Small to Large Scale High Sec Mining Op Format

Most people just starting out in EVE, mine.  It's a simple fact.  You can't really do shit-else until you skill up a little bit.  Running level 1 missions are doable in a frigate, but due to having minimal tanking skills coupled with low energy/capacitor skills, your frigate will probably melt.  Mining while you are in a NPC corp usually means solo mining.  If you mine in the same area every time you are logged, you might get to know some people.  My advice is to get into a player-owned corp as soon as you can.  Make sure you are diligent in your research because it is easy to join the wrong corp.  I have done it.  It's not fun.  

I am writing this blog because I think there is a need for a clear outline on small to large scale high sec mining ops.  Most noobs have a hard time working with a group of people who mine all the live-long day.  It's a very strange feeling when you hand over your hard earned ore to someone in the corp to take back to the station and refine.  You lose that sense of control and with all the nasty things you hear about EVE players, you are justifiably resistant to these mining ops.  Fear not though, most industrial corps are made up of a bunch of good an honorable folks.  As I have said, do your due diligence and find the right corp.  If it doesn't feel right, try another one, but just be ready to answer the question: "Why have you been in so many corps?"  You see, the CEO of a corp has the job of protecting it's members.  A bouncing-ball player gets the 3rd degree. 

Here is how I used to run our mining ops (prior to freighters being able to off/unload in space).  

• I have a spreadsheet with all the ore we are mining (including +5% and +10% variants) which does the perfect refining arithmetic.  I log each players deposits and then make payouts using that info
• people mine and as their cargohold gets full, they jettison their ore into a space container.  They name their can and also put what time they created the can in the name.  These cans only last for about 2 hours before they pop and you lose everything inside them.  Putting the time on the can helps the foreman and tells him that a can is getting close to popping,  This is known as "Jet Can Mining"
• miners can keep the jet cans open in their inventory tab and move ore from their cargohold to the jet can easily.  Once the can is full, miners can rename their can as [their name] + "FULL"  They can also tell the foreman by text or voice comms that their jet can is full.  The foreman (generally in an Orca) will use his tractor beam to bring the can in.  He will put it in the cargohold of the Orca.  If their are two Orca's one will boost and one will run.  If only one Orca, it is best to keep it on the field, so haulers might come out in max-cargo fit industrials.  They will dump the ore back at an NPC station (sometimes they may have to leave system if the mining system is a transit-only system without stations)
• Security is generally not needed, but it can be good to have some cruisers flying CAP (combat air patrol) during the mining session.  

Some foreman might run it slightly different and some corps tax or process ore differently but essentially, this is pretty much the high sec template for small to large scale mining ops.  Now that freighters are able to load all items in space, they replace the industrial or secondary Orca's as haulers.    They can be run in system belts or if you are lucky enough to find a mission with ore, you can farm that mission.  There are some juicy security missions that have large amounts of asteroids you can mine.  Try for the missions without jump gates though,  Industrial ships are painfully slow. 

Thats about it.  I hope you learned something about mining and as always, fly safe-ish.