Hello. I am wondering if anyone has any advice on how to build up a mackinaw for mining. I am have trying to google it but most post and info i have been fining is around 2 years old or more.
I just want something that can surviving while minning or have a good chance to warp away should i need to vacate in a hurry
Welcome to New Eden!
OK, why a Mackinaw?
I know that itâs a nice bit hold, but it doesnât mean that you could start one mining and go and do something else (watch YouTube) while itâs doing its own thing. A Mackinaw screams: Iâm not paying attention, please attack me. And that attack will be hard and fast. You are a nice big tempting killmail.
If you are flying an Exhumer, and I do, then fly a Skiff - put a good shield defence on it (you donât need a propmod - afterburner or MWD) and find a belt others are mining (one with a Mackinaw or Retriever in it is nice for obvious reasons).
Take a set of light drones to deal with rats. A set of mining drones as well.
Mine at one end of the belt, well away from the warp-in point and pay attention and be ready to run away. Donât think âI can just finish this cycleâ.
Exhumers are expensive and, especially in highsec, need to mine a lot to pay for themselves.
Any Exhumer will out-mine the equivalent Barge.
Why not use the T1 Retriever instead?
Iâm going to make an assumption here, please tell me if Iâm wrong.
You died in a Retriever to gankers and want a stronger ship to stay alive next time that happens. Correct?
While the Mackinaw has slightly better tank and yield, you will lose a ship worth 282 million ISK instead if 59 million ISK each time you get ganked.
And because of itâs high price the Mackinaw is a much more attractive target to kill for players than a Retriever, so not only will you lose a lot more ISK when you die, it may counterintuitively also happen more often that you die in that Mackinaw than in a Retriever.
My recommendation is to use a Retriever instead until you know better how you can keep your ship alive.
Or if you want help keeping your ship alive, try a Procurer instead, which is the toughest barge to kill because of itâs shield and drone bonuses.
Something like this:
[Procurer, Procurer Tank]
Damage Control II
Ice Harvester Upgrade II
Ice Harvester Upgrade IIMultispectrum Shield Hardener II
Multispectrum Shield Hardener IIIce Harvester I
Ice Harvester IMedium Core Defense Field Extender I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender IValkyrie II x5
(Feel free to pick your own flavor of combat drones and mining lasers, I would stay with 5 medium combat drones though to maximise your fighting power.)
I was mining 2 days ago in my retriever when i had a internet hickup and when i got re-connected to the game my ship had been destroyed.
The reason i am internested in a mackinaw for mining is i mine alot of veldspar and scornite in a highsec area near a station (no jumping needed) and only have a small warp to do before i am there.
I do pay attention when mining but just want something bigger as i plan to start a corp with some friends so i want to be prepared in advance 
Okay, as long as you know that upgrading to a Mackinaw is a much bigger risk rather than a smaller one you could use a Mackinaw instead of Retriever for mining.
I donât personally mine in HS, but if I did I would try to maximise my defenses and fly something like this:
[Mackinaw, Mackinaw HS]
Ice Harvester Upgrade II
Ice Harvester Upgrade II
Damage Control IIMultispectrum Shield Hardener II
Compact Multispectrum Shield Hardener
Large F-S9 Regolith Compact Shield Extender
Compact EM Shield AmplifierIce Harvester I
Ice Harvester IMedium Core Defense Field Extender II
Medium Core Defense Field Extender IIValkyrie II x5
Now the downside is that this fit is a bit tight on CPU and powergrid, so I can imagine if you cannot fly it yet.
With Shield Upgrades, CPU management and Powergrid management at level 4 you should be able to fly the version below, once theyâre at level 5 you should be able to use the above fit.
[Mackinaw, Mackinaw HS lower skill version]
Ice Harvester Upgrade II
Ice Harvester Upgrade II
Damage Control IICompact Multispectrum Shield Hardener
Compact Multispectrum Shield Hardener
Large F-S9 Regolith Compact Shield Extender
Compact EM Shield AmplifierIce Harvester I
Ice Harvester IMedium Ancillary Current Router I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender IIValkyrie II x5
One more thing, you mentioned you want to play with friends.
If you plan to mine with them it will help your mining fleet with your friends a lot if one of you can fly a mining support ship like a Porpoise or Orca. While those two ships arenât really useful as solo mining ships, theyâre magnificent for any mining fleet. Every mining fleet will want at least one of those ships, because of how they improve everyoneâs mining speed and range and bring utility in the form of compression and a huge ore hold.
if i were to use a procurer to mine. what fittings should i used to help maximize its ore yeild but also keep it safe enough from possible gankers.
