Mining

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Miningexample.jpg

Overview

Mining is the profession of extracting ore from asteroids; these ores can then be refined into minerals which in turn are used in the production of all player created items in EVE, such as ships and modules. It is one of the few professions that is immediately available to beginning players and most EVE industrialists started their careers by mining. Mining is perhaps the most economically safe profession in EVE; losing mining ships or being podded is uncommon and minerals are always in demand. In its simplest form, mining can be accomplished by finding an asteroid site in a system and mining its asteroids with mining lasers.

All Eve University members are encouraged to take advantage of the mining loaner fleet program to get into mining faster and at no cost. The University will even provide the skillbook for you! All miners are encouraged to join the E-Uni Mining Ops mailing list, you will receive an email when a Fleet Commander has organized a mining op. Many miners in EVE University have come together to organize an Amarr Mining Camp where newer players are taught the basics of solo and fleet mining; it is highly encouraged that newer players interested in mining attend the camp and contact the organizers involved; all E-UNI members are invited and the camp has been active since March 2012. Also, ask about the camp specific mailing list when you arrive at the location.

Prospecting

Efficiency

Before mining, it is best advised that players determine what is the most profitable way to mine. This involves determining what asteroids to mine, where to find these asteroids, which ships (and skills) are best suited and optimized to mine and (in most cases) how best to haul the ore to a refining station and then to the market. All miners should attempt to maximize their efficiency (and therefore their profitability) which is typically measured by the amount of m3 mined in a cycle of a mining laser. For example Veldspar is the most common and cheapest ore in EVE and has a volume of .1m3, Scordite is the next most common ore but has a volume of .15m3. Therefore, for every cycle, 3/2 more Veldspar is mined than Scordite. To be more profitable Scordite's market price must be in turn 3/2 greater than Veldspar. Since the market is player driven ore and mineral prices are ever changing, hence miners should always check the market for the most efficient ore/mineral to mine for.

A good site that will help you determine the most profitable ores is Grismar's Ore Chart. Look up the market prices of the minerals from your console, and input them in the top row. Hit Apply, and you'll see which ore will give you the most ISK per m3. There are a few sites that will do this for you - This IGB site and this OGB site are two examples. This page explains how to use the second site. Remember to doublecheck the prices that any automated tools give you - they will often use regional averages to determine mineral prices, and if you plan to sell your goods at a specific station or hub then your priorities might come out differently.

Asteroids

Glow roid grid.jpg

Asteroid belts can be found in most systems either on the overview window or by right clicking and using the Asteroid Belt section(Ombey's 2D Maps contains information on the number of asteroid belts in a system). Each asteroid belt has several properties: what asteroids compose the asteroid belt, what asteroids are present and the overall quantity and quality of the asteroids. In empire space there are six asteroids: Veldspar, Scordite, Pyroxeres, Plagioclase, Omber and Kernite. However only a subset of these six asteroids can be found any system depending on which faction controls the region. Low-sec and 0.0 space each have their own respective set of asteroids (which is compounded, so low-sec space contains all the empire space asteroids and 0.0 space contains both empire and low-sec asteroids). A complete list can be found at ToxicFire's ORE Map. Keep in mind that asteroids only spawn after downtime so there will be belts that are devoid of a certain asteroid (or any asteroid in some cases) because other miners have already mined it out.

Another important factor is the size of the asteroids in a belt: smaller asteroids will require more laser management and cause more wasted laser cycles. Using a survey scanner to scout belts is highly recommended; the difference between a belt freshly respawned after downtime and one that hasn't been touched in a few days is very noticable. Missions also often yield significant asteroid belts. Keep an eye out for those, and you may reap in more ore than a couple of belts combined.

Hint: Set your overview to "default mining" (click the triangle next to overview -> load -> mining) to see asteroids other than veldspar. (Note that not all ores and other harvestable items will not be shown by using the default mining set.)

Here is a list of common hisec asteroids and which one offers larger amounts of minerals.

