A Brief Guide: Abyssal Mining Module Shopping

[Miss_Stardust]

Howdy all:

Here is a brief guide on Abyssal-rolled mining modules, so that my fellow industrial pilots can avoid making expensive mistakes when shopping for these modules. The Catalyst expansion introduced mutaplasmids for mining gear and mining drones on November 18th, 2025. Without further ado, let’s dive into it:

GAS CLOUD SCOOPS and HARVESTERS

• All gas clouds have a base volume of 10m3. Therefore, any Abyssal Gas Scoop with a MINING AMOUNT of LESS than 10m3 or 20m3 should not be considered for purchase. Any gas cloud harvester with a MINING AMOUNT of LESS than 100m3 should not be considered for purchase.

• Any harvester with green ranges in multiples of 10m3 or better (110, 120, 130) are excellent. It is possible to get up to 130m3 with a perfect roll. Rolls above 120m3 are easier to obtain and will be quite premium.

  *CAVEAT: It is possible to create a Gas Cloud Scoop with an Unstable Gas Cloud Scoop Mutaplasmid with a Mining Amount of greater than 25.0m3. With a VENTURE or PROSPECT 100% role bonus, this scoop would yield 50m3. Any scoop with 25m3 mining amount and a duration bonus should be automatically considered a premium scoop for a Prospect or Venture fit.

Abyssal Gas Cloud Scoop with 25.05m3, yielding 50 m3 of gas every 30.67 seconds on a Venture or Prospect with Mining Frigate V and 100% role bonus

Gas Cloud Module Stats, ranked by importance:
1 - Activation Time/Duration
2 - Mining Amount
3 - CPU
4 - Residue Amount (if used for Level 4 missions, this can be ignored)
5 - Optimal Range

ICE HARVESTERS and LASERS

All icebergs have a base mining volume of 1000 m3. Any ice mining laser or harvester with a rolled mining amount of less than 1000 m3 should not be considered for purchase. It is not possible to reach an additional block through abyssal rolling or crits, leaving duration as the most important stat to consider.

Ice Harvester and Laser Module Stats, ranked by importance:
1 - Activation Time/Duration
2 - CPU
3 - Residue Amount (if used for Level 4 missions, this can be ignored)
4 - Crit success bonus yield, ideally over 200%

*The above list will vary based on your personal preferences

MINING LASERS and STRIP MINERS

Picking a good mining laser or strip miner should be a fairly easy exercise. I personally would prioritize a good mix of lower cycle time and then yield, followed by fitting considerations for my chosen platform. Deep green CPU rolls are especially useful!

Mining Laser and Strip Miner Module Stats, ranked by importance:

1 - Activation Time/ Duration - “winning the cycle battle”
2 - Mining Amount
3 - CPU ( CPU, CPU, CPU). Especially important when using MLUs.
4 - Optimal Range
5 - Residue Chance (can be ignored for any mission mining)

A really solid ORE Mining Laser roll

Thanks for reading! I look forward to your comments and your screenshots of your rolled Abyssal Mining Modules!

#flysafe

/Miss Stardust

[Gerard_Amatin]

Nice insight in abyssal mining modules!

There are a few things I’d like to add.

Default yield

I see you consider mining modules with less than default yield not worth using.

I think they can still hold value. Lower yield per cycle can be compensated by faster cycles and by better crit stats. It is possible for a mining module with ‘lower than default’ yield value to have better yield when you also consider cycle time and crits.

It therefore is hard to tell whether an abyssal mining module should be ignored by looking at the mining amount alone.

Cycle time

Cycle time adds up to 11% more yield over time if you get the max roll of -10% duration. While this is good and can compensate for lower yield per cycle, I wouldn’t say it is more important than yield itself, which can add up to 30% more yield for a max Unstable roll.

Crit chance and bonus yield

Can add up to 10% extra yield for max Unstable rolls on both, if you’re using a crit setup in a Consortium ship and Rorqual boosts. You get less out of crits if you’re mining under Porpoise boosts in a mining ship without crit bonus, I recall a bit over 5% when I checked this last night.

These stats can be especially good if you care about efficiency on valuable rare rocks, because the ore from crits doesn’t come from the rock. But given the smaller impact on your average yield they’re less important than yield or cycle time itself for max yield.

The problem of crits is that their impact isn’t straightforward and depends on other crit bonuses you have. The more crit bonuses from command bursts and ship bonuses, the better the others become.

So weighing crit stats up against the value of yield or cycle time isn’t a simple check, it depends on the circumstances.

Correction: Ice mining yield and crits

Ice mining can in fact benefit from yield and crit, it can function with a bigger or lower volume than 1000.

From the patch notes:

Rolls aren’t rounded down anymore, they’re now chance based. A roll of 999 volume can still be an increase in average yield if compensated by faster cycle time, as one block missed in a thousand cycles doesn’t weigh up to the 111 blocks you get extra for cycling 10% faster.

Likewise crits help for ice too.

Some importance: CPU, optimal range

Big QoL. CPU allows fitting, too much CPU cost and you won’t be able to fit the module. Optimal range also helps.

No importance: Residue chance, Activation cost, powergrid

Mostly irrelevant. You’re not going to use a module with residue anyway in case you care about efficiency, so it’s only a minor QoL boost in other scenarios.

Activation cost doesn’t seem to be a big drain on mining ships even with maximum penalties.

Powergrid of mining modules rarely is a constraint for mining ships.

Should you get abyssal mining modules?

A max rolled unstable mining module can add 59% extra yield through cycle time, yield and crits. That’s an impressive boost and a very valuable module.

[Miss_Stardust]

One plus one = FOUR!

A huge amount of insight and thougthful additions!

Thank you so very much!

/msd