25/08/10 15:39 PM
| Jaspet | 55.92 |
| Omber | 55.99 |
| Hemorphite | 62.18 |
| Pyroxeres | 68.21 |
| Hedbergite | 74.04 |
| Veldspar | 65.77 |
| Kernite | 88.68 |
| Plagioclase | 84.13 |
| Scordite | 68.17 |
| Spodumain | 75.94 |
| Dark Ochre | 95.49 |
| Gneiss | 95.24 |
| Crokite | 172.65 |
| Bistot | 216.26 |
| Arkonor | 270.56 |
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While continuing to learn how to reprocess modules more efficiently, I’m back in the Lou Ferrigno for several more sessions with my favorite space rocks. I like to think of my self as a Asteroid Psychologist taking rough rocks and releasing their inner potential. What was once merely a rock in a limited and captive environment, being stifled by the gravity of a local celestial body is given purpose and passion. Who knows how far they can go.
They could end up in your next shield extender, afterburner or rifter. They have almost unlimited potential. And to think so many people want to put a stop to it. All the time I hear, “Don’t mine.”, “It’s not worth it.”, and “In defense of these poor rocks we are declaring open season on you and your hulk.” It’s enough to make me almost want to cry. Why would people be so completely ignorant of the untapped promise locked in these modest, unassuming rocks.
I moved a bunch of my Tritanium to market today. I’m still using a Badger II as I don’t have the resources to use a Charon yet or the skills for something like an Iteron V. The result is that I move about 1.6 million minerals per trip. At the current market rate, that means I’m getting about 4.9 million per trip. As it’s only 6 jumps, I’m ok with making the jumps and moving it to sell it.
Having made some isk, I was contemplating going back into the field to make some more roids cry, but somehow got distracted by a item link to a Drake battlecruiser. Suffice it to say that 31 million later, I’m right back where I started isk-wise. I’ve never owned a BC before and barely have the skill to fly the thing. I have the tank and support skills, but haven’t spent much time learning the weapons systems. As a primarily industrial character, I didn’t use much beyond the occasional assault launcher or 150mm rail gun. So now I have a very well tanked passive drake without any launchers. Hilarity never ceases.
This is a topic that I’ll probably come back to at some point. Apparently at somepoint in my career, I made the following statement to a good friend. “I am that most dreaded of MMO players, the care bear.” I tend to upset the natural order of things by needlessly throwing resources at things that could be better put use wiping the virulent infection of my fellow humans from the universe. I constantly waste isk, time and other things to put people that I hardly know into new ships, get them started training new skills, help them get set-up for mining/research/learning/pvp/pve/et cetra.
Case in point: Today I happened across a young Caldari pilot fresh into the SAK and had an overwhelming desire to just throw help at him. He really didn’t seem to know a PDS from an SPR but that only further spurred me to fill his wallet with my isk. To top it all off, he was genuinely interested in learning the game and getting over the learning curve. I almost couldn’t contain my enthusiasm at finding someone so ready to play the game and learn the ins-and-outs of a complex system like EVE.
We talked a length about skill training, mining, missioning and the general accumulation of wealth and power. In the end, I gave him over half of my net isk worth in new skills and equipment that would have taken him a couple of weeks to obtain on his own. I pointed him toward such perennial favorites as EveMon and EFT so that he could begin planning for his own future and make educated decisions [or at least ask educated questions]. By downtime I had made a new friend, had helped a new player and lost over half my isk. Sheesh, what was I thinking 
I couldn’t resist the title now that I have for the moment completed my mission grind. I now have enough standing with the local corp to refine my ore at 100% before taking it to market. For weeks I’ve just been sitting on my rock collection while I ground through mission after horrible mission to get enough standings. An unexpected bonus is that I have enough LP to pick up one of the specialized social skills from the LP store [nothing else of interest to a non-Amaarian pilot]. Now that I have my 6.7 standings, I’m refining on every trip out. The next major hurdle is getting it to the right market.
Speaking of refining, I’m finishing up Refinery Efficiency V so that I can start training Scrapmetal Processing and Ice Processing. Of course this also necessitates training Hydromagnetic Physics and Metallurgy. It really bothers me that inefficiency would take so much from the modules and fittings that I want to refine.
