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Is Moon Mining profiable for a 1-man corp?
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Sinzi Onei
Arshat Innovations
#1 - 2011-09-23 14:28:27 UTC
Hey EVE-community,
I have a question concerning moon mining. I'm currently running a high-sec POS all by myself (research and stuff). Now I am thinking whether it's worthwhile to set up a moon mining operation by myself.

Key requirement would be a strong, high-volume market (i.e. near some major trade hubs). Are all the good moons taken or can I still find some gold mines? :) How much of work do you have to invest in a moon operation compared to a normal high-sec research POS? What about additional security?
Vanilla Twilight
Partido dos Trabalhadores
#2 - 2011-09-23 14:52:00 UTC  |  Edited by: CCP Zymurgist
No u cant. Find a moon that pays its own fuel is a pain in the ass, find a moon that pays its own fuel and gives you profit solo... its just fuckin impossible...

even if u find one someone gonna ****in hotdrop on your pos and kill it

Edited for word filter. Zymurgist
VaMei
Meafi Corp
#3 - 2011-09-23 15:16:50 UTC  |  Edited by: VaMei
Vanilla Twilight wrote:
even if u find one someone gonna ***** hotdrop on your pos and kill it


This.

The real gold mines were mapped out and claimed years ago. Now they have deathstars sitting on them controlled by major alliances. If you want a good moon, you need to be able to take it and keep it. A one man corp isn't going to cut it.

As for the crap moons, they can help mitigate the costs of an otherwise profitable POS, but IMO it's not worth the risk of loosing your investment when someone decided to pop your POS for no better reason than to squeeze tears out of you. In hi-sec, you have 24 hours to react to a war dec before the shooting starts. You have time to decide if you want to fight, or if you want to tear it down. In low-sec, the 1st warning you get will be the mail notification when you log on that your POS is reinforced and will die tonight.
Tikera Tissant
#4 - 2011-09-23 17:26:51 UTC
For a solo player, moon mining isn't going to be profitable, or not enough to make a living with it. Especially if you find a good moon, you will be in the hot zone and threatened.

For a single person, the profitable options are either missins, or multi-boxing mining with at least 3 accounts (2 hulks, 1 orca), and it will take around 3 months to get the max income, and that is if you mine 2 hours a day.
Velvet Eva
Be Nice Inc.
Prismatic Legion
#5 - 2011-09-23 21:40:33 UTC
Tikera Tissant wrote:
For a solo player, moon mining isn't going to be profitable, or not enough to make a living with it. Especially if you find a good moon, you will be in the hot zone and threatened.

For a single person, the profitable options are either missins, or multi-boxing mining with at least 3 accounts (2 hulks, 1 orca), and it will take around 3 months to get the max income, and that is if you mine 2 hours a day.


You know nothing.
Wa'roun
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#6 - 2011-09-23 22:37:23 UTC  |  Edited by: Wa'roun
Vanilla Twilight wrote:
No u cant. Find a moon that pays its own fuel is a pain in the ass, find a moon that pays its own fuel and gives you profit solo... its just fuckin impossible...

even if u find one someone gonna ****in hotdrop on your pos and kill it

Edited for word filter. Zymurgist



You missed a spot.
PickleHead
Knights of the Scarlet Order
#7 - 2011-09-27 04:04:12 UTC
I ran a POS by my self several years ago but mining the moon was not my source of income. If you want to make money in low sec do reactions, you will need to be close to a trade hub and have a very complex spreadsheet to figure out which reactions pay the highest dividends, then do that reaction for 24 hours rinse and repeat. Keep in mind this was several years ago and I would probably never do it again but I can tell you that I made billions doing it. If I were you I'd stick to high-sec.
Prosum
Deep Axion
Honorable Third Party
#8 - 2011-09-28 00:11:34 UTC
You can't moon mine in high sec. You're not a corporation if you are flying solo.
Sola Mercury
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#9 - 2011-09-28 17:56:10 UTC
Prosum wrote:
You can't moon mine in high sec. You're not a corporation if you are flying solo.

While your first claim is true, the second is not.
Fem Force Five
Doomheim
#10 - 2011-11-01 17:50:49 UTC
I have visited literally thousands of low sec and null moons, and as the people above said, almost every single one of them, even very minor mineral moons, had large pos's. Almost every time they were owned by large alliances. In the few cases where the moons were owned by some small corp, coming back a week later found the destroyed remnants of the pos that had been there, incapacitated guns and no tower. Just hauling the fuel is very time consuming. And with super cap fleets floating around that can destroy any pos very quickly, it's just not worth it.

