This guide is going to be long and the first entry is on mining, one of THE most used income streams for carebears, I fully recommend you SKIP it if you don't want to read about making isk via mining. These guides are NOT meant to be short or for people with ADHD, don't like this stuff, Just skip it. You HAVE BEEN WARNED.
Some of the most used and common ways of making isk in EVE come from pouring time into the game, and in return for time you get an isk per hour ratio. This can be as low as 10 mill per hour, to as high as unlimited isk per hour, however unlimited isk usually isn't possible for more then a few hours or even days. Think of it like walking down a balance beam, if you walk slowly anyone can pretty much get to the other side, however if you do it faster you get more isk. Eventually people are running down the beam trying to make more money and suddenly someone slips and falls off, usually in a pretty spectacular way causing injury to themselves and a good laugh from the more jaded of us in the crowd.
Income making in EVE follows a very similar method, depending on fast you are willing to go usually means you are willing to take on more risk. And if you mess up, you will pay for it, either in lost time, lost items or even lost ships.
1. Mining
Time per week per toon: As much as possible, usually for 3 to 5 hours each time.
Time from Character creation to being useful: About 60 days.
Demand for products: Ultra Heavy to UNLIMITED.
Upside: Multiple accounts means more isk
Downside: Easily disrupted and more accounts means more cash or isk out of pocket per month
In-game items needed: Exhumer of choice, hauler of choice, tank for belt rats(optional), Mining bonus boosting orca or rorqual, safe POS if in lowsec/null, bubbles on gate(s).
Mining is the most basic and easy activity to do, usually and not counting hulkageddon which I'll explain later. Every single item in EVE needs asteroid minerals in some part of it. Tech 1 to tech 3, invention, ammos and ships. It's actually easier to find items that don't need asteroid minerals than those that do. And because of it everyone needs them for pretty much everything they want to build in the game and make money on, and because of that you can make a decent profit.
In game history of mining
The upside to mining is that if you have enough money to get a few accounts you can make 100 mill to 250 mill per hour with 4 hulks mining some decent ores, and if your alliance doesn't have decent ores you can switch to ice blocks and make a semi decent profit there. The downside however is that you have to have a ton of accounts, keep track of them all, move them all and do all the extra work. This down side is what has stopped most people from mining the last years, up until the drone region nerf (the drone region nerf was when the rats there stopped dropping mineral compounds instead of isk bounties) people would '
mine with guns' this was very easy compared to the normal method of setting up anywhere from 2 to 6 toons typically, and trying to make almost the same isk per hour.
The end result became that no one mined, pretty much anywhere in the game. The stream of minerals was so high from the drone lands that we saw mineral prices drop from a high of megacycte at 5,000 and Zydrine at 4,000 to Megacycte at 1,600 and Zydrine touching 750. Basically the market was flooded with minerals and not enough people building to need them, so the price stayed low and the markets were over saturated. However CCP saw the problem with this, their economist having access to all this data I bet had a major effect on it, and they changed compound drops to isk drops instead. So now the drone regions make isk for the renters and a major source of minerals into the market stopped. At the same exact time they also nerfed item drops from rats so mission runners didn't continue to flood the market with minerals as well.
These two nerfs were buffs to the mining profession, but CCP wasn't done there, a pile of bans went out over the months leading up to this patch and apparently continued afterwards, where accounts caught online for 18+ hours per day were 'watched' and banned as quick as they could. It seemed, that after years of people begging for the price of minerals not to be flattened by the drone regions CCP not only listened, but wanted to make up for lost time. Add into that a pile of people that were speculating and buying up billions and billions of minerals and it became almost foolish to NOT mine during this time. People making 75 to 100 mill per hour mining empire ores were reported for the weeks after the patch, and like a sleepy giant the player base shook off the dust and cobwebs, resubbed a ton of mining toons and began to get to work. The minerals have again begun to flow, industrialists have adjusted to the new prices and are producing still. Some people have cried that the prices of items have gone up to much, but there are tons of ways to make isk to offset it. When I took my recent break from EVE a tier 2 BS (megathron or Apoc) cost about 80 to 90 mill, now 145 to 160 mill is not only common, but expected as the new price. This is GREAT news for miners!
