Science & Industry

Well in hi sec your only real defence is against those who are already outlaws, in which case a fast locking jammer (griffin) can completely ruin their day. The chances of you remaining alert through an entire mining op waiting on a gank that probably wont happen is rather slim though. ECM is a great defensive tool for escorting generally though, especially for a low sp player. Blackbird and griffin are your friends. You can even pre-emptively suicide jam a likely ganker if its really desperate.

On the other hand in unsecure space a scout is what will save your friend, so you need to train towards cov ops. Combine the two and you are basically a falcon pilot and that is pretty much the best protection one guy can give.

For a good video on how the "cloaky warp trick" combination works, check out this video from Eve University. It takes practice to get right, so you'll want to set up a ship (any will do) until you can do it automatically before doing in under pressure.

Logistics (think of it as a "healer" class found in other online games) is a skill path that takes months to be able to fly the current Logi ships (Scimitar, Basilisk, etc). The winter updates will add some of the logistical bonuses to frigates and T1 cruisers so as to make it something that a player can do in less than 6 months. A simple low-skill logistical ship is commonly referred to as a "POSprey" (a play on the ship commonly used - Osprey - and what it usually is aimed at healing - a POS).

When hauling lots of loot, have a scout. One of the techniques used to pop freighters is to use 2 teams, one on each side of a jump gate. The first team blows most of the shields and armor away, while the team on the other side finishes off the freighter with one non-combatant who loots & scoots with what drops.

When leaving stations, you are already moving at top speed, so you *could* warp away, and many folks do exactly that. However you still have to align to the new heading and that gives folks more than enough time to lock and pop your ship. Instead, set up bookmarks ahead of time about 200-400km outside of the major stations you'll likely use. Use a smaller ship with a MWD and just cruise until you are a suitable distance away. Generally, stations squirt you out in a cone thats about 15 degrees, and if your bookmark is straight out from the station, you get squeezed out and aligned at the bookmark, so you may warp away before enemies can lock and shoot. My advice is to set up your own bookmarks, not use corporate ones.

Hmmm. The details of your operation and questions are somewhat vague but I will give you my opinion :

1) Profit. By having a ship trying to defend other ships in a fleet is at best lessening and probably halving your profitability. In high sec it almost certainly won't save your mining vessel. Don't do it!
2) Don't bother mining in low sec. There is additional risk and with the current mineral prices it just plainly isn't worth it. Tbh I'll be surprised if anyone is seriously mining there nowadays. For nul sec you have to be well set up. You won't be well set up. No offense intended.
3) You don't state what hauling vessels you are using. Mammoths or their racial equivalents don't really cut the mustard. Any serious miner will have access to their own or a corp freighter (Fenrir etc.). Alternatively use Red Frog Freight whom I have used in the past and heartily recommend. Watch the values and don't make your hauler stand out. 'Pinatas' will get blown up.
4) Regarding mining locations don't mine in Caldari space. All the mining vessels are better now. Pick one and fit as much tank as you can. You want 20,000 ehp minimum really. Find a quiet system/s to mine in. Systems with no stations in it are often best but you have more hauling time then. Watch local channel all the time and investigate all visiting pilots. Mark up other miners and obvious anti-pirates as neutral contacts. High sec isn't as dangerous as some will tell you it is. Low and nul is far more dangerous.
That's about all I think for the moment.

Have your miner buddy fly a Retriever. They're pretty resilient nowadays and have huge ore bays.

A fully gank catalyst can put out 566 DPS and at a max of 20s in 0.5 space before concord shows up that's 11,320 in damage. An untanked Retriever has 9,643 EHP against Void ammo. Add on a Damage Control II and three Core Defense Field Extender Is and you have 16,960 EHP against Void. Add two Reinforced Bulkhead IIs and a Invulnerability Field II and you're up to 23,535 EHP against Void ammo.

Worst case, fly a Procurer which has 21,214 EHP against Void out of the box. Getting a 50,000+ EHP tank out of it is easy. It may "only" have room for 12,000m3 for ore, but hey, how much can your hauler carry?

Right, so its the ganker's ship wreck that gets blue'd ?

a disposable black bird is always a great thing to have when protecting an indy.