TAGN has a post about mining in EVE, which includes stats from CCP talking about where mining happens. Not surprisingly, high-sec is by far the most popular spot, and WH space the least productive. This got me thinking about WH mining and how it relates to my Corp.
Before moving into our WH, INQ-E did a fair bit of mining in high-sec, especially during our Sunday night mining Ops. The major advantage to that Op was that basically anyone could attend and contribute, and the actual ‘content’ was easy and allowed for a more relaxed, social environment.
In our WH, the only time we are able to mine is when we have a Grav site up, which is random but overall not that often. This makes holding mining ships (hulks and retrievers) in our hanger tougher, as space is somewhat limited. And even if we have a grav site, the hole secured, and we end up mining some ore, we still have the logistic issues of refining it at 75% inside the hole and hauling the minerals out to market. Considering the above, and the general ‘fun’ of mining in EVE, I’m not at all surprised most WH Corps don’t bother with Grav sites.
The easy but potentially unbalanced solution would be to add static grav sites to WHs. They would function like static holes; once you close/mine the current site, or enough time goes by, it closes and a new one appears. This would allow WH Corps that want to focus more towards mining/industry to have content up at all times, while still preserving the logistical challenges. A side bonus would be that frequent WH invaders would be more likely to come across tasty mining ships to blap. To perhaps balance things a bit, tweak the ratios of what ores appear, or force the entire site to be cleared before it respawns, so you don’t allow Corps to only mine the ABC ores.
The problem is also somewhat unique to mining, because it’s easy-enough for us to roam into a different WH to farm their Sleepers, or their Mag/Radar sites. We can’t take a few hulks and an Orca into another WH, and even if we could, the hauling needed would be silly.
Hopefully ring mining, when added, helps keep the dust off hulks in WH space.
Hardcore Casual 
Its funny because last summer, their were some ridiculous talking points about how mining ABC’s in wormholes was negatively effecting mineral markets.
Everyone who actually lived in wormholes refuted the notion entirely, while a few upset null sec folk (probably those with high stakes in huge bot mining operations) propagated the misconception. Nice to see this report all this time later to put that to bed.
If you have a static high sec hole, it is a bit easier to keep ABC ores mined out, because you can refine right outside in high sec via orca loads… However, you still have to deal with the sparse gravi spawns, and the ever present danger and traffic a high sec static guarantee’s from sharks. Makes mining even more dangerous.
The high-sec entrance is a trade-off. Easier to get out, but easier for others to come in. If we are talking only mining, I think I’d rather have a quieter system than one where it’s easier to haul some ore out, especially considering the price of Hulks now.
You’re sort of right. but i’ve made mention before its best to use covetors. hulks only get you the ABC ore a bit faster, at a much higher risk. Covetors will get you the ABC anyway because you’re not time starved with gravi sites. They’re hard capped at a certain number. The key difference you sacrifice for a bit more speed is, you can lose tons of covetors before they equal the price of a single Hulk loss. This makes the stress of mining much much lower, and you can practically not even care when one gets popped.
Managing the risks with covetors, and then just working the heck out of the sites and hauling it out nets you a lot in the long run without that refine step.
We can’t take a few hulks and an Orca into another WH
Sure you can. Maybe not through your static wormhole specifically, I don’t know, but most allow several Orca trips before collapsing. Take the Orca through, take the Hulks through, keep sending a Bustard backwards and forwards, and when the wormhole starts wobbling send the Hulks back, then the Orca. Do it properly and you collapse the wormhole, giving you a new static to find and potentially more mining in the next system.
If you’re worried about security, take a cov-ops with that has a scanning probe active at all times. Any new signatures appearing will have you scurrying home before a hostile scout even knows what’s going on. But that’s a trade secret, so don’t share it. I like ambushing miners.
W-space life just needs a bit of adaptation and compromise.
This might work in higher-class WHs with statics to other WHs. We only have a low-sec static that can’t handle too many Orca jumps.
Then, with a static to low-sec, you must also have the problem of not being able to take combat ships in to another w-space system to shoot Sleepers. That’s not an issue unique to mining.
And the wormhole would only really need to withstand two Orca jumps. One out, one in. Keep the Orca out until the op finishes, and as long as you don’t collapse the wormhole bringing the Hulks back the Orca will always squeeze its way home. Use a transport to haul the ore, which can make at least 10 return trips before equalling one Orca’s worth of mass.
And you could just not take the Orca.
Orca is a serious boost to yield. As are Hulks (expensive) vs Rets (cheap). At some point, the risk/reward/effort stops being worth it.
Finding another WH in low-sec to run Sleepers is much easier, as you only need 2-3 combat ships to keep a good pace, and only one person flies a cloaked Noctis. Plus combat ships running sleepers require a far bigger force to disrupt than a mining fleet.
Well, yes. But coming off the back of Hulkageddon, where emphasis was time and again placed on survival over efficiency, sometimes you have to compromise.
If you don’t think it’s worth mining with a pair of Hulks, that’s fine. I wouldn’t consider that a problem with mining in w-space though, and nor do many others.
And more will be lost than solved in trying to make w-space mining more like mining in other types of system.
I wonder if WH upgrades similar to what goes with null sec sovereignty might be the answer? In null sec there is a sov upgrade that ensures there are always grav sites and that they repop immediately when you mine them out.
Of course that would mean some sort of upgrade mechanism for station holders in WH systems, which leads to another can of worms.
That would be interesting, and would bring some distinction to WH life. Some would be highly active/upgraded, others would be more barren/low-grade.
Oh, and the stats say that low sec is the least productive mining location. WH space is ahead of low sec, but still way behind null.
Not really surprising about mining in low sec. Dodging pirates is just too time consuming to make a op practical.
The most likely buff to WH mining is to increase the refining yield in POS’s to match that of NPC stations, imo, and possibly to increase the frequency of grav sites there. I don’t think CCP will do much more than that, but those seem pretty likely to me.
I wonder whether having a constantly respawning Grav site would make it worthwhile to compress the ore and refine it somewhere else.
You would have to get a Rorqual into your WH then, wouldn’t you? Or are there other ways to compress ore?
Rorq. And you can’t get those out of C3 or under systems, so once built it becomes somewhat permanent.
And building a Rorqual is a couple of billion worth of minerals, plus expensive blueprints, right? Quite an investment.
Hell, the skills to fly a Rorqual add up to a billion ISK easy if you haven’t started into capital ships and jump drives yet.
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My friends and I mine in WH space, only when we can assure wormhole control… and have combat pilots gaurding our operation. The value of ABC ore makes is on par with, or even exceed the value of gas mining ;)
We have a Rorq in a C4 (which, btw, cannot have Caps enter or leave, either) which we use for mining boost and compression. It was originally a 1.5 – 2 bil investment, but I guess it is up to 3 bil+ now. In any case, our spawn rate is such that we actually mine a LOT of ABC, plus some lower ends, and compress the resulting ores via the Rorq. Our corp typically has 5-10 active people in the system, and we can easily (and casually) eat through the ABCs in a grav site before it de-spawns.
The Rorq. saves the refining losses (plus refining is tediously long) and makes the hauling almost simple. The question is whether you want to spend the isk (and training) or not. You have to train the ore specialties as well as have someone that can build the Rorq.
C4s are excellent in that they only have one static and it is never to hi sec. We tend to let gravs accumulate for a while (we have been up to a dozen or so before) and then focus on them for a few weeks.
In the end, though, PI is still the easy money maker for us in w-space, with minimal training required.