Hulkageddon
What guide to mining would be complete without referencing this event, or at the very least warning the people that might use this guide about it. In it's current form the Goonswarm Federation (Goons) have put out a bounty, claimable by anyone in the game for legit killmails on hulks in empire. This is two part, it helps them keep the price of techinium up, and the 'pubbie' tears are harvested in droves. Before anyone gets all high and mighty, and then claims 'This is B.S.!' you have to remember that EVE itself is not a safe place, it was never designed to be. And in empire, while you might feel safe you never are. The Goons have taken this to a new level and are nuking every hulk they can, this shouldn't be seen as a BAD thing, it should be seen as an opportunity to make a TON of isk.
How to make a ton of cash in mining, with a few simple choices
First off, if you are going to mine in empire you have to ask yourself '
why am I mining in empire compared to 0.0?' The typical answer I get from most people comes in the forms of security, risk, ease and profitability.
Assumption -Security - It is much safer to mine in empire, I have concord there to protect me and I can just dock up if a war dec hits my corp.
Fact - With Hulkageddon running and the changes to wardeccing it's never been a worse time to mine in empire, if you get into anything over a hulk you are risking losing it and a large chunk of change.
Assumption - Risk - There is almost no risk in empire, I can mine semi afk and not worry about anything.
Fact - War decs are changing, and suicide ganking is becoming so common that anyone with a simple google search can figure out how to ruin your day.
Assumption - Ease - I have trade hubs nearby, I can sell my ore easily and get replacement ships and modules.
Fact - The same things exist in most 0.0 alliances, you might have to pay a 10% premium but you can make that 10% premium back on mineral you sell, usually you can sell minerals much higher then 25% and get away with it. Most alliances with an outpost or two also have a few importing traders that can get you anything you want simply for paying for an m3 charge to have it jumped out.
Assumption - Profitability - I can make more money in empire then 0.0 because I can mine 23/7/365 and sell everything right in the system I mine it in.
Fact - Mining in 0.0 usually is just as easy if not easier then empire, Rorquals in 0.0 provide better mining bonuses then Orcas and there are many ores in null that can make even spot mining for 20 minutes worth hours of mining in empire.
Types of mining
Spot mining - Spot BELT mining comes into play when your alliance space is either small or heavily roamed, heavy roamers love blowing up barges and ruining your day. However with spot mining you can make a decent income by mining very large rocks and getting the hell back to the POS shield before a gang comes through. This one requires good intel channels or scouts a few jumps out, it can be used very well on travel paths and people that rat in low security systems a few systems down the chain are great to 'tip' to give you a heads up when a fast gang or solo ganker is roaming around. The main reason to do this comes from the fact that almost everyone says 'fuck travel path mining' and for the most part they are right. However if the best systems of your alliance are stripped out or afk cloaky camped then this can be a quick way to make a few hundred mill by being attentive. I recommend a drake tanker that you can lose in the belt easily without having to worry about it, losing a drake after all is much better then losing a 500 mill+ hulk or hulks. The boosting rorqual should be back in a POS, better if it's your own personal POS so spies can't bump it out. And have all hulks aligned to a safe or back to the POS for a quick fleet warp out. For picking up your ore, I recommend either a second rorqual way below the belt with capital tractors and he BETTER be aligned back to the POS before he does anything at all, use the book mark for the POS then when he's aligned full and up to 50% speed ctrl spacebar to cancel the warp, if your within 100km of your hulks you can remain at 75% speed (just set your speed by clicking on your dial) and if a hostile is reported warp out immediately. REMEMBER no can of ore is worth a single hulk or rorqual, if a hostile is reported even 2 jumps away just fleet warp the entire gang into the POS. If a hostile comes in system and stays for more then a few seconds, just log off any hulk that was NOT aggro'ed, it's better to do this before they jump in but beggars can't be choosers.
Bubble camp mining - Bubble camp mining is simply bubbling up the gates to your system like CRAZY, maybe with 3 to 5 large bubbles each and then mining to your hearts content, if a hostile comes in system, get safe and log off. It might not be the most honorable solution but this is 0.0, your not going for honor, you want the hostiles to get out and you get back to mining. Never talk smack in local to roamers, it's like fuel to them and they will setup a camp in your system simply to troll you more or leave behind an AFK cloaker that will ruin your day. Either way, just get back to POS and log, wait a few minutes and come back on. If you have good scouts the hostiles usually won't even come into your pile of bubbles and will go to a less time consuming activity then shooting a bunch of bubbles. BUBBLES SAVE HULKS, INVEST IN THEM AND DO NOT WORRY WHEN THEY DIE.
