Originally by: Shinon Asahina

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I've played EVE for around 8 months now, and it's been my perception that mining isn't on par with ratting for the ISK/hr generation, and the "value" you get out of the skills. I realize that a major part of EVE is combat against other players, but behind every war requires another army of producers, miners, and logistics to provide those ships and supplies.

Has CCP stated that mining is intended to be a secondary moneymaking skill? Because based on the current state of things, it really seems that way.

That is to say that its a good chunk of skills required to become a good miner, but the trees have far more depth for someone going into the combat route. To top it off, a mining battleship with good drone skills can still be a very adequate mining ship, yet still maintain good defenses and be able to switch equipment and go out to PvP/Ratting on a moments notice. While all mining barges except for the Hulk are sitting ducks, and even a Hulk pops quickly with some NOS on it.

Speaking with major ratters in my corp, they talk of around 30mil/hr+ made in ratting with battleships. And then you have things like them making a windfall on rare modules or convoy spawns. Meanwhile a miner has a static possible yield that never changes. Ratters also have the freedom of killing within a wide area, but a miner is stuck to refinery systems or adjacent, otherwise the logistics behind the extremely bulky ore becomes too great. Most of the full-time miners also tend to have an alt for defense/hauling just so they can maintain the same ISK or less of a ratter.

Well, I have more that I want to say, but I will cut it off at that for now to see what people think. Even though I know what the hardcore ratters will already say ;)

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