I used the Agent Finder to take a look at what mining mission agents are available in the area and selected one that was on my way to another region where I wanted to research the prices for the ore. Only Level I mission agents are available to me at this time because I haven't done any missions yet. It usually takes a while to grind your standings with the corporations. Using the Agent Finder, I set the destination to the autopilot and was on my way.
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| Using the Agent Finder |
Accepting the first mission, right away I could see that it won't be very profitable. I had to mine 1080 m3 worth of ore (3 hauls using a bantam) for the reward of only 65000ISK (including bonus reward). Ordinarily, I would be able to earn 63k ISK with just one haul using a Bantam. Of course that income is highly dependent on the ore prices in the region.
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| Mining Mission Overview |
Sticking with the mission, I warped to the deadspace region and started chipping away the ore that they wanted me to mine. One thing to note is that the ore that mining agents ask you to mine is completely useless anywhere outside of the mission. So you better make sure that you don't lose any yield due to wasted cycles (cargohold full but mining lasers still active). There were a few rats present in this mission, but they were just as tough as you would find in the asteroid belts in that system.
Overall, it seems to me that mining missions aren't worth doing unless you want to grind up the standings with the corporation. It would be a very long process though. Doing combat missions will let you get higher standings much faster. If you're still interested in doing mining missions, EVE-survival has a good overview of the mining missions that are available.
Since I was in the area, I decided to try my hand at courier missions as well. Level I courier missions don't tend to have large cargo-space requirements. You can do most of them with just your mining Bantam fit. Courier missions pay even less than mining missions, but it's something different to do if you'd like a break from mining. You wouldn't need to train any additional skills and usually level I courier missions don't ask you to travel distances longer than 3 - 5 jumps.
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| Courier Mission Overview |
I also purchased the Osprey hull in an anticipation of being able to fly it within the next day. The ISK balance after mining in the new system and purchasing the Osprey was just a little over 5 million ISK. That's enough to get another Osprey if I somehow lose this one. The skill training queue for the day was:
- Caldari Frigate IV (still training)
- Drones II
- Drones III
- Astrogeology I
- Astrogeology II
- Astrogeology III
I couldn't train Caldari Cruiser I yet, because the Caldari Frigate IV skill hasn't completed. So I filled up the queue with other skills that I will train eventually anyways. It's always a good idea to have the queue filled all the way, just in case you won't be able to log in for a while. Tomorrow, I will be able to fly the Osprey and likely will have to train a bunch of new skills.