Science & Industry

Sure I can buy minerals from Jita/Amarr and courier contract them to the factory. That seems so inefficient though, as the minerals move from the mine to the hub to the factory.

I can buy Tritanium at 4.6 (below Jita) at my factory station. However I placed an order for Pyerite at 11.5 at my factory station and it still hasn't finished fulfilling.

If I want to acquire minerals, is there some way I can do so on a somewhat consistent basis other than couriering from Jita/Amarr?

Any tips on getting in contact with local miners?

How huge quantity of ore are we talking, and how often?
How many jumps from jita are you place and what system?
: )
Thinks like that can affect the couriers, either you do as told earlier, strike a deal with local miners that refine their own material, ask in local in your system and the system next door.

Or you get a deal with a courier that can work for you, strike a deal in the reward per delivery and a decent collateral, having 700m collateral on a 30m valued cargo with reward of 1m will make many many couriers not even look at it.
They take a risk of losing 700m for the win of 1m, and that wont attract many customers.

Are your goods worth 30m? set collateral on 50-100m, you get more money if they blow up, but you lose time sadly, so it should be some benefits, and it increase the chance of someone actually wanting the contracts.
And set this all up with a courier so you always have the same guy doing it, he might take those trips everyday anyway and are not a person doing 1-2 couriers every 8 weeks.

I get my minerals from Dodixie. Minerals there are super cheap. I buy at Dodixie, manufacture a few jumps away, sell at Jita.

It really depends what you are building and in what quantities. The mining corps that I have tried to establish relationships with (both in local systems and on the forums) cannot normally supply the quantities I need on schedule each and every week. This is particularly true of high ends as most high sec mining corps don't have access to them. Instead buying in a market hub and hauling to a nearby build location is the only feasible option for me.

Still I have found individual miners and corps happy to sell locally at a good price for small or one off orders.

People are lazy ... so if you wanna more minerals bought, you might think about extending the buy order range. so the seller don't have to fly to your station to sell it ... but it requires that you have freighter or something to pick it up.

I can easily buy 500 mil trit every week at good price (way below jita buy price) in my location .... sure it is annoying to pick it up because it is spread over 50 stations (I have range on 5 systems around my "home system") ... but I can collect it while in work, so not a big hassle.

Anyway usually most of the minerals are stocked on few good stations, rest ofthe stations are just crap with 100-500k units, I usually ignore those and pick them up when the ammount of minerals is more than 2 mils.

Actually, it's much more efficient overall, and your post demonstrates why: volume, central location, convenience. Striking a deal with the local miners will only work if they produce the volume you need. On any particular day, they might be on vacation, or doing something else that keeps them out of EVE. They might prefer the better sell prices in Jita. Etc. All you have to do is go to Jita, buy, transport, and build. No keeping up with all sorts of people and negotiating, etc etc.

Thanks, looks like a really useful mailing list to join.