Greedy Goblin

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

I told you! (and mining changes and CSM8)

I've been telling it since the start. I started telling it when no one else did: the money is in highsec. Now, it's official:
This graph was presented at fanfest, the dots represent systems, their sizes show the production and destruction in them. You can see that most production happens in highsec. This is where people make their money, either as full-time highsec players, or low/nullsec alts. Low/nullsec is only a place for PvP. Luckily CCP recognized it as a problem and the new devblog pair shows changes to nullsec industry and mining, making it more profitable than their highsec counterpart. They even addressed the AFK mining problem a bit! More on mining on Thursday.

The most important is not the set of improvements of mechanics but the below declaration of CCP Fozzie: "We intend for mining to become a major plank of many financially successful nullsec empires, and we encourage those empires to begin planning how they can best integrate miners into their plans for universal domination." Yes, they clearly want to change nullsec from "PvP or GTFO" where a frigate lolroamer was valued higher than an industrialist.

This will make large changes in the nullsec empires, as not all of them have a philosophy that allows integrating industrialists. I seriously doubt for example that Goons will be able to attract miners into their ranks. TEST will fare much better. The PL-NC.-N2S block is a wildcard, they clearly can't invite miners into their alliance but have the ability to protect a pet alliance from roamers, as they can advertise it as "have your Rorqual in the belt with tank and a cyno and we'll counterdrop anything they can drop on you". However I think the biggest winner of the change will be the "drone Russians", and I predict a strong cloalition to reborn from the ashes of SOLAR. You see, on the East there was always lot of ratting and gun-mining, they were the least polluted by the "don't give a damn just blow things up" attitude.

Besides these very welcome changes to the economy, it's time for celebration over the CSM8 too. I had a post which candidates would be best for facilitating changes like this: in the first 6 positions I suggested voting for Ali Aras and the wormhole 5, in order to represent people (newbies and wormholers) who make money where they live. Half of them get on the CSM, that's great. To the next 3 positions I suggested Mangala Solaris, Psychotic Monk and Korvin, two of them got in.

So all in all, things went the way I wanted them to go, which makes me a happy goblin.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's not at all clear what that graphic is showing. If the production graphic is showing, say, locations of wallet transactions, then it greatly supports your point. If it's showing, on the other hand (and what I think more likely) where ships and modules are made, then this tells a different story.

An example, I make most of my income by ratting in null. But I use that money to buy ships and modules, which are largely made in high sec. Where do I show up on that graphic? How about a big source of newbie income in null, salvage? This is created in null, but then sold to someone with a jump freighter who brings it to Jita to sell where it is processed into ships in modules. Where does this show up on the graphic?

Anonymous said...

I read a similar article on TheMittani and I started looking for a low/null-sec corp in search of industrialist.

Before I complete the research, are you sure you are not planning to start your own corp?
That would be cool ...
:)))

iod atreides is the ingame link.
Just send me an EVE-mail if you are interested, and I'll follow you everywhere (but no miner gank, please :PPP)


Fly safe

Anonymous said...

the lowsec production is probably affected by the FW exploit on that graph. it would be interesting to see the graph for a time period that doesn't involve FW rorting.

I would suggest it would be tiny red nullsec ring, tiny orange lowsec ring, large green highsec centre.

Von Keigai said...

I don't expect rock mining to take off in null. Yes, it is more balanced now. This is good. But it needs to be able to compete with the income from anom-running in null before people will adopt it widely. Running anoms, one can earn 50m per hour. I doubt the nullsec mining buff will do that. (Especially as I expect mineral prices to drop.)

It will still be far safer to mine in highsec and move minerals out to null. What the new buff will do is add additional income to the mining that is already happening in null, for the ABCs.

The ice nerf in highsec does look to me likely to force some production in null. 20% of the supply (and probably more until people adjust) will be gone overnight. Some of that will induce people to shut down low-producing POSes, but I doubt that 20% of the POSes in the game are borderline unprofitable. So, where will 20% of current highsec ice production come from? It must be lowsec or null. Of those, null is the obviously better one. Defenses are already there.

But for nullies to ice-mine, same logic as mining. They'll have to get returns comparable to what they get running anoms. This means the price of ice must rise until you can make 50m per hour ice mining. Now, it's true that ice mining is less "at the keyboard" intensive than anom running is. You can N-box ice miners. So, a lower return is indicated; perhaps 25m per hour. This is still considerably more than today.

Gevlon said...

@Von Keigai: not only ISK/hour matter in null. You can mine with 1M SP with 60% of the optimal, using an insurable Retriever. Good luck doing anoms in a cruiser with 1M SP!

Ragelle said...

Once again you underestimate the Goons, Mynna's articles on TMC point out that they have been gaming out these changes for pretty much the last 3-4 months. The fact Mynna just got elected as the #1 pick from the CFC and the previous information presented make for a compelling argument that they are not at all going to sit by and watch themselves be disadvantaged by the changes.

Never believe the hype generated by the Goons or their enemies --- look to the underlying facts.

Von Keigai said...

Gevlon, I agree that there are factors outside of simple ISK/hour. You mention skillpoints -- right. There's also N-boxability; N is higher for mining than other PVE. Also there are two out-of-game factors: player skill needed, and AFKability. There may be other factors as well.

Skillpoints don't strike me as a particularly large barrier. I mean, what's the minimum one needs to run a null anom? I don't know, but I also don't imagine it is all that many. 2 months? And also, almost every single person in null has at least one account that can do it -- their main. Already in null, probably already doing it.