Ore value chart – July 2015

A few months ago I looked at the Ore Value chart in LMeve and found out their value was something quite different from what was designed by the CCP, namely medium value ores were on the top, while the ones supposed to be the best were actually somewhere in the middle.

And then CCP Fozzie came in and rebalanced mining 🙂

In short:

  • CCP doubled Zydrine and Megacyte consumption in manufacturing
  • Devs changed the mineral content of the Null and Lowsec focused ores
  • Devs rebalanced the ore content of the mining anomalies generated by the Ore Prospecting Array

Ore value chart looks much healthier now:

eve-ore-values-2015-07

Mercoxite holds the first place, Bistot is next, with Arkonor and Crokite just behind. In short: ABC ores are again a thing!

Speaking of high sec ores, there were some changes there. The first place these days belongs to Scordite, with Omber – again – closing the table.

Can I check the value of ores myself?

Sure! If you would like to check the ore values yourself, feel free to do so using LMeve Database. Just remember to sort by the last column.

PS. If you are interested in the current shape of the New Eden economy, a friend from Aideron Robotics, Lockefox is running a weekly show, EVE Prosper Market Show which is really cool and I really recommend it!

That’s it for today! Fly safe o7

Ore value chart – November 2014 – Arkonor and Omber at the bottom

Hello industrial-minded pilots! Today we will be talking mining. Many players consider it boring, but it is one of the ways to play EVE, and no one would be able fly any ships if not for the fearless miners, who keep drilling asteroids, despite being ganked left and right.

Some time ago, to help my corp members, I have created an “Ore value chart”, which shows which ore is worth most ISK, and thus is the best to be mined at any given time. Since I don’t mine myself very often, I don’t often check the chart.

I had a look at the ore chart today and was quite surprised

ore-values

Why? Because Arkonor is, besides Omber, one of the worst ores to mine right now (ISK-wise). The king of all ores, the “A” in the famous ABC, has reached the bottom. At the same time, three high sec ores made it to the top ten! Players who engage in mining and industry will be quick to respond “This is because of the supply and demand laws”. And they will be mostly correct. when EVE was first designed, some assumptions were made regarding ore value and mineral prices. The whole industry system was designed around the concept of risk vs reward:

  • high sec offers least risk, nullsec on the other hand is most risky

thus

  • ores in null sec should be worth most, so they offer the highest reward

Moreover, to promote player trading between regions, high sec ores were not distributed evenly. Instead, some high sec ores like Kernite or Pyroxeres only appear in specific regions of space.

CCP probably assumed, that only a handful of miners will be bold (or powerful) enough to mine in null, so the supply of high end minerals will guarantee their high price. In order to further reinforce this system, blueprint mineral requirements were set accordingly.

From theoretical point of view (hi Game Theory!), this made a very well designed crafting system: it offered meaningful choices (where and what to mine, and how much to risk) and also promoted player interaction by the means of trading.

All this was working well ten years ago

But no more. What was impossible to predict, was player behaviour. Firstly, game designers couldn’t predict which blueprints will be utilized the most. Each blueprint has a specific material list, and the global production affects global demand for specific minerals, for example Mexallon. Secondly, right now mining in nullsec is most often safer than mining in high sec (hi, James!), which affects the supply. All these small reasons ultimately affect the prices of the minerals and cause shifts in the table. High demand for Mexallon is what moved Kernite and Plagioclase to the top ten. In the end, this is good for EVE, because it makes mining a viable profession. I know people who easily PLEX their accounts, and they do nothing else but mining and occasional manufacturing.

But Can I haz the Ore Value Chart?

I left the best for the end. If you are a miner, and always want to know which ores pays best, you have two choices:

  • Install and run your own instance of LMeve, which has the Ore Value Chart built in (check under “Database” tab)
  • Go to LMeve Database, which is publicly available and check the Ore Value Chart right away without installing anything

That’s it for today! Fly safe o7

The little Skiff, that could…

SkiffWith the changes to Mining Barges and Exhumers introduced in Inferno, Skiff has become a valid PVP platform. Devs have boosted the EHP and fitting capabilities, but seem to have forgot about the exceptional agility and speed (250m/s on a mining barge!), which come from it’s pre-Inferno role of the “ninja” Mercoxit miner. High sensor resolution of 825mm makes it an excellent tackler, in line with most frigates and interceptors.

Drone bay of 50 cubic meters fits 5 medium drones, or 10 small ones. They would not pack a lot of punch, but with the Drone Damage Amplifier II, 5 medium drones can pump up to 216 DPS – I would say quite a lot for a mining ship. Retribution will further improve this, because Drone damage mods will receive a further buff (19% -> 23%).

With 5 med slots, Skiff has enough space to fit a propulsion mod and tackling mods, leaving room for two tank mods. Two low slots give a little choice really: Damage Control II and damage mod, or two damage mods for all-gank setup. High slot is really optional: you can fit a Nos/Neut, or drone range mod, and that’s about it.

  

How well does it perform?