It's a shame really because it would be fun to "have your own moon" and mine it. But the "big boys" will come and destroy all your toys sooner or later. Personally I'd love to see CCP increase the size of Eve 10x, I know that will never happen but that would be so much fun as many places are sure getting crowded. Or perhaps open up .4 to moon mining, what a gold rush that would be!
Serial Chi
White Knights of Equestria
#11 - 2011-11-01 18:00:48 UTC
your best bet if you want to "solo" moon mine is to find a decent moon that isnt taken.. good luck with that... and then find out who are the local alliances in the area. talk to their diplomats about your one man corp joining their alliance. that's about as close as you are going to get. anything else results in a loss of your pos/isk/time.
Avril Tennison
EVE University
Ivy League
#12 - 2011-11-01 19:09:44 UTC
True, most good moons are taken but any income you can generate mining is better than none. I have my POS on a Caesium moon which I found after 2 days searching (.3 space). A medium size POS puts out enough power for mining and industry.

Bottom line, find a moon with product and set up shop :)
Alisarina
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#13 - 2011-11-02 09:04:43 UTC
My only word of advice is this:

As soon as you take that jump from high sec to low sec with your PoS in your cargo hold, write it off. Even if you manage to get a weeks worth of mining, or a month, it will get found and blown up by either an alliance or just some bored roaming gang that wants soem shooting practice with their dreads or what have you.

Getting fuel in and moon materials out will be the biggest issue after setting up. Try doing the runs RIGHT after down time if you want to be as safe as possible and use a cloaked transport with possibly stabs to be able to GTFO. Again, write the ship off as soon as you jump to low sec, if it gets back to high sec and drops off your cargo, your golden.

Use it as a short term plan, not long term and you may make a profit, but I wouldn't say one worth all the hassle compared to a high sec R&D/production PoS (even that should be writen off as lost when deployed, you never know when a group of trigger happy BS pilots wardec you for a laugh).

But really all of what I have said should be known to you as it is basic Eve practice. Good luck with your moon mining though, you will defiantly need it.
ACHURA CALDARIAN
Perkone
Caldari State
#14 - 2011-11-03 04:21:45 UTC
couple years ago when cadmium was around 3-4k/u I ran 6 cadmium moons in 3 different lowsec regions, all of them for over 3 months, and i was able to keep 2 for 8 months. In that time I also found a technetium moon I mined as well as a mercury. This was before technetium spiked obviously.

Did it all by myself in a corp i made with about 6 alts.
Anna Graant
Standard By 10
#15 - 2011-11-03 08:54:20 UTC  |  Edited by: Anna Graant
If you find a mineable moon and no pos is anchored there then its a crap moon 99% of the time and not worth mining.
On the other hand if you find a moon and it is worth mining, count every day you stay there as a blessing.
Its not impossible but your going to need a lot of luck to survive any length of time
Jack Dant
The Gentlemen of Low Moral Fibre
#16 - 2011-11-03 15:45:56 UTC
Anything r32 and above will be claimed by strong PVP entities. Same goes for most r16, but sometimes you can get lucky. Both r8 and gas moons are a dime a dozen, and few people will bother shooting them, when they can find an identical moon next door.

Reaction towers are good money, and doing it on moons with the right lowend minerals saves hauling and money, since moon minerals you mine on your reaction tower are free (yes, really).

What happens in lowsec, stays in lowsec, lowering the barrier to entry to lowsec PVP: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=476644&#post476644
Biba Tradzor
Federation Francaise du Nawak
#17 - 2011-11-04 17:00:37 UTC
My past experience:
I have been doing solo moon mining, that was some time ago (1+ year), in Syndicate.
At the top i had 14 POSes, for building complete chains (i.e Crystalline Carbonide) and selling in Jita.
The profit was quite nice, around 1.5-2b per month. R16 and R32 moons where quite available.
why syndicate ? because no territory claim, it's a kind of free for all space.
I was mining my own fuel (ice and planetary goods), moving stuff via JF to a "local depot" in 0.0 and then fueling surrounding POSes with cloaky haulers. It was quite a work.

I got attacked only 2 times, when i tried to anchor POSes for setting up new chain; the local tribe noticed it and killed them. Nodoby seemed to care about the other POSes.

Why did i stop?
because maintaining 14 POS is a hassle. You can't go on holidays longer than 8-10 days (silos full), it's a permanent pressure. I also got tired, wanted some new stuff. The trigger to unanchor all was CCP's planetary nerf: i could not get enough fuel for all my POSes, i had to buy from highsec, thus being less profitable.
I tried to sell the syndicate moon survey i made in market forums but nobody was interested.

Hope this helps