New Pioneer Miner Ship

New Citizens Q&A
1

Super short review: Bought it, tried it out, sold it. Terrible ship.

The only pro on this ship is 8000 M³ cargo for alpha miners. It is sluggish, which means you will be ganked, I got the ehp up to 10k but that is not enough to ward off more than 1 shot. Most gankers in a Tornado will one shot you in this ship. The ship cost is still being decided by the sellers, at present I got one for 15 million and sold it for 10 million. Currently you can get a venture for 330k roughly 15 million will buy 45 ventures.

This ship isn’t as good as a venture. The venture has a built in 100% yield bonus. It takes longer to mine in this destroyer than any venture. Calling it a destroyer will give the newcomers a false sense of safety and they will get ganked. Alphas can only use 2 mining scoops max and won’t be able to use the 3rd slot for additional huffing. The scooping will be super slow without the venture yield bonus.

I am placing this in New Citizens Q&A for a good reason:
WARNING! Do not fall for this shoddy product and expect it to protect you. Any ganker seeing you will serve you up with eggs, bacon, and a side of hash browns.

Readers: IF you think my opinion is wrong, prove it - by posting your fit for this ship. Go crazy!

Mine safe :pick:

2

Calling a ship bad that can mine out to 50km with boosts and mines more than 150% a venture is certainly a take…
Pioneer 3x3.8m3/s=11.4 m3/s @ 24km w/o boosts
Venture: 2x3.6m3/s =7.2m3/s @ 12km w/o boosts
Procurer: 2x12.3m3/s=24.6m3/s @ 15km w/o boosts

3 Likes
3

They are already down to 6M in Solitude so I expect pricing to drop even further in HS over the next couple of weeks.

Should probably end up being around double Venture cost

4

Mineral cost is about 5mil iirc.

5

No one is going to waste a Tornado on your pissed off Venture…

1 Like
6

That’s if one buys all the minerals required to build it.

7

I think your review is flawed.

You’re assuming the inflated release price is it’s final price and are making math mistakes when it comes to the yield comparisons.

Some Pioneer characteristics

  • The Pioneer is a small improvement to Ventures in ore yield for Alpha miners.
  • The Pioneer is a large 35% improvement in ore yield to Ventures for maxed Omega miners.
  • The Pioneer is equal to Ventures in gas yield for Omega miners. It has a larger ore hold though.
  • The Pioneer’s current price is not reflecting it’s final price, as the prices are still dropping after being released two days ago.
  • The Pioneer also has a nice mining range bonus making it the longest range mining ship of them all.

Will the Pioneer replace our Hulks, Skiffs and Mackinaws? Not likely, it’s a T1 destroyer.
Will the Pioneer replace all our Ventures? No, Ventures still are cheaper and harder to catch and worth using in some cases.
Will the Pioneer be worth using? Yes, there definitely are scenarios where the Pioneer is an upgrade to a Venture or a cheaper alternative to barges and exhumers.

Is the Pioneer a good addition to the game?

Yes.

The only good way CCP could add new mining ships to the game without invalidating other mining ships is by finding a niche and placing new ships in it that are neither strictly better nor strictly worse, but add other benefits than the existing ships. The Pioneer seems to do that.

I think the Pioneer is a nice addition to the game.

8 Likes
8

No fits, 6 responses, I am am now more than certain of my warning to alpha miners here.

Starting at the bottom up, thank you @Gerard_Amatin for your honest answers. I just want to point this out;

This is what I am talking about here. This new ship is being pushed at alphas not omega. If the ship was only omega, there would not be a thread here. I agree with you on the fact that you can mine more rocks with the appropriate alpha skills, but let’s face facts, the new player will jump out there in LS, with little to no skill, and lose this ship faster than snot. Any omega miner is going to buy a barge instead.

However I disagree about it being a useful ship. I ran several fits on this with resistance, shields and armor, and nothing seems to protect it and make it useful to mine in dangerous spots I mine with my Ventures. You can’t really place mining equipment, weapons, and defense and expect it to survive in LS.

Well I have been shot at in my Venture by Tornado, you must be assuming I waste my time mining in HS. These Pioneers will be abundant on the zkillboard soon enough. Rookies will soon regret buying them to mine and all I can say is, I warned you.

@Malak_Starfire thanks for the material cost. My next question would be can it be built by an alpha?

If they land around 1.2 million ISK, then it might be something I could recommend to my students. They still can get ganked pretty easy. However I am not afraid to lose a gas Venture worth 10 to 12 million ISK. I can offset the price when the vehicle is pulling in more than its cost to buy another. In my opinion the price would still be fine a 6 million ISK, if the player understands they are going to need top alpha skills or buy omega. I know those skills are not here on day one.

Final note, I am not asking anyone to buy one. Just run an alpha fit for mining ore in LS and show me. I will stick with my Ventures of course.

