Mining can be a bit of broad topic, but in the interest of keeping this introductory, I'll be focusing on the differences between the different mining ships, and the difference between mining Ore, Ice, and Gas.

Mining is an incredibly simple activity, and is usually best conducted on an alt if you have one due to its slow nature. All you need to do is go to whatever you want to mine, lock it up, activate your mining lasers, strip miners, or mining drones on it, and make sure you're aligned (fully if you have a higgs anchor, soft aligned if you don't) out to a safe structure. In what situations you warp out depends entirely on what ship you're in, where, and a bit of personal preference. As always, since you're undocked you should have a view of your ship in case you need to warp out, and should never mine AFK.

The venture is the first dedicated mining ship that most players will get their hands on. It's extremely cheap to produce, has high bonuses to mining, and can make a quick escape if needed. Its disadvantage is that it has a virtually nonexistent tank, and an ore hold that, while bigger than most ships' cargo holds, is small compared the ore holds of other mining ships. This is a great ship for aspiring industrialists to gather the ore they need, but once you get beyond frigates you should move onto one of the more advanced ships.

You can find more information about venture mining on its dedicated page.

The pioneer is a mining destroyer added in the 2025 Catalyst Expansion. It's a significant upgrade over the venture, offering nearly double the tank, a 60% larger ore hold, and a nearly 50% increase in yield, at a cost that sits comfortably in the range of other T1 destroyers. Nearly reaching the procurer's yield at a tenth the price, the pioneer is now easily the best mining option available for Alpha Clones, and a major stepping stone on the way to mining barges for Omegas.

You can find more information about pioneer mining on its dedicated page.

T2 variants of the venture, expedition frigates take advantage of better stats and cloaking technology to operate unsupported in dangerous areas of space, such as lowsec, wormholes, and hostile sov. Their mining yield is comparable to that of the pioneer, but they have massive mining holds that rival that of the procurer. The endurance has ice mining bonuses that approach those of the covetor, and the prospect is the only mining ship in the game that can fit Covert-Ops cloaks.

You can find more information about expedition frigate mining on its dedicated page.

Mining barges are the standard mining ship for the vast majority of players in Eve. They're relatively cheap, have high mining bonuses, and come in three different configurations:

• Procurer - A barge dedicated to defense. Has a battlecruiser level of tank and a high bonus to drone damage, but the lowest mining yield of the barges and only a moderate ore capacity.
• Covetor - A barge dedicated to mining yield. Has a high bonus to mining speed but a nearly nonexistent tank and mediocre ore capacity.
• Retriever - A barge dedicated to ore capacity. Has a roughly 34,000 m3 Ore Hold with max skills, but very low tank and only moderate mining yield.

You can find more information about barge mining on its dedicated page.

Exhumers are basically T2 Mining Barges, and as such share the same basic configurations in upgraded capacities:

• Skiff - An exhumer dedicated to defense. Has a battleship level of tank and a high bonus to drone damage.
• Hulk - An exhumer dedicated to mining yield. Has a high bonus to mining speed but like its counterpart the covetor can barely fit any tank.
• Mackinaw - An exhumer dedicated to ore capacity. Has a roughly 44,000 m3 Ore Hold with max skills, and can fit a relatively decent tank.

You can find more information about exhumer mining on its dedicated page.

The porpoise and orca make up the industrial command ships of Eve. They can technically mine using mining drones, but where they really shine is in the utility they provide to other mining ships. They have extremely powerful tanks for subcapitals, dedicated fleet hangars (plus a ship maintenance bay in the case of the orca), and get a multitude of bonuses to remote shield boosters, command bursts, and tractor beams. They can also compress asteroid ore and (in the case of the orca), mercoxit, moon ore, and ice.

As a solo miner, the porpoise can be left for an hour without having to dump its ore, and the orca for two hours with max skills. With a fleet of barges or exhumers, the boosts provided by these ships can greatly improve everyone's mining yield, and the massive ore holds can serve as drop off points so pilots don't have to warp back to a citadel to drop their ore off. Do keep in mind though that your extremely slow and massive ship makes a juicy target for roaming gangs and even hot droppers, so you're best staying in a belt with other fleet members.

You can find more information about the porpoise and orca on their dedicated pages.

The rorqual is a capital industrial ship and its own beast, and participating in rorqual mining in Brave requires admission to the Rorqual Group.

You can find more information about rorqual mining on the rorqual group page.

In-game estimated values and market prices for ores are often highly misleading! Always use refined values when appraising them!

A breakdown of the ore types below and their current refined values can be found on the Cerlestes Ore Site.

Your output from ore mining is based on a variable volume per standard cycle. These cycles can be canceled part of the way through, and you'll receive ore proportional to the time you spent on that cycle.

There are 28 mineral-based ores, 20 moon ores, and 1 "Erratic" ore that can be mined, each with a variety of reprocessing outputs that determine the ore's value.

Ores have several variants with modified yields:

• 0-Grade ores are specific to Exordium, and have a -50% yield compared to standard ores.
• II-Grade ores have a +5% yield.
• III-Grade ores have a +10% yield.
• IV-Grade ores have a +15% yield. Moon ores have their own version of this variant, all having names prefixed with some synonym of Abundant. All ores except Mercoxit and 3 of the Abyssal types have this variant.
• Jackpot ores are unique to moon ores, and have a +100% yield. All have names prefixed with some synonym of Shining.

All ore, gas, and ice types can be compressed, reducing the space they take up in cargo drastically. However, some of these are more difficult to compress than others.

Porpoises, Orcas, and Rorquals can compress resources in-space, but require a unique and relatively expensive module for each type. The modules also need an active industrial core to be used, putting the ship at risk.

Mining Waste is a mechanic introduced in the 2021 From Extraction to Production expansion that primarily affects T2 mining modules and drones. Every time a mining cycle ends, there's a chance to destroy some amount of material remaining in the asteroid, based on a multiplier of the amount of material mined in that cycle. Mining crystals add to this chance, and Type C crystals are dedicated to massively increasing both it and the multiplier.

This mechanic creates circumstances where it makes sense to sacrifice raw yield to minimize waste, such as when mining high-value, low-availability materials.

Added in the 2025 Catalyst Expansion, mining criticals is a mechanic that gives modules a chance to pull extra ore from an asteroid without further depleting it. This effectively makes it the opposite of mining waste, offering the potential to increase the amount of ore pulled from an asteroid beyond what it actually contains.

Both the critical chance and yield are variable based on ship bonuses, module attributes, and skills. The Mining Survey Chipset module is specifically bonused for these stats.