The Future

There comes a time in every miner’s life in which he has to ask himself, “what now”? I have trained every skill that gives me mining bonuses to the maximum ( finally trained Exhumers V), there is nothing left for me to learn. What do I do now? This, of course, is a highly personal question. What follows is my perspective on it, others will have different ideas of where to go once they reach this level.

It all depends on what you want to do now. Want to try that whole PVP thing you hear so much about? Maybe build a ship or two? How about the exciting world of trading? These (and many others) are all valid choices and if you feel attracted to one of them, good for you. As for me, I’m going into exploration.

Exploration is the ability to locate and use Exploration Sites, hidden locations in systems all around EVE. These locations, can be of many different types, and require many different skills to use to the fullest. You need Hacking, Archeology, Salvaging, Mining, Gas Cloud Harvesting, and a couple of others. The list is a bit overwhelming, but if you focus on just one kind of Site (at first, at least) things get a lot simpler. I’m going to go search for Mining Sites .

So, what does this mean for my training schedule? Well, it means that right now I’m training things that don’t give me a direct benefit now, but will later. I’m training to use a Covert Ops ship. These ships have built-in bonuses to the scanning you must do to find the Exploration Sites. That in itself is reason enough, but, even better, they also have the ability to fit Cloaking Devices, modules that make your ship invisible. And, in all honesty now, how freaking cool is that? .

Mining Sites usually have better ores than the system they are in would lead us to believe. A high-sec hidden belt might have ores from low-sec, for example, thus making it very profitable.

In conclusion, my training right now is kinda boring, but it will be worth it in the future. And, as a nice benefit, Covert Ops ships are primarily used to scout for enemy fleets, so when I can fly one, I will have another asset to give to my corp .

You can find more information about Exploration here

Ninja Mining

Friday evening I was feeling cocky, so I decided to do a little ninja mining. Ninja mining can be defined as mining in a small ship you have no problems with loosing, in a low or null sec system. The main reason for this is that if you loose your ship to PVP or rats, you won’t loose your prized Hulk and be left with a fuming crater where your wallet used to be. A Hulk goes for 90 mil ISK and a Navitas, for example, goes for 50 K ISK. You get the idea.

To ninja mine effectively, you don’t just get a frigate, slap some Mining Lasers I on it and hop to the closest low sec system, no sir. The fact that you don’t mind loosing the ship doesn’t mean you should not care whether you loose it or not. You need to take into account the fact that low sec space is, by design, dangerous. CONCORD won’t help you if someone attacks you, so you have to be prepared to defend yourself. And by “defend yourself” I  mean “stick your tail between your legs and run”.

Before you jump into the system, scout it out. Does it have stations? (I recommend you choose a system that does, it makes transporting your ores much easier). Does it lead to other low sec systems? Has there been combat in the system recently? (Use your map to see if any ships or pods were destroyed in the last 30 minutes). Is there a gate camp on the low sec side of the jump? (Unless you have reliable intel, the only way to make sure is to jump in system, so I recommend a shuttle). After you have all this information, you are still not ready to mine.

Using the shuttle I mentioned earlier, check out all the belts, to see what ores are present. See where the concentration of the ores you are after is greater, and bookmark those locations (you will mine from them, so make sure they are good). Make some safe spots in system, just to make sure. Only after all this groundwork is laid, are you ready to unleash the fury that is a mining frigate.

You’re going to need to fit your ship with Core Stabilizers, these will help you resist Warp Disrupters (nasty things) and give you that edge that you need to warp to safety. Personally, I recommend warping to a safe spot if you’re attacked or fear that a pirate is in system. Warping to a station will also keep you safe, but it will lock you inside, since the pirate is probably waiting outside for you. A safe spot, on the other hand, gives you options (warp to station, warp to another safe spot, warp to gate and get out of dodge). Remember to always mine already aligned to your safe spots or station and as soon as someone looks at you menacingly, warp out. Don’t wait for someone to actually lock onto you or shoot. Trust no one in low sec an you will probably get some pretty good ores for your trouble

Mining Tips

I’ve upgraded this post to a full blown page of its own, you can find it here

Why mine?

It occurred to me, that, despite all the posts I’ve made (ok, ok, they’re not that many, you can stop laughing now) I’ve never given you the reasons why I mine, just how I do it. So, why do I mine?

The simplest answer, because I like to, is the truth, but, as far as truths go, this is one is very unsatisfactory. Some will say that I mine because I’m a carebear. This, to a certain extent is also true, but is also incomplete.

