Starting an Ore Mining Career in Eve Online

In Eve Online there are three forms of mining, the others being ice harvesting and gas harvesting and while they overlap to a degree they each have their specialties. In this guide, I focus on ore mining which is the type of mining that most players start out with so this can be considered as a beginners guide to Eve Online mining.

To be able to mine at the very beginning of the game you need access to a ship and a Miner I module. You can use your starting ship or any frigate you are currently flying but you need to train the skill Mining to level I before you can use the Miner I module.

When everything is ready you can fit the Miner I module to your ship through the fitting screen, undock and fly to an asteroid belt in your current system. Once there you need to target an asteroid, fly within 10 km and then press the Miner I icon on your HUD. You are now mining ore if everything was done correctly and should see it appear after a minute in your cargo hold or ore hold if you have it on your ship.

If you intend to do some more mining you should next upgrade your ship.

Estimated 15 Minute Read Time

Basic Mining Concepts

• What is mining?
  • (Joke) Fit a mining laser, target asteroid, shoot, profit. How hard can it be?
  • Conceptually, it is that simple, however to make a solid career out of it you need the right ship(s), fitting(s), and knowledge to do it and make decent ISK (while not losing your ship).
  • The goal of mining is to extract resources for sales (ISK). Raw resources may be sold straight or refined / used in production for sale or personal use.
  • The more resources mined, the better the ISK. Maximizing yield (and return on time) while minimizing the risk doing so is the objective of this class.
  • Mining is a time intensive activity with not a lot of manual intervention. Its one of the easiest careers to increase (stack) earnings with alt accounts.

Types of Resources

• Ore: Both standard and moon ore is mined from asteroids. Most systems in New Eden have asteroid belts where standard ore is commonly mined from. Asteroids can occasionally appear in Ore Site anomalies (which do not need to be scanned down). Asteroids can also be found in mission pockets and mined more privately in them. Moon ore (or moon goo) comes from asteroids that appear after shattering moon chunks in front of specially placed and equipped refineries.
• Ice: Ice is mined from ice belts located in Ore Sites (the name of the site will indicate that its an Ice site). Ice Anomalies only spawn in systems with Ice Belts. Ice Sites do not need to be scanned down and respawn in the system four hours after the site is cleared.
• Gas: Gas is mined from gas clouds in Gas Sites (also Cosmic Anomalies). Gas Sites need to be scanned down. Gas sites can appear in any space but the best sites are within Wormholes (which have a 15 minute Sleeper Guard timer).

Deep Dive: Standard Ore

• As noted previously, this ore can be mined from asteroids located in Belts, Anomalies, or Mission Pockets. Ore is most commonly mined from Belts which are persistent in location and number within a System.
• Asteroid Belts regenerate (replenish) after daily DownTime. Belts can vary in composition and amount and will be generally lower the more often they are mined (think of 'crop rotation' when mining a certain belt). Belts generally return to their full size three days after it was last mined.
• Anomalies are randomly spawning and will have ore types that are more rare than the ore types that appear in the System's Belts.
• The lower the security of space, the more rare the ore type. There is generally little difference in the value of High Security ores (relative to yield), however.
• There are grades of ore (e.g., Condensed/Dense variants of Veldspar) that are slightly more valuable than the regular grade of ore and should generally be mined first.
• Ore is mined using a Mining Laser or a Strip Miner. Mining Lasers are generally used on Mining Frigates (and non-mining ships). Strip Miners are used on barges.

Deep Dive: Moon Ore

• Moon ore is mined from asteroids located in belts that form after a refinery shatters a moon chunk out in front of the facility. These belts belong to the facility and you should only mine them with permission from the facility's owner. They will get information on who has been mining what in a ledger.
• These belts appear based on the refinery owner's set schedule and will last two to four days depending on the facility and owner.
• The belt's composition will contain various grades of moon ore and high grades of standard ore. It is based on the amounts contained in the moon before the chunk was extracted. The facility's owner can see the expected outcome before the belt appears to better prepare the miners (for example: crystals, boosting needs, hauling arrangements).
• These belts are massive. The owners typically can't mine or don't want all of it. Ask what's available and when. They may hire you to help bring in their desired ores and let you have a shot at the rest.
• These ores are also mined with Mining Lasers or Strip Miners.
• Originally only available in Low and Null Sec. High Sec (0.5 only) and Wormhole moons became available for mining in the February release 2018.

