High sec mining

High Sec Mining

Don't do it.

You might think it's afk, but if you're trying to pay for omega, it is WAY too many hours, and it is not completely afk, and you can lose your ship.

So my methodology: Assume you wait for 400 plex for omega. Maxed skills. max fittings with laser upgrades. Maxed orca boosts. Implant. One Omega (covetor or mackinaw), One Alpha. Only the BEST ore for moon mining, jackpotted moons.

Here are my results to get omega in high sec:

Omega char, mining high sec jackpotted moon only: between 11.4 and 18.7 hours depending on R4 moon.

Alpha char, mining high sec jackpotted moon only: between 74 and 122 hours


Omega char, mining the +15% high sec ore only: between 40 and 68 hours (Stable/Glossy/Oppulent/Sparkling)

Alpha char, mining the +15% high sec ore only: between 262 and 445 hours


Omega char, mining just high sec regular belt ore: between 46 and 78 hours

Alpha char, mining just high sec regular belt ore: between 302 and 512 hours.


BTW, one week of 7 days a week 16 hours a day == 112 hours, or 480 hours per month.

If any of your skills are bad, this is worse.

If you swap out mining laser upgrades, it's worse.

If you don't have the 127 mil implant, it's worse.

If you are forced to mine a lesser ore, it can be 40% worse.

If you don't compressed and sell in a market hub, it can be worse.

If you get a maxed refiner to refine it for you, it's worse.

If you don't wait for plex sale for omega, it's 20% worse

If you don't have compression, it is way worse.

If you refine yourself it is WAAAY worse. Especially as alpha or poor skills.

If you sleep or do anything else, it's worse.


Don't try to pay for omega with high sec mining unless you have omega, and even then, ymmv.


Do this math yourself, using these tools:

https://ore.cerlestes.de/ore  - ore amounts.

https://janice.e-351.com/ - figure out prices for compressed ore.

A note about mining numbers

Mining in general gives radically different numbers based on a lot of variables.  So we can only make suggestions based on what the 'average' is.  On the low end, mining might be 5.8 m^3 per second for a low skill venture, while on the high end you can break 99 m^3 per second.

If you are prone to mistake, the doubling of these times could be triple the times, it's a common problem called Dunning Kruger effect that causes people to be overconfident of their abilities with low information.  And is especially common in certain discord channels with self-important posters there.

Ore income levels

I thought I'd do a chart of mineral income levels per hour.  This is based off this https://ore.cerlestes.de/ore chart of moon minerals.   This is a live response for *compressed* ore, which is usually your best bang of your buck, OTHER than Kernite.  Kernite is better uncompressed.

This is a T2 venture, with max'd alpha account skills, no implant, no boosts.  It can be better, but just gives you a raw answer.   Note, you should not refine this material as a new player, you will lose a LOT of value.  An alpha with perfect skills, without implants, in a GOOD facility is only 68.3% refine rate.

To read: Pick one mineral in each of these lists.  Note that the source material is WAY more useful.  Edit: Note that I'm still using old tool for these prices, which change over time, so do the math yourself with https://janice.e-351.com/!

Belt Ore

All Regions belt ore: http://evepraisal.com/a/175u56?live=yes  Highest 42 mil an hour.

High only: http://evepraisal.com/a/175u6j?live=yes   Highest 2.8 mil an hour.

Low only: http://evepraisal.com/a/175u7z?live=yes  Highest 38 mil an hour.  (raw kernite 19 mil an hour vs 10.6 mil an hour compressed)

Null only: http://evepraisal.com/a/175u8l?live=yes  Highest 38 mil an hour.

Wormhole only: http://evepraisal.com/a/175u8s?live=yes Highest 16.5 mil an hour

Pochven only: http://evepraisal.com/a/175u8u?live=yes Highest 42 mil an hour

A0 Stars only: http://evepraisal.com/a/175u9d?live=yes Highest 37 mil an hour

Can compress in upwell structure with a refinery, or with a porpoise, rorqual, or orca.

Ice Harvesting

N/A for alpha characters.  But for completeness, if they could, this is what incomes would be like:

High sec only: https://janice.e-351.com/a/cRz0jU 4.6 mil an hour for 30 blocks white glaze.

http://evepraisal.com/a/175ua5?live=yes Highest 11 mil an hour for Krystallos, only available in null, Dark Glitter 9.8 mil in low, and clear icicle 3.9 mil in high.

Can compress in upwell with refinery, or requires a rorqual or orca to compress.

Moon Ore

This one is not really that comparable, unfortunately, because the markets don't always exist.  But it gives you an idea.

http://evepraisal.com/a/175ubx?live=yes Highest 33 mil, but for sure the R64 pays WAY better.

http://evepraisal.com/a/175ucc?live=yes Uncompresed is worse and is more like 26-12 mil.

But the results from the table show that Loparite is really good income.

Requires a rorqual or orca to compress.

Gas

See Gas Mining page for guide

Requires a porpoise, a rorqual, or an Orca to compress.

