with the new mining expansion coming up, now is a great time to look at the state of mining ore and ice. There have been major changes in the past and so it is useful to analyze the current situation. I ran the numbers and compared yields using an Endurance with 50 k m3 yield per hour and 70% refining. Currently there are some imbalances. It is more profitable to mine ice in highsec than mining Arkonor and Bistot in nullsec. Highsec ice mining is more profitable than 0.3 lowsec ice mining.
Here are some numbers:
Simple ore belt mining (Veldspar, Scordite, Pyroxeres, Plagioclase): 5 - 8 mil per hour
Bistot nullsec: 11 mil per hour
Arkonor nullsec: 13.7 mil per hour
Highsec Clear Icicle: 16 mil per hour
Lowsec Glare Crust: 15 mil per hour
Lowsec Dark Glitter: 21 mil per hour
Nullsec Enriched Clear Icicle: 18.6 mil per hour
Nullsec Gelidus: 23 mil per hour
These changes make lowsec ore appear more often and improve lowsec mining attractiveness. Highsec ice mining is brought more in line with other sources of income. A small boost is given to Nullsec ice. Glacial Mass is already worth 20 % less than other ice, so it remains unchanged. I’m looking forward to hearing feedback from you
Appreciate the work you put into gathering the numbers — it’s refreshing to see someone actually run yield comparisons rather than just going by gut feeling. You’re absolutely right that highsec ice is currently overtuned compared to both nullsec and lowsec options, which makes risk vs. reward feel inverted.
Your proposed adjustments seem reasonable overall, especially the lowsec buffs. Lowsec mining has been dead content for a long time, and giving Glare Crust and Dark Glitter a bit more value could actually make people consider taking the risk. I’d even argue for slightly more than +10% on Dark Glitter — maybe +15% — just to better reflect the security drop from 0.4 to 0.1 areas.
The -20% to highsec ice might sting for casual miners, but it’s justified if we’re trying to bring it back in line with null and low. Another alternative could be to slightly reduce refining yields instead of raw output — that way, newer players can still fill their holds at a decent pace, but profits are balanced.
Overall, I think your direction is good: make lowsec worth it, tone down highsec a little, and reward nullsec just enough to make the risk make sense. CCP should definitely take a look at data like this when tuning the upcoming expansion.
Maybe you should first realize that CCP balances mining around m3 yield and not a number that changes based on the market.
If some nullbloc decides to start a new war, all your numbers here will change, some of them drastically.
Literally no one cares about the risk averse in Eve. In a game about mitigating risk for a high reward, you shouldn’t get a greater reward for not taking a greater risk.
The last time I mined ice, I used an Orca and a Hulk alt. With level 4 refining skills, I burned more Heavy Water providing fleet compression than I made by refining what the Hulk collected. If that gets nerfed, what’s the point of ice mining? Do you know of another source of Heavy Water?
Also, ice belts are stripped in an hour with some fleets. Then you have to wait another 4 hours for the belt to respawn.
And finally, moon mining is way more profitable than ice mining. This weekend, I made half a billion ISK.
Good points — that Heavy Water situation definitely highlights one of the bigger pain spots in ice mining right now. Compression fuel costs have gotten out of hand compared to actual yields, especially for smaller ops that don’t have the scale to offset it. If anything, that’s an argument for CCP to revisit the cost efficiency of compression itself, not necessarily to keep ice payouts inflated across the board.
As for belt availability — yeah, the 4-hour respawn timer feels rough when you’ve got a few active fleets in system. But that’s more of a distribution problem than a balance one. They could easily tweak spawn density or number of ice anomalies instead of keeping highsec yields overtuned to compensate.
You’re right that moon mining is much more profitable — but it’s also a different activity loop, with corp infrastructure, setup costs, and risk exposure. Ice mining is supposed to be the more accessible, lower-income baseline for fueling operations, not the ISK printer it’s become in highsec.
The goal isn’t to kill ice mining, it’s to make risk vs. reward make sense again, and to fix the compression/fuel inefficiency so it’s actually worth doing even after rebalancing.
Yeah, but if it gets nerfed without the refining, respawns, and number of ice cubes buffed up, it will become completely pointless. I haven’t been back since getting my Orca and moving out of the ice field to where I have an Athanor set up. It’s just not worth it. I usually have pretty bad luck and never see an ice belt. It’s really easy to miss that damn 4 hour timer. To get around all of that, I simply bought a huge amount of Heavy Water that I’ve been hauling from system to system each time I’ve moved over the last few months. It started out as 4.7m units. It’s now down to 4.3m I suspect it’ll last me a good long while. Thank goodness for the Avalanche!
You still need a 3 billion ISK investment to really make money off of ice mining. The only difference is that you can have anyone in the fleet make that investment. The Orca makes it worth it. And the pilot does not have to be in your corp
What a lot of people get wrong is that without compression, you’re running out to a dock at a station to dump the ice every ten minutes (5 if it’s a Hulk) and that takes time. Also, compressed ice sells for more. It’s the same with ore. It’s easier for the buyer to carry. Compression requires an Orca and they are 2 billion for the hull and up to 1 billion for the fit. An Orca costs more than an Athanor. It also, as discussed, uses a LOT of Heavy Water. So as a courtesy, most career miners will tip a few million ISK each to the Orca. So without that huge investment, your profit will suffer because you have to make run after run after run to the station to dump your uncompressed ice and then haul all of that trip after trip to sell as uncompressed ice. All of that has to be considered in your final ISK per hour.
Does ice mining sound glamorous now? Maybe we should limit Orcas to Corp mates only. Would that satisfy you? It would stop Orca pilots from choosing to pass off the huge amount of savings to the entire fleet. Sharing is discouraged after all. In Eve, we don’t need any of that kind of attitude!
But yeah- without that 3,000,000,000 ISK investment, ice mining is a very low paying job when you consider what it takes to run back and forth to a station to store and then all the trips needed to sell (especially since you lose money by not selling it compressed).
Thanks for all the input. Perhaps this thread could be moved to the “Players Features and Ideas” forum.
It’s true that for mining in a group with a larger fleet a significant investment is needed. The Orca needs fuel, too. So possibly the -20% reduction in Clear Icicle, Blue Ice and White Glaze could be discarded.
It’s also true that due to how the market works with supply and demand in increase in yield will reduce the price somewhat. I’m sure CCP has more data on that. They know how their game works.
I’ve noted my ice mining skills were not perfect. The ice mining ISK per hour estimate can be 20-30% higher with better skills.
I still think that Glare Crust could use a boost. Right now there is no incentive to mine in 0.4 lowsec, as the ice is the same as in highsec. Giving Dark Glitter a small boost is good, too. There are very few 0.1 security systems in all regions, and only about 10 of them have ice belts. Enriched Clear Icicle can use a small boost, too. Krystallos is fine, as it is quite valuable.
What more needs to be invested in? Can you please offer up an estimated price above an Orca?
A number would be most helpful. And were those profits just ice mined without an Orca or with one? Did you as of yet factor in transport to Jita? How many trips? All of this is important.