Deep Dive: Ice

• Ice can only be found in systems with Ice Belts and only from the associated Ice Site (a Cosmic Anomaly). Ice Belts can be easily located through the Dotlan web page with a blue circle around the system box.
• When the Ice Site cosmic anomaly spawns, a miner can locate it easily through the Probe Scanner (no actual probing is needed, this is the same way combat sites are located and warped to).
• There is a limited supply of ice at the Ice Site (normally a number of ice blocks that can be mined the same way as asteroids). When the site is complete mined out it will respawn in four hours. Sites also respawn/replenish after daily DT.
• While ore is mined by volume, ice is mined by the block. For ore, you're looking for the highest volume per unit of time. For ice, you're looking for the fastest cycle time. Additionally, the entire laser cycle must complete to mine a unit of ice (no "short cycling").
• Ice is mined using Ice Harvesters. The Tech 2 Ice Harvesters are unlocked with the skill Ice Harvesting V.

Deep Dive: Gas

• Gas can be found in any part of space but the best gas can be found in Wormholes. Gas is mined ("huffed") from Gas Sites that need to be scanned down with a probe scanner (much like Data/Relic Sites).
• Gas Sites will contain a small amount of 'Clouds' which can be mined from much like an asteroid or ice block. Once all of the gas is mined, that's it. There's no fixed respawn timer for gas sites and further gas sites must be scanned down.
• Wormhole gas sites are similar to Knownspace gas sites with one critical difference: In wormholes, when the gas site is *first* warped to, a timer is set (15-20 minutes) where Sleepers will spawn. The quality of the gas site will determine which Sleepers spawn but in all cases these are very dangerous enemies that will destroy your mining ship unless you warp off ASAP. The Sleepers can be destroyed with an appropriate combat ship. However, like with any wormhole activity, the longer you linger, the more risk you are at.
• Gas is mined using Gas Harvesters. Skill requirements are a little different for Gas Harvesters than the other two resource types. Gas Harvesting II is required to equip and use two gas harvesters (normally gas is harvested in a mining frigate). Gas Harvesting V unlocks the Tech 2 version of Gas Harvesters. Therefore, Gas Harvesting II or V is normally what is trained to (based on whether the miner wants tech 2 harvesters or not).

Mining Boosts

• There exist three command ships that can significantly improve the capabilities of mining ships; these are the Porpoise, Orca and Rorqual.
• All three of these are command ships that utilize the Mining Foreman Burst Command Burst to improve mining laser range, reduce duration and capacitor use or increase the lifetime of mining crystals.
• Command bursts such as the Shield Command Burst can also be used to improve the shields of the mining fleet (more important in Low/Null/WH mining).
• The boosts provided by all three ships are similar, but with different levels of bonuses per level the relevant ship skill: Rorquals +5% Mining Foreman Burst/+2% Shield Command Burst; Orca +3/+1; Porpoise +2/+0.
• The Rorqual is a Capital Ship and cannot be used in HighSec.
• Orcas are generally used for providing mining boosts in HighSec, although since they are significantly cheaper than Rorquals can also be found in lower security space mining operation.
• Porpoises are the smallest of the three and were originally designed for Wormhole use.
• The boosts can only be provided to fleet members who are within range of the boosting ship, requiring the booster to be present on-grid at all times.
• Before the arrival of the Porpoise, training a mining boost character took a great deal of commitment. Even so, achieving perfect boosts can take a lot of time and requires the use of a Mining Foreman Mindlink implant.
• Boosters are sometimes compensated with cuts of mining operation earnings or through tips if boosting independent miners, though changes introduced in the winter of 2016 have allowed all three to contribute effectively to the mining yield of a fleet with bonuses to their mining drones.

