Science & Industry

One of the main advantages of refining is the minerals take up a lot less space then ore, making it much easier to move. It's a bit late now but refining effceinty 5 isn't nessicary, you can just rain each of the ore skills to 2 which takes a lot less time and gives you the same net result. I didn't read this whole thread, so it may have already been mentioned, but getting some trade skills up so you pay less in taxes isn't a bad idea.

You're missing some big things that I don't see in this thread after a quick scan. You need Mining Upgrades to 4 and fit 3 MLU2. Especially if you are in a Mackinaw, you can use the meds for tank. Even in a Retriever, if you are in a non-busy system the chances of being ganked are fairly low. This will give you about +19% yield. You might need high Electronics skill too.

Also you need to train the Ore-specific skills, use Modulated Strip Miner 2s, and use ore-specific mining crystals. Using Tech 2 crystals with Modulated Strippers will give you about +20% yield or so. The Tech 2 crystals will break after a while but are well worth it. I'm surprised I haven't seen this in the thread though I may have missed it.

Also you should look into building things with your minerals. Ammo is pretty good, maybe Large (BS) size ammo.

Wrong, I made 4.5 bill in one month using two accounts to do mining missions. I even had to start at level ones and grind my way up to lvl 4's.

I have to admit this wasn't an area I had considered. How does this work? Obviously to get my standing up for refining I did a heap load of mining missions but I recall the stuff I was mining for the mission wasn't sell-able. Or have I got the wrong idea?

So is the profit from Mining missions simply from the isk reward for doing the mission and it's bonus?

I have found most often as a rule of thumb that their is a 10% markup, (if your relevant skills are maxed) to go along each stage
of the game. From ore to refined minerals for example should get you an additional 10% markup.

Some people for example just buy ore and refine it and sell the minerals. Who would do that for free? There is your markup.

Next level is to take the minerals and produce stuff to sell. Here you run into additional costs of buying blueprints and refining them. But again if you max out the skills you should see at least a 10% markup from the price of the minerals required to build the item to the finished product.

Now of course you run into a shiping problem getting ore to a refinery gettting minerals to a industry center and getting finished product to a sales location. Again more skills to max out trading skills freighting skills remote market skills.

This path just keeps going then on to T2 production. More skills to max out. Also exploration becomes part of T2 production.
More skills to max out.

All the way along this path you can opt to buy stuff that you can not do yourself because of lack of time,skills etc but buying always adds to your cost basis and makes it more difficult to compete in the end market with your product. PVP in the market place.

ISK and LP, like any other mission.
They're less reward than L4 security (lower LP, similar ISK, no bounties, no loot), but they are a lot easier.

this is great in theory ... but all those "MIMAF" people kinda gut the T1 market ... not to mention all the ships needing extra materials these days (and competing with pre-patch built stuff).

Well there is also the LP that can be traded for high value items to sell. It used to be you could get about 1000 isk per loyalty point, that is getting harder and harder to do though.

Mining missions are not the best isk per hour. However I found them very useful for increasing standings. If you are a serious miner, and have a personal fleet (3-4 accounts or more) lvl 4 mining missions can be done very quickly. I used this to get 2 of my characters up above 5.0 caldari faction standings. I may have just been lucky, but I got almost all storyline security missions when completing lvl 4 mining missions. Considering all 4 of my main characters are lvl 4 security mission capable this was a bonus for me.

Then again, lvl 4 mining missions do offer rewards comparable to lvl 4 security missions, minus the bounties, but can be done in 5-10 minutes with the right set up. So it actually can be good income. However, if you have a fleet capable of completing lvl 4 mining missions in 5-10 minutes, you can make over 100M per hour with that same fleet mining ore in high sec. That will only give you about 25-30M/hr per account, however running 4 mining accounts is easier than running 2 accounts for security missions.

Mining is not the best isk/hr you can make, far from it. But it is pretty much the safest, and easiest isk income activity. It can be done semi afk, while multitasking other things, with almost zero reduction in efficiency. I run my mining fleet at times when I can not give the game the level of attention needed for other activities. So it is not a matter of another activity being more isk/hr, I am mining when I would other wise not even be logged in. That makes it very much a worthwhile activity.

For example, While I am at work, my primary focus is on my work. I can have my mining fleet running on a second monitor, with only occasional attention, i.e. semi AFK. But if I was to run lvl 4 security missions, and I had to minimize the screen when someone comes into my office, I could very likely come back to my pod sitting in space. With mining there is very little risk. If I can make 100M/hr with 4 accounts running, at a time when I do not have the attention to dedicate to higher isk/hr activities, what could possibly make that a bad decision. In 5 years of playing EVE I have only lost 2 mining ships to gankers. And survived another 4 gank attempts. That is only 6 attempted ganks in 5 years. Mining is great income, for the effort required. But yes, when I am at home, and can actually dedicate my attention to the game, there are far higher isk/hr activities for me to do. But mining will always have its place, and I doubt I will ever completely stop doing it.

That being said, I still very much hate the change of gravametic signatures over to ORE anomalies. I used to take advantage of gravametric sites when they popped up in my area, but now, considering I live between low and NPC null, I can not mine those sites any more. There is always 2-3 unknowns or hostiles in the systems I frequent, some times 10 or more. Before the changes, D-scan would tell me if any of them were hunting me, see probes on D-scan, bug out before they show up. But now they can insta warp to the site I am in with no warning. That makes mining these sites suicide. This means very little to miners that mine deep inside blue space, where you rarely see a hostile, or even a neutral in system. in these systems when a neutral or hostile shows up in local the miners bug out. This is not an option in hostil space, there is always a few neutrals or hostiles in local. Outside of protected sov mining just does not work anymore. Mining in hostile space is broken.

I have spend months trying to find a way to work around or adapt to this change. But there is no way. If I had access to a defense fleet to protect my mining fleet, I would also have access to blue space to mine in, I would not be mining in hostile space. I get that before Odyssey there were very few miners that would attempt to mine in hostile space, but now it is no longer an option. Mining in hostile space is broken.

I am not talking about making mining in hostile space "safe", it never was "safe". But the changes in Odyssey have pushed mining in hostile space from a high risk but manageable activity, into total suicide. there is no adapting to this change. Joining a null sec alliance to gain access to blue space to mine in, is not adapting, That is giving up mining in hostile space, and moving to blue sov space, not much different than going back to high sec. Which I have no interest in. Sure it is higher income, but a significant portion of that income goes to your corp or alliance. This means unless you are a very active player, you will make more as a miner living in high sec. I have looked at this from every possible angle I can think of. Even the most remote areas of NPC null have frequent scouts passing through. Since they no longer need to take the time to scan you down, the risk has become unmanageable. Mining in hostile space is broken.

Oh I wish the retriever could hold 2 sets of drones. Drone Capacity is 25 m3 for the retriever. That is 5 light drones.
You can run with 2 t2 light drones and 3 mining drones though if you drone skills are high enough.