What would a rec retriever fit be so if i need to vacate the area i am mining in i wont die before i have e chance to warp out
The Procurer fit I shared above would be nice for that. And fitting a Retriever with defences is similar.
While for max yield you want to fill all the low slots with mining upgrades, using one of the three low slots for a damage control module adds a lot of defences at the cost of a little yield, so thatâs a tradeoff you can make. I would fit shield resistances in the mids, with shield extenders in the rig slots.
The retriever is probably your best bet if youâre in a high gank area, youâre going to lose the ship anyway, it might as well be cheap, but if you align to something and then âstop my shipâ just before you hit the lasers, when the time comes and you need to dock up, you can hit dock and it doesnât need to align, it just needs to reach the top speed to be able to warp, effectively cutting out the âalignâ part and affording you valuable time to get home.
If you do that every time, you should be able to get back every time, so long as you remain attentive to dscan
I use the following -
I dont really add any shields due to Gankers and there no point spending the extra isk
Ice Harvester II
Ice Harvester II
Medium Ice Harvester Accelerater I
Ice Harvester upgrade II
Ice Harvester upgrade II
Ice Harvester upgrade II
Valkyrie II x3
UhmâŚ
While your advice to use a Retriever is good, this part about alignment is a common misconception.
âAligningâ in EVE is to fly at or above 75% of your maximum velocity in a direction within 5 degrees of your warp destination.
You cannot âalign your ship and then stop your ship to be alignedâ, stopping your ship stops the alignment. The way your ship is facing is irrelevant. Your ship could warp sideways as long as it moves at 75% max velocity in the direction of your warp destination (which is hilarious to see when a Titan warps sideways with MWD trick or Freighter warps sideways with web trick).
The only reason I would align and then stop my ship while mining is to make sure that the direction my ship is aligning isnât going through an asteroid where it would endlessly bump while baddies arrive at your belt. But you donât need to move your ship, just turning your camera to your warp destination will show if the path is clear.
lol
With a 300 million ISK ship with 31.4k EHP you can turn it into a 305 million ISK ship with 86.5k EHP, making it almost three times as hard to kill you for a negligible less than 2% price increase.
Seriously, you would be stupid to not use shield modules on your Mackinaw.
Complete waste. Jesus, join an organized Miningcorp and leave HighSec if you want to mine. Wasting your time with Veldspar and Scordite in Highsec is the worst way to play EVE as a miner. And you will be ganked anyway sooner or later.
maybe so but its the way i enjoy the game
Play how you like!
The game is supposed to be fun, so if you enjoy mining keep doing that! The game became a lot more fun to me when I stopped caring about what was optimal and just tried new playstyles like mining random anomalies even though I didnât have a multibox mining fleet like many others to make the activity âworthwhileâ.
See for me mining in the highsec area i am in. im not overly worried i will get ganked cuase i can just warp back to my station without needing to jump so i dont have to have 100% focus all the time. I like useing my retriever but i also want to get a mackinaw in preperation still training in the skills.
But for me currently i make about 2.7mil iks just mining veldspar which is not to bad
Study eveuniversity.com
Try a higgs rig
Join a corp with friendly miners. Their experience can teach you how to mine and stay alive
Donât afk mine. Ever
Players are different. From time to time I like to tidy a complete belt in highsec with a small fleet, so I can hoard enough minerals for the next building spree if Iâm in the mood.
Itâs like slow Tetris or Solitaire to look for cycle times and yield, remaining ore and distances to let the operation run as smoothly as possible. Some say itâs boring; but some also say e.g. hiking is boring, while thereâs millions loving just walking around.
So if OP likes mining, thatâs fine. Another idea: Have a look on Expedition Frigs, they are high level Ventures and also do a good job.
This.
I donât need to mine, but every now and then the gentle gathering of ore: scanning the rocks, picking optimal targets, hovering into the hold efficiently satisfies an itch.
Iâve also run new player high sec mining fleets: Iâll bring a command ship - a suitable Orca - give them boosts and handle all the commercial âore to ISKâ logistics for them. A relaxed social bit of life in New Eden.
if i could find some people like that around my time zone it would be nice but it has yet to happen.
Timezones and the geographic spread of New Eden are always a challenge.
I can recommend just doing it - reach out in a new players system and make the offer to lead a fleet (especially if youâve a command ship).
maybe, when i understand more