Having completed the Industrial Career Agent missions, this day was all about simple and pure mining. To increase the income, I moved away from the Career Agents' system but it was still a 0.7 sec system, meaning the belt rats were still a bother to handle at times. Additionally, the expanded cargohold modules were upgraded in order to increase the cargo space.
I didn't travel too far, still remaining in the Karnola constellation of Lonetrek region in Caldari space. The system Kamokor (0.7 sec) proved to be a less popular system with an average of 20 players in system, but only 5 asteroid belts. Thankfully, there wasn't much competition in terms of mining - plenty of all kinds of high-sec asteroids and just a few people mining in the belts.
Aside from being a less popular system, I picked Kamokor because someone in Kakakela system was buying Solid Pyroxeres ore at a good price with the range of the buy order extending 5 jumps. That means that I could sell the ore at any station in the current system (or any system 5 jumps away from the buyer's system) to that buyer. He would just have to physically fly to the station in order to pick up the ore that he bought. In a way, that means that the buyer is doing the legwork for you, but usually that also entails lower prices.
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| Selling the Solid Pyroxeres Ore to a Buyer from Kakakela (5 jumps away) |
Of course, I could have flown directly to the system that offers a better price. In my case, that would mean traveling to a rather popular 0.9 sec system (Tunttaras), where the competition for asteroids would be fierce and there's a chance that those asteroids already have been mined out. Also, the price difference was not significant (only 0.05ISK more elsewhere). So quite a good deal that I tried to capitalize on.
After finally completing the basic Bantam fit I suggested earlier by installing the Survey Scanner I and Small Shield Extender I, I realized that it's time to upgrade the Expanded Cargohold I modules. I purchased two of the Mark I Modified SS Expanded Cargo modules which provide a cargo capacity bonus of 20% (compared to 17% for Expanded Cargohold I), increasing my ship's cargo capacity to 389.16 cubic meters (from 373.1 m3 with 2x Expanded Cargohold I). That might not seem like a big increase, but that was around 5k ISK per each haul in extra income.
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| Fitting Stats for Bantam with Current Skills |
I felt no need to upgrade the Miner I lasers because currently it takes two and a half mining cycles to fill up the cargohold. That means a lot of times half a cycle is wasted if I don't stop the mining in time. So even if I upgrade the mining lasers, increasing their yield, I will still have to start the third cycle, some portion of which would be wasted. It doesn't seem to be productive to be spending ISK on better mining equipment at this time.
After training all of those shield support skills, I found that my ship can now better tank the incoming damage from 0.7 belt rats. The DPS from the single drone still left much to be desired. A couple of times I had to warp away from the belt because the rats have chewed through my shields, but the drone was unable to destroy them. The DPS issue will have to remedied by training extra drone support skills, but that will be possible only after I train Drones level III. In the meantime, I decided to upgrade some of the shield skills further. Better tank will give the drone more time to destroy the rats.
The skill training queue for today was:
- Science IV (needed for Astrogeology skill, which will provide better mining yield)
- Caldari Frigate IV
- Shield Operation II
- Shield Management II
Caldari Frigate IV skill will take this character over 2 days to train. In the meantime, it's a good idea to build up ISK or perhaps travel around in search of better markets. At this point, this character can already afford the Osprey hull and the Caldari Cruiser skill needed to fly it. But one very important rule of EVE is:
DON'T FLY WHAT YOU CAN'T AFFORD TO LOSE.
Remember that rule, it applies to Miners and Industrialists as well. You never know when someone will try to destroy you (suicide gankers), grief you (can flippers) or you simply lose your ship due to a mistake or carelessness. By that merit, I will always try to have some reserve ISK or a working ship I can fall back on in case I lose my main one.
By the end of the Day 3, I was able to amass 3.9 million ISK without much expenses or in-game time. Now flying the Osprey is only a matter of time for skill training as the finances have already been secured.
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| Bantam Mining Solid Pyroxeres |