View source for Talk:Miner/@comment-86.41.207.96-20170531192427/@comment-27283317-20170531200124

For mining, the only weapons you need are mining lasers.
But every time you drop into a planetary ring, within about 500ly of the bubble, you will get an NPC spawn. Usually this will be some pirates, but may be NPC miners or authority ships. Provided you don't have any cargo in your ship, any pirates will scan you and then go away without attacking. So yes, you can mine without taking weapons at all.

However, if you log out or disconnect while withing a ring, you will also get a NPC spawn when you reload. If you have any mined ore in your ship any pirates will attack you for it.

Also, once you have finished mining, you still need to get back to a station to sell it. So weapons can come in handy. But if you are mining in a fast ship, like a Clipper, you can just outrun any pirate without needing to fight.