Science & Industry

Hello world,

I am going to try my hand at low sec mining in a venture. I have one fitted reasonably well, and put a prototype cloaking device on it.

My goal is be able to mine enough Zydrine and Megacyte to fuel some production jobs. Specifically, I have some frigate, destroyer and a cruiser BPOs and have been trying to sell ships so I can make a little more then what just selling the raw minerals will get me. I know I can just buy the minerals, but that's not as fun as trying to low sec mine.

My thoughts for how to go about this are as follows:

Go to random low sec system. Cruise around the asteroid belts till I find one not occupied by npc pirates. Align myself to a stellar object, and begin mining. If someone warps into the belt I could hit my cloak and wait for them to leave.

Having no real experience in pvp, I don't know if this is an effective tactic. Would I be better off just warping out as soon as someone comes into the belt? I saw mention in some thread a while ago about forcing someone to decloak, but I don't know how that works.

Does anyone else have any advice on better ways to mine low sec solo?

I have a mackinaw and do that already.

In fact, that is what I have been doing for ship production for the last month or so. While Zyd and Mega are not big drains on my mineral reserves for frigates or destroyers, they become much bigger drains at the cruiser level. In order to try and save some money I want to try to mine the ore myself.

Additionally, I have had very little contact with low sec for years and years now and want to try something new and fun.

Yes, if I break it down into a pure mineral/hour calculation and one assumes that I would be mining in my mackinaw instead of in my venture then you are probably right because the mackinaw mines much faster and there is travel time involved plus time spent dodging pirates (npc and players).

However that argument has one flaw, namely that I would spend all my time in a mackinaw instead. Since I am looking for a change of pace I would likely be on a different character trying to learn pvp and getting blown up a lot if I were not in my venture.

So really when that extra variable is thrown into the mix I would make more in my venture since it would involve not actively spending isk but instead gathering it.

Anyway.. still looking for tactics and some explanation of the cloaking systems.

cloaking will reduce your velocity by 90% (prototype cloaking device)
cloak will be deactivated if you:
cancel cloak
come within 2000m of any object, even ones you do not have your overview set to display (such as frozen corpses).
re-activation of cloak is 30s (prototype cloaking device)


a common tactic with cloak is the mwd+cloak trick but is mainly used to escape gate camps.

if you're intent on lowsec mining (don't let the haters dissuade you) you will need to constantly monitor local chat. d-scan means nothing if the system you are in is empty (this is me suggesting you find as close to empty a system possible for your mining trips). when a new pilot enters your local you should warp to bookmark, cloak, and check info (make a bm right before you land on the belt grid, everytime).
while cloaked you are not detectable via d-scan. even though new pilot will see you in system he will have no way to determine where you are. once pilot leaves system resume mining.
eventually you will begin to recognize regular traffic as joebob PI dude or mr. mean pirate and the amount of downtime due to neutrals disrupting your flow will get smaller.
set standings toward corps you recognize for faster threat assessment (mr. mean pirate's corp, for example).

if you mine in a system with locals, learn which are primarily afk and which are active. learn what the active players do when they're online and in system (some will only be PI guys, some will be hungry pirates).
make 2+ bookmarks on grid with any station you may end up docking at (+150km away from station).

alternate suggestion:
if you are fine with working as a team, find someone who can scan and locate/mine Gravimetric sites.
the secruity provided by mining from a scan site is excellent and your scan partner can make your duo even more isk while you mine by clearing out radar/mag sites and locating/lining up other grav sites for you to chew.

This sounds boring as hell, and not very profitable. More interesting and profitable might be:

- Look into exploration in LS
- Look at mission running (It will bore you to tears in time, but it may take a while get boring)
- FW sites (easy to get into and good isk with modest pvp)
- Wormhole nnija gas mining (you'll need to run when the sleepers or players show)

I do it just for the fun of it.

1.Low activity system
2. Cloaking device
3.create multiple safespots
4. Watch local - if bad people enter, go to safety zone immediately and cloak and remain cloaked or warp to gate and jump to safety.
5.NPC's will present problems so you must carry and launch drones for protection and try to redock them prior to warp out.
6.get to know the locals


its a fun change of pace from the boredom of semi- afk mining I do during the day, but not as profitable.

Adding to klok 72826's comment about setting standings.

You can also in your overview settings make it so, that once you have a certain corp set to negative standings, their members appear with a certain color in the local chat list, or even flash. It should help filter out the different levels of threat.

Also carry on with what is fun for you, experiment and explore, do not try to min/max everything, that kills the joy of this game.

fwiw, i applaud your eagerness to explore the more dangerous areas of EVE, however you won't find any/much zyd or mega in low sec. you're going to need to locate some ABC's for that and that means null sec, with decent sec status too. which also means lots of random neut ratters coming in and out of the system. try NCP null to get started and be ready to stock up some additional ships and clones for those times you can't gtfo fast enough. gl.

Definitely try the lowsec route.

Not because it's profitable, but because the skills you develop keeping safe there will help you more in your time playing EVE than the extra ISK a highsec Mack would get you. Plus you don't need to spend 10m on a permit in lowsec.

Remember: If there are no other people in local, you are completely safe in lowsec. If there is even one neutral you are in danger.


Finally, the Venture is a PITA to catch because it requires a 3 point scram (too expensive to use widely in lowsec) or two point modules (seldom fitted to one ship). And if you lose it, no big deal, you lost a million ISK ship, nothing more.

I am not one to discourage you from trying something new, but I have never seen Arknor or Bistot in low sec even in grav sites. That leaves your only possibly for megacyte to be Spodumain. Spod is currently worth only 81 isk/m3,(less than half the value of veldspar) and takes for ever to accumulate as it is 16m3 per unit. That makes a huge difference. For example mining veldspar at 1500m3/min or 4500m3 per cycle (22500 per strip) will bring you in 15,000 units of veldspar per minute. Mining spod with the same MACK although the same m3 will only bring in about 94 units of Spodumain. your venture is probably only bringing in 1/3 what the mack does. In theory a max skilled venture with max skilled mining drones and drone mining rigs can pull in up to 960m3/min but most fits I have seen are more in the 600m3/min range. A 600m3/min venture will only pull in about 37 units of Spod per minute. I know you are not worried about the isk/hr but to put it in perspective mining Spodumain in a 600m3/min Venture is less than 3M/hr 2.8 mil per hour actually. And I am not even sure you will see Spod in low sec grav sites.

Arknor and Bistot will only appear in null sec belts with a true sec lower than -0.8 or in hidden belts in sov null sec. Spodumain is more common but still not a low sec ore. These three are the only sources of megacyte. Mining rare minerals in low sec? Zydrine yes megacyte no.