The Fortune Digger
Ultimate Guide to Mining in EVE Online

Space is full of riches, uncountable amounts of raw resources are floating through the void, just waiting to be gathered. With a little bit of preparation and minor initial investment, everyone can make a small fortune by becoming a workhorse of the mining Industry. So it is time to arm ourselves with Mining Lasers and tear those asteroids apart.

In Eve, the term "Mining" is commonly used to describe three distinct resource-gathering activities:

  1. Ore Mining - Extracting ore from asteroids. The entry-level gathering activity in Eve, it doesn't require much in a way of skills (but appropriate skills will greatly increase your efficiency) and every player can do it right from the get-go. Ore can be sold or refined in order to get Minerals. Mining Skill can be learned by Alpha Clones (max level of this skill for Alpha Clones is capped at IV); It doesn't have any prerequisites and costs 20k ISK at an NPC Vendor.
  2. Ice Harvesting - Gathering resources from so-called Ice Belts. Refined Ice is used to fuel Jump Drives of capital ships, and for manufacturing fuel for Starbases among other things. This activity requires specialized drones or modules and is generally less profitable than Ore Mining (because of a long Ice Belts respawn timer). Ice Harvesting skill can be learned by Alpha Clones (max level of this skill for Alpha Clones is capped at II); it requires Mining IV and costs 375 thousand ISK at an NPC Vendor.
  3. Gas Cloud Harvesting - Vacuuming gas from interstellar clouds. Gas is used for Drug manufacturing (Combat Boosters), and Tech III production. Collecting it requires a gas cloud harvester module. The harvesting process is pretty similar to mining ore from an asteroid. Gas Cloud Harvesting Skill can be learned by Alpha Clones (max level of this skill for Alpha Clones is capped at II); it requires Mining IV and costs 24 million ISK at an NPC Vendor.

In this guide, we will take a closer look at wide understood Mining in the Eve Online. Most of the information will be directed to the new players, but old hands will find something for themselves as well. We will cover mining-related skills, modules, ships, ship fitting, and mining strategies which will increase your gathering efficiency.


Lowly Venture class Frigate mining ore in an Asteroid Field


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The importance of skills cannot be underestimated. The basic set of skills will enable you to start your Mining endeavors, while more advanced set will greatly increase your gathering efficiency, which will have a large impact on your income. We also cannot forget about skills which will allow you to pilot specific mining and industrial Spaceships (on Skill level 1), and increase bonuses that they provide (on all skill levels); both Ships and Skills corresponding with them will be covered in further sections of this guide).

