So... I forget if others have said this, but I've found a way to make the game a bit more like Eve Online. I basically set my drayman with a cargo scoop at velocity 10 and just have it plow through an asteroid field while I do other things on the computer. It's kind of silly but I think it's the only way you reliably can automatically get resources as if you were using a mining ship. Now if only there was a way to increase the reliability of getting minerals...