How Do You Find Mining Asteroids in Eve Online?
Asteroid mining in Eve Online can be a lucrative endeavor. The ore that you mine can be refined into minerals, which are then used to create weapons, ships and equipment to be sold on the player-driven market. Though the mechanics of mining are simple, there are nuances to the profession that are gained through months of play. Knowing where to find the asteroids is a good beginning.
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Instructions
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Open Eve Online. Click on the yellow arrow at the lower left hand corner of the screen. This will undock you from the station and push you out into space. If you are in low security space, or zero security space, be wary of any ships in your vicinity as there will be no police response if you are attacked. You can see your system's current security rating in the upper left hand corner, under the name of your current region in space. It will range from 1.0 in the starter solar systems, to 0.0 in the lawless fringes. Computer controlled police forces patrol systems with a security rating of 0.5 or higher and will protect you. In lower security systems, you are on your own. On the other hand, the most lucrative mining sites can only be found in zero security space.
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Right click anywhere in space to bring up your context menu. You will see a listing of all orbital bodies in this system. Click on "Asteroid Belts" and a submenu will open listing all known asteroid belts in the system, arranged by distance from the nearest star. You may also find Ice Belts, which differ from ore asteroids in that the ice asteroids produce larger chunks of raw material which refine into components that are used as fuel for capital ships and starbases. Unless you have the equipment and training specific to mining ice, they are of no use to you.
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Click on an asteroid belt of your choice. A third menu will appear with options to warp to the belt, record its location or show information about it. Click "Warp to within" and select "Within 10 km." As a general rule, it is not wise to warp to an asteroid belt at 0 kilometers in low security systems, due to the risk of attack. Players with warp scramblers can shut down your warp drive, trapping your mining ship. Warp scramblers operate within a short range, so pirates will wait at the warp-in point to ambush unsuspecting miners.
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Check to see that your overview is displaying asteroids. If it is not, and you can clearly see some floating nearby, simply right click on any asteroid and select "Add to overview." By default, your overview can be seen on the right and lists all objects within sensor range. You can then lock onto any asteroid within 10 kilometers and activate your mining lasers.
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Tips & Warnings
If you have the skills trained, consider bringing combat drones into the asteroid belt with you. The drones can fight off any computer controlled pirates that enter the belt, earning you some cash from their bounties and allowing you to stay in the belt.
If you have a friend with an Industrial class ship, consider jettison container mining. Simply jettison your first load of ore, open the container, and move all subsequent loads from your cargo hold into the jettison container. Your friend can then make frequent trips to a nearby station to unload the container when it fills. Since the capacity of a jettison container exceeds that of your ship's cargo hold, you can keep a steady flow of material running to your station without having to stop and empty your holds.
If you are mining into a jettison container in high security space, and another player flies up to it and steals the ore, do not retaliate. The player is taking advantage of the aggression system in Eve Online to bait you. When the player steals from you, his icon will flash red, meaning that you can freely retaliate without police interference. The catch is, if you fire on that player, anyone in his group can also retaliate. In this bait and switch scheme, the thief will call in heavy reinforcements to destroy your ship and loot anything that survives.
If you are interested in venturing out to zero security space, consider joining a corporation that is in an alliance first. These large organizations of allied corporations stake claims to regions of zero security space and defend them from non-alliance members. In an alliance, you will gain combat support and defense from the military wings, as well as support from the industrial wings. They will help you to enrich both the alliance and yourself with your ores.
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