Skill Name Description
Mining Enables you to use Mining Lasers; it provides a 5% bonus to ore yield per level, costs 20 thousand ISK, and can be learned by Alpha Clones (up to level IV)
Ice Harvesting Enables you to harvest Ice; it provides a 5% cycle time reduction per level, costs 375 thousand ISK, requires Mining IV, and can be learned by Alpha Clones (up to level II)
Gas Harvesting Enables you to harvest Gas; each level lets you use one more Gas Cloud Harvester, it costs 24 million ISK, requires Mining IV, and can be learned by Alpha Clones (up to level II)
Deep Core Mining Enables you to mine Mercoxit (found in Wormholes and Nullsec); each skill level lowers the chance that a Damage cloud will form while mining Mercoxit by 20%, it costs 500 thousand ISK, requires Mining V and Astrogeology V, and cannot be learned by Alpha Clones
Astrogeology Enables you to analyze contents of celestial objects, increasing your ore mining yield by 5% per skill level; it costs 450 thousand ISK, requires Mining IV and Science IV, and cannot be learned by Alpha Clones
Mining Upgrades Enables you to use Mining Upgrades; each skill level reduces the CPU penalty of Mining Upgrade modules by 5%, it costs 80 thousand ISK, requires Mining III, and can be learned by Alpha Clones (up to level IV)
Drones Rigging Enables you to fit your ship with Mining Drone Augmentor Rigs; each level reduces drawbacks of Drone Rigs by 10%, it costs 100 thousand ISK, requires Jury Rigging III, and can be learned by Alpha Clones (up to level III)
Drones Enables you to control Drones; each level increases the maximum number of active drones by 1, it costs 20 thousand ISK, has no prerequisites, and can be trained by Alpha Clones (up to level 5)
Mining Drone Operation Improves your ability to control Mining Drones; each level provides a 5% bonus to Mining Drone yield, it costs 40 thousand ISK, requires Mining II and Drones I, and cannot be learned by Alpha Clones
Drone Interfacing Improves your Drone maintenance skills; each level increases Drone's Damage and Mining yield by 10%, it costs 500 thousand ISK, requires Drones V, and can be learned by Alpha Clones (up to level IV)
Capital Industrial Ships Enables you to operate Capital Industrial Ships; this skill is required to pilot Rorqual class vessels, it costs 500 million ISK, requires Capital Ships II, Advanced Spaceship Command V, Industrial Command Ships III, and Industrial Reconfiguration I, and cannot be learned by Alpha Clones
Industrial Command Ships Enables you to operate Industrial Command Ships; this skill is required to pilot Orca and Porpoise class vessels, it costs 50 million ISK, requires Spaceship Command V, Mining Director I, and Ore Industrial III, and cannot be learned by Alpha Clones
Mining Barge Enables you to operate Ore Mining Barges; this skill is required to pilot Covetor, Procured and Retriever class vessels, it costs 500 thousand ISK, requires Mining Frigate III, Industry V, and Astrogeology III, and cannot be learned by Alpha Clones
Exhumers Enables you to operate Elite Mining Barges; this skill is required to pilot Skiff, Hulk, and Mackinaw class vessels, it costs 28 million ISK, requires Spaceship Command IV, Industry V, and Astrogeology V, and cannot be learned by Alpha Pilots
Mining Frigate Enables you to operate Ore Mining Frigates; this skill is required to pilot Venture class vessels, it costs 40 thousand ISK, requires Spaceship Command I, and can be learned by Alpha Clones (up to level IV)
Expedition Frigates Enables you to operate Expedition Frigates; this skill allows you to pilot Endurance and Prospect class vessels, it costs 4 million ISK, requires Spaceship Command III, Industry V, and Electronic Upgrades V, and cannot be learned by Alpha Pilots

Fitting your ship with appropriate Modules will greatly increase your Mining efficiency, which will have a lot of impact on your income per hour. Before you install any modules, however, you should decide which mining activities you want to perform (Ore mining, Gas Cloud Harvesting or Ice Harvesting), as you have limited number of module slots. You can use the following module list to determine the best ship setup for the mining activity of your choice:

Some Ore Mining Modules (those with a "Modulated" keyword in their name) can be fitted with special Mining Crystals. Those Crystals increase the efficiency of mining specific Ores, corresponding with a Crystal type, and therefore increase the mining yield of those Ores, but have no impact on yield of other types of Ore. Modulated Mining Modules used without Mining Crystals will provide less yield per minute than their regular counterparts. Using Mining Crystals requires a corresponding ore processing skill at level III for tech I Crystals and IV for Tech 2 Crystals.

For the maximum Mining Efficiency, multiple kinds of Mining Crystals should be carried and swapped when a specific type of Ore is encountered.

They enable you to scan nearby asteroids in order to determine which of them contain the most resources. This module will increase your mining efficiency, by allowing you to chose asteroids that contain the most Ore. Following types of Survey Scanners are available for fitting: Survey Scanner I, ML-3 Scoped Survey Scanner, Survey Scanner II

Please remember that Survey Scanners have to be activated manually, and they do not have auto-refresh feature, which means that you will have to use them manually each time you need the information that they provide

These will mine the asteroid that you have targetted. They have a 60-second cycle; when the cycle is complete, Drones will deposit mined Ore in your Ship's cargo bay, and redeploy to continue Mining. Following types of Ore Mining Drones are available for fitting: Civilian Mining Drone, Mining Drone I, Mining Drone II, "Augmented" Mining Drone, Harvester Mining Drone, "Excavator" Mining Drone

Ore yield provided by Mining Drones is rather small, which makes them usable only as a minor addition to your main Mining Modules

Now, that you have the information about all important mining-related skills and modules, it is time to take a closer look at ship types most commonly used for Mining related operations.