When I log on to mine, I have a cold drink in my hand, I’m listening to my favorite tunes, I have my feet up, I’m laughing away with my corp mates in Vent about something stupid one of us did, I’m relaxed, I’m enjoying myself. How many games feel like a chore instead of a game? Mining in EVE never feels like something I have to do, and that right there is one of the main reasons why I do it, not because I have to, but because I want to.

With EVE I can log on, mine for an hour or so (I’ve had 10 hour mining stretches, true, but I usually have much less time to play than that ), and still feel that I accomplished something in game, even if I only played for an hour.

This is why I play games, to relax. My only other experience with an MMO has been with World of Warcraft. I enjoyed it while it lasted, I have to say that, but the long hours I spent just waiting for another player to show up so I could run an instance were more aggravating than relaxing. I was paying to get frustrated and that’s not what I wanted.

I’m back!

There has been an argument going on in my head for a few months now, on weather I should bring this blog back from the dead or not. There are many reasons to do it, almost as many reasons not to, but in the end I decided to roll up my sleaves, get the lizard eyeballs from the shelf and set about to bringing this puppy back to the land of the living.

Please understand that the barrier between the land of the living and the land of the dead is a difficult one to cross, so this blog may appear comatose for a few weeks, while I try and breath some life into it once more.

Having said that, let’s get started!

I fly a Hulk now, and what a sight it is, this great ship eating away at asteroids like it’s going out of style. My skills are really helping, and I’m only a week away from getting Exhumers V. Once that happens, my major mining skills will be maxed. Only drones and implants will be able to increase my solo yield! Aside from that, not much as been going on, I’ve joined a new corp and am on probation, so I’ll have to behave myself.

Spent today’s gaming time helping a new corp member and all around new guy getting his feet wet with mining. Ganged up to give him (and me) some bonuses and refined his ores for him. Then I helped him with a contract to sell the minerals to the corp. So all in all, a good day. Let’s see how tomorrow goes!

Mission runner… or not

So there I was, mining away, happy as can be, when suddenly it hit me: I was bored. Bored I tell you, bored from mining, from the same rats, over and over. Mine, put the ore in a can, fill can, get Iteron V, haul, rinse and repeat. I was bored.

So I decided to change things a bit. I have a Vexor stashed away in a system with 3 agents I can work with, so I decided to do some mission running. Only lvl 1 missions so far, and the Vexor is more than up to it, so there really isn’t any challenge (even less when I think of my brand new drone skills), but it’s a change of pace, and that’s what I was after.

One of the missions involved getting some blankets to another station (lots of people don’t have blankets in EVE, it seems). Autopilot showed me it would take 13 jumps or so, and I thought that was really long for a simple courier mission. In the map, I realised the autopilot was (wisely) avoiding a 0.4 system that, if crossed, would shorten the whole thing to a simple 4 jump trip. I decided to risk it.

I checked, no ships or pods destroyed lately and no pilots active in system. Excellent. I jumped, all clear, no gate camps, no anything. I crossed the system, dreading what I might find on the other side (4 pilots in system, thanks a bunch, map!). Thankfully, the gate was empty. I jumped out and delivered the blankets, mission accomplished. Coming back the same way I came in, I decided to see if my setup would handle some 0.4 rats so I warped to an asteroid belt and proceeded to kick some rat butt (I think I was lucky, though, the rats were the same kind I had back in secure space).

Looking around me, the miner instinct cropped up again. Kernite! I had only seen it once, in passing trough another low-sec system, months ago. I couldn’t resist. Thankfully, I had a Miner II equipped (some missions send you to deadspace pockets that have some nice asteroids, so I was prepared) and started to mine happily away. Yes, I remembered to align to a gate before I started mining (no stations in system) and I kept my eye in local. No one new showed up, and the rats didn’t respawn, so I was set. The greatest irony was that I only mined 395 units of Kernite, when the minimum to refine is 400. Irony, I tell you!

Through it all, my heart was pumping and I felt sweat in the palm of my hands. Never before, in a game, had I felt this way, never. I played some PVP in WoW (yes, yes, I know. I’m ashamed of it as well), but I knew that if I died, all I had to do was pay some coin and boom, everything was as it was. Not so in EVE, and that’s one more thing I love about it. Anyway, while I was there mining I could feel the danger of it, and that was something that I was not accustomed to. I loved it, and I want more of it. I decided to start ninja mining, but I still haven’t decided in a setup for the Vexor. Cargo Expanders seem a must, but aside from that I really don’t have a clue. Any pointers you guys could give me?

