New Mining Character Day 16 - The Retriever

The time has come to upgrade the mining cruiser to a dedicated mining barge. All of the skills have been trained and more than enough ISK has been earned. From this point forward, the only major step left is to train for the mining end game: The Hulk. The Retriever will provide a solid base whether you want to advance further in mining or just rely on casual mining for passive ISK grinding.

Mining Osprey Fit

The Osprey (Caldari Cruiser) is considered to be the best mining cruiser out of all of the cruisers available in EVE. The runner up is Minmatar's Scythe, but only because it has 45 m3 less of cargo space. The Osprey gets 20% extra mining yield per each cruiser skill level along with 3 available slots for mining lasers and 3 low slots for possible cargohold expansion.

Abaddon Incursion Fit

The following is an Abaddon fit for capsuleers just starting out fighting Incursions. For those who are upgrading to the Incursions from Level 4 missions, this might seem like an odd fit, but keep in mind that Incusions are fought as a fleet and there will be 2-3 logistics ships in the fleet whose job is to keep you alive. The Incursion fits are equipped with buffer and resistance tank. The resistances (EM, kinetic, thermal and explosive whether for armor or shield) should be at least above 70% or very close to it. The resistances and buffer will keep you alive in case logis are having trouble keeping up with incoming dps.

Bantam - Caldari Mining Frigate

Starting off your mining career in EVE, you can't go wrong with using the Bantam as your starter mining ship. This Caldari frigate is second only to the Tormentor in terms or available cargo space, but it sets you on the way to using the Osprey for mining - the best mining cruiser available in EVE.

Tormentor - Amarr Mining Frigate

The Amarr frigate line-up offers what could be considered the best mining frigate available if you value cargo space. The Tormentor is the only mining frigate that offers 3 low slots. The cargo hold on this ship starts off with 235 m3, but installing 3x Expanded Cargohold I rigs can bump up the cargo space way above 510 m3, depending on your skills, rigs used and how much ISK you're willing to spend on those rigs.

Mining Ships in EVE Online: Frigates

Starting out in EVE, you are pretty much limited to using frigates for some time before you can train up to cruisers and the rest of the ship classes. Nor should you really rush into using more advanced (and considerably more expensive) ships before training up all of the other supplementary support skills, but that's besides the point. When starting out in mining, all of the four races have a frigate that's more suitable for job.

Mining Ships in EVE Online: Mining Barges

Once you have decided to seriously pursue mining career in EVE Online, training for the mining barges is the next step up from using frigates, destroyers, or cruisers for mining. It is quite an undertaking in terms of skill training time, especially if you're aiming for the top of the line mining barge, but it pays off tremendously in the amount of ore you can mine. One of the biggest advantages of using a mining barge is the ability to install strip miners, which can only be fitted either on the mining barges or exhumers. Comparing the Strip Miner I to the ordinary laser Miner I, the cycle time of the strip miner is 2 minutes longer, but it is able to harvest 500 more cubic meters of ore than the mining laser (more depending on your mining skill). Of course, the strip miners don't come cheap (~1.0-1.2 million ISK) and require mining skill level of at least IV.