A Shift In Focus

November 2017 is now the all-time biggest month for lowsec mining volume and we're only 17 days in so far. #tweetfleet #eveonline

— CCP Fozzie (@CCP_Fozzie) November 17, 2017

With all the mining growth in low sec, one might think I'd find myself in the middle of the action. Nope. The introduction of NPC mining operations kind of killed off belt mining in my favorite spots. By the time I get home from work, the NPCs have already stripped out the belts. Of course, that means I can further adapt to the situation or give up and do something else. Given all the efforts by CCP over the years to make mining in low sec more difficult, I'll admit defeat and go do something else. At least for now.

If I do want to mine in low sec, I need to find places the NPC mining operations don't visit. I figure, why not pester the moon mining operations? So when CCP announced the redistribution of moon minerals, I set a goal to scan every low sec moon in the Minmatar Republic. I kind of miscounted the number of moons. Originally, I believed the number was 2960. The actual number of moons in the Minmatar Republic is 4617. I overproduced the number of moon probes I thought I would need, but with the new number, I'm still 400 probes short.

So far, I have finished scanning moons in 45 of the 104 low sec systems in the Minmatar Republic, and a little over 2000 moons. I think I can share a couple of observations. The first is the frequency of the types of moons I've found. They are:

• R64: 0.8%
• R32: 2.1%
• R16: 8.9%
• R8: 11.2%
• Gas: 77%

The second is that, at least in the parts of the Minmatar Republic I've scanned so far, I don't see a whole lot of moon mining going on. In my journeys I've run across only 35 refineries set up at the moon mining beacons. Even taking into account that scanning 2000 moons took approximately 8 weeks to accomplish and the numbers are undoubtedly different, I don't think that much mining is going on. Still, compared to the previous state of mining in low sec, that represents a big bump. I just don't know if the amount of moon minerals coming out of these systems is at the same level as before the moon mineral redistribution.

For my new activity, I decided to continue the unorthodox exploration route and start playing the Project Discovery content. If I was discovering the contents of moons in the game world, why not help trying to find exoplanets in the real world?

The content does get a little addictive, which explains why I'm writing about this topic and not some other, juicier subjects this week. Truthfully, I'm just playing video games a little too much to write. The ISK rewards aren't the greatest for a veteran player. Last night I played for an hour and received approximately 8.5 million ISK after corp taxes.

The big rewards, though, are obtained by leveling up. Upon reaching a new level, players receive a loot crate with an Exoplanet SKIN. At level 25, the number of SKINs in a crate increases to 2. Also, starting at level 25, players receive rewards every 25 levels. The rewards are 2 pieces of clothing (one male, one female), a blueprint copy to produce a CONCORD ship, or a SKIN for the CONCORD ship. Rinse and repeat. Eventually, the Marshal, the CONCORD battleship given away to those who attended both Fanfest and EVE Vegas, will appear as a reward.

I expect my gameplay will consist in large part of sitting in a station for the next 2-3 months as I continue to pile up the ship skins. When not playing Project Discovery, I will continue my moon mapping project. For now, my goal is to finish both before next Fanfest so I'm ready for the next big thing CCP plans for EVE Online.