Not as good as a dedicated combat vessel, but not bad either. The EHP is in the HAC – BS levels, while damage output is closer to Tech I cruisers. Of course drones can be killed, and Skiff can quickly end up with no guns. Using small drones allows to hold two full flights of them, but it reduces the DPS by half, reducing Skiff potential to a frigate killer.

http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=14330271

http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=14320342

Business opportunity on Mining Barges and Exhumers

Inferno 1.2 is bringing some serious changes to mining in EVE Online. CCP is going to buff Mining Barges and Exhumers to be much more resilient in Inferno 1.2. The complete list of changes in  Inferno 1.2 is available for reference in my recent post about it.

Known facts

This increased resilience will come at a price. Mineral price. I have reviewed the blueprints of all Mining Barges and Exhumers on Singularity and found out that both ship classes will use considerably more materials to build. I have compared the changes in the table below:

All the data come from build 7.43.401066 on Singularity.

Current Mining Barge blueprints on Tranquility Mining Barge blueprints in Inferno 1.2

Exploit concept Business opportunity concept

At first it made sense to me: to build a ship that can withstand more damage, more material is required. But the table in the previous paragraph clearly shows, that the change can be speculated (best with Procurer). For this to work, one needs to prepare before patch is deployed. Simply build as many Procurers as possible, using a high ME blueprint, or just buy as many Procurers as possible from the market. After Inferno 1.2 is deployed, all these ships should be reprocessed (perfect refining is required to maximize profits). This will generate about 20 to 50  times more minerals than used for their production before patch. You can sell them for profit after Inferno 1.2 has been deployed.

Please close this loophole before Inferno 1.2 deployment! This is crucial. The idea of changing the amount of minerals used for manufacturing of Mining Barges might seem great from roleplaying point of view, but from design point of view is flawed and will create a very powerful exploit for players to (ab)use.

Entity saves the day

This is not an exploit. Where has my mistake been? Extra Materials of course. Some blueprints require more materials than the item itself contains – these are called Extra Materials. So by using Extra Materials rather than changing the amounts on the blueprint itself, CCP actually prevented the exploit which I was initally so vocal about.

One thing I *should* have done before posting this kind of information was VERIFY it further. This brings some other interesting idea:

Show Info should show difference between “Required Materials” and “Extra Materials“. It currently shows the sum of both.

Speculator’s market

You always speculate at your own risk. EVE Online changes a bit with every update, and it is often possible to make some ISK on these changes. There is always some risk involved: either CCP rolls back the change, or if too many players speculated, prices fall because of market saturation.

Ship re-balancing makes my recent post outdated

A few hours ago CCP has published a dev-blog about ship balancing changes, which we have already heard before Inferno. TL; DR: all Tech I frigates are getting a specific combat role. This is a change from the tiered ship approach we’ve seen over the past years. Instead of putting ships in tiers, each better than the previous one, Tech I vessels will have specialized roles instead, much like their Tech II counterparts do.

  • Interception: Executioner, Condor, Atron, Slasher. Small, agile ships meant for stopping other ships dead in the water
  • Snipers: Navitas, Bantam, Burst The Navitas will become a drone boat. The Bantam will replace the Merlin as the railgun based sniper. The Burst will most likely become a mobile artillery platform, drone boat or a mix of above.
  • Missile lobbers: Inquisitor, Breacher, Kestrel, Tristan. Offer decent tank and speed.
  • Support exploration frigates: Magnate, Heron, Imicus, Probe. These ships will become even more specialized, with possible bonuses to mini-pofessions like hacking and archaeology.
  • EWAR disruption frigates: Crucifier, Griffin, Maulus, Vigil. Crucifier will be re-shaped to become a miniature Arbitrator. All ships will be specialized in EWAR and combat disruption.
  • Rookie ship boost: with the new looks, rookie ships will become very versatile ships, but not nearly as good as any Tech I frigate.

New ship! It’s one of the things that always make me smile in EVE: new ships. Since Navitas and Bantam will no longer be mining frigates, ORE will introduce an ultra-mobile mining frigate for new miners as well as experienced ones, who are mining in a hostile environment.

The new mining frigate does not have a name yet, but I’m sure CCP will come with something cool, like “Carebearmobile” or “Veldnaught” 😉 I personally vote for “Ius” -> see Ius Primae Noctis.

Barges will not have tiers anymore – instead, they will have a balance between EHP and mining output.

  • Procurer and Skiff will sport battleship-like EHP, but their mining output will be the lowest.
  • Retriever and Mackinaw will have less EHP than the above, but will mine more minerals in each cycle. They will also sport biggest cargoholds.
  • Hulk and Covetor will mine the most, but will have about as much EHP as they do right now, making them most vulnerable.

The EHP boost will also make my post about tanked barges void.

CCP has also mentioned that Barges are getting specialized cargoholds, similar to the ones on Rorqual and Orca.

All this will be coming to Tranquility in the 2012 Winter Expansion.

How did it all start – my first year in New Eden

August 22nd, 2005

It was a sunny summer morning. I got up early, even though I still had over a month of summer holidays. This is one of the aspects of student’s life I miss a lot: three months break in the summer. I started browsing the internet, looking for something on sourceforge. And there it was: this little banner of EVE Online.

