Science & Industry

I did a Buddy invite and the player is liking the game a bunch.
He wants to try out all the races and for the time being, likes mining.
He only has 21 days.
Should I suggest a destroyer or an Osprey or ……? Whats going to give him a better yield for his trial account?
Again, he oniy has 21 days.

Osprey will be better. You might want to give him this link http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Advanced_mining which is a very detailed guide about mining. Introduce him to PI also if I'm correct I think he can have one colony on trial.

And tell him that mining isn't an end. He can cross train for other professions as well.

PS: as akita said mining will be a lot more tedious on trial (no gsc, no industrial ship)

Statistically speaking, the overwhelmingly vast majority of people that genuinely enjoy mining are either those that play EVE mostly while doing something else (and they don't really enjoy the mining itself so much but rather the fact they can make some ISK while being semi-idle or chatting with other people while doing it) or those that are regularly part of a mining op where 99% of the fun is the chat channel. They could be doing anything else and they'd still find it fun, but they don't have the time for anything else.

The problem with newcomers is that they THINK mining MIGHT be a good idea just because they don't know better (ESPECIALLY people that want to do it solo or in a very small group). They THINK they like mining, but in reality, they're merely afraid of doing anything else. And yes, after getting their skill-less ass whooped in one of the few harder L1 missions or failing to follow the tutorial or career funnel instructions (if they even finished the tutorial or funnel missions), mining might LOOK like a vaguely reasonable idea, but it seldom is.

Almost every second freaking newbie (if not more than that) thinks at some point in the first few days that mining is sort of nice, especially if they don't bother running the career funnel missions.
Heck, back in the days I started, there was only a brief tutorial and then it was "do whatever", and I did (very briefly) consider mining myself.
Thankfully, I tried some other stuff soon enough, and then in comparison, mining seemed junk quite fast.

Mining is a McJob.
It's slow, it's boring, it's low-skills and low-pay.
If they TRULY want a McJob, then they can have it.
But if they THINK they want a McJob because they're afraid to try anything else (because they're afraid they'll fail at it) then it's your responsibility to point out the error of their way and slap them into EVE-reality.

This. ATK mining makes me want to play Russian Roulette with all 6 bullets, but AFK it's a good career path for:

• Parents of young children
• Spouses of nagging significant others
• College students (makes for great study time)
• Playing at work

Partially this. I'll agree that a lot of people are freaked out by PvP and having everything on the line, so they duck into a career with limited human interaction, the success of which depends on neither their skills nor the skills of any other pilot out there. However, I think you've missed a very important upside.

Mining, in my experience, is a good path to some guaranteed income in EVE. It's an ISK faucet, but a dripping one at best. I do my research, I crunch the numbers and I know exactly how much I can make bare-minimum with each load I bring in. Tedious and boring though it may be, mining done right is more logistical than anything. Planning, calculating and prospecting make up the meat of a miner's work and the actual mining is very much the potatoes side of the operation.

I started out as a miner because I wasn't ready to venture out and get my n00b ass handed to me by other pilots with 100x more skill points than me. It's nice because now I'm in a fully-fitted Hulk and I feel comfortable dusting off my combat ships now and then and focusing my queue time on combat-oriented skills. When I lose a ship or need to boost my kit, I can either dip into my nice little cash reserve, or go out and mine for a few hours and make up the difference.

My advice is, if you think he'll bite and buy a subscription, let him start out mining, but keep him on frigs. Maybe cruisers if he can manage the training in time. If his loyalty to EVE is shaky at best, by all means, throw him into the fire and show him the combat side of things.

overall, yes the Vexor is a better boat. Specifically in mining, the Osprey is the best cruiser for the job ...

I'm one of the 0.01% that enjoys mining. I never mine AFK. I nearly always mine solo (well, with my 7 account fleet).

