EVE Incursion: Changes to Planetary Interaction

The new EVE expansion, termed "Incursion", is set to be released in November of this year. Aside from improvements to the player's character avatars, changes are coming to the Planetary Interaction aspect of the game.


Quoting CCP Omen:

• Upgradable Command Centers will allow players to increase and decrease the CPU/Power capabilities of their colony without having to tear it all down (existing undeployed command centers will be migrated to the new system).

• Only the first Command Center must be bought and hauled in space, after that there is no longer a need to haul command centers in order to upgrade

• Surveying has been radically revamped and will allow players to create extraction programs that span anything from an hour to 14 days!

• Extractors can now be moved when in program creation mode

Read the full devblog here


In my opinion, the ability to upgrade the command centers without having to tear down several million ISK worth of other structures is the most important improvement to planetary interaction. It makes it much easier to attempt planetary interaction while you are still in the process of learning skills or if you want to scale up your resource extraction due to market demand/etc.

Allowing the extractors to be moved around is an interesting feature that should allow sacrificing some CPU/Power for gains in harvesting yields once the resources inevitably run dry in the immediate area. This once again should save the player from having to dear down the colony in order to relocate elsewhere on the planet.

Only having to haul the first command center is big benefit for those who extract their resources on planets in 0.0 or WH space (or even low-sec for that matter). This should serve as an incentive for more competition. Competition inevitably drives the prices down, but such is the nature of the market.

The 14-day extraction program also sounds like a great idea for passive income. Just click and forget about it, letting the commodity accumulate. But just like in the case of the current 96-hour program, it is likely to come with severe reduction in yield per cycle coupled to the total yield..

Overall, these are much needed improvements to the current mechanics of Planetary Interaction that should streamline installation and maintenance of your colony.

Mining Kernite: the most profitable high-sec ore

Of all the common ores, kernite is the most lucrative one to mine. It is partly due to the level 4 storyline mission "Materials for War" which requires 8000 units of kernite. As a result, it is generally more profitable to sell the normal kernite ore (not its fiery or luminous variants) directly on the market, but it depends on the regional prices of the ore and its corresponding minerals. Regardless of whether you sell the ore directly or refine it into minerals, it is still the most profitable ore that is found in high-sec systems.

The trick of course is finding kernite asteroids, as they tend to be quickly depleted. The only high-sec places to find kernite are the systems under the sovereignty of the Amarr Empire. Just about any 0.7 or lower system in Amarr space will have kernite.

Unlike other common ore asteroids, kernite asteroids will only contain on average 5000 units of ore, rarely exceeding the 10000 units per asteroid. So it is a good idea to find a system with no stations. Those systems generally have bigger asteroids and less competition from other miners. Of course, in this case your traveling time to offload the ore will increase, especially due to the fact that kernite is very bulky, taking up 1.2 cubic meters per unit in your cargohold.

It is possible to find kernite in Caldari and Minmatar space if you don't want to travel to the Amarr space, but then you have to run the risk of mining in systems with 0.4 security rating and lower. Unless you have a Hulk and low-sec doesn't bother you, I would recommend mining in the safety of high-sec. In my opinion the profit margin of kernite is not enough to support the costs associated with mining in low-sec. There are other more profitable ores (for example, hedgergite) in there.

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.

A handy tool for mining: Survey Scanner

Recently I have found about a very useful tool for mining - Survey Scanner. It fits in the medium power slot of the ship and once activated it shows what kind of ore and how much of it is available in the 15km radius. This way you can see if it`s worth mining a particular asteroid.

The survey scanner is very cheap and requires Electronics skill only at level 1. If you spend majority of your time mining, there's no reason not to have this equipment installed to help you pick the right asteroids.

Survey Scanner displays how much ore is available in each nearby asteroid