22 Sep 2004

Eve Guardian

 

Most people could not have failed to notice mineral prices are increasing. While specifically it is difficult to know where the market is heading it is a fair guess a continuing long term trend of mineral price increases is on the cards.

 

The BPC market has stimulated the demand for minerals as have the new entrants into the universe of Eve.  Back in the day, you got out and mined if you wanted isk, now there are many more avenues of isk making available to a new entrant.  Mining is considered boring by these new comers who want instant action and excitement.

 

Mining is not only back breaking work but it is also a highly skilled operation, taking a considerable apprenticeship. The old guard is retiring from mining activities; they have made their money and are also looking for new challenges. This in itself feeds the demand for minerals while reducing the supply of them.

 

Combine this with the fact mining on a large scale is also a rather expensive business to break into.  Power miners will be found in battleships, Apocs, and have a gaggle of harvester drones circling.  Thankfully the prices of miner II's have fallen ( a full set of m2s might have cost 40 million back in the day), but the rest of the set up has not fallen significantly fallen in price for a long time and nor is it likely too.

 

Of course all this is great news for the professional miner, rising demand, fewer suppliers and significant barriers in terms of cost of entry into the market.

 

Smaller wonder then that the largest empires in Eve were working in a solution to this problem.  While the mighty Amarr empire rested on its laurels as the owner of the technical specifications of the Apocalypse, the ship of choice for many power miners other corporations were secretly doing research.

 

The first cracks in the Apocalypse crown appeared some months ago when the Gallante Dominix was retro fitted better drone interfacing within the fabric of the vessel itself.  This meant a droner with complete Dominix skills could control 15 drones, maxed out.

 

A maxed out miner in a Apoc can mine: 1114m3 of ore.

 

The old Dominix could mine: 928m3 ore.

 

With the improvements this rose to: 1113m3 of ore.

 

Still the Amarr empire slumbered, content the Apoc was the king of miners.  After all, maxing out a Dominix  was going to be only something a very select few were ever going to do.

 

But then, almost simultaneously the Minimatars and the Caldari released technical specifications for a breakthrough in mining technology.  So similar were the plans and so closely together were they released some are suggesting these Empires are working closer than some might imagine, while others are claiming it was industrial espionage.

 

Basically the ships had systems enabling miners to get an increased yield of 20% per mining laser for every additional training credit they had in the flying of the Minimater Sythe or the Caldari Osprey.

 

For example the Osprey of old was capable of mining: 427m3 ore

 

Whereas a maxed out miner with full Osprey skills can now mine: 844m3 ore

 

That sort of increase cannot be ignored.

 

From sheer ore cutting power the Apoc is not threatened but the advantages of cruiser mining is obvious.

 

Overnight this has revolutionized mining.  The costs of entry into power mining were slashed in all aspects.  Sales of Ospreys in the Genesis region went from a max of 6 per week to over 25 per week overnight and that can be attributed directly to the mining changes.

 

Training time is reduced significantly, the cost of the ship needed falls from 110mill (Apoc) to about 4million (Osprey) and the insurance costs are minimal. Although the mining yields are not the same, it is clear there is now a viable, cheap and faster route to power mining.

 

The earliest adopters of the technology were Battleship miners themselves seeing an opportunity to go into riskier solar systems without risking the potential disaster that would be the lose of a mining battleship.

 

Others are going to follow and there is potential all this new mining is going to finally slow the upward trend of mineral prices.