So, typically, for industrial transport ships, you use the low slots for one of these fitting scenarios:
- Expanded Cargohold modules to increase the ship’s cargo space from 3-5-8,000 m3 to 15-20,000 m3.
- Inertial Stabilizer modules so you can align and warp away from each stargate faster (hopefully before the enemies catch you)
- Warp Core Stabilizer modules so that they cannot warp-disrupt your ship and “catch” you.
So, by necessity (because the low slots are taken up by one of the utility modules above), you have to “tank” your ship using shields, not armor. And for the tank, you are relying on the fact that you’re operating in high-security space, where Concord will come to your aid within 30-or-so seconds. So the shield tank consists of the biggest shield extender that you can fit inside the ship’s Power Grid, and then fill up the rest of the mid slots with shield resistance hardeners. You don’t repair damage to the shield, you just make the shield as big as possible, and hopefully you’ll survive long enough for Concord to come to your rescue.
Now, Alpha characters are very limited to how high they can train the Industrial Ship skill, and that skill multiplies the ship’s cargo hold if you train it higher. So for an Alpha account, it is fortunate that the Miasmos has a dedicated, separate cargo bay for just transporting ore, and it’s already big regardless of your skill levels. So you should train the skills that are listed as a prerequisite for flying the Miasmos, plus the Shield skills to be able to fit medium or large shield extender, and shield hardeners.
And because the Miasmos ore hold isn’t affected by Expanded Cargohold modules (it’s already big), you will see that the recommended fittings have the Inertia Stabilizers or the Warp Core Stabilizers in the low slots, so you can get away from a hostile situation hopefully before the enemy has a chance to lock you down.
Now, also keep in mind that an industrial ship, even with all the shield resistances that you put in, can usually be killed within 15-20 seconds (before Concord has a chance to appear), by one or three destroyer-class ships. The Caldari Catalyst destroyer is a favorite of the suicide-ganker crew that likes to hit mining barges and transport ships. And suicide-ganking is a matter of cost vs. reward: they attack you, blow you up, then Concord comes and blows up their destroyers, but then they can come back or use an alt to loot the ore that you had in your ship. A few destroyers cost something like 2-3 million ISK total, so if you carry ore that’s worth more than that, it’s profitable for them to go ahead with this suicide-gank scenario; they’ll make profit when they loot your ore.
So, keep that in mind and minimize the time that you spend in space. Create bookmarks (right-click, “save location”) at the asteroid field so you can warp directly on top of your friends and load up their ore, then warp directly to the station to unload it. Add the well-known alliance CODE to your contacts list with red standings, so that you can tell if they show up in the local chat channel or in your overview (assume that you’re about to be attacked if you see them). Be wary of “innocent newbies” sitting next to you in the asteroid belt and chatting; the destroyers can use them as “warp to” vectors to land right on top of you and surprise you with max damage.