Anom mining - Upgrading a system to Industry level 4 is a great way to have spawnable belts that have to be scanned down by a prober to be able to mine, they are a miners dream and when hostiles come in system if you are watching your scanner with probes on overview, you won't even have to get to a POS most of the time. If you see the probes come out, get the fleet back to the POS and sit there or logoff. There are a few bad things about anom mining, with the way EVE is setup anyone can check industry levels with an API read from the game, if anyone sees Industry 5 they usually will send a few cloaky ships to shut the system down and try to get a few cheap kills. Why? Because it takes a tremendous amount of mining to get to level 5 and it's almost assured to get them a hulk kill if they wait around long enough, for this reason just upgrade your system to level 4 and be happy with that, anything more is just asking for 'l33t cloaking pvpers' to shut the entire system down. CCP still hasn't figured out that AFK cloaking is one of the most risk free ways to shut down an entire system that dozens if not a few hundred people have invested in and requires a ton of work to shut down while the cloaker just has to log in, press F1 and go to work for the entire day. It might be fixed, but I'm predicting 2019 for this fix since miners have been asking for it since 2003.
Belt mining - Just as it sounds, belt mining is taking advantage of the belts in a decent security system in the space your alliance owns, usually systems NOT on travel paths and mining for a few hours with full bonuses and a few friends. There are many good systems in EVE that have access to the best ores, for reference those ores are Arkonor, Bistot, Crokite and Mercoxit. With Anom mining becoming so popular many belts are simply ignored since hostiles can warp right to them, with a eye on local and intel channels you can mine out tons more ore then anoms and you don't have to scan down the belts either. A note on belts, the roids do NOT move ever, even if you mine the entire belt out the roids will respawn in the same exact places each time. A good trick if your going to live in a system for a long time is to get to a belt on Monday after DT or Friday after DT and book mark all the best positions to get at the most roids with the least movement. I use a ceptor for this since I can move sometimes as fast as 10k p/s and with ores on my overview I can setup a decent amount of bookmarks. The problem with this is coming up with a naming system, I simply use Planet number, Belt number and then A through Z. So Planet 2, belt 5, third position with Ark Bistot and Mercoxit becomes P2B53ABM. It can get a tad confusing at times with 20+ belts, and 30+ roids in each belt but feel free to come up with whatever system you like and transfer the bookmarks among your alts, with proper prep you can strip mine entire systems in as little as a day or two and make 2 to 10 billion each week depending on the amount of characters and bonuses.
Cherry picking - This is a quick way to piss people off, but I'm noting it in for completeness. For belt mining cherry picking is fine, most people don't mine low end or medium ores in belts with ABCM available, however Anoms require you to mine out the ENTIRE anom before a new one will spawn. And that means all that crappy Spodumain and Omber has to be mined up by someone or it takes 3 days from spawning of the site before it despawns and another site takes it's place. Some people like the security of an Anom and they don't want to mine everything so a new site spawns, so they scan down a site and mine only the top 4 ores. After that they move onto the next site and repeat until the 4 or 5 sites in system are skunked until 3 days have passed or someone else has mined the lower grade stuff and spawned a new site. Most miners get very angry at this activity, they figure if there are belts with the same ores and all you want to do is mine them then leave the anoms alone. I've seen entire flamefest forum wars and people getting super serious angry over it, personally I'd rather get a bunch of corpies or alliance mates together and strip mine a few anoms and pay everyone out then Cherry pick, but it's an option if your alliance doesn't have many miners.
Ninja Mining - This one isn't really done much anymore, but it is possible. Basically you get a few friends together on coms, and jump into a system that has decent ore but isn't used much by the holders in the area. It's not uncommon for some alliances to hold too much space and not use it all, and semi decent security systems, say -0.40 to -0.74 are often ignored if there isn't a station nearby and there is better security located closer by to an alliances holdings. Note, I'm not sure if this is still the case but anchoring a tower in a sov system I believe still reports to the holding corp what just happened and if someone is paying attention you can quickly have a pile of defenders all over your little operation and make nothing.
