If you can afford it do both - hunt and mine the materials you need. Cant say for armor as I dont craft it but I am doing something similar to craft MA101s I use for mining. Some items I mine for and others I hunt for, but I'm mainly a hunter.
Worth remembering a few things -
- Mining gets you engineering skill which is VERY important for crafting
- some mobs drop ore (iron, gazz, erdorium most often) but most you will need to get out the ground or from auction
- if you hunt its no real hardship to hunt certain mobs to get items you need usually (and sometimes works out nicely - hunt a lot of drones for gazz you can sell the dodge skill for much better markup than the gazz)
- its a false economy to think you are "saving" by hunting or mining the items yourself if you are a miner/hunter anyway. What you gain by not paying other peoples markup (e.g. 115% on oil or whatever) you lose by not selling your own oil at 115%.
- Be prepared to get frustrated at not looting/finding the items you want and ending up buying crafting requirements at auction anyway
- if you do find what you need you will end up with permanent imbalances (e.g. you need 1 oil and 1 lyst, you have mined 4000 oil but only 1200 lyst...)
- Mining can become insanely addictive (honestly, I'm not joking!)
- Hunting is almost instantly addictive (worse than crack)
- I'm no expert, just my 2 pecs
