Alrighty....
Mining.
You got Three major parts to mining: Mining, Hauling, and Refining.
Mining you can do in just about any ship. A mining barge is your best bet for ming as they can fit "strip miners". Which are really big mining lasers that can cut asteroids in no time. They take a while to learn, but are more than worth it if you plan to career in mining....it's pretty much a MUST.
Now, when you're out in asteroid belts, you may run into 'Rats' which are NPC pirates. You're not going to have any way of defending yourself if you're in a barge....you have no weapons.......except....
Drones! Depending on where you mine (later in this post) You'll want either light scout drones or medium drones. Basically they are little robots that orbit your ship and will attack things that come to bother you.
SO...once you start mining, you gotta take it some place....
Hauling Although barges are pretty big and can hold a lot, nothing has the capacity of a hauler. You'll need one to move all the ore you mine from the belt to a station. And then possible to another station. Depending on the station, or where the station is, you might more ore a few times.
Refining The sort to refining is that it's the process of taking raw ore and turning it into minerals that can be used to build things. there are a couple of skills that let you refine better...they're call..."refining efficiency"...yes yes.....creative genius at work here...anyway... Those skill plus your "standings" will allow you refine better with little or no waste. Once the miners are refined they can sold at a higher price than the ore itself, or used to make things.
Ok...now for some definitions and explanations......
Security Status: EVE is a tough place.....and VERY tough place. It would be total Anarchy if not for Concord. They're the 'cops' of the galaxy and are pretty strict about messing with people. So strict that if you even so much as you a target painter to 'light up'...well...anything, you'll realize you've made a BIG mistake in about 3 seconds when you find you no longer have a ship. Now, EVE has over 5,000 systems that you can visit....far more then what Concord can police. So, every system has a security rating. They range from 1.0 to 0.0, 1.0 being the most secure, and 0.0 being ...well....lawless. You can shoot or be shot at by anyone in 0.0 without concord setting in and it it there that PvP is the best. Anything from 0.4 to 0.1 is considered lowsec. In lowsec you are only safe when you're around a gate, or a station...and even then you still have to be careful.
As a general rule, the lower the sec status, the better mining and better NPC rats, but the great the danger of losing your ship.
Mining what? In EVE there are two things to mine. Asteroids, and Ice. There are different kinds of 'riods' which yield different kinds of minerals when refined. Some minerals ofcourse are worth much more and are much more rare.
Minerals are used to make things from ships to modules to space stations. EVE's economy is player driven and almost everything you can buy on the market is made and sold by players. So minerals are always in demand.
ICE? Yes, ice. Ice contains isotopes which are used to fuel Player Owned Station, and BIG ships like Dreadnoughts, Carriers, and Titans. They are so big they cannot use the warp gates, and must create Jump portals for themselves. Stations need fuel to operate defenses and modules. A POS can be place anywhere in 0.3 space and below, and are useful as safe havens from pirates, or storage/refining for low sec mining operations.
Standings In EVE there are player corps, and NPC corps. NPC corps have agents that will give you missions to run. They range from moving goods from system to system to shooting hostile NPCs. All agent missions give you 'Faction' toward that agent's corp. (along with isk, loot, and other rewards). Faction increases your standing with that corporation and thus allows you better access to their resources (refining, maintenance, and manufacturing arrays). That's where efficiency and lower cost come in.
Now, the thing to remember is that behind the major skills, there are a bunch of 'support' skills that let you do things better. Like fly your ship, or use bigger drones, or better mining lasers, or mine more in less time.....
Crew on this for a bit, and ask questions. Also,
have you thought of what race you want to play?
OH!....and before I forget....just so it doesn't get left out later.....
First rule in EVE:
"Never fly a ship you can't afford to lose!"