"Rhea was brilliantly skilled for industry. I sold her for 3.5bil"Noob. About a year ago my indy char was less than 35 mill SP and got stolen by a key-logger. He sold the char for 5 billion isk, I did not have that so I asked a friend of a friend to buy her for me so I could pay her back.
Paying her back in PLEX took months, but it was worth it.
Why, you ask?
Because indy characters are a source of endless money. Mining is boring? You are doing it wrong.
Skill alternative indy char to Hulk and perfect mining skills (processing skills at 5 for all high-sec ores in your area) all other skills at 5 or 4 etc, to perfectly fit a Hulk for mining and the skills to perfectly refine the ore. Standing means little - the NPC's take 5% or less, you can live with that.
Dual-box. your alt mines in NPC corp. You sit ready in hauler able to take a full jet-can of ore in one go, or as close as able. Itty5 should do on your main, or the T2 DST. That would be even better.
Alt mines. Main hauls. YOU do something else primarely while doing this. Read book. Watch TV. Watch shows on PC on alternative screen or just pop-up EVE every 3 mintes to empty Hulk and haul on main, if you only got one screen. Hell, you can even write your RP posts to the EVE-O forums or work on your RP stories or whatever. Find something to occupy your time while you mine, simply making sure you keep the ore flowing into that can and that can going back to station on time. Do this as long as you BOTHER, WHEN you bother. Refine ore. Haul it to good market spot and sell. Profit. Work some math to see what ore yealds minerals that is worth most per hour and work on that, upping profit.
Alternative: skill char to T1 production and get some cheap BPO's or BPC's if you want bigger stuff or don't want to invest the money. Build stuff that sells well on market. Ammo. Charges. Popular ships. Whatever sells, not what costs most. Whatever sells on a steady rate.
PRO-TIP: find some HIGH-SEC backwater that don't see much traffic to increase chance of fat ore belts and available build slots of you do that. Mine/refine/haul/build there, sell elsewhere. Optionally skills for ice-mining and possibly proccessing if ice-products sell better than ice blocks then use Macks not hulks. Or do both for variety.
Ore/ice thieves? Leave a can-marker (bookmark, round of ammo, whatever) in the can and save the ore. Ensure the can belongs to main. They steal marker, undock a PVP ship able to take them on and kill them. Yay PVP.
Ofc, you can ignore this advice. You sold your indy char (noob
) and don't like mining. I don't either, if you keep looking at the ore being mined. B.O.R.I.N.G. Do something else in the meantime as adviced. time will flow by while you enjoy yourself, and profit will be okay-ish to very good depending on what ore you get and prices etc. This can be anticipated by working out prize for minerals and how much you get per sycle/per hour and so on. If you do this in advance or make a couple simple checks you will soon see income/hour and if it's worth it to you or not.
Alternatively... there is scamming, corp-theft on alt, griefing in high-sec, extortion rackets, and so on. Mining is a solid income choice, though it needs :effort:
Sleepy. Ranting, repeating myself... off for bed. Good night.