Science & Industry

I am skilling up an AFK Retriever just to make a bit of isk when watching TV etc.

This will all be done in 0.5 and above. I will be going down the shield buffer route to make me an unattractive target to gankers (shame about my name, I guess, as it might encourage some of them).

Just wondering how good my combat drone skills have to be or do I even need them at all.

Will I be relying on passive shield regen to tank the rats or do I need to leave combat drones on aggressive?

If it's the drones on aggressive route, do they ever get targetted and killed?

If I don't need to leave combat drones out and instead can leave mining drones out, do the mining drones ever get targetted and killed?

TIA

Drones can/will be targeted. Aggressive is coded to not always work.

if you want to "afk mine" mine ice on a procurer. kin, therm, invul, a 1MN MWD on mids so you can't get bumped, and lows full of MLUs. done. all you have to do is comeback to the pc every 12 - 14 minutes.

70k ehp against kin/therm, 48k omni, while flying at 200ms. it takes 6 - 7 catalysts to kill it, with a very high chance of botching the gank, while the ship will cost you 25misk, and passive regen will be enough to tank any rat.

if you want to invest some more isk and training, a skiff can do the same, while flying around at 475ms with double the tank and more yield. (costs 5x)

if you have an orca alt move it to a safe and boost while flying aligned. tank the crap outta it, 300kehp is usually enough.

tanking any other mining ships will lower the yield to the levels of a procurer/skiff while not being as effective.

but in all honesty, don't mine in highsec, the return is crap even considering you are watching a movie or working. just think of the strain on your hardware while all the compensation you get is a meager 7m isk/h... might as well fly in a cloaky to null and sit on a system. coming back to the pc after work and reading tears will have a much higher satisfaction/hardware strain ratio over mining while watching a movie.

I won't be doing that, br0. I am in favour of the afk cloak mechanic getting some kind of overhaul but that's covered in 50 different threads.

Its more than 7m/hr tho, init. Thought it was more like 12m/hr?

1X invu 1X shield extender skills at 4 lvl for shield support and u can lol on npc dmg. :P

Ye, sorry, I meant semi-afk.

What's different about ice? Don't the rocks pop?

You can not AFK mine ore without a bot program. You need to re-target rocks every couple minutes.

AFK mining is generally ice mining. 20-30 minutes for your hold to fill, rocks never pop. that is why high sec ice mining is now only worth 7-8 mil and hour.

You can occasionally find larger rocks in back water systems or in upgraded sov null sec. But ore mining is generally not done afk, or at the very least only semi afk. Most dedicated miners run fleets of mining ships controlling several accounts at a time. there is no way to set this up to run on its own while you are AFK without a third party bot program. Mining ore with multiple accounts does not leave you much time to go afk there is always a ship about to finish its cycle, a rock that is about to pop, or a group of rats to dispatch.

To afk mine ore, solo with a retriever, in high sec, you would need to re-target your strips at least every other cycle to avoid rocks popping, that is at best 6 minutes you could be afk before the roids you're targeting pop. the yields are low, the work is boring, and the returns are equally low. If you are afk or semi afk mining in high sec, in a solo retriever, you are making at best 10-12M/hr. And you can only be afk for a few minutes at a time or your income will be even lower.

i'm agree (even if i don't do that).. but you still afk, and it's still a passive income.. if you mining afk at work, or when looking movie/serie (better serie, you can come back every 45 min, more or less, and dock/dedock between episodes^^).. let say 3h a day.. it's 8mil*3= 24mil, repeat 20 days work, and you have your plex :D more with multi account and orca..

Ok, i know.. it's pulling this thing too far..

hahaha

that's the most incorrect statement any one has ever written on the eve forums.

easy way to avoid them; don't mine in whatever backwater system it is they sit around having a circle jerk in.