MINING
orion ore's miningmotor (click here)
The basics of mining in EVE is very simple. In every system of every region, you will find asteroid belts which themselves contain asteroids of different natures. Using mining lasers, you simply harvest those asteroids and fill your cargohold with ore, which can be later refined into minerals, which again is used to build ships and modules.
In Empire (anywhere from regions which have a security status of 1.0 to 0.5), the most common types of asteroids are Veldspar, Scordite and Pyroxeres. They yield the most basic minerals which are Tritanium, Pyerite and Mexallon. The quantity of minerals you will get from refining your mined ore depends of the refining skills you have and the standings you have toward the corporation owning the station you are refining at.
In essence, we could sum up mining like this: any ship which has a turret slot and equipped with a mining laser that harvests ore from asteroids for personal production, trading or reselling.
EVE offers a wide array of mining ships and equipment, some much more efficient than others.
As previously mentioned, every system has asteroid belts, some more than others. The rule is, the lower the security status of a system is, the better the quality of the asteroids you will find will be.
You will not go into a lowsec system with the same ship and setup as you would in a 1.0 system. So do your homework before you make a mistake that will cost you ! A simple reminder would be you are mostly safe in 0.5 and above since Concord will come to your aid if you are attacked. You are however never completely safe from ore thieves and suicide gankers, who will suicide their cheap ships to kill your most expensive piece of technology to later harvest the rest of what's left as well as your ore. Keep this in mind: you are never 100% safe !
Every ore found in 1.0-0.1 systems are called "Low-ends", and the exclusive ores to 0.0 systems "High-ends". As you may have guessed, high-ends (Bistot, Arkonor, Mercoxit, Gneiss and Crokite) yield the best and most lucrative minerals in EVE. This doesn't mean that all low-ends are crap. Again, some are worth more than others. Finally there is ice, which is now only available in low-sec and 0.0.
Some ore can only be found in particular systems. For example, Jaspet can only be found in 0.4 systems in Gallente or Amarr space. You won't ever find it in any Caldari or Minmatar space ! Note that all ore types can be found in 0.0. You will find everything from Veldspar to Mercoxit, however not in every system. It would be impossible to list which system has which kind of ore in 0.0, therefore, use ToxicFire's Ore Map. It is a great tool to help you locate a good spot for your mining HQ or simply figure out where to go depending of what you need to mine !
It's also important to mention is that each ore has two variations. The first will give an extra 5% mineral when refining, and the second variant will give an extra 10%. Here's a table with each ore's variations.
| Ore | 5% Variation | 10% Variation | |
| Veldspar | Concentrated Veldspar | Dense Veldspar | |
| Scordite | Condensed Scordite | Massive Scordite | |
| Pyroxeres | Solid Pyroxeres | Viscous Pyroxeres | |
| Plagioclase | Azure Plagioclase | Rich Plagioclase | |
| Omber | Silvery Omber | Golden Omber | |
| Kernite | Luminous Kernite | Fiery Kernite | |
| Jaspet | Pure Jaspet | Pristine Jaspet | |
| Hemorphite | Vivid Hemorphite | Radiant Hemorphite | |
| Hedbergite | Vitric Hedbergite | Glazed Hedbergite | |
| Gneiss | Iridescent Gneiss | Prismatic Gneiss | |
| Dark Ochre | Onyx Ochre | Obsidian Ochre | |
| Spodumain | Bright Spodumain | Gleaming Spodumain | |
| Crokite | Sharp Crokite | Crystalline Crokite | |
| Bistot | Triclinic Bistot | Monoclinic Bistot | |
| Arkonor | Crimson Arkonor | Prime Arkonor | |
| Mercoxit | Magma Mercoxit | Vitreous Mercoxit | |
|
Low-ends
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High-ends |
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Mineral is refined from the ore you mine. There are 8 kinds of mineral, 3 high-end types and 5 low-ends. Low-ends include Tritanium, Pyerite, Mexallon, Isogen and Nocxium. High-ends minerals include Zydrine, Megacyte and Morphite. High-ends minerals can of course only be refined from high-end ores, which can only be found in 0.0 (some in low-sec), which explains why their price is much higher than low- ends.