The best Mining ships are produced by the Outer Ring Excavations (ORE) Corporation. They are adapted for salvaging and mining missions and lack offensive capabilities, but their shields are very powerful, and they commonly utilize drones for self-defense. Choosing the right ship for the job might be a difficult task, so we have prepared a list of all available ORE Mining-related ship types which will let you chose the one that is best suited for your particular needs.


1. Mining Frigates

Ships of this type:


2. Expedition Frigates

Ships of this type:


3. Mining Barges

Ships of this type:


4. Exhumers

Ships of this type:


5. Industrial Command Ships

Ships of this type:

  1. 5% bonus to ship cargo and ore hold capacity (per Industrial Command Ships skill level)
  2. 3% bonus to Mining Foreman Burst effect duration and strength (per Industrial Command Ships skill level)
  3. 1% bonus to Shield Command Burst effect duration and strength (per Industrial Command Ships skill level)
  4. 10% bonus to Drones ore mining yield, hitpoints and Damage (per Industrial Command Ships skill level)
  5. 10% reduction in Drone ice harvesting cycle time (per Industrial Command Ships skill level)
  6. 100% bonus to Drone Ore mining yield (role bonus)
  7. 25% reduction in Drone ice harvesting cycle time (role bonus)
  8. 100% bonus to Drone Damage (role bonus)
  9. 400% bonus to Remote Shield Booster optimal range (role bonus)
  10. 90% reduction of effective distance traveled for jump fatigue (role bonus)
  11. Can Mount up to three Command Burst Modules (role bonus)
  12. 250% bonus to range of the Tractor Beam (role bonus)
  13. 100% bonus to the velocity of the Tractor Beam (role bonus)
  14. 500% bonus to range of the Survey Scanner (role bonus)


6. Capital Industrial Ships

Ships of this type:

Now, that you have familiarized yourself with all Mining and Industrial ships available, it is time to take a closer look at the entry-level Mining Ship - the Venture and its basic setup.

The basic Venture setup and Mining strategy

If you are interested in this chapter, you probably have just finished the Career Tutorial and got your hands on a brand new Venture type Mining Frigate. In this section of our guide, we will feature the very basic Venture's module setup, that will allow you to begin your Ore gathering endeavor, and defend yourself from NPC pirates. We do not recommend using this setup in areas other than Hisec, for obvious reasons.

Some efficiency-improving tips for players new to Mining will also be featured in this section.

Limited Adaptive Invulnerability Field I - The basic level shield booster, which increases shield resistance bonus against all damage types by 25%; it requires Tactical Shield Manipulation I

Medium Shield Extender I - boosts the shield's strength by 750HP; it requires Shield Upgrades I

ML-3 Scoped Survey Scanner - allows you to scan the composition of Gas Clouds, Ice, and Asteroids, it has 20km Scanning Range and requires CPU Management I

Elara Restrained Mining Laser Upgrade - increases the yield of your Mining Lasers but at a cost of them using up more CPU; it provides 8% Mining yield bonus at a cost of 8% CPU penalty and requires Mining Upgrades I

Small Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer I - Increases your ship's thermal resistance, but also boosts your Signature Radius; it provides 30% bonus to Thermal Damage Resistance and requires Shield Rigging I

Now, that your Venture is fully optimized for Mining and Survivability, it is time to find an Asteroid Belt (those can be found via the overview menu), warp to it, scan it with your Survey Scanner, and proceed to mine asteroids with the most resources available in them.

The next question is - what to do with gathered Ore? There are two basic options; you can either sell or refine it. Refined resources are more expensive, but refining process requires a fee (unless you have the following skills: Refining V, Refinery Efficiency V, and a corresponding Ore Conversion Skill), and a tax (taxes can be avoided by increasing your relations with Station's Owner to high enough level). You should calculate your projected income from refining resources and compare it with the amount of ISK that you would gain from just selling those resources; you should then chose the more profitable option.

END NOTE

We hope that you have found this Guide useful and informative. If we have missed a piece of information that is important to you, please let us know!

Please do note that this is an early version of our guide, and we will be happy to receive constructive criticism, that will help us improve it, so leave your suggestions in the comments section below.


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