Alpha. Mining on Venture

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Greetings, Capsuleers 07. With this guide, we begin a series of articles dedicated to earning in-game currency on an Alpha account. The methods will vary, and there will likely be five or six posts about Alpha and ISK in total. Today, we'll discuss the simplest way to earn in-game currency: asteroid mining. I'll clarify right away that I'll measure profit in Omega Days (the number of days it takes to accumulate Omega status in a specific activity, approximately 1,500,000,000 ISK).

Asteroid Mining

Costs: 1,000,000 ISK

Benefit: Omega status in 24-30 days.

This simplest way to earn in-game currency requires the Venture starship, which you should already have if you've completed the initial quest missions. Many newbies often struggle to understand how to mine a lot of ore in the Venture's 500 m³ hold, and why everyone recommends it. The problem is that in addition to the main hold, there's also a 5,000 m³ ore compartment. Among the drilling ships on Alpha, this is the largest hold. Accordingly, equip the Venture with ore mining and protection equipment:

  • Particle Bore Compact Mining Laser x2
  • Medium Shield Extender I x1
  • 5MN Microwarpdrive I x1
  • ML-3 Scoped Survey Scanner x1
  • Mining Laser Upgrade I x1
  • Small Core Defense Field Extender I x3
  • Core Probe Launcher I x1
  • Core Scanner Probe I x16
  • Hornet I x2

With this setup, you can mine 300-350 m³ of ore per minute, or reach full Venture in 15 minutes. At Alpha, this figure can be increased with skills, T2 lasers, and modules to approximately 400-450 m³ per minute and 10-12 minutes, respectively. Full Venture in common ore is Veldspar 50,000, Scordite 33,333, Plagioclase 14,285, and Pyroxeres 16,666.

Ore mining profit is 700 m³ per minute (compressed ore):

  • kernite - 583 = 5.83 - 285 = 166kJ/min
  • Iapetus - 350 = 3.5 - 44000 = 154k per minute
  • Plagioclase - 2000 = 20 - 7600 = 152k per minute
  • Veldspar - 7000 = 70 - 2000 = 140k per minute
  • Scordite - 4666 = 46.66 - 2800 = 130k per minute
  • Hemorphite - 234 = 2.34 - 520 = 120k per minute
  • Herderbrit - 234 = 2.34 x 52,000 = 120k per minute
  • Omber - 1166 = 11.66 - 9500 = 110k per minute

Thus, you can mine approximately 6,000,000 PLEX per hour on Venture, or about 50,000,000 PLEX per day. This, in 24-30 days, will provide you with enough PLEX to purchase 500 PLEX and use it to upgrade to Omega status. This assumes you compress the ore and sell it compressed, of course.

How do you compress ore? 

To compress mined ore, you need to fly to a station with a working "Raw Material Processing" module that isn't owned by an NPC corporation. This means these stations must be owned by other players. Then, place the ore from your ship's hold into your warehouse, right-click it, and compress it. Compressing requires 100 ore. 

CCP makes money when your ship gets blown up, or when you blow up your opponent's ship. Afterward, you'll be in the game every day to recoup your losses or pay CCP money. That's why wars, conflicts, and creepers on warpgates are necessary. You can beat the game if you don't lose your ISK.

How can I speed up and simplify ore mining in Alpha? 

To reach Omega status faster, I recommend mining under bonuses in your fleet, along with the Porpoise and Orca ships. These bonuses will speed up your laser cycle by 25-40%, reducing the required Omega days to 21-24. You can also deposit your mined ore into the bonus ship instead of the station, agreeing to have it returned to you later through fleet history: resource collection, at the nearest compression station.

Where is the best place for a newbie to mine? 

On Venture, you can mine anywhere, from systems with a security level of 0.5 to 1.0. You can mine in 0.4 and lower, but they're prone to death. Choose a system with 0.8-0.9 protection, with or without NPC ships, that includes raw material processing in "services" where you store the mined ore for compression, transportation, and subsequent sale. If mining occurs in a fleet with bonuses, you depend on the fleet commander, who issues bonuses and stores the shared ore.

That's all for now. If you have any questions after reading this, please leave them in the comments. Crab to all 0/

Omega status speedrun series on an alpha account:

  1. Mining on Venture
  2. Scanning anomalies in the WH
  3. Level 3 agent missions
  4. Searching for expeditions in green areas
  5. Trading ore and goods
  6. Other activities

Omega status speedrun series on an omega account:

  1. Resource extraction
  2. Planetary production
  3. Industry (factories, blueprints)
  4. Omega. Processing of raw materials
  5. Omega. Additionally