Science & Industry

Let's take a quick look at Caldari Ice after Odyssey hits.

Currently, Caldari highsec should contain 34 Systems with ice fields, with 40 ice fields in total. If the existing icefields are converted to the new ice anomalies, and we assume that these ice fields are cleared 4 times a day, Caldari highsec could produce 400,000 units of Caldari racial ice each day. This equals:

Racial Isotopes: 120,000,000
Heavy Water: 20,000,000
Liquid Ozone: 10,000,000

To produce 40 Caldari fuel blocks (4 small pos hours), one does need:

Racial Isotopes: 400
Heavy Water: 150
Liquid Ozone: 150

As one can easily see, the ratios between the produced ice products and the demand created by POS are quite off. How the market will react will probably depend on the demand of this particular fuel block. But for now I will work with a high estimate (both HW and LO are imported from elsewhere), a medium estimate (only LO is imported) and a low estimate (nothing is imported)

On high estimate, the Caldari highsec can produce 12,000,000 fuel blocks per day, equalling 500,000 days of small POS operation, while being required to import 25,000,000 units of Heavy Water (125% of daily production) and 35,000,000 units of Liquid Ozone (250% of daily production).

On medium estimate, Caldari highsec will produce 5,333,333 fuel blocks per day, equalling 222,222 days of small POS operation. 66,666,670 units of Racial Isotopes (55.5% of daily production) will be left over, while 10,000,000 units of LO (100% of daily production) would have to be imported from elsewhere.

On low estimate, Caldari highsec will produce 2,666,666 fuel blocks per day, equalling 111,111 days of small POS operation.
93,333,340 units of Racial Isotopes will be left over (77.8% of daily production) and 10,000,000 of Heavy Water (50% of daily production.

I see a LO bottleneck on the horizon.

hmm, i only counted 25 systems yesterday with 30 ice fields in caldari hi-sec. this includes: the forge, the citadel, black rise and lonetrek. did i miss a region?

This thread is more concerning ice mining but I think the moons issue should cause a bit of a hit on CFC in Delve... since new moons are being added get ready to expand your moon scanning efforts to find AFK replacements for TECH to keep your SRPs rolling as they are right now ( granted you must have an incredible warchet saved from 3+ years of TECH mana). So there's a bit of tears to go around.

I suspect since much of null is dependent on POS's you guys will also be scrambling to set up ICE mining fleets in the mid term too. Have fun with the AFK cloakies
Out of curiousity does DELVE have a good proportion of valuable ice fields like it did TECH moons?

Just making sure you guys were on your toes with this. That's exactly what I'm looking for.

Well, true, but if there will really be an import of LO from 0.0 depends on a few factors.

The first is of course the actual demand of the different types of fuel blocks. If POS-type A is more frequently deployed than POS-type B may lead to a LO-overproduction in a different part of highsec, which may be enough to satisfy the LO-demand in another part.

Then there is of course the question if 0.0-residents will suddenly start to mine ice. I suspect that all that many miners will go from high to 0.0, because the most miners I had the "joy" to meet would rather quit the game.

And even if 0.0 starts to mine ice, there is the question of how much of the ice products will actually be exported to high sec. I certainly expect LO to rise in price.



I used Grismar to determine the number of Caldari highsec belts and hoped that ice wasn't changed in the last 6-ish years.

However, even if the actual number of ice systems (and therefore belts) is lower, high/med/low estimate would only go down 25%, which are still 375,000/166,666/83,333 small POS days per day. And if I remember correctly there are about 500,000 moons in New Eden, on high estimate caldari ice miners could still support a POS on 4 out of 5 moons, if they only import enough HW and LO. But this shows that CCP does not expect them to import enough LO and HW. ;)

@ Ten NinetySix

Yeah ... stupid POSes with their stupid granularity. =X

I am terrible and feel terrible.

Oh so do I. I'm not disagreeing with you on that point, just saying that there shouldn't be an actual shortage.


This is also very true.

Mice.

To build their endless fleets, or maybe to build themselves a Ringworld or 20.

These changes don't remotely break the game for new players who mine.

For a start you can't even mine ice until you've invested as far as Mining Barge.

And for a newbie instead of "what do I do here? Oh i turn the lasers on, then go afk." which is a horrible way to learn Eve and causes them to feel entitled to the wrong things (being left in peace to semi-passively accumulate isk), instead of that the game will be teaching them to be opportunistic and paying attention to what's in space. It's a better game if you undock, look around for an ice belt, rush over grab some quick before it's all gone, stash that sweet sweet super-valuable ice, then go do some veld mining whlie checking every now and then for a new spawn.

It rewards decision making and paying attention not just maxxing out your percents and alt tabbing.

While I agree to a point. Most people are not going to switch to becoming miners. I expect most will work on stockpiling till the patch hits and sitting on it until the market starts to drop.

The major problem with nullsec alliance mining in their own space is simply we cant provide all racial isos. So its mine surpluses of dark glitter compress and export. Thus filling said high sec hole/ bottleneck.

Fuel blocks are far too large and cost ineffienct to buy from jita and ship out. Its actually easier to buy bulks of Isos and ship them out to null for cap fuel and building of your fuel blocks locally with PI and buying LO and HW. Most alliances do this for a portion of their Towers fuel. It costs less and puts isk in your buddies pockets and not the enemy or some random jita pos.


Will this make more people mine ice in null? Doubtful. Its still boring and useless.

Also look at how much ice products are currently on the market. And how many more will be mined over the next month by people worried about their supplies. The 80% HIgh sec provides in theory could continue to keep the market stable for the next 3 monthes.

without taking the time to add everything up i would say there are about 100m of each racial isotopse on the market right now in high sec. I would estimate at least another 100m or so sitting idle in hangers. that 200m is enough for 5m pos fuel blocks(my math may be off it is 4 am)

So the current supply will still play a factor for a while before new stock starts rolling.