Mine safe :pick:

2 Likes
9

It’s both an Omega and Alpha ship.

For Alphas it’s the upgrade for ore mining from a Venture, one they have been asking for for ages.

For Alphas, locked to 2 gas scoops, this is not a good gas platform. Use the Venture instead.

For Omegas the Pioneer is a nice cheaper more agile alternative to cheap barges in dangerous space, with yield that comes close.

Sure, as solo miner a Venture is even harder to catch, so it’s up to you how you rate extra yield versus survivability.

You are correct that it won’t be able to fit enough tank to always survive low sec mining. No mining ship is able to do so, not even a Rorqual. People will simply in some cases bring enough firepower to kill you if they can catch you.

Tank on miners outside HS (where tank massively increases survival chance until CONCORD arrives) is often overrated. Tank on mining ships is meant to let you survive shots from belt rats, not survive against players.

There are rare cases where a mining fleet fits tank, brings logistics and makes a stand against hostiles. Then tank matters. It is possible, but most miners survive by simply not being there when hostiles arrive.

Hide under a cloak, hide in a POS, hide on tether. And continue mining when the threat passes.

I believe the Pioneer is good at that too, doesn’t it have a spare high slot for cloaks?

That utility high is a nice improvement for dangerous space over barges and exhumers.

These Pioneers are the highest yield miners that can fit cloaks. That seems pretty useful to me.

2 Likes
10

Well, being Alpha is being a trial player. So test some ships, and if you like it, go Omega and pay for the service you use. That’s why it’s quite hard to earn decent ISK as an Alpha, by purpose.

These ships can be obtained without paing ISK, so prices will go down soon.

And as always you have to learn which ship to use where in which way. Bigger isn’t better in many situations; in a hostile environment a small, agile, and incredibly cheap ship may be the better choice. But this doesn’t mean the Pioneer is worthless.

So to every new player: Get one and try!

2 Likes
11

Yet you provided none as well. It’s a simple task for anyone to throw on mining lasers and compare yields to see that you are in fact incorrect with most of your “observations”.

12

If I was going to leave HS and go gas huffing, I’d 100% use a Venture. It’s so cheap that it’s free. I could simply buy a bunch and use them until they had all been destroyed. They’re disposable. I’d just need a way to dump and store the gas until I could sell it.

1 Like
13

I see you wanted fits.

Here’s a fit:

image
image1113×435 65.8 KB

1 Like
14

A solid fit for mining however no alpha can use the cloak you have added in the high slot. Thank you for your contribution to this discussion.

Today, I see this build has been added to the Pioneer menu.

fitstats
fitstats1106×724 131 KB

buylist
buylist443×690 51.8 KB

While these fits might survive a few hits, I want to stress this to the new players. These fits cannot and will not assure your survivability in LS or WH space. This is why I have told all my student miners to use the bare minimal on a Venture as they are cheap and disposable after mining one load in LS.

I am off after this weekend. I won’t be back until January of 2026. If I don’t see you tomorrow, have a happy Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, and New Year!

As always, mine safe :pick:

15

I do not know who added that suggested fit of the Pioneer, but a compact damage control is notoriously expensive for a meta module and not something to tell a new player to buy.

CCP would have done better to instead fix the CPU with a t1 rig.

1 Like
16

Pioneer price in Solitude now 5M ISK.

17

Statistics About the Pioneer

  • Eve Tycoon is reporting the average sell is 5,3M and average buy is 5,7M across all market regions.
  • zKillboard shows 187 Pioneers ganked on Sun 11, 30, 2025.
  • The highest loss was on 11, 27, 2025 for a total of 528M ISK → Mining hold held 6666 kernite at a total value of 4,4M there was 3 ORE Miner laser modules making the bulk of the value.
  • New ORE Epic Arc - Mission 1 now offers the pioneer as a reward. This mission is found, in Agency browser under Epic Arcs. It is only 3 missions long.

My Opinions
This ship will not replace the Venture as the best alpha mining vessel. It has already racked up a big score with the gankers mostly in low and null. I don’t recommend using it to mine in low sec. The only way to out mine the venture is to have an omega pilot at the helm. Otherwise you might see +10% for spending more ISK on this hull. I would suggest alpha miner to stick to high sec and use this build;

JR Alpha
JR Alpha1482×723 174 KB

Ignore the 15M ISK price tag as I am not parked in Jita at the time of this screen shot. With this fit you can pop the rats with your drones 37 DPS using 2 Hammerheads, if I was on my main he could use all 4 and double the DPS. I placed the Salvager on there to harvest the wrecks while I mine.

This fit is not designed for low or null. Too cheap to be attacked in high, although should a suicide ganker decide to challenge you, my advice would be to flee. Mining in high sec won’t make you rich.

Fly Safe o7