My progression was:
* Bantam for mining, Kestrel for level 1 missions (both Caldari frigates)
* Osprey for mining, Caracal for level 2 missions (both Caldari cruisers)
* Drake for level 3 missions (Caldari battlecruiser, with very similar skills to cruisers) and class 2 w-space sites
* Ferox for fullerene gas harvesting (Caldari battlecruiser)
* Retriever for mining (Mining Barge)
* Drake for level 4 missions (very slow, but do-able)
* Raven for level 4 missions (Caldari battleship)
* Hulk for mining (Exhumer)
* Mackinaw for ice harvesting (Exhumer)
* Raven Navy Issue for level 4 missions (Caldari battleship)
* Tengu for nearly all PvE combat (Caldari Strategic Cruiser, with same skills as other cruisers)
* Basilisk (Caldari Logistics)
* Golem for missions (very limited use)
* Chimera (Caldari carrier - used for w-space escalations, all those drone and logistics skills put to use)
* Phoenix (Caldari dreadnought)
* Caldari turret ships (I only trained all the turret skills actually, took about a week to get to level 3)

Somewhere in there I trained Amarr Industrial 1 for a Bestower (largest low skill industrial), then later Caldari Industrial 5 for a freighter, deep space transport, blockade runner, and jump freighter. Also a few other ships like Recons, Interceptors, Black Ops, etc.

I'm now progressing through Minmatar ships (currently in a Hurricane battlecruiser), and plan to do Amarr next, then Gallente. Or I might mix them all up.

Don't avoid combat training even as a miner! You need to gain standing to reduce refining tax. You also will be at war at some point. Train for at least a battlecruiser.

As a miner, your primary weapon is drones, so don't neglect training combat drone skills! Both an Ibis and a Bantam can use one drone.

Let's assume T2 drones and lasers:
Cruisers 4
Mining Drones 5
Mining 4 (T2 Lasers)
Astrogeology 3 (Let's say skilling to 4 in order to get a retriever)

Osprey =
20% bonus to mining lasers per level, it can fit 3.
20 drone bandwidth is enough for 4x mining drones.

Vexor =
10% bonus to mining drone yield per level.
can run 5 mining drones, and 4 lasers

T2 lasers have base 60, T2 drones have base 15 m3


Vexor
60 * 1.2 * 1.15 = 82.8
15 * 1.4 * 1.25 = 26.25

4 lasers = 331.2
5 drones = 131.25

Total (assuming no travel time for the drones) = 462.45 m3/min

Osprey
60 * 1.8 * 1.2 * 1.15 = 149.04
15 * 1.25 = 18.75

3 lasers = 447.12 m3
4 drones = 75 m3

Total (assuming no travel time for the drones) = 522 m3/min

Yes but no. I always use mining drones. Even in my orca. No lazy member in my fleet

Vexor has 100 M3 drone bay and 75mbps bandwidth.

You can have 2 heavies (2 sentries if you have skills), 2 mediums and 1 small combat drones, plus 5 mining drones.

Osprey has only 20 m3, so if you use mining drones, you only have 1 launcher for defense.

About lasers, you don't fit T2 on t1 cruisers, because of lack of CPU, unless you fill low slots with Co-Processor II. Anyway, we are talking of a starter miner so he won't have the skills.

With All skills lvl 5, Osprey gets 863 M3/min with 3 Miner II, 1 MLU II and 4 Mining Drone II, and only 1 heavy T2 launcher for defense, giving 32 DPS if using T2 missiles

Vexor has 878 m3/min with 4 Miner II, 1 MLU II and 5 Mining Drone II, and has 315 DPS for defense (2 Ogre II, 2 Hammerhead II, 1 Hobgoblin II). And you can even put an armor RR for your drones.

I used this for a loooooong time, it doesn't require so many skills:

[Vexor, Mining Vexor]
Mining Laser Upgrade I
Mining Laser Upgrade I
Co-Processor I
Co-Processor I

Small Shield Booster I
Survey Scanner II
1MN Afterburner I

Small Remote Armor Repair System I
XeCl Drilling Beam I
XeCl Drilling Beam I
XeCl Drilling Beam I
XeCl Drilling Beam I

Medium Cargohold Optimization I
Medium Cargohold Optimization I
Medium Cargohold Optimization I

Mining Drone I x5
Ogre I x1
Ogre I x1
Hammerhead I x1
Hammerhead I x1
Hobgoblin I x1

this has inspired me to gank more newbies mining, for their own good

Amarr shuttle ?