Have you ever heard of mining missions? You probably didn't even know such things exist. If you'd ask an expert who knows the game in and out, he'd say these are horrible things where you have to warp to the mission area with a combat ship to clear out mission rats, warp in with a mining ship, slowboat 20+ kms with a 100m/s barge, jetscan mine, warp in with a hauler, slowboat with the hauler, do it with 1-2 more runs depending on hauler size. All this annoyment nets about the same LP/ISK than a combat mission without loot and salvage and 3-4x more time. Just forget it.
The expert was right until the mining barge buff. The tank buff made them able to easily handle rats and the ore hold buff removed the hauler from the picture. Now a lvl4 mining mission is: warp in a retriever piloted by a few days old pilot, slowboat once, launch drones, start mining, go AFK, dock, profit.
Yes, dear readers, the mining missions were not changed after the mining barge buff, despite now they are just as easy as AFK ice mining. I mean literally. I've ran more than 80 lvl 4 mining missions in a 0.5 system, AFK-ing for long times and only lost one barge, due to not launching drones.
The average completion time of these missions is almost an hour for a horrible skilled newbie (how I started them). A veteran with Orca boost can go up to 20 mins/mission. The payment is about 2.5M ISK and 5.5K LP, with mining connection and negotiation skills on 4. I could cash it out with implants for 1000 ISK/LP, so the income is around 7.5M/mission. (Note: 1000/LP is a baseline, you can get better ISK/LP, check http://lpstock.ru) It translates to 6-8M/hour for a few days old newbie and up to 20M for a serious veteran. Please note, that unlike FW orbiting it doesn't need any more knowledge about the game than the tutorial gives. If you can mine veldspar in a belt, you can do an L4 mining mission. All you need is Drones 4 and 4 T1 hobgoblins besides basic mining skills.
Mining missions beat belt mining in every aspect. No large volume stuff to transport, you don't have to take gates, you can't run out of asteroids, no competition can show up and gankers must scan you down first in your mission, then they must slowboat to you from the mission entrance (flashy pirates can't do that as faction police will come). So mining missions: AFK and easy as ice, safe as grav site and pays better than any highsec ore.
Tips: unless you are bound to Caldari space (due to standings), go elsewhere. The Guristas use ECM, which mean you have to retarget the asteroid, which is hard while AFK. Fit your retriever with civilian shield booster, full yield in lows, rigs should be resists against the rat damage profile. Of course you should never AFK-mine in an untanked Retriever if your implants worth a lot. The ship is cheap and ganks are practically non-existent in mission deadspaces. While the mission ores have various names, they are flavored normal ores, so you can use T2 miner with crystals. Mission reward depends on system security, mission in 0.5-0.6! 16 missions proc a storyline which gives high faction standings and good loot. The mission cannot be completed with the ore in the ore hold, must move it to the hangar.
The missions have various names and flavor texts but there are actually 6 missions, defined by the ore to mine:
I have to add, the scenery is great, lot of artwork was done on it, much nicer than belts. Not like you'd watch it:
I don't know how much time till CCP rebalances mining missions, but until then, if you are mining anything else in highsec, you are doing it wrong. Expect some nice mineral and especially ice product price increase. I mean it really takes an idiot to AFK mine for 4M/hour when you can AFK mine for 20M/hour in a much safer place. While ice miners aren't really paying attention, I still expect the ice belts to empty and mining missioning stations to run full.
The expert was right until the mining barge buff. The tank buff made them able to easily handle rats and the ore hold buff removed the hauler from the picture. Now a lvl4 mining mission is: warp in a retriever piloted by a few days old pilot, slowboat once, launch drones, start mining, go AFK, dock, profit.
Yes, dear readers, the mining missions were not changed after the mining barge buff, despite now they are just as easy as AFK ice mining. I mean literally. I've ran more than 80 lvl 4 mining missions in a 0.5 system, AFK-ing for long times and only lost one barge, due to not launching drones.
The average completion time of these missions is almost an hour for a horrible skilled newbie (how I started them). A veteran with Orca boost can go up to 20 mins/mission. The payment is about 2.5M ISK and 5.5K LP, with mining connection and negotiation skills on 4. I could cash it out with implants for 1000 ISK/LP, so the income is around 7.5M/mission. (Note: 1000/LP is a baseline, you can get better ISK/LP, check http://lpstock.ru) It translates to 6-8M/hour for a few days old newbie and up to 20M for a serious veteran. Please note, that unlike FW orbiting it doesn't need any more knowledge about the game than the tutorial gives. If you can mine veldspar in a belt, you can do an L4 mining mission. All you need is Drones 4 and 4 T1 hobgoblins besides basic mining skills.
Mining missions beat belt mining in every aspect. No large volume stuff to transport, you don't have to take gates, you can't run out of asteroids, no competition can show up and gankers must scan you down first in your mission, then they must slowboat to you from the mission entrance (flashy pirates can't do that as faction police will come). So mining missions: AFK and easy as ice, safe as grav site and pays better than any highsec ore.
Tips: unless you are bound to Caldari space (due to standings), go elsewhere. The Guristas use ECM, which mean you have to retarget the asteroid, which is hard while AFK. Fit your retriever with civilian shield booster, full yield in lows, rigs should be resists against the rat damage profile. Of course you should never AFK-mine in an untanked Retriever if your implants worth a lot. The ship is cheap and ganks are practically non-existent in mission deadspaces. While the mission ores have various names, they are flavored normal ores, so you can use T2 miner with crystals. Mission reward depends on system security, mission in 0.5-0.6! 16 missions proc a storyline which gives high faction standings and good loot. The mission cannot be completed with the ore in the ore hold, must move it to the hangar.
The missions have various names and flavor texts but there are actually 6 missions, defined by the ore to mine:
- Polygipsum: (Arkonor crystal). This is the nastiest mission, reject it if you can. There are 8 asteroids to mine, so you have to retarget 4 times. 44800m3 ore, you have to dock twice.
- Green Arisite: (Gneiss crystal), 1 asteroid, 50km from the entry point. 44800m3 ore, you have to dock twice. The best method is jetcanning the first half, keep mining, dock when complete. Then refit the Retriever with nanos, 1MN MWD and a tractor beam, so you can get your can with much less slowboating.
- Geodite: (Crokite crystal) 2 asteroids, 30 from entry, each having 22400m3, mine one, dock, mine the other.
- Oeryl: (Dark Ochre crystal), 1 asteroid, 44800m3 15 km from entry point
- Ice: you need ice harvesters and the income/hour is lower than ore. The solo asteroid is 15 km from the entry and only 20000m3, so can be completed without redocking.
- Gas: this is the best ISK/hour without doubt and also needs just one dock. It should be completed in a Venture. Mitigate rat damage by orbiting at 500 and have medium extender, DCII, civilian booster, invulnerability field. The Venture has space only for two drones, but they eat the rats slowly.
I have to add, the scenery is great, lot of artwork was done on it, much nicer than belts. Not like you'd watch it:
I don't know how much time till CCP rebalances mining missions, but until then, if you are mining anything else in highsec, you are doing it wrong. Expect some nice mineral and especially ice product price increase. I mean it really takes an idiot to AFK mine for 4M/hour when you can AFK mine for 20M/hour in a much safer place. While ice miners aren't really paying attention, I still expect the ice belts to empty and mining missioning stations to run full.
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