• As noted in the discussion of ships, there is a tradeoff between the three aspects of Mining Ships: Yield, Tank, and Ore Capacity. Here we discuss the benefits and 'costs' of all three:
• Yield: The higher your mining yield (per unit of time), the higher your ISK (per unit of time). Except, increasing yield takes away from your tank and ore capacity meaning you are at a greater risk of losing your ship or having to haul back and forth to a station or structure more frequently.
• Tank: The higher your tank (or evasiveness for frigates) the less risk you have of ship loss. However, this comes at the expense of your yield. If you are fairly certain you won't be attacked or can escape one that occurs, going for yield is a solid decision.
• Ore Hold: The Ore Hold is what generates the more complex decision making. Without ANY hauling support (from yourself or others), you will need to bring your ore back to a station or structure which takes time (which in a barge can be a significant detriment to your earnings efficiency - up to 1/3rd less in the case of a high-yield Hulk). Otherwise, if you have some form of external hauling then these techniques can be considered:
  • Jetcan Mining: You jettison ore mined into a jet can. Jetcans hold 27k m3 ore and last for two hours. Its a good idea to name cans with a time (either when dropped or expired) so you know when they'll expire. The risks with jetcan mining are: 1- Others can steal your ore from the can (they will get a suspect timer and can be attacked without CONCORD intervention or sec status loss) and unless you can stop them, they will get away with it. 2- Cans have a short lifetime (2 hrs) and can disappear if you're not careful. 3- Someone, either yourself or a friend, will need to haul the ore to a station or structure. Unless that someone is in a freighter or specialised ore hauler, it will take multiple trips.
  • EFC Mining: Instead of putting ore in a jetcan, you put it in an Enormous Freight Container (EFC). EFCs can hold 250k m3 and persist until the next server downtime. EFCs, when packaged, only take up 2500m3 and can be deployed by a standard industrial (if your miner is not a hauler, they only need racial industrial skills to haul and launch a handful EFCs). A Freighter is needed, however, to pick up either the whole EFC or volume of ore in the EFC.
  • MTU Mining: Deploy an MTU in the mining location, jettison the ore from your hold every few minutes (there's a 2-minute cooldown on jettisoning) and let the MTU pick it up. This is slightly more secure than jetcan mining, but the MTU can still be destroyed without CONCORD intervention.
  • Orca-can Mining: In a fleet with an Orca appropriately configured, it's possible to drop your ore directly into the Orca's fleet hangar, from where a hauler can collect it, or the Orca pilot can move it to their much-larger Ore hold for storage.
    • For solo mining, if your hauler and miner are on the same account (or character), you'll need to accept that the risk no one steals the ore during the time you mine and switch characters/roles. If your hauler is on a second account, then you can use the Miasmos (which is a T1 industrial bonused for ore hold capacity with a low skill requirement) to ferry ore back to the station/structure while persistently mining.
    • In Low/Null/WH, players can come in and destroy your cans/EFCs with minimal consequence. In these cases, it is better to deliver ore to a safe spot/structure/Station directly unless using a Hauler on field (which is extremely risky). Rorquals can make a viable hauler; however, as it can compress ore on site and also has strong defenses (as compared to Freighters).
• Solo Mining Rule of Thumb: If you don't have access to a Freighter or a Second Account character in a Miasmos, haul your ore directly to the Station/structure. Otherwise if you do, assess the risks of leaving cans/EFCs/haulers in space and act accordingly.

More Mining Techniques for Efficiency

• For ore mining, you can short cycle your mining laser to mine a yield proportional to the time the laser was activated. This is useful for mining asteroids with a size less than that of the yield of your laser. So if an asteroid is around half the yield of your laser, cut it off halfway and move on to another rock (the asteroid left will either disappear or just have a few units remaining). This is where the survey scanner is valuable.
• Mining Crystals: For ore mining in a barge, it is possible to use Mining Crystals with Tech 2 Strip Miners. Tech 2 Strips are actually less efficient than Tech 1 Strips unless you are using Mining Crystals. Mining Crystals come in Tech 1 and Tech 2 varieties by ore type but the skill training requirement for them is not very intense. Crystals wear out with use but pay off in yield increases way more than what they are worth. You can also reprocess used crystals (at say 98% used) for the same return as new crystals. A simple technique to use crystals is to carry the various types in your hold based on where you're mining and mine out each type of ore from the belt in order (that way you infrequently change crystals).
• Skilling: While certain skills are necessary to operate the various mining ships and modules, there are some skills that directly impact your yield. You can assess which skills to prioritize to determine which give the best value sooner.
• Which Rocks are Best: For ore mining, the different ores do have some variance in value and with limited time to mine, you may want to focus on the more valuable ores. As noted before, HighSec ore mining efficiency is mainly determined by what yield you can muster but the 5%/10% ores do carry slightly more value. The easiest way to determine what ore to mine first (as well as which skills provide you the most short term benefit to learn) is to use the Isk Per Hour application's mining module. There you can input your skills and determine how much ISK/hour can be earned for each type of rock. It should be noted that trying to mine only a certain kind of rock (say Massive Scordite) from all the belts in the system is less efficient than just mining out a belt (a running theme here is that travel time kills your isk efficiency!!).

