Science & Industry

miners mine themselves into poverty...

If you are trying to buy a plex every month, mining in highsec won't get you there unless you do it every day.

I would highly recommend diversifying: Do some PI, do some MFG, do some trading, etc.

If you are a serious trader or manufacturer, you can make plenty of isk to sustain an account. However, with trading it takes isk to make isk. With MFG, the income is steady, but not enormous unless you find a good niche.

My wallet increased by 5 Bill this month from just mining, with 2 Macks and Orca Boost, and fuel block production. 3 days a week.

So, I must heartily disagree about the poverty.

mining is the minimum wage of eve. your results depend on your yield, which is impacted by a lot of skills. it also depends on your survivability, as the highest yield hulls tend to get ganked.

people who claim high mining income are working with multiple accounts, and as always fleets of ships can be far more productive than solo ships. the real trick is that you have a isk/hour/account limit with mining, with a high skill requirement to get the best possible results.

and once you mine, then what do you do with the ore? you get more isk if you can refine it yourself, but refining needs both a skill investment and the standings to avoid the 5% tax, so you will have a limited number of places where you can refine your ore profitably. placing sell orders also needs a few skills and standing for better profit. most miners sell to the buy orders already in place.

for sustaining your subscription, there is no easy answer. everyone wants to make enough isk to be able to get plex that way. a lot of the solutions i have heard of involve having R&D and PI for all three characters on an account- a hefty skill investment.

Mining is quite profitable. However, trading is even better.

Thanks ISD Gallifreyan. That dude's been typing that nonsense for years.

I found my mining I can clear a belt or two in that time. And if I am paying attention I find the extra mining spots when scanning that hold better ore so to me it works out. But for others it may not.

As soon as you go Orca + 1 miner or more the profit goes up exponentially especially if you focused on ice mining.

People forget that eve online is a game not only economic\social simulation in space :P

Some people enjoy mining and other so called "boring" activities while others don't.
I, for example, tried small gang pvp fleets and other pvp COMBAT activities and found them rather dull for ME so I avoid those while other aspects of the game are more enjoyable for me.

Regarding mining,
Solo mining is not the best income but the dedicated miner can defiantly get plex from solo mining even without boosts... you got 30 days to get 650 mil isk - I personally can get it in less then a week while solo mining in ease only few hours a day and at the same times I can do other activities in the game like trading\PI\etc...
All about personal preference.

@ OP

If you solo mine you want a retriever, it's cheap and got huge ore bay. Also with 2 strip miners you split your mining capabilities between 2 rocks so unlike procurer or skiff you won't burn time mining "Void" while the strip is running and the rock is depleted.
Get some mining skill to max your yield and most importantly get perfect refining! One of my favorite things to do is hoard something like 100s millions worth of ores then refine it and see my money income increase in 1 click.
Also don't bother hauling yourself just hoard minerals and use red frog to haul in the vicinity of a trade hub to get better prices (might be opposite actually, check prices first to determine which place is best).
Another tip is mix mining with other activities like PI and Trading.

Wrong, actually. if you only have 2 accounts and no Orca (Orca skills or not-you Orca booster), you're better off with 2 miners.

I think 1 Orca and 3 miners is the magic number for making a profit (sans mindlink implant). It has been a couple years since I ran the calculations, so it may be 1 Orca, 2 miners, but 1 Orca, 3 miners stuck in my head.

I think that I am in the same boat as the OP. As a returning 70mil SP player I have turned towards marketing, production. invention, and mining to try to sustain my Eve addiction. Following this thread in order to get some good ideas. Like the idea of training the other two accounts to do something productive.

Have they ever changed it so that you can train two toons on one account yet? Would be the best!