I have officially started to seriously hate macro-miners.
I haven’t really noticed macro-ers before. That is, until they started to hit my wallet. I took a peek into my most favorite belts recently and discovered that they had been clearcut. No Veld, no Scordite, No Plag. The same miners were in the system that I’ve seen before, maybe one or two new ones. However, there are a few that are on like clockwork, that auto-reject convos, that never speak in local, that never use drones, or that always use scouts. That never even give a \O to me after dispatching the rats that were pounding their unarmed Retriever or Itty. Clearcutters in Hulks using one laser for each kind of rock in Gallente hi-sec. That means they’re staying in the belt for a long time. Longer than a few hours. Longer than I can sit at my desk at one time. Maybe they’re AFKers (which I loathe as well, but no where near as bad), but most likely not. Uninspired character names. Relative noobs flying barges and exhumers.
I have come to hate them. A lot. By clearing out whole systems, and hitting them again and again after respawn. Are they legit mining companies doing what large corporations are supposed to do: be efficient and thorough? Maybe. Then again maybe not.
Flooding the market with minerals lowers prices. Huge sums at fixed sell prices will cap the market prices there. Large dumps at Jita directly affects prices throughout Empire. I don’t know the economics of 0.0 space, but I am sure it is similar. It lowers the efficiency of my mining time, lowering my return. I don’t like that.
Clearing out higher security areas forces me to mine closer and closer to lowsec. We’re right next door to Hevrice, home to The Tuskers (an organization I highly respect and give a wide berth to), so my risk grows considerably as I am pushed closer. Losses of ships= loss of profit.
But what can I do? Do I go ahead and kill my security status? No, then I won’t be able to mine hisec anyway. I can bump suspected ones, I guess, maybe as an “accidental” love nudge from a MWDing armor laden Brutix (We don’t have anything any more massive yet). Maybe that would throw them off a bit. Who knows.
Then again, maybe I am just whining that it has gotten “hard” in NEw Eden (it hasn’t), or that my pockets aren’t magically filling up as fast as I want them. What are my few reader’s thoughts?
Fly into those bastards.
-Ze
Ore, Pirates, and Pods 
To my knowledge mins are already pretty close to their floor (at least until dominion), the exception being pyerite, so it shouldn’t affect you too much.
Options though:
1. Gank. It doesn’t lower your sec status too much, just be careful to stay above -2.
2. Use the ‘macrointel’ channel. Maybe somebody will gank them for you. I’d offer to do it myself, but we’ve got a wardec on.
3. It’s highsec, why do profits matter? There’s nearly no risk if you’re careful.
4. Get a new job. I mined for years and I’m glad I quit. 0.0 mining wasn’t worth it even before the high-end crash, and highsec is even worse.
True. I should just shoot ’em 😉
Profits matter to me because of my limited time to do some mining. Its all about ISK/min spent I guess. I really should move into manufacturing or to a bigger corp altogether. I am weighing my options. I make good ISK as is, though, so I really shouldn’t complain too much.
I didn’t know about the macrointel channel. I’ll check it out.
-Ze
Mission Mining is another option, run a lvl4 mission mine for a couple hours. Turn in. That way the belt is all yours. I’ve also scanned down mission runners and book marked their belts.
Didn’t know you could do that. Interesting. I will look into it. Thnx.
Also if it’s a good mission for mining (check eve-survival to see which missions have what) then you can deliberately not complete the mission. That way the rocks respawn each downtime. Complete the mission After 6 days to retain your standings.
Sweet.