Intergalactic Summit

Hello friends. I am not here to discuss politics or ideology or any of that. I am here simply to discuss one thing: asteroids. I am doing this half out of a desire to arouse chuckles from my friends, and half out of a desire to merely discuss a trade I've not engaged in for awhile.

I was a miner for about a year, and travelled around much of the cluster to survey resources. I've mined in every patch of space I've been in, if only to collect data or build a shuttle or something. The rocks tell an interesting story, you see. A story of empires, ancestors, workers, toil, and triumph.

First, let us not imagine different areas of space as being so different. As far as physics and nature goes, there is not anything making Republic space different from State space.

I first began mining in high-security Republic space. To be specific, Josekorn. I noted that all throughout Republic space, both high and low security space, only certain minerals are available. Namely tritanium, pyerite, mexallon, and isogen. Not a bit of nocxium, megacyte, or zydrine is to be found. Meanwhile in a system of similar security status in the Empire was plentiful in nocxium by way of pyroxeres, but in turn lacks an isogen source. Why is this?

To put it simply, uneven mineral resource distribution across the cluster occurs because of human activity. One cannot find arkonor, for example, in high-security space simply because it is valuable, and the empires have long since mined the arkonor out of high-sec. Meanwhile, differences in construction techniques mean some empires rely on different mineral types in heavier amounts than others. This explains why one can find isogen from Omber in Republic or Federation hisec, but not in Empire or State hisec.

How does this impact you and I? To put it simply, all ships and modules are built with materials found from asteroids. These days, mining is not a very profitable venture for a capsuleer. It is much more efficient to gather resources by way of scavenging from the wrecks of downed ships and reprocessing the surviving equipment, which is how much of the high-security market for megacyte and zydrine is satisfied. And to a larger extent, the uneven distribution of mineral resources also impacts the common person living planet-side: commodities, vehicles, and even some building are made up of metals made from asteroid ores. Indeed, the very livelihood of the cluster depends on its industrial backbone.

When I was young we had some foreign dissidents on Khanid Prime once protesting about the uneven distribution of wealth. They called themselves "the 99.999%."

I was but a child, but took great pleasure when the riot police descended upon them with truncheons in hand.

Damn I'm falling asleep here. This is like lectures at Pator Tech. Didn't we all do Resources I in university days?

Ugh, nasty little creature--did you take pleasure in pulling the wings off flies, too

Back when I used to be a dedicated miner, Omber had the best ISK-per-cubic meter ratio. It would sometimes drop below ISK/m^3 as compared to scordite, surprisingly. Not sure how the market is now because I gather resources for personal or corporate production rather than selling.

Yes, pyroxeres would be a rather nice ore to have in Republic space. As I said, though, it is clear that all the well-known belts have long since been stripped of the stuff. As Edaine pointed out though, there are undiscovered belts that one may scan down which at times contain rarer materials.

Admission time: I am a terrible businessman, but I enjoy mining and exploring. I usually pick what I mine by what I happen to find and not if I can make much doing it. The name of my mining hulk, by the way, is "Fiscal Malfeasance." That's sort of my business model.

Also, ice and gas products come almost solely from mining, unless of course you can find industrial ships transporting said materials and acquire them by force. So, it is certainly a required activity, and worthy of investing time and energy into.

I do miss mining with you Rek, it can be a good time and it is an inexpensive way to produce ships and ammo.

This is true; I hadn't considered the non-mineral resources such as ice and the like. Those truly can be claimed only by the dedicated miner.

I miss mining with you too.

I had my very first wormhole mining experience today. It was not profitable money-wise but it was very profitable experience-wise and excitement-wise. The wormhole could not handle an exhumer, so I took in an Arbitrator fitted with scanners, miners II's, Warrior II's, Shield extenders, etc. I wanted a stable power setup and reasonable defense. I mined Arkonor, but had to quit as the hole became unstable. I was attacked by sleepers but the Warriors did their job. The little I was able to mine didn't amount to much. I need more skills to do this right. It wasn't the typical ho hum mining run.

Well he was mining ABCM ore, notably Arkonor. But yes, for mining such ores you'll want a dedicated hauling ship because of the sheer amount of space they take up, particularly when you look at the amount needed to get anything useful by refinement.

Edaine, I'm quite surprised the Sleepers didn't destroy your ship. I've heard they're quite powerful. But at least you learned something new.