EVE General Discussion

There is something about the EVE market that I do not understand.

I get the whole "supply and demand" bit. And that items, when popular, will go up in price. But there is something about it all that has me puzzled. It's probably very simple and staring me right in the face. And yes, I'm prepared for the usual backlash being a "noob" brings from a gaming community. But I thought I would at least ask.

Starting out to build up my fortune and follow the rule of "Never fly in something you cannot afford to lose," I've spent the last two weeks on asteroid mining. At first, all I was able to find was a lot of plain Veldspar. Players would come in quick, grab anything better than Veldspar, and leave the Veldspar. I often wait until I have at least 200,000 in a stack before selling my mined Veldspar. Why? It is just the number I chose and kept using. Now, I can get anywhere from three to three and a half million ISK for at least 200,000 Veldspar. Not bad. Later in the time period, I found asteroids containing more ore types than just Veldspar. Lots of Scordite and Plagioclase of various yields. So, I started mining these ores thinking if they are superior in refining yield than plain old Veldspar, I'll make a few more ISK. Well, it is not turning out that way.

After a couple of days of amassing 200,000 in a stack of the various ore types, I found the prices are not what I expected. Normal Scordite sells for better prices than Veldspar. Usually at least five million ISK per stack. But the other yields like Massive Scordite or even Dense Veldspar are much lower. MUCH lower. Earlier today, I tried to sell a 210,000 stack of Plagioclase and saw a price of ten million. But that same amount of Azure Plagioclase, two million less. Why? Azure has a 5% better yield. But it's worth less?

Why is that?

Where are you selling the ores? If it's in a system with a relatively low population there may simply not be enough traders in the market to create an efficient market. The few traders that do operate in the area can afford to place low bids for ores since there is little competition in the bidding.

In the more crowded systems, especially the popular trade hubs (Jita, Amarr, Dodixie, Rens, Hek), the market is far more efficient and you'll be able to sell your ore for better prices typically. Also, the 5% ores will be roughly 5% more expensive than the base ores, etc...

edit: as the poster above me already pointed out, it is important to take the volume of the different ores into consideration when determining profitability. 1 unit of Veldspar takes up 0.1 cubic meters, while 1 unit of Scordite takes up 0.15 cubic meters. Higher end ores take up even more space per unit.

But both your mining yield and cargo capacity are measured in cubic meters, not in units of ore, so the important factor to look at is the price per cubic meter of ore, not the price per unit. Differences in volume only exist between different ore-types, the various levels of the same type always have the same volume (Dense Veldspar is 0.1 cubic meter per unit just like regular Veldspar for example).

You'll get more ISK for the minerals than the ore in most cases. Scordite is a wierd one as it's needed for some mission objectives so there might be buy and sell orders around rookie systems that are a bit inflated. There are plenty of online calculators and guides, although you will need to train some skills to refine efficiently.

Some of the starter systems are in regions adjacent to the main hubs so you can't see the larger sell/buy orders. Not sure where you are in space but your character is Gallente so your local hub would be Dodixie if you are in Gal space. It's worth going there to check prices of ore vs minerals. Create your own sell orders rather than selling to buy orders if you can. You don't get the ISK instantly and you might have to update the order, but you'll get more.

There's a new player forum here btw.

So, the price of goods change depending on what system you use the market in? I thought the market was galaxy wide. Guess not.

Correct. Each station has it's own individual market. When you buy something from a particular station, you are buying that station alone.

Buy orders are bit screwy in that they can have a "range" (from the whole system to several systems out) beyond the system they were placed in. The caveat is the buyer must pick up from each station the buy order was satisfied in (meaning they have to go fetch it somehow).

The prices you see on that little "tool tip" thingy is just a price that is averaged over the whole star cluster (I think?).

Finally... NPCs do not move things for you... players must do that (either through a courier contract or through their own efforts). So always set sufficient collateral.