Base Ore Slightly More (+5%) Greatest Concentration (+10%)
Veldspar Concentrated Veldspar Dense Veldspar
Plagioclase Azure Plagioclase Rich Plagioclase
Scordite Condensed Scordite Massive Scordite
Omber Silvery Omber Golden Omber
Pyroxeres Solid Pyroxeres Viscous Pyroxeres
Kernite Luminous Kernite Fiery Kernite

Mining Math

Like other parts of Eve, mining has some math in it. The basic reasons why you want to do the math when your mining is if you're away from keyboard (AFK) mining you will know the exact time down to the second that you need to be back to handle things. The math you will do will tell you how long it will take for your ship to fill up or how long will it take until what your mining will deplete. To do the math correctly you will need a survey scanner. Once your ship has a survey scanner on it, you will need to scan the near by gas, ice, asteroids, and anything else you can harvest. As soon as you find what you're looking for write down how many units you have before you start mining, and if you want to start mining now then write down your own local time at the time you hit the button to mine. Then right click on what you want to mine and press show info. Now go to the attributes' tab and write down the volume. This volume is how much volume one unit of what your mining will take on your ship. Next you will need the algebraic equation below.


X=How much one unit volume takes

U=Amount in units

V=Overall volume that all the units add up to


X*U=V


So hypothetically if I was mining 33,215 units of Scordite, which takes .15m3 per unit. The 33,215 units would be 4982.25m3. So the equation will look like this.



33215 * 0.15 = 4982.25

______________________________

Now you need to know how long it will take you to fill up your ship, and how long it will take you to deplete what your mining. To do this you will need to know how much cargo space you have, how much your device takes in, and how much volume your mining. To get this information you will need to do the equation above and then open up your cargo tab and see how much space you have been open. After you write this information down, right click on what your mining with and go to the attributes' tab. Write down the mining amount. This tells you how much volume the device brings in your ship per cycle. Most cycles are about 60 seconds. Next you will need the equation below.

X=Ship cargo hull or whatever your mining

L=How much your mining laser/s or device will pull per cycle.
T=How many cycles your device will have to do before the your ship is full or before what your mining is depleted. Most cycles last for 60 seconds so if this is true you can make T equal one minute.
H=Hour (this is ONLY true if one cycle equals, or you can convert it to one minute)
S=Seconds (this is ONLY true if one cycle equals, or you can convert it to one minute)
Y=The whole number before the decimal place (this is ONLY true if one cycle equals, or you can convert it to one minute)
M=Minute (this is ONLY true if one cycle equals, or you can convert it to one minute)
N=Thousand of a second (this is ONLY true if one cycle equals, or you can convert it to one minute)





X/L=T/60=(H-Y)*60=(M-Y)*60=S


If you get a decimal place when you find your hours just remove the numbers before the decimal place and times the decimal place into 60, and you will find the how many minutes and seconds are excluded from the hours. There will be an example of this in the examples, below since there is a high likely you will run into this. Furthermore, the equation is below.


(S-Y)*60=N


To find how many seconds you will need T=60 seconds to be true. If it is then doing this equation.


T*60=S


For this example, we will use the same hypothetically situation as above but hypothetically if you were flying a ship that had 17,672. 4m3 of free space and you were using a Miner 1 laser which takes 46m3 every 60 seconds. You will first want to know how long it will take to fill your ship. You find out it will take six hours and 24 minutes. Your equation would look like this below.


17672.4 / 46 = 384.1826086956522 / 60 = 6.4030434782609


So it will take 6.4 hours to fill your ship.

Since most people don't know what a .4 of an hour is you subtract the 6 and times the rest by 60 and that will give you 24 minutes. You can see this in the equation below.





(6.4030434782609 - 6) * 60 = 24.18260869565217


You can do this down as far as needed. Next you will need to know how long it will take your ship to deplete 4982.25m3 from the situation above. You would use the same X/L=T equation. The answer to the equation above is, if you were really AFK mining you would need to be back in one hour 48 minutes 18 seconds 35 thousand of second, 13 milliseconds and two nanoseconds from when you first press the button to start mining. At this point, you would need to find a new object to harvest. The equation would look like this below, and I went down to the nanoseconds to show you can get to go as far as you want with this equation.


4982.25 / 46 = 108.3097826086957 / 60 = 1.805163043478261

(1.805163043478261 - 1) * 60 = 48.30978260869565

(48.30978260869565 - 48) * 60 = 18.58695652173913

(18.58695652173913 - 18) * 60 = 35.21739130434783

(35.21739130434783 - 35) * 60 = 13.04347826086957

(13.04347826086957 - 13) * 60 = 2.60869562173913


(REMEMBER: To find the exact time you need to make it true by converting the cycles into one minute)

____________________________________________


If your cycles arent true that one cycle equals 60 seconds then the equation below can convert your cycles into minutes. The only thing you need to write down ontop of what you already wrote down is how many seconds does one cycle last. Lets just say your cycle last 45 seconds for this example. You would use this equation below.

