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I seem to have stalled with my mining.
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Wen Tzu
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#1 - 2013-08-19 12:07:49 UTC
I don't get much time a week for EvE (usually 6-9 hrs a week), with that amount of time I didn't think I would be able to give much input to a player run corp so I thought about setting myself up as a miner, I have scoured this forum and have read all the articles I could find on the subject but I have this feeling I have either misunderstood something or am missing something entirely.

My plan was to get my mining skills up and then look towards refining (from there I'm not sure yet). I have got to the point where I have the following relevant skills:

Mining - 5
Astrogeology - 5
Refining - 5
Refining Efficiency - 5
I haven't got any ore specific refining skills yet nor do I have any mining or refining relevant implants.

My standing with the local NPC Corp is 6.67 and I am flying a Retriever with 2 x Strip Miners nipping back and forth to the space station (with 50% efficiency) I am only mining in high-sec and generally stick to Scordite.

I am comparing the ammounts of isk I would be getting from selling a hold load of unprocessed Ore to refining it and selling it and there doesn't seem to be that much difference. To do this I have been comparing the best closest buyers price to the price I would get if I nipped off to sell at my local trade hub

Am I missing something obvious, am I running the wrong choice of ship/equipment/ore, incorrect skills, not understanding the market correctly, is there no profit in mining in high-sec or is mining only going to be profitable for someone with a lot more time on their hands?
Tear Anasarsy
Reverse Engineering LTD
#2 - 2013-08-19 12:38:22 UTC
No profit in mining?

A lot of people will say mining is not free. In theory this is true as you have paid for the ship, modules and your paying with your time and subscription.
But on the other hand your not paying to mine, your mining in your free time. So, if your happy to mine while watching TV or something effectively your making a lot of profit for minimal effort. True you could be off PvP'ing or trading or something else, but what you choose to do with your free time is up to you.

To touch on your post specificity, Retriever is the better ship for semi AFK due to the ore hold size, and if you want to maximize profits I would suggest only refine if you get 0% Tax and 0 waste, and save your ore and sell in bulk in the bulk trade channels.
This will avoid tax from selling on the market and sometimes you can make some good money as well.

I probably just rambled too much, so I apologise!
Wen Tzu
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#3 - 2013-08-19 12:47:53 UTC  |  Edited by: Wen Tzu
Tear Anasarsy wrote:
I probably just rambled too much, so I apologise!

No not at all Smile With my current stats I'm getting 99.5%. I'll start training the relevant Ore Processing skills to get it to 100% But with that I'm guessing the difference to not processing won't be much.

Is this what I should be expecting from solo mining in high-sec?

Edit: Re-read you rpost and noted the bit about bulk trade channels, I'll look into that. Am I going to need a stockbrokers business head to be able to do that and 'play with the big boys'?
Aaron Booker
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#4 - 2013-08-19 12:55:40 UTC
You are not going to get rich from solo mining in high-sec. I would recommend you do some PI as well, you can modify your planets while you are out mining, and then go and pick your stuff up every few days. It may also help if you can move the goods yourself (i.e. with freighter) or find someone willing to buy all of those minerals at your location. As freighting services will cut into your profits as well (although only slightly). If you only mine scordite, get scordite processing to 4 so you can use the T2 Mining Crystals in your T2 Strip Miner. Are you using T2 Strip Miners? Because T2 Strip Miners are worse than T1 if you are not using the Mining Crystals (which you haven't trained for yet). Other than that, move up to Exhumer when you can and look into doing PI.
Wen Tzu
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#5 - 2013-08-19 13:05:04 UTC
Aaron Booker wrote:
You are not going to get rich from solo mining in high-sec. I would recommend you do some PI as well, you can modify your planets while you are out mining, and then go and pick your stuff up every few days. It may also help if you can move the goods yourself (i.e. with freighter) or find someone willing to buy all of those minerals at your location. As freighting services will cut into your profits as well (although only slightly). If you only mine scordite, get scordite processing to 4 so you can use the T2 Mining Crystals in your T2 Strip Miner. Are you using T2 Strip Miners? Because T2 Strip Miners are worse than T1 if you are not using the Mining Crystals (which you haven't trained for yet). Other than that, move up to Exhumer when you can and look into doing PI.

Oooh lots of things to look into, thank you.

PI does look interesting. I will certainly see what is involved there. Thanks for the tip on Scordite Processing, no I am only using T1 strip miners, thankfully I did read the various mining guides online or otherwise I'm the kind of person who would have blindly forked out for the T2 thinking they were better Roll. Will also have a look at the Exhumer

