The Quest For Refining Tax Standings
As most budding industrialists will notice, the profit margins on T1 production can be rather slim. That said, these items make a natural starting point for those just starting an industrial career. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance to minimize waste when producing goods. For the comprehensive industrialist who likes to mine their own minerals, increasing refining efficiency is essential.
What and Who this page is for
The UniWiki already contains an excellent page on the mechanics of Refining. In a world after the Crius expansion, it is no longer possible to obtain "Perfect Refining" in a technical sense. For maximum efficiency, one must refine their ore in an outpost in Sovereign Null-Sec space. However, for those who wish to continue refining in High-Sec, this page goes into much detail on the skills required to obtain "0% Tax" status. As mentioned on the main refining guide, one must obtain a standing of 6.67 with a corporation that has refining facilities in order to eliminate the additional NPC tax above and beyond the refining yield calculated by your skills and the station. This guide is for newer industrial characters based in or around the Uni's home system of Aldrat who wish to earn those standings, but may not have the combat skills required to quickly do so.
Before we begin
The first decision that you must make is which corporation you would like to obtain standings with. While there are many valid options, this guide is written for those who are interested in refining with the Minmatar Mining Corporation. This is for the following reasons:
- You will be able to refine right in the system of Aldrat!
- There is a good number of agents available near Aldrat!
- The author of this guide chose them, so that's what data is available on this page!
Next, you will need to train some skills. While I understand the desire to save your skill queue for all the awesome industrially focused skills available to you, the grind to earn your standing requirement is exactly that: a grind. In order to make this process easier, it is highly recommended that you train the following skills:
- Social - While having this skill at level V would be very nice, you should almost certainly train this skill to level IV before beginning the many missions you will be undertaking. Each level of this skill directly boosts the amount of standings gain you will earn per mission and therefore will decrease the time it will take you to complete your quest.
- Connections - Train this skill to level III. The original author of this guide ignored this recommendation and spent a significant amount of time completing level 1 missions. Training this to level III will let you mostly bypass this worthless step.
- Negotiation - This one's not really required. It only boosts the ISK reward for completing a mission. Training this will not help you complete your quest any faster, but taking a level or two will be quick and earn some extra money along the way.
Next, you will need to be in the right sort of ship. If you are interested in perfect refining, it is likely that you are already a miner! Once you can fly a Mining Barge decently, you are ready to begin your quest. A Retriever will serve you very well on your quest, as it is the barge most suited to solo-mining. While increasing your mining yield is always a good thing, it is important to note that some mining missions involve some combat. It is recommended to fit a Damage Control Unit in one of your low slots, as this will greatly increase your survivability against these NPCs. No matter how you tank your barge, you may have to warp in and out of the mission sites from time to time. Minimizing this is key to earning your standings efficiently. Therefore, it is recommended that you eventually train Hull Upgrades to level IV to be able to fit a tier 2 DCU and Shield Rigging to level I so you can fit some shield tanking rigs to boost your survivability. You will also want to train Drones to level V as soon as possible. Other drone skills will also come in very handy when dealing with rats or let you use them to mine, but a good start is to be able to fly all 5 light drones your barge will support.
In addition to the missions mentioned in this guide, for every 16 missions you complete of a specific level you will have the chance to take on a "storyline" mission. This mission is not guaranteed to be a mining mission, and may involve more combat than you are comfortable with. However, these missions provide large standings gains (on the order of 5-8%) if you can complete them. Additionally, some of these missions will reward you with useful implants! It is therefore recommended to do these missions if you are able to. Before accepting these missions, you should search for them on [eve-survival.org]. Some of these missions may ask you to kill Empire-faction ships, which is not recommended as you will lose standings with that empire! These missions will provide a very noticeable boost to your standings, and should be viewed as your highest priority.
The later sections of this guide will mention some additional skills you will like to train when they become relevant - so it is recommended to read this whole guide before you begin.
Starting your Quest: Libold
Libold may be best known in the University as the home of the Frigate Free-For-All, but it is also where your standings journey will begin! This system contains many level 1 and 2 agents of the MMC for you to work for! If you've followed the recommendations laid out above, completing a single level 1 mission for any agent of the MMC should activate your Connections bonus and grant you access to level 2 agents. This mission should be very easy and won't even be covered by this guide.
Once you've gained access to level 2 missions, the first leg of your quest can begin! There are two level 2 agents in Libold, one found at Libold VII Moon 5, and another at Libold IX Moon 20. You can and likely should request missions from both of these agents in order to see your possible options. It is possible to deny a mission from an agent once every four hours. You do not want to deny a specific agent more frequently than that, however, or you will lose the very standings we are trying to earn! Once you accept a mission, you will have a certain amount of time specific to each mission to complete the task given to you by your agents. The standings boost is not affected by whether or not you reach this goal, but usually it isn't much of a challenge and you will earn significantly more ISK if you do. Since the standings quest isn't the most lucrative no matter what you do, not accepting missions until you are ready to complete them is a good way to maximize the income you do receive.
Unfortunately, as the concept for this page was thought of after much of the original author's time with level 2 missions, there are some deficiencies in the data available at this time. If you find yourself following this guide, please contribute any information available!
Missions
As the data recorded for these did not include approximate completion times, these are listed in order of raw standings % reward.
Moving up in the World: Level 3
Once you reach a standings level of 3.0 with the MMC, you will have access to level 3 agents! At this point, you should really try to have Mining at level V so that you can begin to use a Modulated Strip Miner II. These modules will greatly increase your mining yield, which will improve the number of missions you can complete in a given amount of time. These lasers are only worth using if you fit them with specialized mining crystals. These will require training a specific skill for each ore to level III, but these skills can come in handy when refining anyway! It is recommended to carry a crystal per strip miner for each of the following ores:
- Veldspar
- Pyroxeres
- Omber
- Jaspet (less important)
At this point, you will also likely wish to train Ice Harvesting. This skill will only be used for a single mission at this level (Stay Frosty), but as you will see below, it's a useful one. The minimum level required to complete the mission is I, but each level will complete the mission faster, level III is recommended as a decent time investment. Sometime while at this level of mission, you will find it helpful to have Mining Upgrades trained to level IV to gain access to tier 2 mining and ice mining upgrade modules.
Missions
These are listed in order of approximate standings% / minute.
They Like Me. They Really Like Me: Level 4
Once you reach a standings level of 5.0, level 4 missions will become available to you. Unfortunately the data at this time is a bit inconclusive regarding these missions. As a general rule, they provide large amounts of ISK rewards and standings %, but take significantly longer than the level 3 missions to complete solo, as most of them will require more cargo space than even a Retriever can provide. Additionally, there is a mission that requires Gas Cloud Harvesting, which is a skill that costs 35 million ISK to train! Due to the storyline missions mentioned above, it turns out that it is more efficient to simply run more level 3 missions than to switch to the new missions available to you. That said, there is one advantage of the level 4 missions - there is a good distribution of agents scattered around the Aldrat area, including one in Aldrat itself. This may come in handy when Reset is blocked off due to an Incursion or large-scale PvP! As more information is learned regarding these missions, this section will be expanded. Check back later!
