Primary mining operations are carried out in 1-7B6D, here you will find a large active fleet with boosts and scores of other miners (safety in numbers!).

The primary channel for mining operations within this system is 1-7B6D TEST Mining - here you will find all the information you need

• If you are within the main fleet it is desired that you also be on comms for early warning and coordination within the system, please setup TEST mumble and join the Shinigami Miners channel.

Asteroid belts are replenished after every downtime, they are for the most part usually arranged in a “C” with the warp in point being in the center of the arc - 25Km away from any asteroids.

Belt composition largely depends on the security status and region of space you are in.

Rats will spawn in a belt so make sure you are tanked and packing drones according to the damage types the rats use and are weak against - failing that if you ask nicely enough maybe someone can clear them for you so you can resume your operations.

• Post Mosaic the composition and requirements for Zydrine and Megacyte have changed
• A table of ores and their mineral compositions as well as other data can be found here

It is important to note that an asteroid may contain any degree of ore - never usually as a multiple of your mining yield. Sometimes you won't need a full cycle to harvest the remaining ore that is left and so stopping the miner part way through a cycle is required - this is the essence of short cycling.

Say you have a strip miner with a crystal in it, making your total yield 1500m3 per cycle of 180 seconds. You are mining an asteroid that only contains 30m3. You would agree that a full cycle is a waste of time for such little ore so you can effectively short cycle your strip miner to make better use of your time.

Knowing your yield and what's left in the asteroid (by the use of a survey scanner) you can make a quick guess as to when you need to stop the miner - of course the example given is an extreme case but say that the asteroid in question only contained 700m3 then you can say “well that's half of my yield so I'll stop it half way through” and so you've saved yourself 90 seconds, which translates to 90 seconds more mining on an asteroid that does have a full yields worth.

• This will deplete your capacitor beyond where it's normally stable so be wary about short cycling multiple miners as it may deplete your capacitor fully.
• Survey scanners won't show you the volume of ore, instead they show you the units. You need to multiply the units by the volume of ore to determine what the actual volume is. E.g. Kernite has a volume of 1.2m3 per unit, if the survey scanner says 1000 units then that's a volume of 1200m3

It is important to note that the balance changes have essentially made the yield of each relatively the same - so if you're solo mining you won't see any benefit going from the procurer to say the retriever for yield, so you are largely better off sticking to the Procurer or Skiff as the tanking ability of either will serve you well.

The Procurer will be your first mining barge and given its ability to hold its tank well it'll probably be your go-to mining ship for a while. They are relatively cheap too which makes it even better for those new to the game as it makes it easier to budget and is more likely to quickly pay itself off.

As the brief introduction suggested the yields between the mining barges are very similar (the same goes for the exhumers although they do have shorter cycle times) but what makes the Retriever different from the rest is it has pretty much double the ore hold capacity of the Procurer - if it's safe enough to field one then you may be better off as it'll grant you fewer trips to drop off your earnings.

The Covetor grants you the ability to obtain the highest yield of the three given its larger bonus to the reduction in strip miner duration although this comes at a cost as it has a diminished tanking ability and makes it the least preferred choice when mining in low/null security space.

These are the tech 2 equivalents of the mining barges - each having the same niche areas as their tech 1 counterparts though they also have the added bonuses from the Exhumers skill

The Skiff is the smallest of the exhumers though it is the one with the largest tanking ability, it is entirely possible to hit 100k EHP with these in the right combinations of fit, skills and implants.

The Mackinaw, much like its mining barge counterpart, has the largest ore hold of the three - sacrificing tank for cargo capacity.

The Hulk is designed for pure yield and fleets of them will decimate any belt - though they cannot really be tanked well. It isn't advisable to fly one of these in solo operations for that reason.

These are the basic skills required to operate the most basic of mining equipment, they are also required to be trained to a higher level later on as part of the mining barges and exhumers required skills as well as for the mining equipment used to fit them.

As you progress up through mining and astrogeology you will soon need to train further skills to get access to the more advanced mining equipment, mainly the gas, ice and deep core mining equipment (for mercoxit). These are the skills required for them.

Currently there are a few head plugs available that are geared towards mining, these are as follows: