Eve ISK Guide – Mining Intro
There are several things you need to know about mining, and at EVE ISK Guide we are going to go through them for you. First its the mining skills, second is knowledge about the ore and lastly knowledge about the mining lasers.
Eve ISK Guide – The Mining Skills
- Mining (industry skill category) is a rank 1 skill, which means its the easiest skill you can train if you have the correct attributes. For mining intelligence is secondary and memory is primary. Each level in mining gives you 5% extra mining yield from each mining laser you use.
- Astrogeology (science skill category) is a rank 3 skill, which means it takes three times as long to train than the mining rank 1 skill. Its primary attributes are intelligence and memory. Similar to the mining skill it gives you a 5% extra yield per mining laser you have equipped. Additionally you need the science skill (science skill category rank 1) and mining skill at level 4 to be able to train the Astrogeology skill.
- Deep core mining (industry skill category rank 6 requires mining level 5 and Astrogeology level 5). This skill is required to operate the deep core mining lasers that are used to mine the ore Mercoxit which refines for the mineral Morphite used in production of technology level two items. Deep core mining is not being used much at the moment because sufficient quantities of Morphite to satisfy present demand for Morphite can be met through normal refining of Arkonor, Spodumain and dark ochre.
Eve ISK Guide – Ore
- As a rule of thumb, ores are alphabetically ordered meaning Arkonor may deliver the most expensive minerals and Veldspar are the least valuable. Exceptions from that is Spodumain and Mercoxit. Spodumain is classed below the Crokite and above the Dark Ochre. Mercoxit is a bit or an unknown, at least until demand for Morphite goes up.
- Each ore has a different volume. Veldspar has a volume of 0.1 while Arkonor has a volume of 16. The volume affects the mining yield of the lasers and the amount you can carry in your cargo hold.
Eve ISK Guide – The Yield
Why do I get 420 Veldspar per mining cycle but only 140 Pyroxeres?
A normal Mining laser 1 has 40 units yield per mining cycle (1 minute). Skills affect the yield so:
- Level 1 mining skill gives 5%: 40 * 1.05 = 42.
- Level 4 mining skill gives 20%: 40 * 1.2 = 48.
Adding Astrogeology into the formula you get with mining level 4 and Astrogeology level 3:
The outcome of these formulas is the total amount of cubic meters you can mine. So if your yield is 48 units per minute you mine 48 m3 to your cargo hold. As you read in “the ore” you noticed that Veldspar takes up 0.1 units in volume. This refers to the amount of cargo space Veldspar takes. If you mine 48 m3 per minute and each unit of Veldspar takes 0.1 m3 your net yield of Veldspar is 480 per minute. If you are using two mining lasers you get twice as much.
Now the simple rule is to divide the total yield of your mining laser to the volume the ore takes. Arkonor with a yield of 50 is 50/16 = 3.125. And since you can not mine 0.125 units you gain a net amount of 3 Arkonor per minute. You have to yield 64m3 per minute to get 4 units of Arkonor per cycle.
Also with the advent on Mining upgrades and Rigs it is possible to fit your ship to increase the yield of your lasers.
Eve ISK Guide – How To Increase Refining Efficiency
- Train up skills like ‘Refining -2% waste’ and ‘Refining Efficiency -4% waste’. You can also train up efficiency in every mineral such as ‘Veldspar Processing -5% waste’
- Good standing with the stations owning corporation also increases your refining efficiency, you can raise this by running agent missions for this specific corporation.
- Station equipment also affects refining efficiency to see refining equipment just click your recycle window and it will say on the left side of the screen highest station equipment is 50%
- Each ore needs a certain amount to be refined for example Veldspar needs 333 of Veldspar to be refined at any one time
Eve ISK Guide – Where To Find Ore
Ores are distributed across the Eve universe by region and security rating. In fact, on the server, 0.0 space is actually 0.0 to -1.0. This information is ‘hidden’, so as to make it harder to find the rare ores which only spawn in the very low security systems, there are exceptions to this though. Asteroids contain the Ore, and asteroids can be found in Asteroid belts in most systems, if you visit an asteroid belt and there are no rocks there then the belt may well have been mined away. EVE re spawns asteroid belts in bulk so the following day it may well be replenished.
Veldspar and Scordite are overly abundant in virtually every region, even though these ores may be mined out in specific systems. Plagioclase and Omber exist in Gallente, Caldari and Minmatar space, while Amarr space is mostly devoid of these ores. Amarr space holds Kernite and Pyroxeres. Jaspet, Hemorphite and Hedbergite are very rare in systems above 0.4. The other ores are only common in 0.0 and ‘below’, meaning deeper out in 0.0 space.
For more information on Ore Yields and where to find them check out this post on Eve ISK Guide.
If you want more detail on mining in Eve Online, check out the Eve ISK Guide. This guide will help you get ISK fast not just by mining, but by other ways aswell. Check it out here.
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