However with that said you can get a few rorquals (2 is usually best) a few carriers and a few people in fast ships. Then you jump into a decent system, put down a small POS WITH STRONT DAMMIT, and setup a quick mining op in the belts with scouts nearby or bubbles in place. If anyone comes wandering down to your area either log or pretend your a gate camp with people in fast ships. If no one comes by for a while, it is quite possible to strip mine a few belts of ABC, compress it the entire time with the rorqual giving bonuses and then pack the entire operation up and leave the area. I wouldn't use the same system time after time, but if something is working there isn't much reason not to repeat it if you aren't spotted. Remember both rorquals can carry stront in their cargo bays and holds, a small POS and 1 or 2 corp hangers isn't very expensive and both rorquals can carry the hulks and industrials you'll require. The carrier(s) can bring in tanking ships and combat ships like ceptors and bombers if you want to make it appear to have a gate camp.
This kind of mining is EXTREMELY risky at times and you should only do it if you know the game pretty decently, plus with the swarms of renters in the game paying for even the most shit systems it is very possible that anywhere even remotely good is closed to this type of mining anymore. I last tried it in 2010 and was lucky enough to snag 2 full rorquals worth of ABC from F69O
http://evemaps.dotlan.net/map/Etherium_Reach/F69O-M#sec the local renters were botting pretty hard and whenever I came in system they would log off, every hour one would log on and right back off again so I setup shop and started mining. There are only 3 belts there so it wasn't a ton of ore but every Sunday and Tuesday I would log on, move everything there and try it solo. This worked fine until my computer no longer would let me run 4 clients. There are more then a few spots in the drone regions now with no sov and decent ore, and if you are very worried you can have an alt cloaked up with a recon or a cyno in an empty system for an emergency cyno. It is a ton of work and the rewards aren't really that good anymore, but you can make a decent amount if you know what your doing and if you get in trouble you just dump everything into the rorquals and carriers and jump them out before a big response hits system. If they nuke your small tower, who cares it's a small tower.
Scan mining - This one works well all over null, low sec and even empire, with the right scanning skills you can enter a system, see a bunch of sigs and find ore and gas sites pretty easily. Both are needed and in low sec and empire you can find sites with Dark Ochere and Gnesis in even 0.5 systems. It's not a gold mine, but it is maybe a copper or silver mine. You can mine with an orca and as long as you don't see a bunch of probes on scanner you can mine out an entire site over a few days. In low sec, most people keep moving if they see a bunch of people in local so you can usually find a good site and mine like crazy, without too much interruption. You can even find ores that aren't normally listed in the game that refine into rare minerals, it's not very common but it does exist.
Mission mining - I'm not 100% sure this one works anymore, however you used to be able to run 7/10s up to 10/10's with a high chance that there would be a final pocket with a ton of ores in it. And if you left a tower or single rat left alive with one member of your gang still in the pocket you could bring in the mining fleet and strip mine it. During my time in Stain I had brought my mining fleet but everyone told me I was crazy, we ran a 10/10 and in the last pocket we found a site with 40+ Ark roids, most with 2,500 units each in them. Since a 10/10 is so hard to scan down without the bookmark I was able to mine in absolute peace, the last cruise missile tower firing against the rorqual time and time again yet doing no damage I couldn't regen with a single run of the capital shield repper. That site yielded over 100,000 units of Ark and made me a decent amount of isk, it was unexpected and it took me about 3 hours to clear with the various annoyances of the site and system. CCP's latest patches might have shut down this option but it does exist and a little looking could most likely find out if it's still possible or not.
Ice mining - This one is probably the most boring in existence, yet with a good rorqual giving bonuses (and a mind link) you can usually get around 60+ blocks per hour per mackinaw. With maxed out macks and exhumers lvl 5 you can get I believe almost 72 blocks per hour per hulk. Most low security systems in null and even some in low sec are ignored even if they have an ice belt, but any system with -0.45 to -0.01 can have dark glitter in it, and every block of dark glitter gives 1,000 ozone, 500 heavy water and 75 stront. With todays prices that's not a bad payout, if you use the POS refinery with a 200,000m3 bay you will get 100% return, let me say that again the POS refinery gives a 100% return on ice blocks. No tax and no loss.
