Lillik's Guide to (relatively) Safe Ice Harvesting
Overview
Note: Nothing contained herein construes any sort of exhaustive knowledge on the subject matter presented. Proceed at your own risk.
What I'm presenting here will provide a working knowledge document on relatively complex game content. I'll try my best to avoid reinventing the wheel and point the reader to established wiki pages for more in-depth coverage of specific content topics (like the basics of Ice Mining).
Introduction
Highsec mining is a good way of supplying New Eden with the necessary materials for production of everything needed in game. One of the more lucrative mining activities is Ice Harvesting, or Ice Mining. Ice Mining is similar to mining ore, except for the substitution of highslot mining lasers, and if used, lowslot mining upgrades. Because the number and location of individual ice anomalies is far fewer than asteroid ores in belts, the ice's value is significantly increased. As such, ice anomalies are popular mining sites with both miners, and gankers .
Basics
I'll refer the reader back to the relevant wiki pages for Mining, Ice Mining, Bookmarking and general E-Uni wiki pages EVE_University_Rules, Wartime_Standard_Operating_Procedures.
Ganking
Because of the popularity of systems that contain ice anomalies, they have become targets of regular and perpetual ganking activities. In the ice containing systems surrounding major trade hubs (Jita, Hek, Amarr, Rens, and Dodixie), ganking is an almost 23 hour a day activity. But fear not, I'll explain how to (relatively) safely mine in ice containing systems, while ganking activities are occurring! I'll explain how to divert attention away from you, which ships to fly, and other safety tactics.
Safety
Before you do any ice mining, or any mining, please make sure your Overview settings are set to E-Uni standards. Also, ensure your Local chat window is sufficiently large enough for you to see both the inhabitants and the chat box (more on this later). Lastly, if it isn't done, set your D-scan so it's open and accessible. You'll need this for multiple purposes.
If you haven't done this already, please study Bookmarking. You'll need to set up at least one Safe-spot to store your cans, and more if your paranoid level tends to be high. The easiest way to create your safe is to drop a bookmark as you approach the ore site, off-grid but close enough to minimize travel time. You'll also be bookmarking ice rocks to be able to jump around the system, limiting slowboating times.
Fittings
T2 TANK FITTED PROCURER
Tanked (T2)
Ice Harvester I
Medium Shield Extender II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
EM Ward Field II
Ice Harvester Upgrade II
Ice Harvester Upgrade II
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I
Medium Ice Harvester Accelerator I
Hornet EC-300 x3
Hobgoblin I x1
Salvage Drone I x1
- This fit further increases the already-high EHP buffer of the fit above to a grand total of 97,696 EHP against Antimatter. Note that this is done by removing the Survey Scanner module. As such, this fit is designed to work in small-scale mining fleets where a single ship uses a Survey Scanner to point out high-resource asteroids to the other miners.
- If desired, replace one of the MLU II's with a DC II
T2 FITTED SKIFF
Unsupported mining (AB)
Ice Harvester I
10MN Monopropellant Enduring Afterburner
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Dread Guristas Kinetic Deflection Field
Thermic Dissipation Field II
Damage Control II
Ice Harvester Upgrades II
Medium Ancillary Current Router I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender II
Mining Drone II x5
Hobgoblin II x2
Hornet EC-300 x3
- Exhumers III
- CPU Management V
- Power Grid Management V
- Shield Management IV
- The pictured fit achieves an impressive 104,095 EHP against Antimatter before overheating. The capacitor is stable with all modules active.
- With the Afterburner active, the Skiff goes at 644 m/s, thus outrunning typical ganking-fit Catalysts by a rather large margin as well as complicating warpins. To take advantage of this, orbiting the asteroid being mined is recommended.
- The Dread Guristas Kinetic Deflection Field is used to provide the same performance as a T2 Kinetic Deflection Field at a reduced CPU usage. The module is very cheap at a mere 5 million ISK at time of writing.
- If your skills do not allow you to use the pictured fit due to CPU issues, replacing the Thermic Dissipation Field II with a Dread Guristas or equivalent variation is a possibility.
