Ice harvesting
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Ice Mining is the process of mining ice field (commonly called "ice belts"). This mined ice can then refined and used to fuel capital ship jump drives, manufacture fuel for player-owned starbases (POS), and light cynosural fields. 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.
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
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.
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). Lastly, the Mining Barge and/or Exhumers skills are needed to fly ice mining ships; training higher levels of these skills also decreases the cycle time of ice mining modules (depending on the bonuses of the ship being flown).
Improving yield
- Main article: Mining Yield
In contrast with ore mining, all ice mining modules mine exactly one unit (1000 m3) of ice per cycle; therefore, the only way to increase your mining efficiency is to decrease your modules' cycle time. This can be done by training skills (see above), installing more advanced ice mining and mining upgrade modules, fitting Ice Harvester Accelerator rigs, or flying more advanced ships. Additionally, if you are in a fleet, you can receive further bonuses through fleet boosts.
While each bonus may seem small, when taken together they can make a significant difference.
Improving cycle times important more than increasing yield, but winning race when clearing ice belts.
Ice Mining Ships
(Discuss some of the bonuses to ice mining of the various ships, as well as their cargo hold sizes)
Retriever
The following skills are the minimum skills required to pilot a Retriever.
Ice Harvester
in addition, to harvest ice, the following skill is required.
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.
See also
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