I Find Myself… Not Minding That I’m Mining…

Me… mining… and liking it… whodathunkit?

Tur,  mining...  will wonders never cease?

It started like this, I recently lost my Sleeper Mael under…         well, let’s just say, really unpleasant and unexpected circumstances, and I sorta came back to Hisec to get away from my troubles and think things over as ‘twere…

So as we have needed new Hisec offices for a while anyway I decided to go ahead and set em up as I had done the research and had decided on a system and station that fits our needs just a few hops from Dodi. We sorta base outta Dodi as it is very central to all the major hubs being closely equidistant… 14 from Rens, 15 from Jita and 16 from Amarr, and Dodixie is a minor hub in its own right. I rented the offices and took my time moving all my stuff from Dodi to the new station over the last few days.

Two very interesting things happened…

(1) As I needed some ISK so I decided to put up with the grind and run a few mishes. My best local agent in our new Empire HQ was an L3. As I dint have a BC or BS in Empire and was sorta left with few choices so I decided to run them in my Navy Issue Vexor. As a Minnie I have always relied on guns and outflyin my eminies… with the Vex I decided to try something new and use droans as my primary weapon and kite the NPCs. The fights were moar exciting as I was slightly moar challenged in a Navy Cruiser rather than waffle stompin everything in sight inna Battleship (which can be kinda fun too but can get old fast…).

This was more fun and I have really enjoyed missioning for the first time in a long time. It isn’t ‘new’ and I know too well just how to handle the NPCs… yer still fighting a limited AI after all, but add in the element of a little risk and it becomes fun again.

(2) I have been skilling up to get into the Prowler and Mastodon… the Indy Transport ships. The Prowler is the Minnie Blockade Runner (a cloaky covert hauler) and the Mastodon is the Minnie Deep Space Transport (strong defensive heavy hauler). I need these of course because the C2 WH we live in has a static Lowsec hole and most of the time we have to come in and out of the hole usually via 1 to 3 lowsec hops but we have seen as bad as 9 lows and we have upon occasion had a hole pop out where we have 1 or 2 lows then a few NULLS then moar lows to hisec…. Yuch.

So I was checking my skills… and found I had also at some point cleared the hurdle for the Procurer ORE mining barge… really? Hmmm, a very Spokian “Interesting” w/ one raised eyebrow feeling came over me.

I have been getting moar involved and interested in the Industry side of things ever since we hired a miner to the corp and built a carrier. Plus we have found ourselves short on POS fuels a few times and that simply should not happen with PI allowing you to make ALL but the ice products ‘in house’ as twere and we aren’t fully realizing the potential the PI and mining the hole offers.

PI Pickup at the Plasma Planet

All of the above lead to me finding myself in hisec with no immediate plans to return to the hole ASAP, and an unusual interest in all things related to mining… so I bought and fitted up a Procurer and went a mining we will go, a mining we will go… Hi, Hi, the derrio a mining we will go… just to see what all the fuss was about.

It was very weird and I now know I’ll never be a full time miner but still… It was not altogether unpleasant. I knew I was making ISK, though not as much nor as fast as I would like, however I was bring productive and while not AFK, I was able to devote moar time to the left screen, bloggin and such, than usual when ingame. Plus the whole “EVE is just a front end for Excel” thing kinda suits me. All the complex numbers one gets into when one delves into Ores and minerals and refining and cycle times et al… it IS all sorta interesting.

I can see mining as something I will skill up for and use in those times when I want to still be productive without having to devote all my attention to the gameplay. When I want to make ISK in Empire, or take advantage of the A, B, Cs in W-space or generate the minerals to make Ammo, droans and ships in the POS.

So far it has been interesting in figuring out where to mine… You can’t anchor Giant Secure cans in any system above 0.7 so I had to pick a .7 system, close to my main station, with at least one station to base out of, a good number of ABs (Asteroid Belts) to work in, then how best to anchor Giant cans (whatta joke… a ‘giant’ can that holds one seventh as much as a Jet Can), how best to ‘work’ a field, what kind of return I can expect with a Procurer, what ores are best to mine and is refining or selling as ores better, etc., etc. …

As for the hauling aspect, after you mine up the ores and fill all yer cans you gotta get it back to a station to refine or sell. I anchor 9 Giant Secure Cans at the belt I am working. That is how many fit in the hold of my Mammoth… and that pushes my total cargo m3 from 27,129.27 without the cans to 35,229.27 with, an additional 6,300m3 of ore per full can run… it’s not a ‘lot’ but every m3 counts in this game I am told. Now I don't unanchor my belt cans, I simply keep 9 in the hold and trans the ore from each belt can to a can in the hold.

So far, and I understand I am in the entry level ORE Mining Barge, I am not ‘displeased’ with my income… no it is nowhere near what I can make running Sleepers, but I have been told over and over again that if you really get into it the ISK you ‘can’ make mining is really up there. While I don’t wanna be a “miner” for a living… I do want to be able to take full advantage of the very lucrative ores available in the -1.0 space that is W-space.

We get Arkonor, Bistot and Crokite… the 3 most valuable ores in EVE and available ONLY in W-space and NULL. Gravimetric, or Grav sites are usually full of all three plus many other ores, but the Big Three are where the ISK is at for W-Space mining… thought ALL of it should be mined and used, either for manufacturing or for sale in Empire. It is an ISK faucet we have never really cracked open, hence my interest in it… if I’m gonna mine, I wanna do it competently.

As for the other side of mining, getting ganked and the mind numbing drone of the mining lazers turnin your brain to mush… I have “yet” to be attacked by other than the usual Rats… and my lone Warrior II can handle them nicely thank you… as for a real Pirate attack… I have had a few Orange fellows fly in and look me over… I can only assume I was not worth the loss of their ships as I am in a Procurer, not a really valuable ship and they warped away without incident...

And I just turn the sound down on the lazers.  =P 

I do one thing I have not seen other miners do, and it makes mining, for me, a far moar ‘active’ thing than it seems to be for all the others I have seen out there mining … I string my cans in a line on the inside curve of the belt… and I start at a can, align to a warpable that has something opposite it and go to just over three quarters speed… when I pass out of range of the can I turn 180, realign to the other warpable, go to speed… then cruise past the can to just out of range and repeat… mining the whole time. I drop the ore in the can when it is in range. This way I am (1) moar involved in mining than just sitting there watching and (b) I am, except for a short period at turnover, ALWAYS aligned and at speed ready to warp out if I feel the need. 

When a can is full I setup the same routine on the next can and rinse and repeat. Until I do get attacked I won’t know if this is a viable tactic or if I am just wasting my time and will end up like everyone else and just sit there waiting for the gankers to come…I have been told, it WILL happen eventually, but it does not happen so often as to make mining a worthless occupation, otherwise why would so many do it? We’ll see…

Hey!   It could happen...

So that’s about it for me… other than a night spent CO bashin so our Ally corp can put up another POCO, I have been mining and mishin in hisec solo… fun fun fun.  =]

Fly Safe and see you in the Sky  =/|)=