Eve no more, but the adventure continues…

I’m sure most of you know, that this blog hasn’t been updated in a long while.  I attempted to get back into Eve recently, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.  For those who may be interested, I started a new venture at TheEchoBoom: Gen Y Blog and Forum.  Its a site targeted towards generation Y.  It contains information about generational traits, trends, issues, etc.  I would appreciate it if you stopped by (and even talk about Eve if you want).  MMOs are in fact, a cultural icon of the echo boomers.  Thanks.  Hope to see you there.

Custom Mining Comparison

Hello all.  Unfortunately, I no longer play Eve.  I’ve become frustrated at the downfall of mining and I hope its an area that gets attention in the future.  I might come back for a month as I’ve done several times before, especially with a new expansion/content.

However, I noticed my blog still receives some pretty consistent traffic of miners out there, so I am willing to perform custom calculations and comparisons with YOUR prices.  Just leave a comment of what you want analyzed – just include the prices of ores you are willing to sell at and I’ll see what I can do.  Please, no ice mining figures though.  Its been a while and I think I forgot how to calculate it haha.

New Mining Figures Fall 2009

So I took a year off.  Again.  Wow, things have changed.  Here is the basic summary of the ore priority when it comes to the most ISK per m3.

Plagioclase
Kernite
Veldspar
Scordite
Pyroxeres
Hemorphite
Omber
Jaspet

Here is the more detailed breakdown:

Asteroid (ISK/m3)
Rich Plagioclase (95.63)
Fiery Kernite (93.40)
Azure Plagioclase (91.26)
Luminous Kernite (89.13)
Dense Veldspar (86.88)
Plagioclase (86.85)
Massive Scordite (86.56)
Kernite (84.89)
Concentrated Veldspar (82.93)
Condensed Scordite (82.64)
Veldspar (78.98)
Scordite (78.67)
Viscious Pyroxeres (74.47)
Solid Pyroxeres (70.79)
Pyroxeres (67.10)
Glazed Hermorphite (64.24)
Vivid Hermophite (60.70)
Hemorphite (58.22)
Golden Omber (56.40)
Pristine Jaspet (53.96)
Silvery Omber (53.74)
Omber (51.23)
Pure Jaspet (50.53)
Jaspet (48.74)

I’m Back! New Mining Figures!

So after taking a few months off, I’m back.  Whoa, they added a new expansion?  Crazy stuff.  Good news is that I made a lot of progress on my skills since I was gone.  Apparently your skills still train when your account is cancelled.  I’m still in a retriever at the moment, but a Covetor and Hulk are just around the corner!  Here are some new ore prices by ISK per m3.  Let me be the first to say that man, things can change over a few months!

Glazed Hermorphite	109.5905
Vivid Hermophite	103.4385
Hemorphite	99.29144
Fiery Kernite	97.75285
Dense Veldspar	95.13514
Massive Scordite	93.61722
Luminous Kernite	93.2556
Concentrated Veldspar	90.81081
Condensed Scordite	89.38238
Kernite	88.83663
Veldspar	86.48649
Scordite	85.08989
Rich Plagioclase	84.88846
Azure Plagioclase	81.01158
Plagioclase	77.09653
Pristine Jaspet	76.24575
Viscious Pyroxeres	75.63233
Golden Omber	73.85003
Solid Pyroxeres	71.72032
Pure Jaspet	70.9576
Silvery Omber	70.35997
Jaspet	68.74045
Pyroxeres	67.80831
Omber	67.08247

Slow Times in the Eve Universe

I recently had to travel to Washington D.C. so I trained up a few skills in the meantime.  Those skills include Drones V, Scout Drones V, Mining Barge IV, Mechanic IV, and a few others I can’t remember.  Currently Astrogeology V is training which will take two weeks or so.  It should be worth it though.

Ice Mining versus Ore Mining in a Retriever

Okay, I’m going to attempt to compare Ice Mining versus Ore Mining in a relatively crude and probably inaccurate way. It isn’t the ultimate answer, but like other things I’ve discussed, could be taken into consideration and applied to your own situation. Here is some of the data I’ve assumed:

• Average ISK per m3 of ore mining is 95. Considering Fiery Kernite is 109 ISK per m3 and Veldspar is 87, let’s just say 95 is a modest amount although probably inaccurate.
• Also, let’s assume that ice mining completes in 8 minutes. Like before, it is probably inaccurate, but I have a sneaking suspicion that these two are going to be in two completely different ballparks.
• Lastly, I’m assuming that a block of ice sells for 120,000 ISK each.

With one strip miner, approximately 1000 m3 ore is mined every cycle… or in other words, every 3 minutes. That means in the time of 1 cycle of a ice harvester, there are 2.67 cycles of a strip miner. In terms of ore, there are 2670 m3 of ore by the time there is 1 ice block. That means there is about 253,650 ISK per strip miner in that amount of time compared to the 120,000 ISK ice block… and that is assuming a 100% run time of ice harvesting which is difficult to do. In other words, it is estimated to be more than twice as profitable to mine ore than ice in a Retriever… or the equivalent of mining ores that yield about 45 ISK per m3 (even Omber blows this away).

Now using these crude numbers and data from the Complete Miner’s Guide by Halada, lets test the Mackinaw out. The Mackinaw recieves 4 ice blocks every 317 seconds… or 2 ice blocks per harvester every 5.28 minutes. In this time, a Retriever’s strip miner has 1.76 cycles yielding about 1760 m3 of ore. At the 95 ISK per m3 average, this is about 167,000 ISK compared to the Mackinaw’s 240,000 ISK. However, since the Mackinaw takes about an extra month or two to train, costs around 90 mil, and the cycle was considered perfect; it isn’t very hard to believe that it’s more profitable.