Here is a table that shows which ore gives which kind of minerals:
How should you interpret that table ?
Let's start with the batch. Quite simple, the batch is the number of units you will need for every refine. The numbers you see in every mineral's column is the quantity of minerals you will get per batch with a perfect refine. Let's use an example to make it clearer.
Let's use Omber as an example. Omber has a batch of 500. Say you mined 3467 units, and you hauled it back to a station which has a refinery. For every 500 units, if you have a perfect refining yield of 100% (yes, it is possible), you will get 307 units of Tritanium, 123 units of Pyerite and 307 units of Isogen. If you divide 3467 by 500, you will end up having 6 batches, and 467 units of Omber leftover.
This is a simple analogy, as you might have to pay taxes (paid in units of mineral during a refine) depending of your standing with the corporation owning the station and your skills. This table is very useful to know which asteroid you should mine depending of the minerals you need.
Since the value of minerals fluctuate daily following the supply and demand law (if you don't know what that is, try googling it), it would be pointless to say "this mineral is always in high-demand, so mine that!". Eve-central has an excellent market report on minerals, with statistics up to the last 180 days. If you want to enter the mineral trading business (which is a very hard hobby) or simply be efficient, you should familiarize yourself with this great website ! No matter what you mine, there will ALWAYS be demand for it. Since the introduction of capital ships in the Red Moon Rising expansion, mineral consumption significantly raised, therefore don't worry, you won't be stuck with overstock, ever!
The Basic Mining Techniques
There is two ways to mine (ok, there are more than that, but there are two basic ways of mining). The first is to fly your ship back to the station as soon as your cargo is full to unload (which is quite time consuming), or use a technique called jetcan mining.
How it works is quite simple: the first time your cargo is filled, you simply jettison the ore in a can, and you keep filling this can by transferring your ore from your cargo to your can until it's full (which has 27,500m3 of space versus your small cargo). Once this can is filled, you switch your ship to a hauler (also called industrial), which are specialized ships with big cargo to transport goods. Make sure you haul your can every hour and a half to a maximum, as a can will expire and pop-up every two hours or so.
The main drawback from using this technique is that anyone can open your can and steal your ore. This is becoming rarer and rarer, but it still happens. If someone does take something from your can, they will start flashing red in your overview, which means you will be allowed to shoot them without Concord interfering. You can also gang yourself with corpmates to hunt him down, as anyone in your gang will also be allowed to shoot him.
Each race has its own set of haulers. What is great about EVE is that you are not limited to fly only one race. Unfortunately although the Caldari have the best mining frigate, they do not have the best haulers. Instead, train for a Mammoth(Minmatar).
The Mammoth will hold 16,686m3 with 4x Expanded cargohold I modules and 4x Giant Secure Containers.
Why the GSC ? Simply because they use 3000m3 of cargo space, but can hold 3900m3, which means for every can you can fit in your cargo, you will get an extra 900m3 of cargo. No other T1 haulers will approach that kind of cargo space, except the Gallente Iteron V, which requires Gallente Industrial 5, meaning it is not at a beginner's reach.
Skills you will need : Minmatar Frigate 3, Minmatar Industrial 4
However, while you train for the Mammoth, the Caldari Badger will do a fine job. Don't stress yourself at getting a Mammoth too quickly, definitely not before you fly a cruiser. Keep using the Badger until you have a few millions in your wallet.
At the very beginning of the game, refining the ore you mine yourself would mean too big of a loss. Your refining skills will be too low at this point (if you have any). You could sell the unrefined ore, but its not suggested doing that. Why?