The down side comes from people using this method to avoid alliance taxes, I full support giving a cut of 5% to 10% to your alliance executor corp if it's a problem, most won't give a crap if your mining in some low security system in the ass end of your alliances empire. People making fuel blocks will love you as LO and HW are in high demand, people using stront for probes or alliance dreads will also like a local supply. Towers in alliance space will also need stront, so there's always a need. This mining is quite literally the MOST boring of all mining, I highly recommend doing it with a large group of people and talking about anything else BUT the mining while doing it. I frequently did it with a movie or TV series on the second monitor and even then I could only stand it for a few hours without someone else to chat with. The products sold out pretty quickly and anything extra I just contracted to move to our low sec staging by our empty JF or Rorqual pilots with 100,000m3 or 300,000m3 contracts.
Strip mining - Strip mining works best when your alliance has access to a factory outpost of some kind or if you have a very resourceful builder with a POS with factory lines on it. Without a refinery station however this entire thing doesn't work, 75% loss to a POS refinery on ore is a horrible loss and a rorqual with compression BPO's is a really good way to get past the distance of having a refinery 10+ jumps away in 0.0. In strip mining you mine out entire belts, focusing on whatever is closest compared to the best ores, industrialists need any and all minerals in 0.0, and if your alliance is trying to build capitals of any kind they will buy everything you can mine easily. I once mined with 4 hulks for 25 hours a week for a total of 100 hours in a month, mostly to see if I could keep that sort of pace, at the end I had strip mined an entire constellation of ore over the month. I pulled in just under 11.6 billion, but everything I mined was bought up by a local industry guy who was pumping out carriers/dreads every week and he bought me out at Jita +5% to boot.
This kind of mining is exactly why I tell every single empire miner I meet to get out to 0.0 and try it out, you get all the ores you can get in empire and all the rare ones. Yeah you have to watch your back but even mining with a covetor is better then mining in empire in my mind. You can make much more in much shorter periods of time mining in 0.0 and the best part is, if you are used to mining in empire even a 0.01 system is like a gold mine to you. It has all the ores your used to and they are in quanities of 100,000 plus for veld, sometimes 300,000 size veld roids are out there since they've never been minded. Mine enough and you can get some spawnable anoms for mining and get access to the rarer stuff, the biggest point is just TRY it. I know many people that have never once gone out to 0.0 and yet have been blown to bits by hulkageddon and I can only assume they do so because they have no idea how.
Try the recruitment forums, the recruitment channels or better yet ask around for anyone that knows a decent 0.0 alliance to give you a fair shake. If you still don't or can't find anyone decent I know a few corps willing to take recruits but please don't expect an answer right away, I get swarmed by mails when I login and would prefer not to be. But if it helps get some people out of empire and shows you that 0.0 isn't that bad, then I'll give it a shot. BIG GIANT HOWEVER here, if you aren't willing to learn pvp of some sort, even getting into a rifter or drake and dying a few times for whatever alliance or corp you end up in, then I really wouldn't recommend it unless you want to be in a corp that puts mining quotas on you.
Also be aware of scammers that will try to get you to join their corp and have you contract all your stuff to them and instead not allow you in, I'm not really against scamming or for it, I am however against the idea of anyone who reads these SUPER long guides of mine getting screwed out of ISK. As such, I usually recommend that you be very cautious with whoever you contract your stuff to, and if you can, put the collateral at the Jita price of what you are trying to move. Some people can't move items without them being assembled and not on contract, examples are battleships, hulks and such. However for items such as those I recommend you just ask if there are hulks and gear out there you can buy at Jita +5% to +15% and join that way, then you don't have to worry about your stuff being stolen and if they give you the boot you can just put your items on contract and sell them that way.
Empire mining - I don't recommend this while hulkageddon is ongoing, however covetor mining, retriever mining, ferox mining and others are still viable. The biggest thing I've noticed is that area's very far out there or with very few jumps per day are great area's for people to still mine in, systems without stations are also great for mining with friends if you have enough people hauling or standings to put a POS in empire. Remember a single toon with standings can be in a solo corp, anchor the POS and you can have them sit next to the corp hanger array and transfer all the ore into the corp hanger and then move it later with a freighter. Mining ice in empire is still big while the wars are going on, the sheer number of caps jumping everywhere is keeping demand for isotopes to fuel them very high. Every single type of tope is in demand with the tens of thousands of POS's running every day and chomping down on fuel blocks.
