Jetcan Mining

Jetcan Mining is fairly simple, but it`s risky. To start a decent mining carreer you`ll need:

1. A mining ship. One that has a decent cargo hold, a fair amount of high energy slots on which you can mount mining lasers and still have the capability to stand against NPC`s (drones).

2. A Hauling Ship. Iteron is the easiest & cheapest to get. Mount some cargo hold extensions & you`ll should be fine for a while.

3. An asteroid belt of course.

How to start:

Make sure both your hauler & miner are docked on the same station. Find a nice spot in an asteroid field of your choice. I usually choose a place with the maximum amount of asteroids, of the mineral which i want to mine, which are in range of my mining lasers. Lock onto the max. amount of asteroids you can lock on, & start mining. Wait for the 1st load of ore to come. Keep a constant eye on your cargo hold. When you have your 1st load - right click on the ore & click Jettison. Your ore will be Jetcanned into space & a cargo container should appear in your overview. Open it & you`ll see your ore is there. Bookmark the location of your jetcan. You`ll need it later when you`ll come after the ore with your hauler. Keep on mining until you have filled your jetcan. Keep your jetcan open. One the next load of ore is in your cargo hold - click & drag the ore into your jetcan. Keep it up like this until either your jetcan is full, or you run out of asteroids in close vicinity, then go back to the station where you have left your hauler. Switch ships, launch, right click & there your bookmark should appear. Warp in, get close to your jetcan, drag as much ore as you can in your cargo hold & bring it to the station & stack it. Repeat the process until all of your mined ore is on the station. Switch ships & repeat mining process.
What do you do with the ore? Look at what price you can sell the ore. Then go to the reprocesing plant & select your ore to refine. DON`T REFINE IT YET! Look what amount of minerals you`ll get & check the market prices of it. Then exit the reprocesing plant. If your ore is worth more than the sum which you`d get when you`d refine your ore, sell the ore. Same goes vice versa.

Advantages of Jetcan mining:
1. A jetcan can hold up to 27 500 m3 of cargo. 9 times more than the biggest secure cargo container in the game. That means a hell lot of ore which is a nice wad of bills...

Disadvantages of Jetcan mining:
1. A jetcan isn`t password protected. That means that anyone can come & steal your ore. Which is why it`s best to do jetcan mining in a relatively empty system.
2. A jetcan stays in space only approx. 1 hour. Usually it means that if you don`t fill & empty your jetcan within 1 hour - your jetcan will dissappear along with all the ore. But you can buy yourself a little time. Every 15 - 20 minutes make a new jetcan & transfer the ore from the old jetcan to the new one. Don`t worry about the bookmark... the location will still be marked.

From time to time pirate NPC`s will spawn & attack you. That`s why you use your drones... once there are pirates nearby, launch your drones & they`ll take care of the rest. Once all pirates are dead - call your drones back to your drone bay. And don`t bother looting/salvaging the wrecks. It`ll only waste time.

With this method i usually earn around roughly 7-10 mil a day.
For mining i use a Brutix with 7 Miners II, 2 Cargo extensions, 3 CPU boosters, 1 shield booster, 1 Capacitor recharger & 4 Med. Scout drones against the NPC`s...
For hauling i use an Iteron MKI, with 2 cargo extensions, shield booster & thruster.

Happy Mining...

It`s been a while since i`ve written something about mining, so i think it`s about damn time.

It`s been 5 months since i`ve last mined with a Brutix. There were ups and downs, but i finally managed it: 3 weeks ago i got it. It`s big, It`s sexy, it`s the Mighty Hulk!

Total training time is about 2-3 months, but considering i did train several skills in the middle, totally unrelated to mining, it took me a bit longer. My current setup is this:

For Jetcan mining:
Hulk
3 T2 Strip Miners with T2 Plagioclase crystals (you need a specific crystal for each type of ore, Plagioclase Crystals for Plagioclase, Omber Crystals for Omber... you get the idea)
1 Small shield booster
2 Erin Mining Laser Upgrades
5 Hammerhead I Drones

For non-Jetcan mining (mine full cargohold & haul to station):
Hulk
3 T2 Strip Miners with T2 Plagioclase crystals
1 Small shield booster
1 T2 Cap recharger
2 Cargo Extender II`s
5 Hammerhead I`s

For hauling i use:
Iteron MKIII
1 Medium Shield booster
3 Cargo Extender II`s

With the 1st setup i can mine around 55 000 m3 (2 Jetcans) of ore, per hour. Which means around 20 million ISK per day (with 5-6 hours per day) That`s not my final, and by far, not the best setup. A well outfitted Hulk CAN absolutely solo mine in nullsec, but it`s not recommended. And the MLU`s (Mining Laser Upgrades) i have are not the best on the market. With the best MLU`s & maybe a corresponding implant i can fill a Jetcan within 15 minutes... which means 3 cans per hour.

I am currently training for a bigger cargo ship. Iteron MK V to be exact. It has 6000 m3 cargo space from start with, but fully outfitted & rigged it can haul close to 50 000 m3. Only an Obelisk outdoes it (750 000 m3). But i don`t need such a big cow for Jetcan mining, unless i have at least 2 more alts & one of them has a maxed out Hulk and the other flies the Obelisk... (which is one of my long-term goals, btw)

As for short term goals: I have 24 days left on my GTC which i will dedicate to mining. With the 30 day cards gone i have to get 400 mil until my current card runs out & i can play for another 60 days. Plus i still want to get into nullsec & mine some of the high-end ores there. For that i need to tank my hulk & get some decent protection from my corpmates.

Miner Extraordinaire - over an out.