X=Ship cargo hull or whatever your mining
L=How much your mining laser/s or device will pull per cycle.
T=How many cycles your device will have to do before the your ship is full or before what your mining is depleted. Most cycles last for 60 seconds so if this is true you can make T equal one minute.
M=Minutes

H=Hour

C=The amount of time it takes to use 1 cycle


X/L=T*C/60=M


So if your were mining the same thing as above with a laser that took in every 45 seconds the answer would be to find out how many minute it will take is 81 minute. the equation for this is below. 


4982.25 / 46 = 108.3097826086957 *45 / 60 = 81.23233695652174

From there if you want to find out how many hours that is then just divide that into 60. Then you can just start using the same equation as above from this example  (S-Y)*60=N. The equation to get the hours is below.


M / 60 = H


81.23233695652174 / 60 = 1.353872282608696


Ships

There are three types of ships used in mining: a mining ship, a hauler and a mining support ship.

  • In general any ship that has a turret slot is capable of becoming a mining ship. Caldari ships typically make good mining ships because of their CPU capacities but each race has a frigate with mining bonuses and typically players will receive one upon completion of the tutorial mission. Popular mining cruisers include the Caldari Osprey and the Gallente Vexor. Players will then typically move on to Mining Barges and then to Exhumers.
  • A hauler's purpose is to take the ore that has been mined from a mining ship and transport it back to a refining station or to the market. Usually players will use an industrial ship while mining and a freighter when moving large quantities of ore/min from station to station (freighters cost upwards of a billion isk to operate and cannot haul ore from space, so most players will use an industrial ship for both purposes).
  • Finally, a mining support ship can either come in the form of a security detail against rats and players looking to steal ore or as a ship designed to provide mining efficiency bonuses. The ultimate mining support ships are the Orca and Rorqual, of which only the Orca can enter high-security space and fit through normal stargates.


More details can be found at Mining Ships.


Ship Type Amarr Caldari Gallente Minmatar
Frigate Tormentor Bantam Navitas Burst
Cruiser Arbitrator (drones) Osprey Vexor (drones) Scythe


Ship Type Ship Use
Battleship Apocalypse Navy Issue Same yield as Rokh, more tank, can refit for 7k m3 cargo space. More expensive than Rokh. 25% less effective than Hulk
Rokh Will out mine a Retriever in some cases by well over 50%, but requires more attention to cargohold management
Apocalypse Between Rokh and Armageddon
Armageddon One less turret than Rokh and less CPU, can refit for 6k m3, cheap
Mining Barge Procurer Not a recommended ship, more appropriate start ship is the Retriever
Retriever Best entry level mining barge
Covetor Same skill set as Hulk, only cheaper with less fitting capability, if possible jump to hulk
Exhumer Skiff Specializes in mining Mercoxit
Mackinaw Specializes in Ice Mining
Hulk Best all round mining boat
Support Command Ships Can fit gang assist modules and provide security
Industrial Command Orca Bonuses towards gang link modules, has considerable cargo room, can fly in high sec
Capital Industrial Rorqual Capital ship, Bonuses towards gang link modules, can compress ore in cargohold vastly increasing capacity


Also see the ORE Basic Ship and Skill Guide for recommend ORE Ship Fittings.

Skills

Basic Skills:

Specialty Mining Skills:

Fitting Skills:

  • [[Skills:Electronics Electronics]]: Increases CPU available, a common bottleneck for fitting lasers and upgrades.
  • [[Skills:Electronics Electronics Upgrades]]: Required for fitting and using co-processors.
  • [[Skills:Electronics Mining Upgrades]]: Required for fitting and using Mining Upgrades; reduces their CPU penalty.
  • [[Skills:Mechanic Hull Upgrades]]: Required for fitting and using Expanded Cargoholds.
  • [[Skills:Mechanic Astronautics Rigging]]: Required for fitting Cargohold Optimization rigs.

Tank Skills:

  • [[Skills:Engineering Engineering]]: Increases available powergrid, a common bottleneck for tank modules.
  • [[Skills:Engineering Shield Operation]], [[Skills:Engineering Shield Upgrades]],[[Skills:Engineering Shield Management]]

Drone Skills:

Leadership skills:

Spaceship Command Skills:

Solo Mining

There are several methods commonly used in mining, the most basic only requires one account and can be run by very low skilled players while the most advanced will require multiple players all performing separate tasks in order to be effective.

Cargohold Mining

The most basic way to mine is to fill the cargohold of a ship full of ore and then return to a station to drop it off. Its advantages are that it requires only one character, is possible for very low skill levels and is completely theft proof. Its disadvantages are that most cargoholds are very small and you are not profitable during the times you are ferrying the ore from the belt to the station. If cargohold mining, try to find a ship with a larger than average cargohold with multiple low slots which then can be fitted with expanded cargohold modules. Cargohold mining is typically not recommended since the amount of travel time (and thus time not spent mining) is so great. A variant of this method is called AFK mining where a industrial ship is equipped with a single mining laser (as all industrial ships only have one turret slot) and then is used to mine a large asteroid while the player is AFK; some corporations have policies against AFK mining and it should only be attempted in low traffic high sec regions.

Don't forget when cargohold mining that if you can afford to keep a Giant Secure Container in your hold it effectively adds 900m3 to your capacity if you put your ore directly into it. Every little helps! (The GSC takes up 3000m3 in your hold but you can get 3900m3 into it - odd but useful.)

Jet Can Mining

Players can jettison items from their cargohold into space, which results in a cargo container (more commonly called a "jetcan" or just a "can") forming within 2,500m3 of the ship. This jettisoned container has a volume capacity of 27,500m3. Miners can take advantage of this capacity by transferring the ore in their cargohold into the jetcan. Typically a player will fill a jetcan with ore, and then swap to a ship with a larger cargohold (most often an industrial ship). Its advantages are that you decrease your travel time significantly from the cargohold mining method.

Its disadvantages are that jetcans only have a life span of 2 hours and they are not secure, meaning anyone can open and remove items from a jetcan. This is a common form of theft and griefing in the game where a player will "flip" a jetcan either to steal the ore or to induce a fight without CONCORD intervention. One possible way to combat this is to use secure containers which can be programmed with a password; unfortunately, the largest, the giant secure container (usually called a GSC) can only hold 3,900m3 of ore and thus is considerably less efficient than a jet can.

GSC Mining

The Giant Secure Container method of mining lets you solo mine into secure containers that have been anchored and password protected. You can then pick up or have a friend pick up the ore later on. You will need the following:

  • Skill Book: Anchoring under corporate category - trained to level one.
  • Secure Containers: Giant Secure container is preferred
  • A system with a sec status of 0.7 or below.
  1. Take a Hauler and the secure containers to where you want to mine. Deploy the container about 5000 meters away from any object.
  2. Important Right click the GSC, anchor it and then set the password'. If you don't do this step your container can be looted and/or will disappear during the next down time.
  3. Mine securely and pick up later. These containers will disappear 30 days after the last use..
  4. Another option how to use GSC is to set up GSC "Nest". Just take your haul 150+ km out of belt, set up GSCs and bookmark their location. Then mine, warp to nest, return and mine again. This remove lost time due to small speeds of mining ships when going to deposit your ore to GSC. Then pick up your ore as usual.

Something that often gets completely missed by rookies is that a Giant Secure Container is larger on the inside than it is on the outside - by 900m3. They are often used in industrial ships to give a bit of a bonus to cargo capacity, although the transported items need to be easily splittable to take full advantage. Ore and/or minerals fit these criteria nicely.

Dual Account Mining

It is possible to have two accounts on one computer. (If you have multiple monitors, EVEMover is a useful program to manage multiple EVE instances.) One of these can be used as a maxed-out miner, and the second as a hauler. Even new accounts can do this productively. For example, one account could, in two or three weeks, be set up to use a Caldari Osprey with Miner IIs and some Mining Foreman skill. The other, in the same time, could be set up to fly a Badger Mark II (or similar Industrial) and fit a Miner II as well as haul the stuff back to base whenever it is full. This greatly improves the efficiency of mining (4x Miner IIs help a little, but no downtime for hauling helps a lot).

Eventually, one account could move toward an Orca and the other toward a Hulk (or Covetor, or Rokh, etc.). Later, the Orca pilot could also learn Freighters (such as the Charon).