A friend, who attended classes with me, told me about the game earlier the same year. A colleague of his started the first polish fansite of EVE: eve-centrala.pl. My friend didn’t say much about the game itself apart from the fact it’s about spaceships, but this was enough to get me started. I have browsed the EVE website and a couple of fansites which I could find on google. I liked the setting and I liked the concept, but didn’t want to start playing a game with subscription.

So this morning, when I saw the EVE banner, I have decided to give it a try. I have signed up for the trial quickly and downloaded the 500 megabyte client package. I was to learn later that this was the ‘Cold War’ edition, which then had little meaning to me.

I started up, watched the intro and created a new character. I really liked rolling eyes in the old character creator 🙂 This day Lukas Rox was born. This is my first screenshot from EVE:

My skills were so limited, that I barely flown the rookie frigate. I was nowhere near being able to kill NPC pirates, not to mention other players. Not knowing EVE and not having anyone to guide me, I have flown around the nearby systems and kept mining Veldspar. It was the only way to make ISK I knew of at the time. In on of the high sec belts I have seen the might Megathron for the first time. It was fitted with mining lasers and pilot had a funny bio saying “If you’re mining, do it with style”. I have decided to make a career in mining. This would let me make enough isk to get better ships and time to train all the important skills. Of course learning skills were not the top priority, because I wanted to fly and use everything first. It was a costly mistake, but of course I was oblivious to that fact. Exploring EVE was a lot of fun for me, and I’ve been learning quite a lot of stuff.

Are noobs the only miners in EVE?

Career in mining was not a quick one. Skills to fly a Mining Barge were going to take a while, and mining Veldspar wouldn’t make quick ISK either. I have switched the noob ship to an AtronWarp Drive Active, and then quickly upgraded it to an Imicus. I saw a lot of people mining in Industrials, which were saving the time of warping back and forth to station. So as soon as ISK and skills allowed me to, I have switched to an IteronIteron mining Plag. I also wasn’t mining Veldspar anymore, because Plagioclase was selling for more ISK.

It was not long before I finally finished my first goal I set for myself in EVE: I have trained the Mining Barges skill and bought my first Procurer. It was Christmas, and I had some more time to play. So I made friends with some other guys and we went to mine in low sec for the first time. I flown to OulleyFirst low sec mining op in a mining barge. I didn’t yet know how stupid this was, but no one was around to teach me that lesson, so my Procurer has survived.

I also did my first level 4 mission then. A group from Center of Advanced Studies NPC corp was doing missions together, and all ship classes were invited to the gang. I was piloting a Catalyst class Destroyer to kill frigates, which were warp scrambling our tank battleship. This is what made me lots of ISK quickly, and let me buy a Retriever barge.

The nullsec adventure

The guys I met when mining in low sec invited me to join their corp. They have already settled in Q-TBHWPOS in Q-TBHW, Geminate system, and I liked flying with them, so I didn’t hesitate to join. Kahn Mer was the FC who run me down the pipe. You had to have instas – bookmarks that would land you on top of the gate – because at the time even manual warp would throw you 15km from the gate. In nullsec this is of course equal to death. I would learn later, that Kahn is extremely charismatic person, and we would form a very profitable venture together. At this moment Lukas had 3 million skill points then, and the biggest ship he could fly was a cruiser.

We have moved to Y8R-XZPOS in Y8R-XZ, Geminate, a dead end system in Geminate, and it would later become our new home. Of course we have been mining Dark Ochre and ratting, which was a nice source of ISK. The CEO trusted me with operating the POS, or rather the moon mining operation. I was to empty the silos and move all the goods to the corp hangar array.

Lukas Rox’s skillset was expanded into battlecruisers and electronic warfare, so not long after I attended my first nullsec roam. We ended up gate campingFirst PVP in nullsec, and I have scored my first kill that day. I was still worried of losing my ship, so I had warp stabs fitted. They were only cutting into my CPU, because at that time they didn’t gimp ship sensors, as they do today. I have lost a bunch of ships (and pods), but I liked the thrill of PVP. Unfortunately our alliance leadership was slowly deteriorating and a few corps engaged us in a war, that would eventually drive us out of nullsec. I have lost countless pods at this time, and have decided never to go back to nullsec again.

It’s the Torchwood Time

Kahn Mer, me, Fozzion, English Don and Torqumanda have started a new corp: Torchwood Industries. I have trained skills for production and – finally – battleships. We were mining, making stuff and running level 4 missions together. We were making more ISK than in nullsec, while in the safety of high and low sec. We even went to low sec to mine the Dark Glitter ice, but we failed miserably, losing a bunch of mining barges and other ships to local pirates. But even with this little setback our venture lasted for over a year and made me enough ISK to buy a Thanatos carrier and all the skillbooks. Pirating around The CitadelOf course we did PVP as well, because a few corps decided that bunch of industrials are a fair target. What they didn’t know however was that we knew how to defend ourselves. The first real PVP experience I gathered in Torchwood would help me later on, when I was to hone my skill and become a pirate in The Citadel low sec in late 2007.

How did your adventure with EVE begin?

Feel free to leave a comment (or if you are into blogging, I invite you to write your own post about Your first year in EVE).

Fly safe o/