Science & Industry

Get yourself a retriever or mackinaw, its designed for solo mining... Covetor is fleet mining ship and on solo mining yield difference is not that big...


Only way to prevent jetcan stealing is not to jetcan mine.. Thats where retriever and mackinaw comes to play, they have huge ore bay and skill dependand bonus for its size..

Also you need to notice something about agro system... Once you shoot this ore thief, he can legally shoot back as self defence...

In high sec, I was under the assumption that CONCORD would blow a jet can thief up?

Get a Retriever. Covetor is designed for fleet mining, retriever for solo mining.

If you jet-can mine, nothing prevents someone from stealing from the can. You (and anyone else) can shoot them, but that's often what they want.

ignore the mackinaw, it's not worth the price tag in comparison to the retriever.

For cost and to avoid the ganks fly a procurer. Sure they can still gank you in a procurer, but watching what they lose to do so is well worth the low cost of the procurer.

Yes it mines 10% less, but it does depend on your goal.
If yield is my main priority then procurer is not the ship.
If hold size is my priority then procurer is not my ship.
If tank is my priority then procurer is my ship.

I've had someone try to gank me and I lived to go pick up their loot.

We can each come up with scenarios why our reason is better.

It all comes down to priority.

If you can multibox, then your Covetor and Itty 5 setup will do just fine. Drop a can off the Coveter and always leave 1 trit or 1 ammo in the can. then have the Itty pilot reach into the can and drag the mined ore into the Itty's cargo hold.

If you can't multibox then just do as Elena suggests

CONCORD will only show up and blast them if they attack you. If they do attack, it takes CONCORD several seconds to show up.

In a 0.5 system the delay before CONCORD shows up is more than enough for them to pop you. This is known as suicide ganking. They lose their ship to concord, but not until after they have killed you.

If they take from your can they will turn flashy red so you can legally attack them, but if they attack you concord WILL RESPOND. However if you fire the first shot they are then free to attack you without CONCORD coming to your aid. Do not be fooled by can flippers flying cheap ships. they often do this to trick you into attacking them, then they warp off and come back in a T3 cruiser or similar superior ship and destroy you. Even a well fit PVE battleship can be easily taken out by a T3 cruiser, so unless you are willing to risk a T3 cruiser of your own, do not attack can flippers, you will just die.

I assume you have read some mining guides online. However with recent changes to mining ships those guides are no longer accurate. The three basic mining barges have all had there base yield changed. While previously the procurer with its single strip miner was useless as the mining cruiser Osprey could out mine it. However it now has a 200% base bonus which makes that 1 strip miner equal to 3. The retriever likewise had a base bonus of 50% added making its 2 strip miners equal to 3. The covetor was pretty much left as it was.

So now the base yield of all three ships is equal, With the differences between them being more of a role specific bonus.

-The procurer and its T2 conter part the Skiff were made to be the tough heavy tanked mining ships. They have base yield with a huge tank bonus and a per level bonus to shields. These ships are good in an area were the chances of getting ganked are high. They are still useless against can flippers, as if you attack them they are free to kill you without fear of CONCORD.

- The retriever and its T2 counter part the Mackinaw were made to be the high capacity/ore hold mining ships. The retriever has the same yield as the procurer but a massive ore hold making it ideal for solo mining. The retriever also has an extra low slot so it can fit 3 mining laser upgrades rather than 2. If MLU II's are used that is an extra 9% yield over the procurer. You may need a processor over clocking rig to fit 3 MLU II's depending on your skills.

- The covetor and its T2 counter part the HULK are the max yield mining ships. They get a bonus per level to mining yield. The Covetor only gets a 4% per level mining yield bonus over the retriever. So if you have to jetcan mine, or make frequent trips back to station that extra yield can quickly be lost. If you only have mining barge skill trained to ;level 3-4 you are only getting 12-16% bonus yield, however considering the retrievers extra MLU II from the extra low slot giving it an extra 9% yield you are actually only gaining 3-7%. At mining barge 5 the covetor will have 11% better mining yield than the retriever. Not a big difference if you ask me.

The big yield advantage comes from the HULK, It gets yield bonus of 3% per level of mining barge plus 3% per level of exhumers. So with mining barge 5 and exhumers 5 plus 2 MLU II's it adds up to a 48% yield increase over base yield but still only a 16% gain over the Mackinaw with its 1% per level of exhumers plus 3 MLU II's giving it 32% yield gain. The base mining skill and astrogeology skills also give 5% yield per level but affect all ships equally. Yet training them both to 5 will give another 25% gain for each skill.

Another important note is how all these bonuses are calculated. They are compounded, which means they are added one at a time adding there bonus not to the base yield but to the total yield after all the previous bonuses. this drastically increases the end result.

As a new miner you may not understand why your yield is so ow compared to what these ships are supposed to be able to get. While each bonus is small, there are many, and they really add up. For example, with low skills you could be struggling to break 800m3 per minute, but a HULK with max skills can pull in over 1600m3 minute. Add a max boost ORCA, and 5% mining implant it can pull in over 2700m3 minute. and that does not include the extra 400m3 per minute you can get from max skilled mining drone II's.

Stick with it and find a mining corp that will supply you with ORCA boosts and you will not be long before you are making 20-25 million isk per hour.

Just keep in mind, without max skills or an ORCA boost the yield advantage of the covetor or HULK is small. You will make more and be safer with a retriever and later Mackinaw while you are solo. The Mackinaw has a 35,000m3 ore hold. much more than a jet can can hold. Even very close to what your itty 5 can hold. Unless you have max skills, you will make more isk with a MACK than with a HULK.

FTFY