I’ve updated the Jetcan price list. The low-sec and 0.0 ores seem to have backed off a bit in over-all value, but they are still great investments. In high-sec, Veldspar and Scordite are running neck-and-neck with each other and only slightly behind Kernite. The vast quantities of Veldspar and Scordite asteroids within easy reach make it a very attractive situation
Personally, I’ve been sitting on my ore as of late, while the market fluctuates as well as while I grind through some missions for standings. I’ve built up quite a collection of ore, but I’m a bit reluctant to move it to market. Maybe I’ll train Freighters first… 
For some unfathomable reason, I’ve had a lot of trouble getting jacked into my pod lately. I’ve tried tracing the route and I’ve doubled checked all of my links and settings. Whatever it is that is causing this, it is very annoying. I have had two full days to be in space mining, missioning, salvaging and building. I get tired of the problems that I cannot control. I’m not sure what causes it.
I was looking around at all of the wonderful resources out there for pod pilots. Not a week goes by that I don’t stumble across something new or a new way of looking at the world that we fly in. Everything from training, ship loadouts, and missions to philosophy of play, background stories and general thoughts on pilots progress. I probably fall into the last category more than others.
I was looking at CrazyKinux’s wonderful blog site and even wanted to link in, but couldn’t get the captcha for his comments to work. I’m sure it’s something on my end but it’s frustrating. I’d like to see this blog used more and shared more. It will have to go on the agenda I suppose.
I was relaxing in my favorite pod, sipping on some nutri-goo after a very long and successful set of Blockade missions. It’s almost kind of sad how easily these traders let their private jumpgates get stuffed up. So I had cleaned out all the Sansha scum and was relaxing while perusing the nearly 200 m3 salvage I had cleared. It has been a good day.
The music was softly playing in the background and I closed my eyes for moment. Only for a moment and the moment’s gone. But so was my connection. The universe-wide, pod system shutdown caught me while I was dozing. I had missed my latest skill training completion and was so angry with myself I screamed. Unfortunately I then had to explain to my family on the other side of the coms why I was screaming and it wasn’t at them. There’s another couple of hours of training I’ve lost.
Someday I’ll write a book, “All The Things I Could Have Trained”!
I hear a lot of people talking about mining as a means to be able to do missions or support a PvP habit. I’ve always viewed missions that way. It’s a necessary evil for mining. You could concievably mine without ever running a mission [check out the macro mining isk-boys] but as a complete miner, you will conceivably need to refine some ore at some point. Then it’s nice to have a better than 6.7 standing with an NPC corporation. How do you get that if you are a dedicated miner?
To be sure, you can use connections to get a little bit closer, but at some point you’ll need to actually run a mission to even get started. Given that a large portion of mining training has not been in combat related skills, doing missions for standings can be a slow process. I’ve approached this rather in the same way that Dee Carson talks about training your learning skills. I do a mission now and then as time allows or when I’m done for the day with all of my mining trips.
I have skills to mine well in an Osprey, so that allows me to also pilot a Caracal. The tank is shield tank is also something that I’ve trained based on needing to survive in belts. Drones as well. The only thing missing is the weapons skills. I evaluated missiles v. gunnery skills and opted to go with the missles. This was based in part on the desire to possibly use a Drake or even Raven later on down the road as well as the ability to do mission specific damage.
So I mostly run level 1 and 2 missions for standings. Occasionally there is a level 3 agent that offers courier misssions that I can run for a bit more standings. Finally there is one other use for running missions, the LP store. There are some great mining implants that can be had from those stores. Not much else that a miner needs from the LP stores.
I tend to mine by jetcan. By working in a fairly backwater, dead-end systems, I can jetcan mine in relative privacy and without a lot of interference. This led to me calculating my yields and profits in terms that I could relate to. While I could count cycles of ore mined, I quickly lose track of which beams have cycled and how many times. It’s much easier to keep track of cans that I’ve completed.
At the end of the day I can easily tally how many cans I’ve mined and approximately how much it is worth. While I almost never have a can of only one type of ore, it much easier to make an approximate valuation based on complete can ore breakdowns.
I’ve added a list of ore values by jetcan to the sidebar on the left. These are calculated based on a 100% refine and a weighted average of prices for the refined minerals. Of note is that Scordite is currently the best of the cheap ores in high-sec and Jaspet is pretty much crap all-around.
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