hi guys im a new player im playing on the free version, now im thinking to be a miner, there are couple of thing that i want to ask.
I don’t know about the drones on f2p so I’ll leave that to somebody else.
Ways to get started:
Find a roid belt and have at it. I find this boring but to each their own.
Find a mining corp and join them. Mining ops are more fun that solo mining.
Run mining missions. Build up rep and LPs while mining. I find this more fun.
Get ballsy and fly a barge into lowsec. Exciting and fun 
No, mining drones are not for alpha pilots
m
sorry, hit return before finishing
no to mining drones,
venture is the best alpha mining ship you can fly, given its 5k ore hold and all.
best way to start is to do. Finding others to mine with may give you mining links and such but it also makes for faster turnover of belts.
Perhaps you may make enquiries into whether any of the larger null corps are recruiting miners for the upcoming moon mining changes. Might as well get in on the ground floor.
m
As said, the venture is the best you can do with an alpha, this was restricted because if not everyone would have a billion free barge accounts and would crash the economy.
If you went omega, you would then upgrade to a mining barge which has a larger ore hole (less time traveling) and you can mine more, on top of having a greater tank to kill rats that spawn. If you are really into mining you can also train into T2 exhumers for more efficiency. If you want a support role, you can train the porpoise and orca to provide support to the mining fleet. Then the end all of mining is the capital rorquals usually used by nullsec players that have good defense or good intel.
And ending with this, I personally find mining boring and would suggest trying PvP (or better yet, a battle barge XD)
As a sidenote:
if you want to increase your mining yield dramatically, find other miners who use jetcans to store them outside of their ships.
Then take your ore from their jetcans and drop it in a station. Repeat until you’re satisfied.
Good systems, where such miners can be found, are systems off of traderoutes, but also systems with high new player count due to the “epic arc”, like arnon. Anywhere, where people feel relatively secure, the chances are higher.
Alphas cannot use mining drones and cannot fly any ORE ship other than the Venture. One thing that hasn’t been mentioned is that an alpha can mine ore anomalies in wormholes, with a little care. I made a little over 10 million ISK in a couple hours doing that in a C1 WH.
One thing I would like to add is that if you do go the wormhole route, make sure to eventually get gas harvesting skill at level 2. A bit of startup cash for a new player at first, but it easily pays for itself quickly enough even with the lower tier gas.
Nope no mining drones as an alpha, but you can train up to tech2 mining lasers and mining upgrades 2 as an alpha.
The venture is a good lil mining ship, very large ore bay(I mined in a navitas back in the day with 100k hold, and 1/4 the bonuses).
As an alpha, you can’t train up anything larger than a cruiser and no mining barges.
[Venture, Venture Capital]
Mining Laser Upgrade I
ML-3 Scoped Survey Scanner
1MN Y-S8 Compact Afterburner
Medium F-S9 Regolith Compact Shield Extender
Particle Bore Compact Mining Laser (till trained to Miner 2s)
Particle Bore Compact Mining Laser
Core Probe Launcher I, Core Scanner Probe I (swapable to salvager, but I do all my scanning while mining)
Small Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I (boost scanning strength)
Hobgoblin I x2
The venture a very good gas harvester. Bonuses for gas and very hard to gank, warp scramblers are hard pressed to hold a venture.
[Venture, Huffington Post]
Inertial Stabilizers I
ML-3 Scoped Survey Scanner
Medium F-S9 Regolith Compact Shield Extender
1MN Monopropellant Enduring Afterburner
Core Probe Launcher I, Sisters Core Scanner Probe
Gas Cloud Harvester I (only train to 2)
Gas Cloud Harvester I
Small Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I
Small Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I
Hobgoblin I x2
This fit isn’t strong enough to fight anything outside of hi sec rats.