EVE General Discussion

Hello GD, I have been playing eve for a couple months now and have two accounts. I'm looking to partially afk mine on one while I do something else on the other. With all factors like lp gains vs haul times and finding belts included, will high sec belt mining or level IV mining missions bring better isk/hour for a solo pilot?

Lol, there is a reason I don't post on accounts that leave the station. You will never find meh!

Pretty much this.

The fact that you have to navigate around large collidable objects doesn't help.

Of course, back in the day, making your gameplay annoying was actually a valid design principle

Ores gathered in Mining Missions can rarely if ever be sold.

They are mutant variants of the regular ores. Worthless literally.

Better ISK in Security Missions.

Also, AFK is bad, m'kay ?

Level 4 mining missions run the gambit. You will get Ore, Ice and Gas so you need a true Industrial to run them. Over the years they have been nerfed six ways sideways. It's one of the heavier handed actions taken. LP and ISK rewards are less than half of Sec, Ore is fake. The new Ore Bays make the Ice and Ore ones less work but the Gas ones still need to be Jet canned. I used to do the in an Astarte with Gas Mining to 5, an Industrial hauler alt and it still took 40 minutes to do one Mission.

Low intensity but very low returns.

Hmm, kind of a bummer. I was hoping for 30 min missions with the same lp and reward as level 4 sec missions. I don't see why they cut the lp/reward in half when there is no ore to sell, no bounties, no loot or salvage.

Oh, look! I'm back in this thread.


The Venture mining frigate has a gas mining role bonus, skill bonus, and enough ore bay capacity to complete a mission in 1 trip.



Mining in the belts can be dangerous, especially in an exhumer or untanked barge. You need to manage your mining lasers a little more than in a mission to prevent idle time and wasted cycles. You still have to do something with the ore, haul it, refine it, or what have you. You don't get LPs or standing for it.

I don't know why you're hung up on selling the ore. You turn it in to complete the mission.

Some of the mining missions ARE ice mining, and those can be done in one trip with a Retriever/Mackinaw. I won't argue that regular ice mining in a Procurer or Skiff isn't also a good idea, but in Caldari space, for the moment, I wouldn't ice mine in anything but those two ships.

I should also correct some things said previously. You don't have to travel 80km to get to the asteroids in any of the missions. I think the farthest you have to go is maybe 50km, but some of them are much closer. You don't have to navigate a bunch of Large Collidable Objects. You don't have to slowboat. You can fit an afterburner onto your barge.


With the mining barge buffs, the introduction of the Venture, the changes to ice mining, and that nifty new ice mining rig, mining missions are probably a little more profitable than they were when I was first doing them 2 or 3 years ago. They're certainly more practical to get done.

I only wish they'd introduce some level 5 mining missions.

There is Arkonor is one of the Level 1 storyline missions. But you would be better served by joining a nullsec corp and mining in one of the mining anomalies in nullsec. Literally infinite minerals there, since they respawn if you fully mine them out.

The lvl 4 mining missions can make you about 20mil isk an hour. You can do them totally AFK. You are, I'm sad to say, virtually ungankable (100% ungankable to any pirate with -5 sec status). Can be run in a Venture (gas) or Retriever (everything else). And you don't have to mess around with hauling or selling the ore. Jet can when your Retriever gets full, come back for the can in a max cargo hauler with a tractor beam. Get them from an agent in a 0.5 system for max LP/Isk. Then periodically convert the LP to product and sell it. You can make more per hour in l4 security missions sure, but for these you don't actually have to play the game. Just start mining lasers and go fold your laundry or something.

Its completely stupid and CCP should fix it. But it is what it is.

Im a maxed industrial skilled player who wanted to run security missions so I ran mining missions for minmatar mining corporation while I trained combat skills. About the same time my standings with minmatar mining unlocked a lvl 4 security agent, I was able to fly a cruise raven with decent skills.

Other than that Ive seen some players mine more of the mission mutant minerals than they need so they can put them up on contracts in mining mission systems for players who don't want to bore themselves to death mining it. All things taken into account though security missions is where the isk is.