Wormhole mining - This one is safe(ish) compared to empire mining at the moment, however if you don't keep your scanner running every 10 seconds you seriously risk the chance of being blown to bits. If you have a good guy on scanning you can clear a wormhole mining site and it will not respawn rats again till after DT, this might have changed, please check before you do this in a wormhole. However the problem you WILL run into in wormholes comes from the fact that you can't easily get your ore out without tons of scanning to find wormholes to empire. Compressing is a necessity and many people tell me that running a 75% refinery is the best option, this reminds me of the time in 0.0 before outposts were introduced into the game and compression didn't exist yet. People were running POS refineries all over the place and just taking the 25% loss, this option might be perfectly fine in wormholes and orca's of high ends coming into empire via scanned wormholes are pretty common. Compressed ore in high quantities might also be common but I'm not sure, only ABCM would be worth it and even then I'm not sure as I've never personally lived in a wormhole.
Gas mining - There are gas sites in some 0.0 regions and gas clouds spawn randomly in null and wormholes. They however do have one downside, exhumers aren't useful in them. There are no gas strip miners and only 5 turret cruisers or bc's are used to mine them (you can't train gas mining past lvl 5 after all) so you are limited by the number of characters that can mine it multiplied by the number of lasers you can use per 1 minute cycle time. Mining drones also don't work on gas sites so you can only use lasers, the gas from sites is used in tech 3 construction, and booster(drug) production and I think that's all at the moment but I might be wrong as I've never mined gas. I have bought people out that mine it, and built it in an alliance gallente office outpost in the 10 booster slot production slots. But after taking something like 4 months to sell my stock out I never did it again, boosters have been buffed since then so it might be worth looking into.
Tips and tricks -
A. Industrials with giant secure containers in them will make it so you can haul over 50,000m3 in a single itty 5, however with Orcas these days there's almost no point in doing so. B. Mining drones are best used on the CLOSEST ores not the farthest away ones, they also have a capacity per trip back to your ship and amazingly enough the high end ores of ABC give the most return.
C. Rorqual Compression prints can be researched with PE, this can reduce the time it takes to compress a load dramatically over the course of an op research your prints AND buy 4x of every single print so you never have an empty slot since you will be burning heavy water every 5 minutes anyway.
D. Cans make great ways to keep your corporate hanger array on orcas, rorquals and carriers seperate and clean. There are cans as small as 100m3, which provide 120m3 of space, if you have all the ore and ice prints you are looking at over 100+ prints worth, keep them in a small can and move them into your cargo to get the prints you need out.
E. Mining crystals are bulky as hell a GSC (giant secure container) can be carried around pretty easily and ejected and anchored next to the hulk. If a hostile gang comes into the system just leave it password protected and LEAVE it. Even a gang of 20+ people can take 20 minute or more to kill a GSC. They can only be carried in your rorquals cargo bay so label them with a number that matches the alt your using so you know who's can is who's.
F. POS's - are tools, treat them as such, a few corp hangers a medium tower and some stront can turn a really crappy system into a decent system. After a few hours of mining the entire setup is paid off and basically 'free' at that point. Don't be afraid to use them and lose them in the pursuit of profit.
G. Mercoxit - with the drone regions being nerfed the supply of Morphite is slowly winding down, consider mining some and either sitting on it for a bit or using it in invention if you do that yourself.
H. Strip miner I's - if you are running more then 4 hulks at a time just switch to SM1's and forget trying to keep crystals stocked, it's easier and you can mine anything you want without having to worry about getting crystals to the right character.
I. Ice - if you are going crazy or if your machine(s) can run 10+ hulks at once, just mine ice and hopefully do it in a system with at the very least a station so you can refine it in a POS or better yet instantly at a refinery outpost and put it all up on the market for Jita+10%. Ice blocks have 5000+ units and I've NEVER seen anyone mine out a single block let alone an ice belt, you don't have to move ever and can mine until hostiles appear.
J. Partnership - you can mine solo but find an industrialist that will buy your stuff, even ones in empire will gladly buy the high end minerals you export in return for decent prices, often instantly.