Thank you for being up front about the lack of profits with soloing in high-sec, good to know that I was doing pretty much everything I could do to eek out as much profit as possible.
Aaron Booker
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#6 - 2013-08-19 13:12:23 UTC
While the profits are low, you are also not risking much of your assets. If you stick to retrievers you can purchase a new one with only a few hours of mining. If you do PI as well that will net you another 200mil a month with minimal effort. You can continue on this path, training whatever else you want to do in the game until you get more time, with quite the nest egg built up. While solo mining in a Retriever I would not expect more than 10-15 mil per hour profit. But with 6-9 hours a week and with 200 mil per month in PI you can still bring in 400 - 600 mil a month. If you train Ice Harvesting, and find an Ice Belt you can make much more mining it than Ore. The Ice Belts don't last very long however, and there are far less Ice Belts than Ore Belts. Also you can train drone skills and Mining Drones to increase your yield.
Karak Bol
Low-Sec Survival Ltd.
#7 - 2013-08-19 13:48:03 UTC
And after Mining, Refining and PI comes probably using your own minerals to produce stuff to make even more money. Then a Trader to sell it in the most efficient way. If making money in Eve is you goal, the sky is the limit :D
Wen Tzu
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#8 - 2013-08-19 14:26:46 UTC
Aaron Booker wrote:
While the profits are low, you are also not risking much of your assets. If you stick to retrievers you can purchase a new one with only a few hours of mining. If you do PI as well that will net you another 200mil a month with minimal effort. You can continue on this path, training whatever else you want to do in the game until you get more time, with quite the nest egg built up. While solo mining in a Retriever I would not expect more than 10-15 mil per hour profit. But with 6-9 hours a week and with 200 mil per month in PI you can still bring in 400 - 600 mil a month. If you train Ice Harvesting, and find an Ice Belt you can make much more mining it than Ore. The Ice Belts don't last very long however, and there are far less Ice Belts than Ore Belts. Also you can train drone skills and Mining Drones to increase your yield.

I considered Ice but assumed from reading up on it that unless you were prepared to be there when they refresh it wasn't worth the effort as they disapear quickly. As for drones I started out mining with drones but dropped them once I was able to use the strip miners. My drone hold now holds defence drones to protect me from rats, it does mean I can semi-AFK whilst mining. Was that a poor choice?

Karak Bol wrote:
And after Mining, Refining and PI comes probably using your own minerals to produce stuff to make even more money. Then a Trader to sell it in the most efficient way. If making money in Eve is you goal, the sky is the limit :D

Noted, thank you.
Aaron Booker
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#9 - 2013-08-19 14:31:52 UTC
Wen Tzu wrote:


I considered Ice but assumed from reading up on it that unless you were prepared to be there when they refresh it wasn't worth the effort as they disapear quickly. As for drones I started out mining with drones but dropped them once I was able to use the strip miners. My drone hold now holds defence drones to protect me from rats, it does mean I can semi-AFK whilst mining. Was that a poor choice?



You can hold two flights of drones in a Mackinaw (maybe in the retriever as well, not sure I fly hulks), so you can have a full flight of Mining and a full flight of Scout Drones. This will allow you to switch from semi-afk mining to semi-active mining, depending on the situation. Ice is good if you find an Ice belt to mine (right after downtime for example) but otherwise you may be best off sticking to Ore.
Vartan Sarkisian
Tannhauser C-Beam
Lux Collective
#10 - 2013-08-19 14:44:39 UTC  |  Edited by: Vartan Sarkisian
I think you seem to be doing things ok, Your standings are good, you are at a 50% station, the retreivr (as has been said) is better suited for semi afk mining, and I agree with the PI option too, although the tax in high sec for PI is quite high and you can make expensive mistakes when laying out the PI buildings so be careful there and research it and practise on a single planet first.

I would suggest the T2 Strip Miners too coupled with the Crystals for whatever ore you are mining, take note though the crystals do degrade over time but they do increase your yield… maybe also look to mining lasers in the lows they again increase your yield, I tend to use 1 damage control and 1 mining laser (just as a bit of safety).

If you are doing scordite make sure you go for Massive scordite first and condensed second, normal scordite 3rd as they have more yield. Check out this site if you have not already http://ore.cerlestes.de/index.html#site:ore
Remember though increasing your yield means the roid will die quicker, if you are mainly AFK then this may not be ideal, but increased yield is increase amounts which is increased profits so it is the way to go really.

I too use defence drones rather than mining ones. makes sense or you will need to dock up and get a combat ship to clear them.
Wen Tzu
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#11 - 2013-08-19 15:07:11 UTC
Big thank you for all the above advise.

I think I definately now have some form of direction to work towards. I is good to know that currently I've not done too much incorrectly and that the fiscal returns I'm seeing are quite normal.

I will now work on filling in a few gaps in the form of specific Ore Processing/mining skills and also T2 strip miners with crystals. I will also consider a long term project of investigating PI set ups. And finally work towards a hauler ship for moving all this stuff about and then maybe a larger mining vessel.
Krixtal Icefluxor
INLAND EMPIRE Galactic
#12 - 2013-08-19 15:37:46 UTC
Wen Tzu wrote:

I considered Ice but assumed from reading up on it that unless you were prepared to be there when they refresh it wasn't worth the effort as they disapear quickly.