Other (More Expensive) Techniques

• As mentioned before, having alts can be helpful. Here is a rundown of what each alt adds to a solo mining operation:
  • Hauler: You can immediately haul back ore from a jetcan/EFC to a station/POS. This eliminates the cost of having a larger ore hold and makes the Hulk/Covetor extremely attractive (when they are safe to use). Practically, you shouldn't have more than 1 hauling alt.
  • Booster: You can boost your yield by a significant percentage. For Orcas and Rorquals, this is worth doing even if there's only one other mining ship, but it would take a lot more time to train than a Hauler.
  • Miner: Very simply, more miners out in space mining is a direct increase to your yield. However, this comes at additional risk and coordination need. In HighSec (when safe to mine), you're mainly contending with coordination trouble. For ore, to be really efficient you need to know when to short cycle your lasers. This is very difficult with more than two active miners. As the number of your active ore miners grow, the greater the loss of efficiency from not short cycling (and you are more likely to double up lasers on a rock).
  • Miner (cont): Ice and Gas mining are easier to scale with additional miners; however, you still need to consider the risk of being attacked (more common with gas/ice mining). If you fail to detect an attack, you would potentially wipe your entire mining fleet.
  • It should be noted that each account you play EvE on costs either real life money or ISK. If you plan to support your subscription purely with ISK from mining, remember that you'll want to achieve synergies with multiple accounts (e.g., you'd make more ISK per character than you would without the alts).
• Implants: Aside from improving your mining yield skills, you can also install various implants that enhance your ore, ice, and/or gas mining yields, Command Burst effectiveness and refining yields. The cost of these implants should be weighed against the time it would take to mine back the cost (break-even) and whether losing your pod is a risk (it is in NullSec/WHs but you can lose it while afk in HighSec to a ganker).

Mining Safely

• The level of attention you pay to mining will impact how much you yield and how safe you are. Given how time intensive it is, it is very easy to mine 'AFK' or rather, with less attention than you would normally pay if you were doing a different activity in EvE. Gas is especially easy to mine AFK and maintain yield, Ice is relatively easy to mine AFK for periods of time (but you need to unload cargo every 5 minutes), and Ore suffers moderate efficiency losses especially when asteroids are small in volume.
  • If you mine AFK in HighSec your main risk is suicide ganking. The risk of ganks is much higher in 0.5 and 0.6 systems than 0.7+ because those higher security systems have faster response times from CONCORD. It is strongly recommended to review the gank spreadsheet linked in the minerbumping (pw: 315) to assess what it would take to destroy your mining ship in the different space security levels. (Ventures can be destroyed in 1-2 hits from a Catalyst if stationary, which if you're mining in a Venture stationary, you're doing it wrong).
  • If you mine AFK in LowSec, NullSec, and Wormholes, EvE probably isn't the game for you.
  • For HighSec mining, you should add "CODE." and "Goonswarm Federation" as -5 or -10 contacts to easily identify them in local, they are the more common alliances with miner gankers. D-SCan use can also help identify threats. If you see a frigate in your belt, they could be passively scanning your ship (to see if its well tanked or not) and/or providing a warp in for a Catalyst/Other gank ship. If you see any vessel with a variation of '315' in its name, you should probably start aligning out to your Station or POS.
  • 'Mining permits' are a scam, don't bother purchasing one other than for giggles. Because that's all it will give to the ganker that pops your ship and pod.
• As noted previously, jetcan mining (NOT EFC mining) runs the risk of can flipping. The risk of can flipping is much higher with higher value ores or ice. And if you fire at someone that flips your can -or someone else's-, they can fire back (in some cases they are intentionally baiting for this). However, EFC mining isnt safe either, as anyone (with a Freighter) can pick up your EFC without getting concorded (read: you cannot steal the TV in the house, but you can steal the house npnp).
• Low Sec mining carries the exact same risk of losing your ship as Null Sec and WH mining (although pod loss is less likely as there are no bubbles in Low Sec). Low Sec ores are not much more valuable than High Sec so if you intend to mine dangerously, you're better off doing it in Null and WH.

AINC and Mining Operations

• Acquisition's Incorporated offers significant perks to It's members and is practically a must to join if you intend to benefit from any form of serious mining.
• One great benefit is the daily (almost 24/7) availability of mining boosts. Some AINC members have max level booster fleets available for you to mine any time during the day. These boosts will dramatically improve your mining income.
• AINC also periodically operates Shared Can fleets where, for a few hours, a fleet mines as much ore (or occasionally ice) as possible with a dedicated booster, hauler, and scouts). Its a very safe way to make a bit of ISK, especially as a newer player. No mining skills are needed to be a scout but if you were to mine in a Venture, you'd get the same cut of the profits as a max skilled Hulk miner.
• There is no need to haul your ore to sell at market as AINC Runs and Operates a buyback program that provides a very fair rate to your mined ore/ice/gas as it automatically applies the margins gained from compression/perfect reprocessing (less a small discount that supports the availability of Moon Mining and Other Activites.