To what level is this skill worth training to? I suppose that if I mine Veldspar, I’ll have a slightly better yield with skill trained to V over IV, but what if I mine ABC ores? Since one piece of them is 16 m^3, what is the skill level after which they stop retrieving more of those ores in one cycle?
If you don’t care about skill worth why bother skilling it at atll? 3% more yield per level, so if you stop at IV you get 3% less yield than if you skilled it to V. It’s axiomatic… I know. But some need that little push.
The ore-type is irrelevant. you get that same 3% no matter what.
Oï mate !
Mining Drone Specialization is a required skill the use the T2 Mining Drones and ‘Advanced’ Mining Drones. The give a 2% to mining yield and velocity to the drones mentioned above, which mean T1 and Harvester Mining Drones does not benefit from this skill.
Unless you really want every last bit of mining yield percentage, the long train to V isn’t worth it and you could use that time to train other skills that could improve your mining yield way more than a mere 2%.
Also, please remember that Mining Drone only make a small percentage of a Mining Barge or Exhumer yield. They are way more useful on Porpoise, Orca and Rorqual because those ships have strong Mining Drones bonuses.
Rorqual only have a 10% bonus to Drone hitpoints, damage, and ore mining yield per level of Capital Industrial Ship, but it’s the only ship in the game that can operate ‘Excavator’ Mining Drones, highly expensive but highly effective drones.
Depends on what you are mining with, Mining/Expedition Frigate, Mining Barge/Exhumer or Porpoise/Orca/Rorqual?
If in Mining/Expedition Frigate your answer is probably not, for ABC.
If in Mining Barge/Exhumer probably no benefit for ABC.
If in (Capital) Industrial Command ship then it is also likely to benefit you, especially if you’re flying Rorqual.
There are few Skills that actually increases your mining yield, these are:
- Mining: +5% Mining Yield per level
- Astrogeology: +5% Mining Yield per level.
- Mining Drone Operation: +5% mining drone yield per level.
- Mining Drone Specilization: +2% mining drone yield per level.
- Drone Interfacing: +10% mining drone yield per level.
- (Capital) Industrial Command Ship: +10% Mining Drone Yield per level, ONLY on Porpoise, Orca and Rorqual.
2 Likes
Thanks you @ISD_Sakimura =)
Sincerely, if you are planning any form of mining activity (just when you have nothing else to do, or as your main career), the Mining and Astrogeology skills will be your best pick. They unlock the mining modules (mining lasers and strip miners) and further skills.
Also, like the (Capital) Industrial Command Ship, training multiple level in the mining ship you are planing to use will make them even more effective. Your best choices will be Mining Barges and Exhumers. Those “classes” have three kind of ships, each engineered for a special purpose :
- Tank (shield-tanked) : Procurer and Skiff.
- Ore hold : Retriever and Mackinaw.
- Yield : Covetor and Hulk.
Because each ship have it’s own purpose, the bonuses you get from training Mining Barge or Exhumer are different :
Covetor :
- Mining Barge :
5% bonus to Strip Miner and Ice Harvester range
2% reduction in Strip Miner and Ice Harvester duration - Role Bonus :
25% reduction in Strip Miner and Ice Harvester duration and activation cost
Retriever :
- Mining Barge :
5% bonus to ship ore hold capacity
2% reduction in Strip Miner and Ice Harvester duration
Procurer :
- Mining Barge bonuses :
5% bonus to ship shield hitpoints
2% reduction in Strip Miner and Ice Harvester duration - Role Bonus:
50% bonus to drone damage and hitpoints
Hulk :
- Mining Barge bonuses (per skill level):
5% bonus to Strip Miner and Ice Harvester range
2% reduction in Strip Miner and Ice Harvester duration - Exhumers bonuses (per skill level):
4% bonus to all shield resistances
3% reduction in Strip Miner and Ice Harvester duration - Role Bonus:
25% reduction in Strip Miner and Ice Harvester duration and activation cost
Mackinaw :
- Mining Barge bonuses (per skill level):
5% bonus to ship ore hold capacity
2% reduction in Strip Miner and Ice Harvester duration - Exhumers bonuses (per skill level):
4% bonus to all shield resistances
2% reduction in Strip Miner and Ice Harvester duration
Skiff :
- Mining Barge bonuses (per skill level):
5% bonus to ship shield hitpoints
2% reduction in Strip Miner and Ice Harvester duration - Exhumers bonuses (per skill level):
4% bonus to all shield resistances
2% reduction in Strip Miner and Ice Harvester duration - Role Bonus:
50% bonus to drone damage and hitpoints
With that in mind, it’s east to understand that training the Mining Barge or Exhumer skill at higher level is one of the best way to improve your effectiveness in specific fields depending the ship you chose (Tank, Hold, Yield).
2 Likes
You forgot drone interface, 10% drone yield per level.
1 Like
Thanks for the reminder 
I think the gist of the OPs question is, how does CCP handle whole number rounding.
Option 1: drone yield is rounded on a per trip basis, so a listed yield of 100.2m3 would get you 1002 units of veld or 6 units of ark. And increasing that by 2% would get you 1022 veld and still 6 ark.
Option 2: eve keeps a running total so occasionally you would get 7 ark instead of 6.
I haven’t paid enough attention to know the answer.
I think it serves excavator drones the most since they have big yield
It’s the first one. My mining drones have ALWAYS returned the exact same amount of ore per run. Just like if a mining laser finishes it’s cycle when your cargo hold is full. The excess will be lost.
If you want full benefits train to V, it is worth it, especially if you use an implant, metallurgy to V, drone interface to V and what ever ship you mine in to V, after all is done and said take the bonus from reprocessing at a refinery and you will make profit.
In this case, if you are consistently mining high volume ore, it may not be worth a month of training if you never get more units/cycle due to rounding.
That was basically what I was trying to ask - in other words, to what level I need to train the skill to get the most arkonor from one trip (if I get the same amount from skill trained to V than I do from the skill trained to III, then I won’t train it past III). I know the answer also depends on the ship I’m using and whether I have mining drone yield rigs or not, but was hoping that pro miners already made a spreadsheet for this solution, just like gankers did with the number of catalysts needed to take down a barge depending on system’s security status.
Train to 4. Get 80% of benefit in 20% of time. And I doubt you mine exclusively arkonor.
Waste of time mining arkonor, veldspar is King.
Nope. Your drones work on a cycle basis, eg mining drone II has a cycle of
- 33 m³ volume
- 60s duration
The yield multiplier is applied to the volume per cycle.
IIRC the drone goes back to your ore after one cycle, then back to mining.
ie an increase in 1.85% of yield results in exactly 1.85% more mineral mined per cycle
so, the higher the better.
Skills in Eve roughly follow an 80-20 rule. You get 80% of the benefit for 20% of the cost. You need to balance the marginal utility of the benefit you would get from the level 5 against the opportunity cost - is there something more valuable you could train in the same time.
This is situational. For a combat pilot, 1% can mean the difference between life and death. For mining - you’ll never notice the difference!
He is asking what is the threshold for mining yield.
Game doesn’t really round numbers when mining, if the stated Strip Miner yield per cycle is 1253.07m³ and you are mining veldspar, which has a volume of 0.1m³, the quantity you get per cycle is; 1253.07 / 0.1 = 12530 units (it only accepts whole units, so 1 = 1 and < 1 = 0 ). The same applies to Drone’s yield.
Quantity mined = Cycle yield / Rock volume. (whole units)
If you want that 2700.38 m3 yield on your Excavator drones then you need to train it to V. For all other ships I never bothered.