Waste and you

Each harvester / crystal has a residue probability and a residue amount (percentage relative to the mining amount)


Every cycle you have a [probability] chance to consume an extra [amount] from the rock that just goes nowhere / gets deleted


Functionally it means you mine at the stated speed but consume the rock 25% faster / waste that extra 25%

(Waste values are different for crystals etc but the standard waste is 34% / 100% residue)


Yeah so let's take the example of a r64 moon.

You have a certain amount of ore.

Let's say for example you have (unrealistic) 10km^3

If you collect it all, it's worth 100 mil

So if you can mine at 10m^3 a second, it would mine out in 1000 seconds.

By using a t2 crystals you could mine that same moon out at 13.5 m3 a second  so ... 850 seconds?

Less time.

Instead of 10k m^3 ore you only end up with 9k.

And you only get 90 mil out

All those numbers are dude on his phone making wild guesses.

But it shows the point.

You can only do moons once every so often, so it is better to use t1, get the full value, even though isk per hour.

If you have way more ore than you can ever mind, for instance, it makes sense to use t2

But often the good stuff goes quick and there is only so much isogen containing ore so you want it all.

Plus you have to deal with random crystal bullshit so.. just skip it, use t1 and consider it cost of doing business
Talk to the person giving you compression and boosts.

ORE miners are never worth it.  You won't back your money.

Exhumers, yes, you'll make your money back versus barges.


A reminder, people CAN tell you what lasers and crystals you are using.  https://wiki.bravecollective.com/public/dojo/wiki/mining-lasers  If they're telling you not to use wasteful lasers, don't do it!  Thanks to `She Who Endures` and Brave on the eveo discord for this one.

(Thanks to Mac Gunderson for his feedback on this thread!)

Mining ships

Initial mining ships can be a little confusing.   If you are alpha, you are limited to the starting mining ship, called a Venture.  You can do battleships, but it's not advised.  You need omega to fly everything else.  The usual path for these ships are: Venture -> Barge -> Expedition -> Porpoise -> Exhumers -> Orca -> Rorqual  Note that you only need some of these ships if you want to provide 'boosts' to your fleet.  These boosts can improve your ore by at least 33%, or even double your yield, so the break even is 4 accounts if solo mining, not counting compression.

I've also included the differences mining boosts make on these of the venture.  A maxed alpha with boosts can outmine a crappy covetor sometimes.

Venture

The Venture is the easiest to use for new players as well, and can easily bring in quite a bit of money if you're mining valuable materials.   You are given several if you do the Career Agents.  You should use these if you don't have any money at all, and when you Join a Corporation, they often hand these out for free.  They can also do gas harvesting, though the mining book is somewhat expensive for a new player.

Barges

The first major improvement for mining, barges come in 3 flavors:

Exhumers

This is the next step up people usually take after barges, also in 3 flavors:

Expedition Frigates

These are good at spot mining or danger mining.   These are often cooped by PVP groups as well, so be careful around groups as they might think you're trying to kill them.

Industrial Command Ships

These provide mining boosts and compression.  The type you use matters based on what you are mining.

Thank you Sl1imJ1m and Draygon 152 for the idea and the text!

Boosts aka Mining links

Why should you join a corporation?  Because you can get mining links.  This is a HUGE increase, depending on what they're flying and if they have an info link put in.

Unboosted hulk - 33.6 m3/sec at 19.5km


With implant:
sieged porp with t1 strips hulk: 53.4 m^3/sec at 41.1km

sieged orca with t1 strips hulk: 57.8 m^3/sec at 43.7km

sieged rorqual with t1 strips hulk: 78.2 m^3/sec at  51.5km

With implant:

unsieged porp: 51.2 m^3/sec at 39.6km

unsieged orca:  52.5 m^3/sec at 40.5km

unsieged rorqual: 55.5 m^3/sec at 42.2km

And I'll give a few other numbers out here:

This Hulk could make 22 mil an hour in high sec without boosts.  Or with an orca, 37.87 mil an hour.

An unbonused alpha venture without links could make 38.66 mil an hour doing r32, the second best moon in null sec, more than the high sec hulk with max boosts.

That same hulk in null sec could be making 355 mil an hour doing the same r32, or 250 mil an hour doing belt ore, or 247 mil in pochven, or 116 mil in wormholes.

Haulers

I'll mention haulers as well, just because moving this much ore can be challenging.  These t1 haulers are useful for 'jetcan mining'.   Note that compression makes most of these pointless, as they are entirely too easy to destroy in empire and more dangerous space.  All can fit Interdictor Nullification but take upwards of 10 seconds to get into warp.  All of these run the risk of being suicide ganked once you hit 10 mil isk.

Transport ships, Freighters, and Jump Freighters

Most of the game uses these ships to move large volumes of materials safely.

Attempt at a table might delete.  sorry!

Ore

Sec

M^3

One Hour Venture

Value per hour
circa Q2'2023

Arkonor

Null, Anom, WH

16

1,395

8 mil

Bezdnacine

Trig

16

1,395

42 mil 

Bistot

Null, Anom, WH

16

1,395

6 mil 

Crokite

Low/Null Anoms

16

1,395

12 mil 

Dark Ochre

Low/Null Anom

8

2,790

24 mil