The crits are extra ore. I noticed that I still had ore in my hangar and instantly thought I didn’t finish one, but it was the crit remainder.
May I suggest that everyone save any extra ore or ice blocks. You never know when you’ll get the mining drone bug that leaves you a few units short.
/msd
5 Likes
I’ve almost totally switched to an endurance and pioneer for my Level 4 mining in Null and Lowest.. Mining in Null can be hot so having a utility high with a cloak is wonderful. See probes? Just cloak and let them spin. I have a prospect for Gas injections (I can warp cloaked in it).
One more thing: Save your extra ore / ice. The Endurance does not have the space to take everything back in one trip. Or does it?
Here’s what you do. Mine till you are full or over 10500m3 ore or 19k ice.
Jettison it.
Finish mining. (The ore/ice has to disappear) Top up Both holds from the container.
Dock. With the extra ore you may have enough to finish the mission! This is a fantastic use of all the extra ore/ice you had to mine because of downtime. If you have to go back the endurance is fast.
This is for Nullsec/Low. I would use a barge in hissec.
1 Like
Hello everyone!
As of today, February 11th, the critical chance on mission ores has been removed. No more piles of junk ore or littering space with jetcanned leftovers.
/msd
4 Likes
about time 
Genuine sad-face.
Do you have a link, there’s nothing I can see in the blogs.
NVM found it, and it’s just mission ore so we don’t have excess all over the place or having a small hold fill before mining all the roids..
" * Removed the ability to experience critical successes when mining certain mission-specific ores, so that the amount of ore available in the site will once again match the ore required by the missions exactly."
2 Likes
@Miss_Stardust Do you have a recommendation for a good Pioneer fit & starting area for level 2-3 missions and rep? I’m pretty new to mining and only a couple weeks in to this toon (omega). I have a Pioneer in Jita and another in Rens with jump clones. Just looking for a good path forward now that I’ve completed a lot of the AIR stuff and the new Pioneer epic arc.
Welcome to the game. 
My first recommendation for you as far as pioneer fits go is to check out https://eveworkbench.com/
You can filter it as much as you need so that you can get the fits that will work for you the best at what ever skill level youre at.
My second is to check your agency tab and search for your desired agents from there. Again this can be filtered. Find the level you want as many jumps from what ever trade post system youre in to minimize trouble that may be lurking around ( especially Jita ). Mum’s the word when it comes to traveling around in the game.
Good luck in all your travels.
1 Like
Ideally….pick a faction and corp you want to start grinding up the standings, then look further up this thread for some recommendations for good mining mission systems. You want to be running as many Level 2 missions as you can, especially “Unknown Events” as this mission boosts your standings enormously and is very easy in Pioneer.
For your fit, you want three mining lasers in the high slots, ideally EP-Gaussian or Miner IIs. Then two Mining Laser Upgrade IIs in the low slots. Fit an afterburner, a mining chipset, and a tank mod in the mid slots. Make sure you have combat drones. If mining in 0.9 or 1.0 you will not see rats, but 0.8 and lower you will. DO NOT use mining drones for mining missions. Add a salvager or even a couple salvage drones to pull in that little extra ISK (if Omega).
Once you get to Level 4 standings you can use your Pioneer to run the gas huffing missions.