The 5 Bill ISK I made from it (and making Fuel Blocks) this past month highly disagrees. Smile

"He has mounted his hind-legs, and blown crass vapidities through the bowel of his neck."  - Ambrose Bierce on Oscar Wilde's Lecture in San Francisco 1882
Wen Tzu
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#13 - 2013-08-20 10:10:07 UTC
Krixtal Icefluxor wrote:
The 5 Bill ISK I made from it (and making Fuel Blocks) this past month highly disagrees. Smile


Cool, OK I'll add it to my To-Do list.
Styth spiting
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#14 - 2013-08-21 04:27:20 UTC
Wen Tzu wrote:

I am comparing the ammounts of isk I would be getting from selling a hold load of unprocessed Ore to refining it and selling it and there doesn't seem to be that much difference. To do this I have been comparing the best closest buyers price to the price I would get if I nipped off to sell at my local trade hub


When you're talking about 30,000M3 worth of ore then no there is a very minor difference in price after refining. But once you get into fleets, start getting mining boosts, have higher skills, etc. the difference is pretty considerable. It might take you 45 minutes to fill 30,000M3 of ore but players who play multipule accounts, have boosts, T2 crystals, maxed skills can mine far greater volumes of ore, so refining becomes very important (I can mine something like 24,000M3 of ore every 2 minutes roughly for example).
Wen Tzu
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#15 - 2013-08-21 15:22:08 UTC
Styth spiting wrote:
When you're talking about 30,000M3 worth of ore then no there is a very minor difference in price after refining. But once you get into fleets, start getting mining boosts, have higher skills, etc. the difference is pretty considerable. It might take you 45 minutes to fill 30,000M3 of ore but players who play multipule accounts, have boosts, T2 crystals, maxed skills can mine far greater volumes of ore, so refining becomes very important (I can mine something like 24,000M3 of ore every 2 minutes roughly for example).

I see. I kind of thought as much, if I want to make the big money I would have to get involved in bigger operations either through fleet mining or multiple accounts. It makes sense, I'm never going to get to that point from the small amount of time I can give to Eve and also to the sporadic times I can play, but saying that I never expected to be making big bucks. But this does clarify what I was seeing when I did the maths and your advise shows me that I haven't been doing anything (too much) wrong.

Instead I can simply enjoy the journey of improving my solo mining and then using the skills learned to go on to incorporate them into some of the suggested occupations above, PI, manufacturing etc. All still small scale but, for me, simply passing the time doing something enjoyable.
Selaria Unbertable
Bellator in Capsulam
#16 - 2013-08-21 19:24:02 UTC
If you want to increase the amount of ore you mine, you may want to consider joining a mining fleet. One has been announced in this forum not so long ago: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=266627&find=unread
Darryn Lowe
Sebiestor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#17 - 2013-08-21 22:55:11 UTC
I'd like to throw my 2 cents in here. I recommend getting enough to purchase a Mackinaw because it has 35,000m3 orehold. It is really aimed at ice mining but it is the best solo semi-afk miner out there.

I currently only use T1 strip miners only because I can't be bothered changing crystals when I change ore so I'm not getting as good a yield as I could but I can currently fill a Mack in 1/2 hr.

Definitely get your refining skills up. It will take time to do but what I do is have a tool on my iPad called Neocom and set a training plan based on the certificates. It helps keep you focused.

Keep standings up to remove tax rate and you'll be there.

Also save up or even purchase some PLEX with real money in order to get MX-1005 and Michi Excavation plugins because they will help you heaps for mining.

I can't say I make a tonne of money from mining but then I'm mining for minerals in order to manufacture so I'm aiming slightly differently.

You can have a look at my character. He's a bit all over the place in terms of skills because I was finding my way for most of the time but it might help you work out how to aim for skilling:

http://eveboard.com/pilot/Darryn_Lowe
Wen Tzu
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#18 - 2013-08-22 07:44:51 UTC
Darryn Lowe wrote:
I recommend getting enough to purchase a Mackinaw because it has 35,000m3 orehold. It is really aimed at ice mining but it is the best solo semi-afk miner out there.

I've had my eye on a Mackinaw for a while, it will definitely be my next choice of ship.
Rita Torres
Royal Amarr Institute
Amarr Empire
#19 - 2013-08-29 05:59:10 UTC
First of all just doing it with a retriver sux. U have to go back and forth a lot. Invest in alts maybe 2 other accounts. 2 hulks 1 orca. Also get to training bonuses and mindlink with max skills u can rip veld and scordite in 2 cycles. So it will keep u switching targets every few mins..also train individual refineing skills as they r useful for t2 mining crystals. Once your up there in skills ripping a whole belt clean with 3 mining toons and a hauler will only take about 1-2 hours.
Antony E Stark
The Tory Party
#20 - 2013-08-29 15:52:26 UTC
Work on your refining skills and standing to get the best amount possible, is efficiency.
Never sell to buy orders, set up your own sell orders
Invest in marketing skills to accommodate the above
Minerals are usually better than ore
If you can, fly with someone who boosts in an orca
Haul your minerals to a hub (jita, tens, hek, etc) or find somewhere there's a good buy order
Sell in bulk, people just want X amount quickly, not lots of orders to sift through
Sell at a very close price to the going rate, remember to use marketing skills to adjust the price when undercut

The above will make you considerably more profit
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