Market Discussions

So, why is price spiking up?

True, it does come off as an odd thing to say in light of...



this.

Well I believe it is far simpler than the complexity many others are seeing. Keep in mind that most miners mine because it is easy isk, not high isk, just easy. They do not like a lot of work.

I am a firm believer that the low prices of omber seen for so long is due to one simple fact. Miners Bilbe This guide although written many years ago, is still followed by most miners. It recommends mining omber. Many new miners just follow this advice without checking the market to see if omber is still worth mining. Many of those that do check see the high price per unit of omber and think well that looks good. So they mine omber. This has flooded the market for so many years omber has never been able to recover. There are few miners who actually realize the problem with omber is it's size per unit in m3 and mining yield is based on m3 not # of units. In my opinion this is what has kept omber in an over supplied state for so many years.

What does this have to do with the current discussion on null sec minerals? Well as I said, the answer is far simpler that most realize. The fact is that even without further manipulation by the game developers null sec minerals will rise in value.

I am confident in this statement due to the simple fact that miners in general prefer to keep things simple. Currently with high sec minerals being on par at least from an isk/hr point of view with null sec there really is no benefit for a bunch of carebears to mine in null rather than in high sec. There are many many null bear corps out there that rent space from the larger PVP alliances to mine and do industry in null. Once you take the rental fees off the top this null sec mining is less isk/hr that high sec mining. As long as null sec minerals stay low, more and more of these null bears will move back to high sec.

It is a fact that it took several months after the drone POO nerf before the market really reacted, due to massive stockpiles of minerals. Add to that the fact that an established null sec mining operation is a big job to pack up and move. especially if they are supported by roquals which they can not take with them to high sec. But if the prices stay low these operations will slowly die off and move to high sec.

I expect we have already reached a point where the supply of null sec minerals has dropped. It just has not impacted the market yet due to huge stockpiles. once these stockplies dry up we will see a surge in the value of null sec minerals.

Just as the market has recently started to stabilize from the increase in high sec mineral value, I have sen trit go from stable around 3 isk/unit to stable around 6 isk/unit. I believe that null sec mineral value will do the same but due to a much lower demand than high sec mineral and equal stockpiles, its surge has just been delayed. I believe we are just seeing the start of that surge now.

In any MMO the risk vs reward will always create a natural balance in the game. players will just not focus on certain activities if they can get the same rewards from doing lower risk activities. With the new mining barge changes high sec ganking has moved away from miners and more toward haulers. Thus the equality of null sec ores and high sec ores in price can not be sustained. it will balance out. We are just seeing the effects of stockpiles and market manipulations delaying that balance, but it will come, and very quickly when those stockpiles dry up.

High ends will spike once low ends drop.
Not before.

Also, if CCP added some null sec infrastructure that is really mega/zyd intensive, it might go back up, but it seems dead atm

Seem to recall talk about CCP having an interest in making high sec mining viable and interesting. Sounds like it is working.