EVE New Citizens Q&A

Hi all,

I've only been playing for less than a month and I'm currently developing my mining skills. I have a Procurer, 5 Mining I drones and 5 Worrior I light scout drones for defence, and a strip minining I laser.

I've benn messing around in 0.5+ space for a while, making about 1.8 million ISK per run buy just filling up my hold with the more common ores and selling them local. My mining drone and Light drone skills are both at level 4 and I'm working on getting them to level 5 so I can invest in Miner II drones and Class II light drones.

Given this setup, how capable would I be of defending myslelf in lower sec space? I'd like to start looking for the rarer ores so I can start making more profit. Should I wait until my light drone skill allows me to get some class II Wasps or Hobgoblins before venturing into lower sec space?

I've also started shopping around for a corp to join. Might it just be more profitable to join a mining corp rather than venture into low sec systems?

So, I just need to sit tight, join a corp and build up enough ISK to get a more robust ship with better defences.

Yeah, I actually like scanning/exploring as well but I haven't put nearly as much time onto skils and equipment for it. I actually tend to make more money at it as well.

Not to be negative but mining is arguably the least Isk making career in eve maybe better then professional pirate but it can be close if you are a decent pirate (mining is better if you lose a lot as a pirate). Not that it is bad to mine just very dull and not great profits.

I actually like scanning for relics/data sites more, and I usually make more ISK doing it but mining seems like the safest, baseline means of getting ISK so I wanted to get my mining ability up so that I could support myself if need be. I suppose I should just be content in 0.5+ space and start really developing skills for scanning and exlporing.

Yeah, if you want to mine in lowsec you're going to want to spam that dscan button the second someone pops up in local. If I (or basically anyone) see a mining barge in lowsec, I'm going in as fast as possible to catch you. Hell, I got myself Concorded trying to "tackle" a couple barges in a 0.5 system; I was sleepy and thought I was still in low sec and got all excited at the thought of being able to hold a mining barge hostage and ransom them . So excited I didn't pay attention to where I was.

Basically, if you do mine in low sec, be careful. Very, careful.

In fact, wherever you mine, be careful. Very, careful.

Thanks guys (and girls), I'll join a mining corp and use mining as a stable base income, then get back into my scanning ship and go exploring.

Mining and exploration is what I do during my carebearing binges and it works for me. Although I must say that if there weren't a few lucky drops from 4/10 DEDs (those are combat sites you have to scan, not regular anomalies you can just warp to) mining would beat a living sh!t out of my exploration ISK-wise :) Filling up orca (120k m3 of ore space because I tank like a mofo) within 30-40 minutes gives quite nice AND STEADY ISK/hr regardless of what you mine (of course you mine what's best for your wallet first). Of course L4s or lowsec hunting for clone rats will net you more and nobody says you cannot mix all those things together for fun and variety.

As said above, don't get stuck in just one activity, try different things, find what you like and what you don't, specialize in things you like and want to do on daily basis. You don't have to be perfect miner or scanner or hauler or frigate pilot to start doing any of those things, basic skills are ok for testing waters and finding out whether you like doing it or not.

Perfect skills will come with time but in-game skills are inferior to your PLAYER skills and experience. You can always buy perfect orca and exhumer pilot characters on bazaar but you cannot buy your personal experience and knowledge about ins and outs of the game. There are pilots killing shiny battleships in puny frigs and dessies simply because experience trumps ISK almost always. Experience and friends - there's no counter to space friendship in Eve :)

Enjoy your Eve adventure :)

I casually mine when there's nothing else I'm willing to do. That being said, I'm not sure about how much more profitable it would be to mine in low sec if you look at the risk/reward ratio. As others mentioned, you're more likely to be attacked and as far as I know the ores there are not much more profitable then mining in high sec, since they have larger volumes (m³) per unit their value/m³ isn't much better then mining in HS

If you're looking for profitability and fun I'd recommend looking into ice mining and gas mining. Ice can be found in anomalies and you'd have to look around for them, although I "camp" a system where they spawn regularly so I imagine that you can settle down once you find something similar. Gas is kind of common in low sec and wormholes and requires you to scan the signatures, since you're into exploration you should have some fun. There's also the Prospect expedition frigate that you can look into, it is a covert-ops T2 Venture that can warp cloaked and have a bigger ore bay (10000m³)

Stop mining.