Planetary mining of uninhabited planets and moons is vitally important in New Eden for any manufacturing station that wants to compete on equal footing with stations orbiting inhabited planets.
Although such stations do occasionally exist without the support of a mineral rich stellar body, they must then rely on minerals being transported to them, which is always more cumbersome and expensive. This has made uninhabited but mineral-rich planets gold mines - often in the literal sense - for anyone aspiring to large-scale manufacturing.
See Also
- Ground technology