A short guide about Mining within Eve Online. What ships to fly to mine, what ore to mine, how to mine, all of these questions are answered and more!
Eve Online: Mining guide
At the beginning of every production line within Eve Online lies the humble miner gathering raw materials from the depths of space, from the simple shuttle to the greatest titan, all of these ships require raw materials to be made. So as much as the hardcore PvP’er may dislike it, the carebear miner is still in great need.
What mining entails is simple, flying out to an asteroid belt, and using mining lasers/drones to harvest the ore in the asteroids. The types of ore found are as follows, ranging from most common to least common:
Veldspar
Scordite
Pyroxeres
Plagioclase
Omber
Mercoxit
Kernite
Jaspet
Hemorphite
Hedbergite
Gneiss
Dark Ochre
Crokite
Spodumain
Bistot
Arkanor
The greater the rarity of the ore, the lower the sec status it will be in. For example Arkanor and Bistot can only be found in 0.0 sec space, while Veldspar can be found pretty much anywhere! The most common progression for a new player who plans to follow the mining “career” ship-wise is shown below:
Mining Frigate (i.e Bantam)
Mining Cruiser (i.e Osprey)
Mining Barge – Procurer
Mining Barge – Retriever
Mining Barge – Covetor
Exhumer - Hulk
Of course this progression is not set in stone, as many pilots like to use battleships to mine in for the reduced training time and greater tanking abilities, the Caldari Battleship Rokh being a prime example of this. Many people also skip the Procurer to go straight for the Retriever, and/or skip the Covetor to go straight for the Hulk.
Mining within Eve Online is quite simply done, fit a mining laser, target an asteroid, then wait for your cargohold to full up. Due to this simplicity it is a cause of controversy within Eve Online as there is a growing usage of “Macro Miners” using programs to mine for them, which is against the EULA and is a bannable offense.
In my opinion, Mining within Eve Online is best done while multi-tasking and if your only half paying attention to the game, such as watching a film or doing work. Otherwise, there are far more profitable (and fun!) things to do with your time. But in the end of the day everybody is different and I am sure some people love spending all night mining ore in safe high sec, and the best of luck to them!
