Market Discussions

groups of traders that studied the maps seeing regional relations of the systems i'd say.
Although jita didn't exist until a trade station was blown up in yulai which was the jita of past ages with CCP not thinking that a group of players would attack a NPC station.

some minor trade hubs come about due to the agents and the population running missions.

its the same as some cities develop across the countries really from the way I see some of the bottle-neck routes between regions, but lots of regions can lead to a place.

If I remember, Hubs formed because:
* Usually, there were 1 or more high paying l4 mission agents in system and perhaps many other agents in nearby systems. Mission runners apparently aren't willing to spend as much time traveling to save isk, and they provide a steady flow of isk to help jumpstart a market.
* Each faction seems to have at least 1 major hub catering to its nearby highsec regions, so the faction hub usually is in a spot that isn't too many jumps away from the highly populated systems.
* You'll also find the faction hub along main transport paths...autopilot will send you through dodixie when frequently traversing much of Gallente space, Rens isn't that far off the main path through Mimitar space, etc.
* Main hubs aren't close to each other...rens is horribly far from jita, and about equally distant from Amarr and Dodixie.

That said, I think we are seeing hubs consolidating further because for whatever reason, hauling is becoming too easy. Minihubs like Oursulert are withering on the vine, other possible mini hubs like jel and fricoure/vittenyn don't seem to get any real momentum. Everyone seems to be agreeing that 4 major hubs is all that is needed from what I can tell.

Honestly, other than undocking in Hek or traveling through Uedama, there isn't that much risk moving cargo assuming one's ship is reasonably fit and not carrying too high of a value...

Dodixie is highly connected (similar to B above) and also had (and still has) a level 4 agent, which pushed it to prominence over alternative possible sites like Vylade or Eglennaert that are comparably connected.

Nowadays, however, the key factor in hub inertia is the logistical effort required to stock a future hub with between two and twenty trillion ISK worth of goods, including stacks of tens/hundreds of billions of units of minerals, tens of millions of units of PI products, tens of thousands of ships and millions of modules.

If you have a few trillion to your name, why not try and establish a new hub?

Ill get right on that.

But seriously it is just a discussion on things another hub would be a effort for more than just one pilot.

There isn't enough new pilots to establish a new hub today, as Jita-Amarr is ingrained deep within the community, so much so it becomes a self-perpetuating mechanism.

To create a new major place of trade you need untainted minds, otherwise it will revert back to square one. You have to also remember that people generally value their time and value their money - a competitive hub would have to consistently post prices lower than in Jita-Amarr on high volume, because for the majority of Eve, a few 100,000 ISK difference makes... all the difference where to shop.

Another thing to consider is that the other hubs, such as Rens, Hek and Dodixie are all cut off from Jita-Amarr vein by Low Security space. if one has the route planner set to Shortest/Default, which again the majority of Eve will have.

Tama is between Jita & Dodixie, Rancer lies en route from Hek to Jita, while Amarr is separated by Huola/The Bleak Lands from Rens, Hek & Dodixie.

Using the High Sec setting adds five systems to Amarr-Hek route and nine jumps to Amarr-Rens.

To add to that, Dodixie - along with Jita, is an example of how hubs moved over time. When I started playing back in 2006, Oursulaert was the hub in the Gallente Federation. Most likely because it has lots of stations and therefore (decent) agents. Not sure what caused the migration to Dodi later on (wasn't into trading at that time). There was even a direct connection between Aunia (good lvl 3 agent there, providing the path to the good lvl 4 agents in Auvergene and Dodixie), which was removed later on.

But I doub that without heavy interference from CCP any of the current major factional hub locations (Amarr, Rens, Dodixie, Jita) will ever be replaced by another one due to their massive momentum. IMHO there's just too much logistical investment from the major market players to ever make that happen "by will".

Very determined players could move a hub, but it would likely take the intervention of a determined null block.

A group like N3, if they had the desire, could restock Oursulaert, then lay serious round-the-clock siege to Dodixie using suicide thrashers (probably only need ten thousand of them, so a 40b investment), and shooting everyone not blue to them. They'd set their own freighters blue and buy up cheap stuff in Dodi as sales dried up.

Trade would move.

But, the groups capable of doing that aren't currently interested in doing so.

other regions like tash-murkon do suffer because why should people establish a market, you have players that are to lazy
I got banned from my incursion community chat for advertising the caldari event this weekend after 1 post, it seems they don't want to do anything past shooting red crosses.
I haven't amassed a lot of wealth due to my age and skills, as I get enough for a plex and go off and do numerous other things
'if a council was established for this and enough got involved you could make some new hub or hubs I suppose

On the topic of tradehubs, can someone explain how/why Rens came about? I have lived in Minmatar space for several years now and Rens still doesn't make any sense to me...(From pvp, pve, trading, and manufacturing sides) there are so many better places. Also unlike most other hubs Rens is NOT in the station that has manufacturing slots.
It is too far away from the best mission agents, it is likewise too far from low sec to quickly go and get a missing module etc.
The only thing it -might- have going for it is that it is closer to Derelik and Devoid regions, but those are rather dead regions.

Back then being Intaki I started my trading career at Oursulaert because that was where my advanced agent was. Last I heard she got caught fencing dodgy TVs and holoreels and was demoted, but that's another story... I assumed others did so for the same reason.

Anyway I needed to set up a depot in the Caldari State to, um, never you mind and so picked a good central location. As it turned out I was one jump out - I picked Sobaseki and later when the highway was removed the market picked Jita.