Most buy orders on the market for ores reflect 90% of the time a much lower value than what your ore is actually worth. Those setting buy orders are well aware that some miners don't understand the system and will just sell at any price. The buyer will then collect the ore and refine it. It's not dishonest: it's a valid trading strategy. This however incapacitates your wallet as you are not getting the full value of the work you put in. Joining a corp (contact lady lioness or evemail) helps here: there is probably someone in your corp that will be able to get a good (even if not perfect) refine.
If you insist on playing solo, get Refining 4 and it will already help a whole lot. The WORST thing you can do is just right click, sell and accept without even looking at the price you are getting. This is the most common mistake. Open the market, look at the buy orders, don't be lazy ! Each mineral unit has a volume of 0.01 m3 (compared to ore, which take much, much more space) so they really are easy to move around ! Don't be afraid to stockpile and to make your trips more worthwhile ! Knowing the market is the key to make ISK as a miner or a trader, don't go blind-selling the ore you put so much effort to mine !
So, you finally got Caldari Frigate 4 and Mining 4. The next step of the chain is to get a cruiser. Lucky for you, the Caldari also have the best mining cruiser, the Osprey.
The Osprey is a very nice ship, very affordable and also gets 20% bonus to yield per skill level. Train Caldari Cruiser 3 immediately. Caldari Cruiser 4 will not be wasted time, but if you just started, you might want to invest the 4 or 5 days it would take you into other skills, like Engineering and Electronics for example.
As for fitting the Osprey, it is pretty straightforward. 3x T2 Miners in the high slots, you can fit a tank in the med slots if you want as the Osprey can handle itself in 0.6 systems with a heavy launcher and some drones. As usual in the low slots fit as many mining upgrades as you can. One will fit for sure, two will fit with good skills (Electronic 5, Mining Ugrades 4).
Next step is to get Astrogeology 4. It will give you another 20% bonus to your yield.
After you reach Astrogeology 4, you will be faced with a choice. You can either get Caldari Cruiser 4 and/or Mining 5 (both will require about the same time to train). Mining 5 is a good investment for sure. If you plan to go for a Barge right away, than getting Caldari Cruiser4 is not necessary as you are not very far from your first mining barge at this point (5 or 6 days). If you would like to also train some PvP skills before though, than getting Caldari Cruiser 4 is a good idea as the 20% bonus it will give you is absolutely worth it.
The next step will be either a Battleship or a Mining Barge.
There are many types of mining lasers, and it can be quite confusing for the newcomers, so here's a summary of what they are and what they are used for:
| Laser name (abbreviation) | Note | Uses mining crystals | ||
| Miner I (or named) | can be fitted on any ship, entry class laser, also has various named variants | |||
| Miner II | can be fitted on any ship | |||
| Strip Miner I | must be fitted on mining barges or exhumers | |||
| Modulated Strip Miner II (MSM2 or T2 Strips) | must be fitted on mining barges or exhumers, practically useless without crystals, cannot mine | x | ||
| Modulated Deep Core Miner II (MDCM2) | can be fitted on any ship, fits on all ships with a turret slot and fits all crystals | x | ||
| Modulated Deep Core Strip Miner II (MDCSM2) | must be fitted on mining barges or exhumers and used only to mine Mercoxit | x (can only fit Mercoxit | ||
| mining crystals) | ||||
| T1 Ice Harvesters | must be fitted on mining barges or exhumers | |||
| T2 Ice Harvesters | must be fitted on mining barges or exhumers | |||
Refining
The refining system in EVE is not that complicated, but is not so easy to understand either. Basically, some criteria will affect your refining yield:
1- Your Refining skill level
2- Your Refinery Efficiency level (requires Refining 5)
3- Your standing toward the corporation owning the station where you want to refine at
4- The refining equipment of the station
The formula to calculate your yield is the following:
[Station Equipment] + 0.375 x (1 + [Refining Skill] x 0.02) x (1+ [Refinery Efficiency Skill] x 0.04) x (1+ [Ore Processing Skill] x 0.05)
The Hardwiring  Zainou `Beancounter' H60 reduces recycling waste by 4%. It requires Cybernetic V and can be found on contracts.
