Gas cloud harvesting

Gas cloud mining is the process of collecting gas from interstellar clouds, for use in medical booster and Tech III production. It is accomplished by finding a nebula in known space or a fullerite reservoir in wormhole space, and mining it with a gas cloud harvester module.

Location

• Gas clouds are found inside wormholes and known Space in low sec and null sec. They are only found very rarely in high sec and then only via Exploration or level 4 mining missions.
• Unlike most exploration sites, gas clouds are not randomly distributed throughout the universe.
• They are located in specific regions and places. See Exploration sites : Gas for some specific locations.
• For wormhole specific gas mining see Gas in W-space

Skills needed

• To mine a gas cloud you will need the skill Gas Cloud Harvesting. The skill book currently runs 24M isk, and is available from all normal NPC sellers.
• To learn the Gas Cloud Harvesting skill you need Mining at level 4.
• You can only install one gas cloud harvester per trained skill level. Note that this is very different from normal mining, where you can fit one mining laser per turret slot. Also note that currently EFT allows one additional gas cloud harvester, but this has been tested and found not correct.
• Using a Venture you either want to train this to 2 (to use both harvesters) or 5 (to use T2 harvesters)
• It is worth investing in training it to 5 as T2 harvesters give a 50% increased yield over T1
• If using a Venture you should train Mining Frigate to 3 or 4 at least as it gives an increased yield per level

Equipment needed

Gas cloud harvesters

For each level of the Gas Cloud Harvesting skill you can fit one additional gas cloud harvester (up to a total of 5 at skill level V); all gas cloud miners have a range of 1.5 km (the shortest of any of the mining modules by quite a margin). Note that the table below lists yield per minute (to make it easier to compare modules), while most in-game sources will list yield per cycle.

Module	Tech	Meta			Cycle	Yield	Skill
Gas Cloud Harvester I	I	0	60	2	30	20	Gas Cloud Harvesting I
'Crop' Gas Cloud Harvester	I	1	48	2	30	20	Gas Cloud Harvesting I
'Plow' Gas Cloud Harvester	I	1	30	2	30	20	Gas Cloud Harvesting I
Gas Cloud Harvester II	II	5	70	5	40	30	Gas Cloud Harvesting V
Syndicate Gas Cloud Harvester	◇	6	26	2	30	20	Gas Cloud Harvesting I
Click on the column headers to sort the table; mouse over them for a more detailled explanation. More information: Skills - Tech and Meta levels.

The two meta 1 gas cloud harvesters have lower fitting requirements than the meta 0 module, however, even an average-skilled pilot should have no problem fitting a Venture with two meta 0 gas cloud harvesters. The tech 2 module has 50% more yield than its tech 1 counterparts, and is therefore a very worthwhile upgrade despite the long skill training time (and the slightly more demanding fitting - although it should still not cause problems for most miners). The Syndicate harvester (obtainable from the Intaki Syndicate LP store), is very rare, expensive, and almost never worth using unless you need every last drop of CPU fitting for other modules.

Unlike regular mining, there are no modules or rigs to increase yield. There are no gas equivalents to the Mining Laser Upgrade.

Ships

While gas cloud harvesters can be mounted on any ship with turret slots, only the Venture and Prospect have bonuses to their use. A Venture with Mining Frigate trained to 4 has the equivalent yield to an unbonused ship with 5 harvesters. Additionally, it is far more agile than any ship that could fit 5 harvesters, and has a specialized ore hold for the gas. Thus it is by far the most common ship to use for harvesting gas.

The Prospect is another option. It has the ability to fit a Covert Ops Cloaking Device, giving it more safety in the hostile environments that the more valuable forms of gas are found in. It also has a larger ore hold for the gas, and a larger regular cargo hold allowing for a mobile depot to be carried. However, it is more expensive, and harvests at the same rate as an equivalently skilled Venture.

• You will need a ship that has enough high slot turrets.
• Unlike other mining, gas cloud mining can not be performed in any type of exhumer. (They can not mount high slot turrets.)
• You will also need at least one Gas Cloud Harvester. You can only mount one harvester per trained skill level, and each one uses a turret slot.
• The Venture is the most common ship for gassing as, due to its bonuses, it has the same yield with its 2 turrets and Mining Frigate trained to 4 (with Mining Frigate 5 it gets higher yield) as an unbonused ship with 5 harvesters. Additionally it is far more agile than the ships which would be able to fit 5 harvesters. The Kronos expansion added the Prospect mining frigate. Although requiring many days of training, it offers the same gas bonuses as the Venture, allows the use of a covert ops cloak, and can carry a mobile depot in the hold for in-space refitting e.g. change one of the gas cloud harvesters for a core probe launcher. The Prospect is arguably the ideal vehicle for day-trip ninja gas harvesting in worm holes.
• The alternative is a battlecruiser or a cruiser with 5 turret slots such as a Thorax.
• Unlike regular mining there are no modules or rigs to increase yield. Ie, there are no gas equivalents to the Mining Laser Upgrade.
• A ship with gas harvesters attached appears to have nozzles coming from the body of the ship. The number of nozzles does not necessarily match the number of gas harvesters fitted.
• The Venture's ore bay can also hold gas, however other ships will probably want to fit Expanded Cargoholds in their lows as gas is bulky.

The process of Gas Cloud Harvesting

• To be able to target a gas cloud you need it selected to display on your overview.
• To do this, right click the overview, select open overview settings, select the filter tab, open the celestials folder, and check the Harvestable Clouds box (see screenshot right).
• Find a harvestable cloud.
• Move within 1500m of the harvestable cloud (the range of a Gas Cloud Harvester module).
• And start your harvesters. Note that unlike regular mining, there's no pretty visual effect. The gas just appears in your cargo hold.
• With a Gas Cloud Harvester 1 you will receive 10m3 (1 unit) of gas per 30 seconds (1 cycle). T2 harvesters are faster, yielding 20 m3 every 40 seconds.
• At 10m3 each it does not take a lot of gas to fill most ships' cargo holds.
• Unfortunately, High sec gas does not sell well or for much ISK, but nullsec, lowsec, and w-space gas can be more profitable.
• Gas from wormhole sites can be very profitable.

Uses

• Gas from gas cloud sites is used in the manufacture of Boosters.
• Gas of the Fullerite variety from wormholes is not used in booster production but instead is used in T3 manufacturing. This can be extremely profitable.
• Gas from high / low sec exploration sites is of the Mykoserocin variety. These produce the basic synth boosters.
• Synth boosters are NOT illegal and have no possible side effects.
• Other gases from low and null sec make higher grades of boosters that are illegal and have "possible" side effects.
• On these boosters you are guaranteed the good effect, but there are 4 "possible" bad side effects. (You may get none, you may get all 4; there is a percentage chance for each side effect, modified by various skills.)

Gas Types

• Mykoserocin - High and lowsec
• Cytoserocin - Lowsec and nullsec
• Fullerite - Wormholes

See also

• Known space gas sites
• Wormhole Gas Sites
• Boosters

External Links

• Fuzzwork - The Forge Gas prices - measured in isk / Venture load.

• (Special Thanks to Artemeo for finding a ladar site in high sec, that allowed the pictures on this page.)