See the Creating an Alt Hauler guide for information on creating a hauler alt quickly and easily. Alternatively, see Creating an Alt Miner for information on how to create an alt to fly the best mining ship in the game quickly and easily.

Cooperative Mining

Of the professions in Eve, mining and production are most impacted by the player’s efficiency. For miners, it’s all about mining. Time spent hauling, killing rats, moving cans or dealing with ore thieves, can flippers and other flavors of griefers is time not spent making little rocks out of big ‘roids. Anything that can be done to eliminate or minimize the impact of all of those other factors means more little rocks in the hold, which means a fatter wallet.

A properly designed and staffed co-operative mining op allows miners to spend their time doing what they do best: mining. It also allows the miners to benefit from mining yield bonuses available only to members of a group. These bonuses can add an additional 10% or more to a miner’s yield. If the miners are mining, then someone has to haul the little rocks to the station. If the op is in lower sec regions, something other than drones may be needed to protect the miners from rats, not to mention thieves and assorted other scoundrels. Those protection activities will result in a second “mining” operation as the wrecks are looted and salvaged for the benefit of the op participants.

Our theoretical op has miners, haulers, damage dealers and salvagers; a fairly broad slice of the possible professions in Eve! Mining ops are generally more relaxed than combat fleet ops, co-operative mission running or complex clearing. Chat and/or Mumble deal with a wider variety of topics and separating the required tasks to specialists provides everyone time to participate in the conversations. Not only does this atmosphere provide a social element of connection with the other members, it lets the ‘teaching’ move beyond mining to cover a myriad of subjects.

Mining Booster Fleets (BYOC)

The simplest Mining Fleet would be the equivalent of a Spider for Missions, in that each Miner does his/her own thing while being supplied a fleet booster which will increase everyone's yield (boosters only work within the same system). These fleets are generally a join and leave as you want situation with no extra services provided. To be nice it is generally suggested you avoid mining the same target another Fleet member is working on. You may ask them about it and if they decide to give it up they will probably let you have it to yourself. There is usually no central belt for everyone to be working on at once, but it can be a majestic sight to see a fleet of barges/exhumers emptying a belt efficiently.

Combo Jet Can Mining

The method is the same as with jetcan mining except that players will work in combo, meaning one member will solely mine while the other solely hauls. This method is very efficient (it can be less profitable if you need to pay for the haul) and it is much harder.

Mining Fleets

The next type of Fleet is more structured. A standard mining fleet in high security space generally includes a mix of mining barges, exhumers, and haulers (industrials). The miners will work on a belt constantly and jet can what they obtain. The haulers will ferry the resources from space to a station. This makes for increased proficiency as the mining lasers never need to stop, unless you need to switch belts. Fleet boosters are usually present here as well, and an Orca may be used instead of a jetcan.

When completing a mining operation, you should consider posting your results here: Past Mining Fleet Results

Periodically, the Uni will undertake a large scale, long duration operation in a system other than Aldrat. These Expeditions are planned and announced several weeks in advance to allow for adjustment of training schedules, acquisition of desired ships and fittings and research/scouting of the target system and surrounding space. Because of the travel involved and the length of planned stay, Expedition locations generally provide opportunities for mission/complex running as well.

The Expedition Boss for a particular expedition will publish the rules for that expedition, including record keeping requirements for any Common Can portions, rules for interaction with locals and what happens to the ore mined.

Such fleets are often run to donate minerals to the University, with the added bonus of attempting to break the record for the previous donation fleet.

For more detailed information on Mining Operations see: Participating in a Mining Op and Running a Mining Op.

How To Split The ISK

If you are running an op with multiple miners there is probably a whole host of different mining ships, each with its different yields based on the mining lasers, the mining crystals in them, ship bonuses, character skills, etc. Moreover, you will also probably have a hauler and even someone providing mining efficiency bonuses. The simplest way to split the ISK return from an op is to track the times a player mined for, and then distribute the ISK in proportion to time spent mining. However, this might discourage larger ships from joining ops, so it is up to the fleet commander to decide how they wish to split the profits.  This spreadsheet is one method by which the fleet commander can weight shares by actual contribution.

Whichever way you choose, keep in mind that the most important to make sure of is that the method of splitting the ISK is agreed upon by the fleet before the mining op starts.

See Also

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