Is the time required for a hulk worth it if I intend to keep mining as a side-job?
mur grebadnub
[ Editor ]
If your gonna try and make real isk from mining YES! Will cost ya over 100mil and a bit of time training the skill, but you will get that back pretty quickly in mining yield :P
L. Risk
[ Editor ]
As a side-job? Not really, unless you intend on going into low/null sec for the real minerals. Most commonly see macro miners in Hulks, a covetor is all you need for a side job. By comparison doing a lvl 4 mission in High Sec will earn you much more than High Sec mining.
zaery
michael_65
If you plan to make ISK from ore or need to provide ore for manufacturing it is: 1. The hulk harvests far more minerals than any other mining ship (174% yeild increase from starting ships) 2. The hulk can 'tank' damage from most NPC rats, even ones in low sec, where other mining ships find this difficult 3. If you further your skill training to max skills the Hulk will bring in even more ore.
Costs: 1. Several months in skill training 2. 100m-170m in isk for the ship itself 3. Further isk for ship modules (~10m isk)
If you wish to find out further details, I recommend reading The Complete Miners Guide