Considering the Covetor’s third strip miner let’s try this again. The Mackinaw yields 480,000 ISK per cycle and in the same time, the Covetor yields 510,629 ISK worth of ore. Considering you can’t get the Mackinaw without the skills to get the Covetor, mining ore is definitely more profitable than ice. It is the equivalent of mining Scordite in a Covetor (89 ISK/m3).

One additional issue to concern is that every 3 mintes you would have to drag ore into a jetcan. Ice mining you can do other things, like help your girlfriend study for an anatomy exam with notecards. I got yelled at a few times during the hauling process though haha.

What to Mine

Since mining is sometimes boring and I’m not always playing some other video game or doing homework, I made a very elaborate spreadsheet in Excel that calculates the ISK per m3 of asteroid contents based off of new regional averages (using densities, batch amounts, and minerals yielded. I’m sure its not perfectly accurate due to Eve’s tendency to round, but it definitely gives a decent idea of what to mine. I just added Jaspet and Hemorphite recently due to my curiousity of the risk of mining low security.

I didn’t mention this before on the blog but I have recorded this about a week ago as well. The only noteworthy change is the dropping price of Pyerite resulting in Dense Veldspar being more profitable than Condensed Scordite, Concentrated Veldspar is better than Scordite, and both Veldspar and Scordite are better than Viscious Pyroxeres now. I would also like to add that Tritanium rose in price and the more expensive ones like Isogen and Mexallon decreased… something to think about in the future or if you are stockpiling

Additionally I’d like to add that these prices may fluctuate day to day (or within the same day) and that my regional average my differ than yours. Nor does this data include 0.0 mining.

Asteroid ISK/m3

Fiery Kernite	109.67
Rich Plagioclase	108.21
Luminous Kernite	104.65
Azure Plagioclase	103.26
Glazed Hermorphite	100.15
Kernite	99.68
Plagioclase	98.27
Massive Scordite	97.84
Dense Veldspar	96.79
Vivid Hermophite	94.50
Condensed Scordite	93.41
Concentrated Veldspar	92.39
Hemorphite	90.73
Scordite	88.92
Veldspar	87.99
Viscious Pyroxeres	86.12
Solid Pyroxeres	81.79
Pyroxeres	77.46
Pristine Jaspet	75.37
Pure Jaspet	70.24
Golden Omber	69.19
Jaspet	67.98
Silvery Omber	65.92
Omber	62.85

As you can see, low security (or rare) asteroids don’t necessarily yield more profit. Don’t be fooled by the price of Zydrine… it isn’t actually worth it at this point in time. Also note that Veldspar is abundant, found almost everywhere, and easily refined even for beginners. I’ll try to come up with some comparison with Ice and minerals some other time.

Venturing into Ice Mining

So I decided to pop over to a local ice field 2 jumps away to set up a bit of an ice mining operation. I set up a spare Iteron Mark III and all the equipment for the ice harvesting (Ice Harvester Upgrade and Harvesters). I know Ice Mining might not be as profitable for a retriever, but I thought it would be worth the experience. I like to experiment around… that’s what Eve is all about right?

Anyways, it was interesting to say the least. I anchored three giant secure canisters. That was like finding real estate in a highly developed city. There were cans everywhere (check out the screenshot to see what I mean). It was very difficult to place all three relatively close to each other. I managed to get them all within 10km of each other and I’m thinking I can fill up each one and collect all of them in a single Iteron haul.

I also managed to check the time and profit potential of it. In about 8 minutes I recieve only 2 ice blocks. Since I am not refining them, I am only going to estimate the wholesale price of the iceblocks which run about 115 ISK each. That means an estimated 1-2 million ISK an hour depending on how much down time I experience. Not very profitable, but 8 minute cycles means I can mine while doing homework or playing some other video game haha.

I think just embarking on the new adventure into an ice field was worth the unprofitable hour or two of my time. I’ve done less meaningful things before.

The Myrmidon has arrived

After mining for a while and delivering the minerals to a nearby system, my corp mate manufactured the Myrmidon for me. I had to buy the blueprint, Zydrine, and Megacyte, but I saved myself nearly 25 million ISK by mining the rest rather than buying the ship straight up. I blew the money I saved on equipping it, buying a lot of skill books, and attribute enhancing implants.

I’m still in the process of improving my combat skills and further equipping my ship, but for now it is pretty powerful – and with over 10k armor and two medium armor repairs, its hard to complain. I haven’t used it a lot, but from my limited experiences so far, it just sits there taking hits while the drones do the dirty work. At about 10km, I web and unload 200mm railguns on them. The webber helps me place hits.

For now it is sitting in the space station looking pretty. Like a weekend car, I’ll probably just take it out on rare occasions until it’s ready.

Project Myrmidon

So I’ve been mining my ass off today in order to get the materials for a Myrmidon. I already have the blueprint and a corp mate willing to make it for me since he a perfect skill set. Despite the handful of Pyerite and Nocxium I need to mine from Scordite and Pyroxeres, I will need to purchase Megacyte and Zydrine from the market. I could mine it myself, but I would have to do it in low sec space and then haul it back to corporate headquarters. It could be done, but I’ll just mine Kernite and use the profits to buy it. It’s less risk that way. It’s all economics.

So other than mining, training skills to effectively use the Battlecruiser, and making some purchases here and there, I’ve made the very intelligent decision of leveling up Salvaging to level 3 to make even more profit by sitting there in an asteroid belt. I sit there, jetcan mine for a few hours, kill every wave of rats, haul ore, then salvage with the Catalyst. Pictures included. Next time I post I probably will be showing off a shiny new Battlecruiser.