Science & Industry

Dear friends,
I'm currently into mining as my general direction (I'm new player less then a year) is to multi tasking (mining while my pi works and other stuff running etc...).

At any rate I would like to discuss with you about mining, ganking and mining ships.
As I still learn my ropes around (hell only last night I managed to use tabs on overview) I sometime gets different opinions which are not always same as facts I get on the field.

I'm currently mining in 0.5 system where I got plenty of rocks in large size and station where I can 100% refine them into minerals (After checking ore vs mineral price change first of course to make sure I earn more money). Many players on my noob corp recommended that I'll use the Skiff \ Procurer for solo mining instead of the retriever \ mackinaw but for some reason I got my doubts.

at any rate I'm focusing on ore mining from rocks on belts and mostly use a retriever, I play window mode and on 60% of the screen I can watch a movie, surf the web, do what ever while I fully in control over the game\ship\overview so I'm having good time.

I started mining in high security (1-0.9) and found it pretty dull then a gradually went lower until I got to 0.5 where I can find decent rocks and plenty of the more expensive ores there.

As a miner (which now training mining barrage V for exhumers) I got few thoughts which I need to clear...

Ganking, I really like this mind challenge where as a miner I am in constant alert and need to outsmart my attacker in order to survive. It's really exciting when I am being attacked and my action in split seconds can decide if I live until concord arrives or not.

in order to survive ganking I always aligned toward warping point, my drones never in space (I deploy them only when there are rats), I constantly checking overview if anything but mining ship will get into the belt I'll warp out and if it's a mining ship I'll watch it and check out pilot and corp to see if I suspect them as scouts (one lame scout used venture WITHOUT mining lasers - fail). Also when I kill rats I abandon all nerby wrecks vs suspect\drones accidents I'll only loot true sansha rats.

Over the few months I'm dabbling in mining I was targeted by gankers very few times,
1. I was targeted by a scout in a venture, lame scout didn't used mining lasers so I warped out when on last moment a coercer (wtf? coercer for ganking?) warped in took one shot at me while I was already in war and got concorded.
2. another attempt was when I didn't used to bring in my drones after the rats were dead, so a catalyst warped in I left my drones to die and started to warp out... my drones attacked the catalyst which meanwhile a second one! warped in and concord arrived I warped out and got killmail for one catalyst lol.
3. last night I was mining doing my duty as hunter of rocks then a thrasher warped in and to my bad bad bad luck he warped 5km from my lol, so I started to warp out and before I could warp he warp disrupted me so I couldn't warped out... then a second thrasher warped in and while the first one started to bump my retriever out of alignment I managed to restart warping process by spam clicking warp button... I managed to warp out with 50% armor on my retriever... lucky lucky me.

before I used to mine I did security missions running... started armor\amarr finished in shields\caldari so at any rate I got pretty good armor and shield skills + got pretty good navigation skills. on my retriever I use all lows for MLUII and I use rig slots for shield boosting (EM\THERM\EXTENDER rigs) and in those number of attempts to gank me I managed to warp out and survive in a retriever.

so now heading to exhumers my original thought was going mackinaw using the extra mid slot for tanking (+tank rigs) and using 3 MLUII on lows and ofc 2 T2 strip miners and T2 crystals.
using as well a flight of mining drones (+flight of scout drones for protection switching on need) for little extra boost.

after last night ganking attempt I went for procurer which I had on storage, using my current skills I managed to get 33k EHP on my procurer which is pretty awesome. but when we speak yield\storage and usability I don't like the procurer much.
compared to the retriever I get on the 1 Strip miner t2 i got 3509m3 ore per 180s while on retriever i get 1942m3 per strip for 180s so in total retriever yield is 3884m3 per 180s. another issue is the fact that with retriever I can just point each strip to a different rock and if the rock is at it's end the second strip still keep working while on the procurer I need to quickly activate the strip on different target asap or I waste time doing nothing.
Last part is ore bay, with the retriever having 26,400m3 ore bay on mining barrage IV skill I can sit on a belt for around 20-30 minutes without orca boost until it's filled and much less then that if I get orca boost. on the procurer I get 12,000 m3 ore bay which means that on 4th cycle if I got big rock which isn't depleted I'll need to manually turn off the strip miner in order not to waste time\ore and I'll need to empty out every 12-15 minutes roughly which isn't ideal for my play style.

BUT, after surviving my latest gank attack I did some research...
Mackinaw gets 4% shield resists per level like caldari ship does and in order to fly exhumers you need to train that specific skill for the bonus to 5 so I get instantly 20% resists for shields on the mackinaw upon purchase, combine with my decent tanking skills I trained on my missioning days and 4 med slots \ 3 rig slots dedicated for tanking I think that mackinaw can be decently tanked for 0.5 and be able to survive most gank attacks unless the gankers is very good\large ship\pack of wolves etc...

on the other hand the skiff gets some epic resists, costs less then the mack by over 30-40 mil isk for hull alone and got 15k m3 ore bay ----- filled the post continue in 2nd post :P

The Mack is the king of solo mining and tanks quite well as you said from the 20% bonus to shield resists. Just buffer tank it with your rigs/mids and you'll be immune to almost all ganks, even small packs. It is well worth the training investment and much better high sec miner than the skiff. Just a couple loads of ore and you have already paid for the difference in price from the skiff.

OP is approaching The Mountain of Madness ! And quickly.

It's just mining.

It's just a game.

Have fun, do what you want, and stop worrying.

If there is too much ganking going on....move elsewhere.

Ultimately, every ship in this game is destroyable....get used to it.

Interesting points made here.

so overall mack will be good for higher security systems like 0.8-1.0 while skiff of 0.7-0.5 to be on the safe spot that I'll be able to survive until concord arrives.

Just go max yield skiff with buffer tank then log into Netflix and reactivate mining lasers as needed and dump ore in a station as needed. There is no need for any sort of advanced tactics with hi sec mining. Those who mine in no ehp or low ehp ships will pop. Those who mine in massive ehp ships will not pop.

I just did the fitting of a skiff, you can be cap stable with 1 of each shield hardener II and an invulnerability field II with 2 processing overclocking rigs and 2 MLU II. This will give a massive 70.6k effective EHP on 200 sig

Absolutely a lie.

Every ship in this game can be destroyed.

Dear OP,

Please let me know what system you are mining in, I'd love to pay you a visit. :-)

You have simply been lucky in that you have run into gankers who were too innept/stupid to gank you.

Best advice is to not be like these guys:
http://eve-kill.net/?a=pilot_detail&plt_id=1667438&view=kills&m=11&y=2013

A Procurer or Skiff won't get ganked if you fit it at all reasonably. A Mack can be fit so that it takes 4+ very good meta fit gankers to kill and still have very good mining production.

I think that mining in a constant state of alert is very difficult. Fit your mining ship to withstand any reasonable gank attempt and you will simply collect killmails from your drones as gankers splash themselves against your tank.

If they illegally attack you, they get a 15 minute Criminal flag.
If you shoot back, you will get a 5 minute Limited Engagement with them that allows them to shoot you legally.

However, they still have the criminal flag, and when you have a criminal flag, concord will spawn and destroy your ship if you are in a highsec system. This means you can attack a criminal (note: not Suspect), and concord will soon arrive to back you up.

If you attack a suspect, they can then attack you... and while another capsuleer can come and shoot them too... concord won't be helping you.

Even more to the point... while you have a short limited engagement timer it is much shorter than their criminal timer. While you have the criminal flag, you can't warp if in a ship, and Concord will kill you if you are in a ship. This means that during that 15 minute period, they can't come and shoot you.