/msd
1 Like
Current Mining Mission Fleet looks something like this:
[Mackinaw, Strip Miner]
Damage Control II
Mining Laser Upgrade II
Mark I Compact Power Diagnostic System
Multispectrum Shield Hardener II
Multispectrum Shield Hardener II
Compact EM Shield Hardener
Large F-S9 Regolith Compact Shield Extender
Strip Miner I
Strip Miner I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender II
Medium Core Defense Field Extender II
[Mackinaw, Ice Harvester]
Damage Control II
Ice Harvester Upgrade II
Mark I Compact Power Diagnostic System
Multispectrum Shield Hardener II
Multispectrum Shield Hardener II
Compact EM Shield Hardener
Large F-S9 Regolith Compact Shield Extender
Ice Harvester II
Ice Harvester II
Medium Core Defense Field Extender II
Medium Core Defense Field Extender II
[Venture, Gas Cloud Scoop]
Damage Control II
1MN Monopropellant Enduring Afterburner
Multispectrum Shield Hardener II
Medium Shield Extender II
Gas Cloud Scoop II
Core Probe Launcher I
Gas Cloud Scoop II
Small Core Defense Field Extender I
Small Core Defense Field Extender I
Small Core Defense Field Extender I
[Porpoise, Drone Miner]
Damage Control II
Omnidirectional Tracking Enhancer II
Large Shield Extender II
Drone Navigation Computer II
Drone Navigation Computer II
Multispectrum Shield Hardener II
Salvager I
Drone Link Augmentor II
Small Tractor Beam I
Medium S95a Scoped Remote Shield Booster
Medium Drone Mining Augmentor II
Medium Drone Mining Augmentor I
Medium Drone Mining Augmentor II
1 Like
Pioneer has become superior to Venture for the gas missions. More tank, more spank, same gas mining rate. It can also run all L1 and L2 ore mission for building up standings. For the ice missions the new Perseverance can be an alternative to the barges or Endurance. Perseverance actually has a 21k m3 ice bay, so it can complete both L4 missions in a single trip.
For gas missions my new go-to is the Venture Consortium Issue with an active shield tank. With Abyssal scoops it can complete Like Drones to a Cloud just as the third wave spawns…around 12.5 minutes vs. nearly 15 minutes with Syndicates.
/msd
2 Likes
@Shriven_Intaki Glad to have you back!
/msd
1 Like
Played around with the Pioneer - fairly inexpensive fit that will pay for itself quick
[Pioneer, Gas Cloud Scoop]
Inertial Stabilizers II
Damage Control II
1MN Monopropellant Enduring Afterburner
Multispectrum Shield Hardener II
Medium Shield Extender II
Gas Cloud Scoop II
Gas Cloud Scoop II
[Empty High slot]
Gas Cloud Scoop II
Small Core Defense Field Extender I
Small EM Shield Reinforcer I
Small Core Defense Field Extender I
2 Likes
My only gripe with Pioneer is it needs three scoops. If you are doing a L4 gas huffing mission, a Venture or Venture Consortium is perfectly acceptable and only needs two scoops. This becomes even more apparent when you upgrade to Syndicates or Abyssals. For standard gas site huffing, Pioneer with its larger hold is really good and very cheap.
For Like Drones to a Cloud I now favor an active-tanked Venture Consortium with two 25m3+ Abyssals. The small shield booster is more than enough to keep the tank while the two drones chew up the rats. With 25+ Abyssals the site can be completed just as the third wave of rats spawn, for me as little as 12.5 minutes.
Keep in mind that Pioneer and Venture huff at exactly the same rate, so the trade-off is such:
Pioneer - more tank, bigger gas hold, more drone DPS, three scoops
Venture Consortium - active tank bonus, two scoops, more expensive, less skill intensive
/msd
2 Likes
Just a note:
If you are trying to get to 5.0 with a corp and you have ANOTHER corp in the faction with 5.0, why not run missions for them and you might get a storyline who’s corp you do NOT have 5.0 with. Then just keep running level 4 missions, do the storylines and eventually you will get 5.0 with all the corps that have near storylines. Of course when you have 5.0 with another corp you can do those l4 agents and may be able to snag another storyline to a corp you want 5.0 with. This way you only need 5.0 with 1 corp to get a bunch. And as you do storylines your faction will rise, and let me tell you, doing level 3 distros is great to get corp standing.
I’m assuming that you LIKE doing mining missions, so doing l4 mining missions to get corp standing in another corp is the goal.
Hi all,
Big fan of this thread (thank you MSD + Shriven)
Wanted to pose a l4 mining mission thought experiment: What would be the fastest l4 mining mission fits if someone had WAY more isk than sense?
I’ve come up with a few baseline skeleton fits, and would love to get everyone’s take.