K. Systems with crappy true sec and many belts can be a gold mine if you know what you're doing. Don't ignore them if you have 3+ hulk toons and a rorqual.
L. Multitoon expenses - remember PLEX's can be purchased from your profits, yes it might take a few months to get to this point but once it's rolling even as little as 10 hours a month with all your toons can usually pay for all the plex's for them. If you buy the minerals from yourself and build them into something you can make money on the minerals as well as the final product as well as avoid transport costs, debate it.
M. Implants - +5% mining implants aren't too expensive and will give a good and quick return if bought in Jita. Refining implants DO exist for 1,3,5% bonus to refinery usage, make sure whatever character you have that refines in the outpost or refinery is using them before you press that button, a single 3% refining implant which costs I think 30 million isk can give PERFECT refines in a 40% outpost refinery with absolutely 0% lost. Don't be a moron and compress all your ore and jump it to empire when the refineries your alliance owns are good enough.
O. Use the correct tool for the job - Hulks, macks and skiffs all have their own uses, don't be afraid to buy the right tool for the job. The start up costs are usually bad, but once you get going you can make billions per month.
P. Back up supplies - don't be caught with your pants down, after you are rolling in cash, buy extra hulks, mining gear, fuel, POS stuff, implants and anything else needed to make your life easier and put it all into your low sec staging NPC station. If you get nuked because of lag, an accident or a really talented pilot there is nothing worse then either not having enough isk to replace your gear OR having an empire war dec which makes it even worse. Back ups are never a bad thing to have and they don't have to be bought all at once, even a single Hulk or some mining lasers don't hurt to be stocked incase something happens.
Q. Make friends - friends are never a bad thing to have in an alliance, go into systems next door to where you are and 'o/' in local if it's all friendlies, if you see someone ratting like crazy strike up a friendship, if their ratting like mad in a golem or whatever ask them to be in a convo with you during their ratting and for every hostile they report kick em a few mill. Even 2 mill per report can make even the most jaded ratter want to keep you updated, after a while they might start reporting in intel channels and everyone benefits. And hey, if you get a few extra seconds to move your entire mining fleet into the POS shield that 2 mill might have just saved you a few billion in hulks.
R. Renting - there isn't a shame in renting if you know what your doing AND can easily make your expenses back. If the corp you join in 0.0 is renting their not bad people, they might just not know how to get going the right way, might be new to the game or might just not want to fly pvp ships. I wouldn't recommend joining a renter corp over a pvp corp, but for getting your feet wet it isn't a bad option.
S. Intel channels - find out what they are for the local region and keep an eye on them, if they blink, click it right away and find out where the hostile gang is. If there are 10+ of them if they get within a few jumps, safe up in the POS you put down and log off a few toons so they don't see a PILE of hulks on scanner when they enter system.
T. Dipping your toe in - you don't have to join every single toon to a corp when you join it if you are worried about them, try a pvp alt or a single miner if their cool with that, don't mention your other toons either. Just join up, and go on all the ops you can, you might meet some really cool people. When you feel comfortable with them ask to bring in some or all of your other toons. A few weeks will usually be all you need, at the very most a month.
U. Characters are not in concrete - you can buy and sell characters with ONLY isk if you know how. I believe 2 plex are all is needed to pay the transfer fee on a toon, so you can interchange charaters around very easily, a link down below will show you how to get a hulk toon up and running very fast. If you don't want to wait or you see someone selling a very high end hulk toon for very cheap debate buying it with isk and putting it to work rather then waiting 3 months. If you have a maxed out hulk toon, train up another on the same account and then sell it when your done for isk, never ever allow your training slots to sit idle. And hulk accounts are meant to make you all the isk you can, their extra character slots support this.
V. Bonuses - never go without bonuses, even a drake will give you decent bonuses with the right toon and a perfect toon can make 2 miners mine as if they were 3. Maxed out rorqual pilots with a mind link can make you billions per DAY. Do not ignore them.
W. Orca's - they aren't bad haulers and not too expensive, just make sure you have them in their correct role. In 0.0 they should only be hauling and never giving bonuses, only rorquals give bonuses in 0.0 unless no rorqual is online.
