Missions & Complexes

1-2 months ago, I flew well over 100 level 3 mining missions. They were quick to do, and never once was I told to jump through a stargate. All the missions wer in the same system my agent was in. Also there was no gas mining or ice mining, although the later may have been caused by the kind of space I was ind, because I've seen on the EVE Survival page that there is one level 3 mission involving ice. I just never got it. So it must be a space-type thing (faction flavour), or else a freak of randomness.

I've heard that level 2 mining missions sometimes, perhaps often, require you to jump through a stargate, or maybe even several sometimes. I've only flown a few level 2 mining missions myself, so I can't comment on that.

But now I've decided to try level 4 missions. All the time it has been to gain standing with various NPC corps. That's why I mission recently - courier, combat or preferably mining.

I've been offered 1 mission involving gas, which I was not set up to mine (I'm working on that), so I had to reject it. I was also offered one mission that involved me gating 1 jump away, into low-sec. Naturally I rejected that one too. I've also completed 2 missions, and am working on 3rd right now. So far all 3 have involved ores, in ginormous amounts, 44k m3 or so, more than a Mackinaw can carry in one go. That means I have to spend a lot of time warping back and forth, plus I've calculated that it takes about 50-55 minutes of optimal sucking to get all the ore

The two first missions were same-system ones, but this 3rd one required me to jump to a neighbouring system.

Also, during 1 of the 3 missions, the asteroid was 40-45 km from the warp-in point. That's a long travel time for a Mackinaw, and of course I had to do the back-and-forth thing twice, because my Mack couldn't hold all the ore.

At least the rats aren't any harder. I had worried about that, but my drones can handle them, and my Mack has plenty of tank. If anything, it seems the rats are easier here than back when I flew level 3s...



So, I'm really wondering now: Are level 4 mining missions worth the hassle? Is the standing gain sufficiently higher to warrant all the trouble? Spending 80-100 minutes per mission to gain X standing, having to reject a fairly large number of the missions, or spending 15-40 minutes per mission to gain Y standing, and only rejecting missions when it's one of those many-small-asteroid ones that I'd like to skip because they're slow.


Should I just go back to doing level 3 missions which are much easier, because I'll never have to reject a mission, as it never involves stargating to a different system, and never involves more ore than a Mackinaw can handle in one go (and it's fairly quick to suck all the ore, taking at best 20-25 minutes if there are many small asteroids)?

I'm in it for the standing. LP and ISK are a very, very minor side benefit.

What's the best use of my time?

That has nothing to do with my question.

I like the semi-AFK aspect of mining missions. I can do security missions, but pewpewing at red crosses all day gets boring.