MIASMOS
Fast Warp (T1)
Limited Adaptive Invulnerability Field I
Large F-S9 Regolith Shield Induction
Limited 'Anointed' EM Ward Field
Limited Thermic Dissipation Field I
F85 Peripheral Damage System I
Local Hull Conversion Inertial Stabilizers I
Local Hull Conversion Inertial Stabilizers I
Local Hull Conversion Inertial Stabilizers I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I
- Remove an inertia stabilizer if it doesn't bring align time below the next whole number; i.e. if removing one stabilizer increases align time from 4.4s to 4.7s, replace it with a power diagnostic system as the warp-out time for both is 5s due to 1s server ticks. Contrarily, if removing the third stabilizer increases align time from 3.6s to 4.1s, keep all three stabilizers for a 4s warp time
Fast Warp (T2)
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Large Shield Extender II
EM Ward Field II
Thermic Dissipation Field II
Damage Control II
Inertia Stabilizers II
Inertia Stabilizers II
Inertia Stabilizers II
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I
- Remove an inertia stabilizer if it doesn't bring align time below the next whole number; i.e. if removing one stabilizer increases align time from 4.4s to 4.7s, replace it with a power diagnostic system as the warp-out time for both is 5s due to 1s server ticks. Contrarily, if removing the third stabilizer increases align time from 3.6s to 4.1s, keep all three stabilizers for a 4s warp time
The fittings above are more suggestions than hard and fast rules. Obviously, the more tank you can fit, the safer you'll be. If you have trouble fitting all T2 modules, move down to Meta variations. The goal here is to keep the gankers from cracking your tank before CONCORD arrives.
Tactics
MOVE OFF THE WARP-IN
As soon as you hit the site, start moving off the warp-in. If a gank is in progress, you don't want them to switch targets...to you! This is also a great time to bookmark one or two rocks on the other side of the site, where you'll actually be moving to.
TEST YOUR SAFE BOOKMARK
After you've made one or two ice bookmarks, test your safe. If you made it correctly, you'll land completely off grid of the ice site. Then you can warp back to your first ice bookmark. If not, warp to a celestial, and create your safe a second time.
ALWAYS BE MOVING
One of the things gankers look for is inactivity in the belt. Inactivity could be considered a sign of "botting" or AFK mining. If a mining barge is sitting for too long, and is on their “kill” list, they'll gank it.
ALWAYS TRY TO BE ALIGNED
Remember the Safe bookmark I recommended you make? Here is its second purpose. If you're aligned and moving at warpable speed (75%/max), and if/when you're yellowboxed, you will practically instawarp out of the ice site.
WATCH LOCAL LIKE A HAWK
Some gankers like to play system games. After a gank, when their GCC timers end, they'll jump to an adjoining system to let the ice site “cool”, then when the miners think it's business as usual, the gankers will jump back in and quickly pick a target.
D-SCAN IS YOUR BEST FRIEND
Watching D-scan will become second nature after a few ice site trips. You'll learn quickly who does, and who doesn't belong there. Catalysts, Dragoons, Thrashers, and other combat type ships stand out fairly easily from the gaggle of Mackinaws, Retrievers, Skiffs, Procurers¹, and one or two (or more) Orcas².
OVERVIEW OVERVIEW OVERVIEW
This really doesn't need to be said, but...if any ship is as close as 1-2k away from you, QUESTION ITS INTENT! With practice and repeated trips to your favorite system, you'll recognize the gankers, especially if you...
GIVE KNOWN GANKERS “TERRIBLE” STATUS
As soon as you see an individual's status change to flashy, switch their status to “terrible”. It's as simple as right-clicking on the individual in Local, selecting Add Contact, and left clicking on the red box. Then select ok. This will put a red minus next to their name, keeping them distinguished from the rest of Local.
CHAT IN LOCAL
This is particularly important, as it shows that you're actually playing the game, and not showing "Bot-aspirant"³, or worse, AFK behavior.
HIGHSEC MECHANICS
You'll need to have a basic understanding of Highsec mechanics to effectively deal with gankers. This will be obvious once you hit the ore site. One important thing, please make sure your drones are set to Passive, to avoid your possible destruction by CONCORD.
NOTES:
1. Procurers are also known to be used as warpin points, so use caution.
2. Orcas are also known to be used as ganking platforms.
3. "Bot-aspirant" behavior is a term coined by the player James315 of The New Order of High Sec.
