New Mining Character Day 9 - Better Mining Yield and Ore Prices

With Astrogeology skill trained to level IV, just two mining cycles is now almost enough to fill the Osprey's cargohold (with cargo expanders). The skill training is slowly progressing, now with less than 5 days remaining till being able to fly the Retriever (considering direct training). Seems now the only options are to chill and mine or to try out some other things in EVE.

I have outlined perhaps a long over-due guide to converting market prices of ore into ISK/m3 cost. It's a simple calculation, but one that many new miners miss out on and end up spending considerable time mining what they think is the most profitable ore. You always have to consider ISK per cubic meter of ore since the mining lasers collect the ore as cubic meters, not ore units.

Going through the Attributes tab of your mining laser, you will see that the Mining Amount listed is in cubic meters. So what does that mean? Using the example of Veldspar, 1 Veldspar ore unit takes up a volume of 0.1 m3. Therefore, 100 m3 of Veldspar = 1,000 units of Veldspar (100 m3 / 0.1 m3 = 1,000 units). Compare that to Pyroxeres, 1 unit of which takes up 0.3 m3 - 100 m3 of Pyroxeres = 333 units of Pyroxeres (100 m3 / 0.3 m3 = 333 units). So the same cargo space will hold different units of ore, depending on the volume that that ore takes up.

This difference in volume is what the market price doesn't reflect. If the ore takes up way too much space, you won't be able to mine and haul enough units to make it profitable when its price is too low. The easiest thing you can do is quickly browse the ore prices and divide them by the volume of that ore. Then you'll see what's your best bet for mining. Please read the post on Selecting the Most Profitable Ore for more information and specific examples.


Now that the Astrogeology skill has been trained to level IV, the Osprey is giving me the mining yield of 414.72 m3 / min. Just two cycles and its cargohold is almost full. Not that it really matters, since I'm still sticking to jetcan-mining, but if I didn't have the option of an Industrial hauler, I would have to invest time into training skills needed for installing rigs.

The skill training queue for today:

- Industry V (will take longer than 3 days)

The Astrogeology skill at level IV is as far as I'd need to take it in order to fly the Retriever. If your long-term plans involve flying a Covetor or the Hulk (the mining end-game), then eventually you'll have to train Astrogeology V.

With the Badger Mark II and Astrogeology IV skills trained, the rest of the skill training on the path to the Retriever is rather simple - just Industry V and Mining Barge III. All in all, that should take less than 5 days.

However, in those 5 days, I'd like to try a few things besides simply stockpiling ISK. I haven't completely thought through where to branch off from mining, but likely I'll dabble in something related to mining - refining, manufacturing, salvaging, etc. That training path will be completely optional. If you're completely set solely on mining, then Industry up to level V and Mining Barge up to level III is where you want to get as fast as possible. The ISK should not be of any issue at this point, just skill training time. 

Day 10 - Optional Skill Training