EVE New Citizens Q&A

Hello everyone. I just finished my trial and have signed up for my first month of play. I'm very close to being able to fly in a Retriever mining barge. I have yet to leave the highest security space, only venturing into .8 and .7 space briefly, as I was soon attacked by npc enemies while mining and had no way to defeat them in my Venture frigate.

My question is: Will having a few light scout drones like the Hobgoblin(?) be enough to mine safely in the .8 and .7 areas?

What else can I do to outfit my Retriever to fend off npc attacks?

My current set-up is two strip miners, scanner and mining laser upgrades.

I'm also working on learning how to equip Rigs, but I'm still researching that area. I'm not sure which ones might be the best fit.

Thanks!

With mineral scanner and mining upgrades you obviously don't have any slots left for any sort of defenses.

You'll be safe from NPC rats in high-sec space, just launch your drones as soon as they start shooting you, and set your drones to kill them.

Your biggest danger is suicide-gank players. Your ship is worth 40m and miners typically install expensive modules on their ships, plus you have all that ore inside. They can get an alpha-strike ship (it will take you out in one shot) that's cheaper than the value of your ship / modules / ore.

You should watch your overview and immediately warp out if any non-mining ship comes into your belt. Esp. anything bigger than a frigate.

Because he can come back in a frigate and check if the Rokh has mining, and it's only a few minutes lost, rather than 40 million (which is several hours of mining).

5 Lights or 5 Medium Drones (Caldari or Gallente are both good) will be all you need
so your basic skillset would look like
Drones V
Scout Drone Operation V

you won't need masses of drone skills either, but there are a few that will make your drones much more effective
(Your drones will deal with the rats just fine without these skills, train them only if you want to)

Combat Drone Operation III+
Drone Durability III+
Drone Sharpshooting III+
Drone navigation III+
Gallente or Caldari Drone Specialisation trained to II or IV (another optional skill, but T2 drones are more effective and resiliant)


Drone Interfacing is an excellent skill, it is a little OP for just mining barges/exhumers though
if trained train to Level V

yeah pretty much exactly that in a decent ship

Honestly, just find an out of the way system and you don't really have to worry about it. Before I got sick of mining, I was AFK'ing in a Retriever with just two Hobgoblins out and flying about in 0.6 Minmitar space and never even had to glance at the screen. Did that for about three days completely undisturbed before I decided that mining wasn't really for me. Only had Drones and Scout Drone operation at their minimal level, too.

The system was fairly close to Hek as well, which had very good mineral prices at the time. I'd just dock, unload my ore, continue mining, then at the end of the day I'd load up a couple of hauling alts with all of the minerals and drive them to Hek.

Granted, I'm still new here as well and three days isn't a very large time slot for analysis, but I only ever saw one other character in a Venture pop up within that time and it just looked like they were there to dock, grab something, then continue on their way.

I'm pretty sure no rats spawn in .9 & 1.0 belts.