This implant will allow you to get a perfect refining yield of 100% in 0.0 with perfect skills, even with the most basic outpost (35%).
From Refining Yield to Reality
Ok so you know your yield, and now you want to calculate how much actual minerals you would get per batch after refining. If you know you will have a 100% refining yield and won't pay any taxes, then simply use the table above and you're ready to go! Chances are you won't. As always, using a concrete example helps, so let's do it again. Let's stay coherent and keep using the Omber example!
For every 500 units of Omber, you will get 307 units of Tritanium, 123 units of Pyerite and 307 units of Isogen for a perfect refine. But you determined your yield isn't perfect, and instead it's 88% (hypothetically). To know how much mineral you would get, you simply take 88% of each number. So in our case:
0.88 * 307 = 270.16 = 270 units of Tritanium
0.88 * 123 = 108.24 = 108 units of Pyerite
0.88 * 307 = 270.16 = 270 units of Isogen
EVE for some reason truncates all values dealing with mineral and ore. This means if you would end up with 270.98 units according to your calculations, you would still only get 270 units and not 271 as your mathematical instinct might believe.
If you need to pay any taxes on top of that, you need to take it off now. With a tax of 10%, we are left with:
(100%-10%) * 270 = 243 = 243 units of Tritanium
(100%-10%) * 108 = 97.2 = 97 units of Pyerite
(100%-10%) * 270 = 243 = 243 units of Isogen
So, we would end up with 243 units of Trit, 97 units of Pyer and 243 units of Isogen from our original batch of 500 in our hangar with a refining yield of 88% and a 10% tax.
If you mine named variations (+5%/+10%) of an ore, you have to factor that at the beginning of your calculations. So in the first calculation, if we are refining Silvery Omber (+5%) instead of regular Omber, we would calculate 88% of 307*1.05=322.35=322 units of Tritanium and not 88% of 307.
Of course there is an excellent ore calculator available online for those not so good with Excel or who are simply lazy!
The only way to compare ships is to compare their actual yield and what they are capable of, and this can only be done with math, lots of math (although nothing complicated!). If you can understand the system, then you will be able to apply it to every ship in the game.
Skill System
The skill levels in EVE, whatever which skill it is, stack. Concretely, it means the following: using the skill Mining as an example, which gives a 5% bonus to the yield of your mining laser per level, if you trained Mining to level 4, it means you get :
5%*4=20% bonus from the skill Mining at level 4.
The effect of the different skills you trained though have to be multiplied together. Say you have Astrogeology at level 4 (which also gives a 5% bonus per level to your yield) and Mining at level 4, then your net yield would be:
Base laser yield * 1.20 * 1.20 = XXX
Using T2 Miners, which has a 60 m3/cycle base yield, you would get:
60 * 1.20 * 1.20 = 86.4 m3/cycle (note that the yield is not truncated nor rounded)
Cycles
Cycles determine how many seconds your laser need to complete a full, well, "mining cycle". The ore you mined will appear in your cargo at the end of that cycle. Named,T1 and T2 mining lasers have a cycle of 60 seconds (1 minute) and strip mining lasers (T1 and T2) as well as the Modulated Deep Core Mining Lasers II (MDCM2) have a cycle of 180 seconds (3 minutes). Ice harvesters will be covered in another section, as the whole ice mining system is quite different from the asteroid mining system.
Before going any further, you should know that strips can only be fitted on Mining Barges or Exhumers. People are often confused with the cycle time and wonder what is the actual benefit of having a longer cycle. The biggest advantage is actually much more practical than it is beneficial... simply put, most of the time, the cargo of your ship will be filled after every cycle, which means if you're using the jetcan mining technique (which you should), you'll be emptying your cargo every minute... which means you'll be doing it 60 times per hour instead of 20 if you're using strip miners. It might not look like a lot now, but it DOES make a difference at the end.
More info is following!!!
Sorry for the delay!!!