This whole post just goes to show that once you start mining for real, you can’t stop. It will always be there, nagging at your soul: “Oh, look, some nice Omber, why don’t you go get it?” or “You can never have to much Veldspar!”. Once a miner, always a miner.

Finally, some bonuses!

This has been a really slow week, EVE-wise. Real Life (TM, Copyright and all that legal stuff) has kept me pretty busy, but yesterday I finally managed to sneak in some mining time. Luck would have it, some of my corp mates were in the same system, so we ganged up and I had a chance to check out the bonuses that Mining Foreman V gives me.

So, let’s recap: without this bonus, I was clocking in 3396 units of Plagioclase per cycle. Now, with Foreman V, I mine 3736 units, and increase of 340 units or, speaking in metric terms, another 119 m3. Not to bad, I like to think.

On top of that, and thanks to yesterday’s op, I finally understood the difference between Boss and Commander roles in a gang/fleet. Yes, call me stupid, but until yesterday those two terms were the same in my head. As far as I understood it, the Boss is the person in charge of inviting people into the gang, converting it into a fleet, and selecting people for different roles inside the gang, roles such as Commander. The job of the Commander is to allow the fleet to be organized in Squads, Wings and so forth (is there a higher level here?). It is also the Commander who gives his squad the bonuses from his Leadership skills (I know there is a different role, Booster, but this one I haven’t figured out yet). Did I get this right? Please correct me if I’m wrong.

In Drone related news, the training continues, I think I’m in pretty good shape as it is, but I’ll give it another week of training so I can really kick some posterior with my little Drones of Doom (Copyright pending).

A good day to mine

Today was, without a doubt, a good day to mine.

After many long days, I finally got my Mining Foreman Skill to level 5. What does this mean? That from now on, whenever I’m in a gang, I get a bonus of 10% per cycle on my mining lasers! Is this, or is this not, an excellent thing? Asteroids everywhere, beware! The only bad thing that happened today was that I had no one around with whom to gang up, so I didn’t have a chance to test my new abilities, but I’m sure it won’t take long before that happens. For the record, with all my other skills, I’m now mining 3396 units of Plagioclase per cycle. Let’s see how much I get when I’m in a gang…

In other skill related news, I decided to train up some drone skills, in anticipation of my purchase of a Myrmidon in the near (or not so near) future. It will be the first ship I’ve flown that’s completely dedicated to combat, so let’s see how that goes.

Have you seen this? 1337 skills, I think. A big thank you to Godlesswanderer for posting this.

Lessons learned

Today being Omber respawn day (alongside Monday) I decided that I wanted some. I set out in my Covetor, the “Uncle Scrooge” and headed to one of the belts in Hjoramold, where the corp has a mining interest. The belt was full of Omber, so I started to mine it for all my MSMs II were worth (note for aspiring miners out there: don’t leave your mining crystals back at the station, it’s very embarrassing). So far so good, so what does genius boy do? He Alt-Tabs to read today’s installment of The Ancient Gaming Noob. I enjoyed reading it so much I decided to read some of the Archives. And then some more. Until I remembered that my 3 minutes (MSMs take 3 minutes to mine their full capacity of ore) were already up a long time ago. Pressing fanatically on my mouse, I managed to jump back into the game just in time to see this

I called back my mining drones (one had already gone down) and let loose my Warrior Is hoping that I was not to late, that my drones could blast the rats before they did the same to me. Thankfully, they did, but not before my hull was below 50%, my Covetor in flames. Repair bill of over 1M ISK and a pair of pants in need of a wash. Lesson learned today: DO NOT AFK MINE. Simple as that.

It wasn’t all bad, though. The next spawn of rats included a very nice Degenerate Loader that dropped 7500 Isogen

First light

When talking about a telescope, first light refers to the first time a telescope is used to actually see stars. This blog will also allow you to see stars. Simulated ones, sure, but pretty. This will be a blog about EVE Online, one of the best space games out there. I’m setting this up to share some of my experiences with what, in my opinion, is one of the best parts of the game – Mining

First off, an introduction. I’m Fholcan, a member of Hadean Drive Yards, an industrial corp. We are ship builders, anything for anyone. You bring the ISK, we bring the ship, simple

I’m still a new member to the corp and EVE in general, so I don’t know everything there is to know about Mining in EVE (and I hope that I never do). Come along as we journey to the exciting world of beating a simulated rock with a simulated stick in order to get some simulated minerals.