X. Mining drones - they die, get disconnected, popped and forgotten all the time. Carry a pile of them in either your corp hanger array, your carriers drone bay or just have a pile in the 0.0 station you use. Since they die so often I usually just use Miner I drones, you can use higher if you have a good connection and a comp, just be careful.
Y. Hulk tank - you can avoid tanking with a battlecruiser if you want to pay for a gisti-b type small shield booster to handle almost any rat, just be aware that 3 frigates and 3 cruisers/battlecruisers can break your tank easier then 3 frigates and 3 battleships. Battleship guns and all that.
Z. Loose lips sink ships - it was true during WWII and it's true here, the more people know what you are doing and the more chances a low level spy will hear about it, they might not be able to nuke your operation but a single cloaky red in your system will shut down your entire operation until they leave. Remember a single cloaky can have a covert ops cyno and drop a bunch of bombers and black ops battleships all over you, be cautious.
Dealing with AFK cloakers
Players like these are always a pain in the rear to deal with, they either think their l33t pvpers or they hate your alliance so much they just want to shut down carebearing so badly that it folds from lack of resources. Ways to deal with them are varied but getting to another system is usually the easiest, after that are a bunch of friendlies in a safe spot ready to warp down to you if the guy uncloaks on top of you. Another is to have a recon cloaked off of you about 10km off, with long range and bonuses scram points as well as a few more friends to warp on top of the guy when he decloaks and tries to nuke you.
However with the current mechanics most players will gladly give up a >100m ship in exchange for a 500m+ hulk. In that case or until the next patch hits that fixes mining it's recommended that you just go elsewhere, the mechanics aren't very favorable to hulks atm and losing one can set you back an entire night of mining.
BIG GIANT FUCKING WARNING READ THIS BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING
That a good enough warning? I hope so, so let me state this in bold letters so you don't forget it.
Minerals you mine yourself are NOT FREE.
There is ALWAYS a cost for minerals and if you can't figure it out think of it this way, if you spent that hour or hours ratting are the bounties free to give away? 'Oh that's isk, that's different!' I can almost hear a few people say, and to you I say shut up and learn. Your time is NEVER free in game, time is the one thing you always have and if you give it away to others for free you might as well join a communist corp and not worry about any isk making at all.
If you could mine the minerals, the COST for them is always what you can sell them in Jita for. Try never to go below that when selling or using your minerals, if not, you are quite literally giving away some of your income per hour to whoever buys your items or minerals.
Resources to use as a miner LINKS!!!
http://eve.grismar.net/ore/full.php - This site allows you to enter in the mineral prices at the top, hit apply and it'll update the entire chart with what ore is worth mining per m3. I've used it since 07 and I believe the guy who made it long ago left EVE. There are probably better links these days and if someone can put a few in this thread, PM me or EVE mail me I'll update the OP with them over time. ((NOTE upper left above Veldspar on the chart you can click and change to ice products))
http://eveinfo.com/ore_price/ another very professional site that lets you change the prices per unit of ore.
http://eve-search.com/thread/1030739 - guide to training your new toon into a hulk at fastest speed, might be out of date.
http://evemaps.dotlan.net/ great for looking for options or systems via the great drop downs at the top once you get into the region section. Debate giving Wollari some isk, he works very hard on the site and I personally LOVE his work. Never hurts to tip the people that work so hard on sites we take for granted.
http://ore.cerlestes.de/index.html#site
re - great ore guide I was sent, edited post to add this in.
Upcoming
I will be trying to get more entries to my ISK guide series, but as you can see these aren't 'quick' to write. I'm trying to also do the Outpost updates, Outpost region historicals as well as mini political updates on the status of 0.0. I have my plate full and any time I had towards carebearing is kinda nuked atm, which doesn't really effect me too much. My computer is so fucking old that I can barely play EVE atm anyway, I'm getting the funds together to put a new machine together (compared to this 5 year old piece of crap) but it isn't fast and the machine I spec'ed out is around $2,100. It should take me a month or two to get that kinda cash together and since my machine can barely run one client atm anyway, I've put my alt swarm of ten accounts on hold until I get the machine. After that I'll get all the accounts resubbed and get back to making isk.
Thanks for reading and the next entry will cover ratting/missioning.
-Banlish
Originally Posted by Raketefrau
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that I've taken him under my wing to learn of EVE.
god I miss dasty 
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