Full disclosure, the Gas fit is so insanely unreasonable it will never pay itself off with l4 missions before you get ganked. (Also apologies for the formatting- I’m rather inept at forum formatting)
I made these under the following assumptions
- All Skills 5 (This is a BIG assumption, especially when you get to the gas fit)
- Soloboxing
- One trip only (Not 100% confident on this, but I’m guessing that any slight gain in yield is offset by adding even 1x extra trip of travel time- Please prove me wrong if that is the case!)- Because of this stipulation I separated the missions into the following categories
- 45,000m3 ore (only Arisite envy)
- 44,800m3 ore
- 20,000m3 Ice
- 21,000m3 ore
- 4250m3 Gas
For the Ore missions- because of the high cargo you’re pretty much locked into the Mackinaw. For Arisite Envy, you drop a Mining Upgrade and put in a Cargo Expander II, and then fill up your normal cargohold with ore to give you that extra hold space you need to finish in 1 trip. If you REALLY wanted to minimax for the 44,800m3 and lower ore missions, you could get a second Mack and remove a cargo rig for a Drone Mining Augmentor rig and you’d be at 44,836 cargo+ore capacity. (The drone rig adds basically 1m3/s total if you have a full flight of 5 mining drones out- up to you if you really want the 2nd rig setup)
[Mackinaw, Unreasonable l4 mack]
Mining Laser Upgrade II
Mining Laser Upgrade II
Mining Laser Upgrade II
Whatever you want in the 4x mids for prop/tank
Strip Miner I (Can use Ore Strip Miners if you really want to be unreasonable)
Strip Miner I
Medium Cargohold Optimization II
Medium Cargohold Optimization II
Light Combat drone of choice x5
Mining Drone II x5
For the Ice missions- You’re also locked into the Mackinaw because of cargo space- also if you’re really feeling unreasonable- you can drop the Overclocking unit for a Drone Mining Augmentor, run with empty mids because you don’t have the CPU for any prop/tank- and devote your entire drone bay to a single Ice Mining Drone- Maybe someone smarter than me can figure out a tank amount that makes that even remotely viable but I’m not smart enough for that
[Mackinaw, Unreasonable Mack Ice]
Ice Harvester Upgrade II
Ice Harvester Upgrade II
Ice Harvester Upgrade II
Whatever you want in the 4x mids for prop/tank
Ice Harvester II (Again can use ORE harvesters if you’re feeling extra unreasonable)
Ice Harvester II
Medium Processor Overclocking Unit I
Medium Ice Harvester Accelerator I
Light Combat drone of choice x5
Hornet EC-300 x5
For the Gas Missions- My first thought was a Gas Hulk….but then I remembered the Odysseus has boosters- and this thought experiment truly became unhinged because while the Odysseus can technically beat the Gas Hulk in yield…. It requires 5x Syndicate Scoops, on top of the 2bil hull, the expedition command training, AND Foreman Training for the Optimization Burst.
[Odysseus, l4 gas Pure Insanity do not do this]
Syndicate Gas Cloud Scoop
Syndicate Gas Cloud Scoop
Syndicate Gas Cloud Scoop
Syndicate Gas Cloud Scoop
Syndicate Gas Cloud Scoop
Presidential Mining Foreman Burst
Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
No clue/whatever you want for mids/lows/rigs/Drones
Mining Laser Optimization Charge x300
So that’s my unhinged L4 mining thought experiment! Let me know all your thoughts and big thanks again to MSD and Shriven for maintaining this thread for this fun little niche of EVE.
2 Likes
Good thoughts…let me add some:
You are definitely NOT locked into Mack for the ice missions. The Perseverance can do them in one trip, and quite quickly with Abyssal Ice Lasers.
For gas, I favor Covetor. It’s insanely fast with Abyssal rolled gas cloud harvesters, and has plenty of tank for the miscellaneous drone rats. It can hold two gas missions in one go. Venture Consortium Issue is also a fine and very fast, and very tanky option.
As has been stated over and over in the thread…I decline the big ore missions.
/msd
1 Like
i don’t do mining missions unless i absolutely have to.. looks like a solid mansplaining wall of text
Sorry to necro this, but this is basically where I left last time I read the post.
The answer is yes they count, for both the “new” (since your post, I think) AIR daily goal “mine 2k units of ore”, and the mission ore also count towayd the Cradle of war’s mining campaign objectives. So if you have to mine Pyroxeres for a military campaign objective for example, the Augumene from your mission will count toward your participation.