
'Umbra' White Noise ECM
'Umbra' White Noise ECM
'Umbra' White Noise ECM
'Umbra' White Noise ECM
Emergency Damage Control I
'Hypnos' Signal Distortion Amplifier I
Small Particle Dispersion Projector I
Small Particle Dispersion Projector I
Small Particle Dispersion Augmentor I
- High-slot weapons are for countering drones only; the Griffin is too weak to take on any human attacker. This fit has rocket launchers, but you could also fit light missile launchers instead, or no waepons at all.
- With no skill bonuses, ECM modules have optimal+falloff range of 43+32 km, and the Griffin's lock range is 65 km.
Griffins will be available on corp contract at the staging station, fitted with everything but the ECM modules. Then. ECM modules will be also be available in separate corp contracts. The standard Uniwiki Griffin fit advises that pilots use a "rainbow" fit, so that they can be prepared for any type of target. However, the aggressed
Heavy tackle
Many Unistas start their training as tackle pilots by flying small, fast frigates that can catch unwilling opponents. Our opponents, by contrast, will be entirely willing; if they are already aggressing a miner, we don't really need to catch them. As a result, we can skip fast tackle and proceed directly to heavy tackle, ships that are intended to tank a lot of damage while they keep an opponent from escaping.
