Hey, I’m new to the game and wanna mine semi-AFK while studying. My plan is to study for about 15 minutes (or longer if I can), then reset the mining laser and get back to studying. I’ve tried it a bit already, and watching the numbers go up kind of keeps me motivated. I’ve got a few questions:
What takes the longest to mine? Is there a list somewhere that shows how long different materials take? I was thinking moon mining might be good, but I’m not sure.
Should I join a mining corp and run with a fleet, or would I be better off mining solo?
Do mining corps allow AFK mining? Would they ping me on Discord if something goes down, or is that not really a thing?
What ship should I work toward? Any suggestions for a solid ship progression path?
Is high-sec, low-sec, null-sec, or a wormhole the best spot for this?
mine in HS - where CONCORD will deter many players who would attack you anywhere else
in a remote spot - not too close to Jita and not on a well-traveled route to minimize traffic and eyes
mine in a Procurer - which is cheaper than an Exhumer, yet the most tough target to deter players
fit for tank - with at least a damage control in the lows, shield modules in the mids and shield rigs
have combat drones out - to deal with NPCs and also with some players
find two rocks to mine at the same time - to increase the time you can mine before having to target another rock
Running with a mining corp may eat through rocks fast so you would have to reposition more often, which isn’t very AFK, so I think it’s a better thing to do solo.
Mining moon ore may take long to mine, but moon ore is produced by someone so unless that’s your moon you are stealing. The owners may kill you, or in HS bump you off or gank you if they notice.
TLDR: Mine Ice, either in a null under control of your alliance, or in highsec.
There are only 3 things that can be mined, mechanically: Ice, Ore, and Gas. With very few exceptions, ice regular rocks take the longest to be chewed up. Then Gas. Then Ore.
The exceptions are enourmous anomalies in nullsec, the “Small” Crokite anomalies in lowsec, and sufficiently long term drilled moon ore.
The enormous anomaly in null only spawns where players have shown some effort in crabbing, the moon ore spawns only on player operated refineries, hence might be “protected”, while the crokite anomaly spawns at any lowsec at some odds. Lowsec, however, is target to most static wormholes, therefore receives most wormhole hunters, plus the native lowsec population, which in general is more “aggressive” then null or highsec ones.
Gas is very large, but most of it is in wormhole space, and has some advanced AI NPCs spawning after some 15-ish minutes, forcing the player to either warp off or manouver to reduce their application. In some very high reward gas sites, NPCs have enough application and damage to simply instakill any mining ship, so you need to either set an alarm clock (the NPCs always have the same spawn delay) and warp off once it rings, or you need to keep your eyes on the screen to push the warp button when they spawn (only eligable for frigates as the barges have too poor align speed to get out in time).
Lowsec Gas is more valuable then wormhole gas, but then, it’s lowsec, so odds to get wrecked by a player are larger then in “most” wormholes.
If you mine in highsec it probably doesn’t effect your survival rate, but even then, it’s a multiplayer game.
They all AFK mine all the time, though they will probably claim that they don’t.
No large mining fleet ever doesn’t have some capsuleers not AFKing.
Most Corporations have some kind of third party voice communication, though actually being online there and communicating the presence of potential trouble requires some discipline. Not exactly something you are entitled to ask of them given your objective is to AFK.
For the progression path it barely matters. Your mining efficiency for ore is mostly affected by the usage of mining crystals, which require the same skills no matter what ship you use. For Gas, you’ll spend a lot of time scanning cosmic signatures, so the skills to go for are those of explorers. Ice is probably the easiest to skill into.
For Ice, Retrievers are popular, because they are most afk-able.
For Gas, Ventures are the way to go since no amount of defensiveness will safe you if something goes wrong, and the higher end ships are barely any more efficient at mining then Ventures but a lot more expensive.
For Ore, probably a Procurer as it has most passive ehp/s regeneration.
Highsec, unless you’re a member of a SOV space corp, in which case you can usually AFK quite hard in your alliance’s area.