Guide: mining without ganking losses

Miner ganking is one of the most inglorious traditions of EVE for the following reasons:

• It's stupidly easy: when I was doing it, I managed to kill more than 1000 miners all by myself in a month. After waiting out the GCC I just warped to the next, ganked it like I was doing missions.
• It's surprisingly killboard-effective and even profitable. Not only I made 135B kills all by myself, but also 10B from loot. The small ganker alliance CODE became the #7 killer of 2014.
• Miners are often reacting emotionally to being ganked. Such responses - called tears - are valued prizes of grief-gankers. Minerbumping.com is full of such tears for display.

Mining is liked by many for being low-maintenance, simple activity. However this inevitably leads to being easy targets. A multiboxer running dozens of miners is unable to attend all of them properly, meaning that gankers can operate without notice. The two ways of mining without suffering gank losses are

• Accepting this and operating in a low-expense way. This case you just don't care about ganks as they cost you next to nothing. Unrewarded by expensive kill reports, loot or tears, the ganker will soon ignore you. By using retrievers, this method sacrifices some yield but keeps the AFK nature of mining, therefore the high ISK/effort.
• Fighting this and operate in a high-maintenance way: this case you can mine when others cannot and can give the finger to gankers. While some yield is still sacrificed, you cannot be interrupted by gankers. This is preferred for casual and few-account miners and uses Ventures, Procurers and Skiffs.

After your ship is destroyed, your pod gets to the space. The gankers are already targeted by Concord (the police), they can't save their ships, so it costs them no more ISK or time to kill your pod. However pods are small and fast. If you warp your pod off instantly after your ship died, there is no way they can kill it. So if you see your ship losing HP, don't panic, select a space object (station, gate, star, belt) and when your ship explodes, spam the "warp" button and you are out. Of course you can't warp if you are AFK. If you choose to travel, transport or mine while AFK, make sure your pod only has cheap or no implants in it. You can get a new pod by installing a jump clone in a station with medical facilities.

The first two ships have some tank, but still can be killed by 2-3 skilled or 4-5 noob Catalysts. Their tank serves one purpose: keep solo and casual gankers (most of them) away from you. While these ships are slow, please still don't stand in one place, orbiting the rock gives some extra work for the gankers to warp in. The drones are needed to quickly dispatch belt rats to prevent them putting you to half shields. Please don't even think of Mackinaw, it costs 10x more and tanks 1.5x better with 1.1x more yield.

[Retriever, AFK Ice]
Pseudoelectron Containment Field I
Ice Harvester Upgrade II
Ice Harvester Upgrade II
Medium Shield Extender II
Ice Harvester II
Ice Harvester II
Medium Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
Medium Ancillary Current Router I
Medium Ice Harvester Accelerator I
Hobgoblin II x5

[Retriever, AFK Mineral]
Damage Control II
Mining Laser Upgrade II
Mining Laser Upgrade II
Medium F-S9 Regolith Compact Shield Extender
Modulated Strip Miner II, Veldspar Mining Crystal I
Modulated Strip Miner II, Veldspar Mining Crystal I
Medium Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
Medium Ancillary Current Router I
Medium Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer I
Hobgoblin II x5

The first actively piloted ship is the newbie venture, using meta modules and bad skills. While it has some tank, it's easy food for any ganker, unless it is always on the move, orbiting a piece of ore. Due to its high speed, the gankers have little chance to warp a catalyst on it or track it with an arty Trasher. Please remember that it's for poor newbies, no established player should fly it:

[Venture, Newbie]
Mining Laser Upgrade II
1MN Y-S8 Compact Afterburner
Medium F-S9 Regolith Compact Shield Extender
Limited Adaptive Invulnerability Field I
Miner II
Miner II
[empty high slot]
Small Core Defense Field Extender I
Small Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer I
Small Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
Hobgoblin I x2

Established, active miners fly procurers and skiffs. These ships aren't simply well-tanked, they are also fast (500-650 m/s), making it hard for gankers to warp in properly. Always orbit something!

[Procurer, Ice miner]
Damage Control II
Ice Harvester Upgrade II
EM Ward Field II
10MN Y-S8 Compact Afterburner
Thermic Dissipation Field II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Ice Harvester II
Medium Ice Harvester Accelerator I
Medium Ancillary Current Router I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I
Hobgoblin II x5

[Procurer, Mineral_ 1% PG implant needed]
Damage Control II
Mining Laser Upgrade II
EM Ward Field II
10MN Y-S8 Compact Afterburner
Thermic Dissipation Field II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Modulated Strip Miner II, Veldspar Mining Crystal I
Medium Ancillary Current Router I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I
Hobgoblin II x5

[Skiff, Ice]
Damage Control II
Ice Harvester Upgrade II
Ice Harvester Upgrade II
10MN Y-S8 Compact Afterburner
Limited 'Anointed' EM Ward Field
Thermic Dissipation Field II
Limited Kinetic Deflection Field I
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Ice Harvester II
Medium Ice Harvester Accelerator I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender II
Hobgoblin II x5

[Skiff, Mineral, 3% PG implant needed]
Damage Control II
Mining Laser Upgrade II
Mining Laser Upgrade II
10MN Y-S8 Compact Afterburner
Limited 'Anointed' EM Ward Field
Thermic Dissipation Field II
Limited Kinetic Deflection Field I
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Modulated Strip Miner II, Veldspar Mining Crystal I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender II
Medium Core Defense Field Extender II
Hobgoblin II x5

The Gas mining Venture utilizes speed for maximum safety from gankers. With proper skills, it needs extreme effort to kill them:
[Venture, Gas Miner]
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Medium Shield Extender II
1MN Afterburner II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Gas Cloud Harvester II
Gas Cloud Harvester II
[empty high slot]
Small Core Defense Field Extender I
Small Core Defense Field Extender I
Small Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
Hobgoblin II x2


This post is part of the guide "why was I ganked?"