Science & Industry

I recently started a new account with the purpose of having a mining indy alt. I am training for a hulk as of now. I would like this to lead into production as well as some research later on.

So I was wondering if mining was still a good career path as far as making a lot of isk. Like how it compares to missioning or running plexes.

I will be sticking to high sec mining as well as deadspace and grav sites for the most part.

I have read all the guides and know what to train I am simply looking for opinions on the profession in general.

I want to eventually work my way into production with research and inventions on the side. Would that be more profitable than just mining, refining and selling the ores?

I enjoy missioning on this guy but I get burned out on running mission after mission and was looking for a change of pace. I have tried mining before on my original character it was fun gathering all the materials and actually making my own ships and selling the extra for profit.

Best feeling ever was when I finished building my prophecy after gathering all the materials for it. Being 100% self sufficient is something I would like to achieve. As in build my own ammo, mods, ship etc.

I will probally look for a decent corp to join on my indy character. Was just going to solo mine until then.

might as well just run missions, build rigs, sell those. take the isk from missions and rigs sold, buy the mins, build stuffs, sell the stuffs, more isk. eventually no need to run missions cause you have enough isk to invest in just buying the mins and manufacturing. orrrr go make about a bill an hour in a c5 wormhole.

if your going to mine do it in 0.0

this
If you like mining just do it i find it sometimes relaxing and peacefulcompared to other proffesions
If you plan like you said want to go into production, mining will be a good start to get your starting capital together
You will need that since most' hardcore' producers will actually buy all their minerals on the market pref as cheap as possibel and haul the minerals back and forth which make sense if you want to build large ships and/or items on a grand scale But don't let that stop you from mining and having fun , just mine smart and don't get yourself be ganked

You can mission, mine and manufacture. They don't get in each others way, except for skill training time.

The game isn't all about isk/hour. That'd be a job. Do what you feel like. you can make money mining. It's generally less risky and more soothing than missioning. So do it in breaks, to supplement your income and not go crazy.

Wow thanks for all the replys guys.

This is my main account and I will be mostly missioning with it and ratting/exploring some on the side. My second account will be the miner/indy which will simply give me something to do to break the routine of missions up a little.

An idea from a previous post on making rigs from salvage and reprocessing the loot from missions made me think I can simply throw all that into the corp hanger and have my alt do that. That way I can max the refining skills and production skills out on the alt and not sacrifice my missioning skill training.

And yes I do enjoy mining it is relaxing at times but I dont think I would want to devote all my game time to it. May not be the highest isk income but still has its high points.

If you only have two accounts I would recommend running missions with your main and setting the second up for salvaging and eventually logistics.

mining alts are nice though to keep the isk flowing while you are semi afk.. even if your main is a PVP pilot you can have your alt sitting in high sec mining away while you PVP on your main account.

tl;dr: no

verbose: Until I see some factual numbers showing otherwise, I don't think that mining is as profitable as other high sec activities.
I have 3 accounts, 2 trained for Hulks, 1 trained for Orca. Currently my Hulks are on death row. Meaning that when they are ganked, I'm replacing them with Covetors. The price difference between the two is insane compared to the small yield drop I would take (Orca pilot is well skilled). I tested things out and found that after refining and selling at the same price, I make about 2mil isk less per hour flying a Covetor. The Covetor will pay for itself in a few hours, compared to a good 30 or so for a Hulk. Insurance between the two is vastly different, and hulks are more prized targets.

I mine because I like to build things, and see it as a big crafting challenge. I never expect to profit on anything I make. Generally because someone somewhere always has a POS with which to research their blue-prints to a level that widens their profit margin, allowing them to sell lower than I can.

Until I see a bit more factual information to prove otherwise, I am of the opinion currently that mission running, as is often said, is much more profitable in high-sec than mining.

I find 60m/hour average for running missions to be exaggerated unless you're running it with 2 accounts. Then it would be 30m/account which seems a bit more reasonable.

The average medium skilled player will likely do 10-20m/hour in missions until they can afford to fly a pimped out Tengu/Mach/whatever.