I’m new to the game. I’ve been reading old posts and the eve wiki, in an attempt to isolate for myself what to do. One one hand, I’m thinking of opening a few accounts, and multi-boxing some mining alts to make money. I am not sure the way eve online is setup that this is possible with alpha accounts anymore, as they don’t want people doing it, I read. You can only use a venture also, I read, and not any of the more expensive barges.
I was also thinking of gas harvesting on one alt only. I already have an explorer as my main, although I only started him a few days ago, and know how to track down gas sites in wormholes. I read that gas harvesting is profitable, but the initial 30 million isk to get started with the skill is a bit expensive.
What is the best way to proceed to get into mining?
Should I go down the multi-boxing route, what will I need to train on my alpha accounts? Just Mining IV and enough skill to get a venture? Will I make much with the alpha accounts or will one account omega be more profitable?
Only one Alpha account is able to be online at once, so you cannot multi box Alpha accounts even with a mix of Omegas. It’s all Omega or nothing for having multiple alts online at once.
Also, as you say Alphas are limited to Ventures (or some other non-mining ship with mining lasers, which is less that ideal to say the least).
Also, don’t go nuts rolling and sinking a bunch of money into an Omega fleet. Try two accounts first and see how that goes for you first.
With two omega accounts you can multibox mine (as they said above, can’t multibox with alpha alts).
You could aim for two Hulks, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Hulks are easily killed, especially if you’re in high sec and think you are ‘safe’. They may have the highest mining rate, but you can’t mine if you’re dead and the Hulk is an easy target for gankers.
Other things to consider are:
Try the mining Barges before you skip to the slightly better but much more expensive Exhumers. Fly two Covetors for a while (tier 1 version of the Hulk) and see how you like it before risking hundreds of millions of ISK.
Try Procurer / Skiff instead of the Covetor / Hulk if you feel like the extra defence can help you. (it probably can!)
Try a Porpoise + barge/exhumer. Porpoise may not mine as fast on it’s own, but the mining boost to your other multiboxed mining ship(s) can be worth it. Especially when you scale up or have friendly mining ships around.
Orca / Rorqual may be something worth aiming for. In that case you don’t need the mining barge and exhumer skills.
Yep, I’m with @Gerard_Amatin’s advice here, and I’d more strongly recommend the Procurer due to the tank since you are just getting started. Then consider moving one into a command ship (Porpoise then Orca) while the other trains towards and exhumer (again, recommending starting with the Skiff).
yeah , going procurer -> skiff and another one going porpoise -> orca is IMO the best way to do it. Not only will you mine more, with lower time to move the stuff, but also you will have shield boost and better time killing the trig fleets.
Grow your Omega fleet gradually. I originally expected to do a mining fleet fleet of six Omegas. But I grew it one at a time, and turns out that for my setup, 4 is the limit I can comfortably manage while still keeping an eye on D-Scan.
You’ll hit your own ceiling based on number of monitors, the kind of APM you can churn out, and how sensible you are at maintaining vigilance when mining.
Also: Don’t commit to just mining. For where my fleet is at right now, mining is actually decently profitable now. But I still take a break to do mission running from time to time, because even a hisec mining advocate like me will burn out eventually if I don’t take a break from time to time.
MTU hunting is a great passtime. ISK/hour is usually atrocious, but it’s fun!
Anyway: Some people have reccomended you go to orca/skiff setup. And… IMHO you need to be very careful before making that move.
Do the math first. Work out what your additional yield per hour will be. Then compare that against the ISK you’re flying. Because, eventually, you WILL lose ships. It just happens. Fold that into your risk/reward thinking now so it doesn’t come as a shock later.
I’ve done the math. For me, I’m almost at the point where I have enough resources in play that I’ll be ready to switch from a Porp/Procurer fleet to an Orca/Skiff fleet. But that’s just because I am (relative to my own standards) rich enough that I can afford to lose a well-fitted Orca without getting salty or into financial trouble because of it.
Plan is to make the switch next year once I climb back up to 2bn ISK before I go on my next spending spree.
My advice is to progress carefully, always be mindful of your risk/reward tradeoff, and include something other than mining in your gameplay loop.
Not sure what the point is you’re trying to make here.
It’s valid to take risk of losing your ships into account while determining which ship to fly. If you lose a ship every 2 hours of mining, bigger than a Venture is likely not worth it. But if you lose a ship every 10 hours of mining, moving up a tier to the barges is a good option. If you can mine in your region for weeks of mining without getting killed, it would be best to move up to the highest tier you can fly.
He’s right that you will get killed eventually. But it’s good to take that risk into account while determining what you’re going to fly.
The thing is, you don’t know it.
You can fly a shiny covetor for months without being ganked. And then people notice you and gank you every day.
Or you can fly in a procurer and get ganked from the start because they don’t like competition.
I mean, I agree that theorically the total isk/h should be average_yield * average_price - costship * gank_frequency, but the gank_frequency is not something that is fixed.
If you mine in a conduit after a friend cleaned it in a 1.0 system, it’s no the same as mining in an ice belt in a .5 system.
You’re right. You won’t know from the start how often you’ll lose your ship. All you can do is take that possibility into account and ship down if you notice your death rate is too high for the value of the ship you’re flying.
