Other than running through (mostly quiet) lowsec with Faux.Pas I've also been spending time with my industrial alt. I used a PLEX to get her able to invent T2 ships as well as train up a blueprint copying alt. Unfortunately I see that the T2 ship market is pretty volitile right now, perhaps as a consequence of the HAC changes, so there's still a while to go before I can see that being profitable. On the plus side, once I've waited out the NPC station queues I should have a stream of BPCs from the copy alt.
But what is up with mineral prices? There has been plenty said about the ice interdiction and it's effect or lack thereof. I'm surprised at mineral prices though - they're showing a strong downward trend across the board. This means my opportunistic buys when someone has offered up a chunk of scordite below market price now is above current market average. Why?
Factors I'm wondering about:
* The War in Delve didn't create enough demand for ships, perhaps everything killed was out of substantial aggregate supply?
* The college-aged crowd returning to school hasn't taken AFK miners out of the supply stream?
* New Order might be quieter in the news, but according to dotlan I guess they haven't collapsed. Perhaps miners have just learned ways around such gankers so that supply is unimpeded?
* Additional crackdowns on botters such as reported by Nosy Gamer haven't kept bot-driven mining from contributing?
It's a bit of a puzzle for me, and if I want T2 manufacturing to be able to fund more extensive PVP I suppose I need to at least get a better clue on such trends.
I think there are a few things working here:
ReplyDelete1) prices will tend down anyway. Low end yields were improved in high-end ores, and depleting ice fields mean more minerals will be coming in general. I think this is a long-term downward pressure.
2) It's the doldrums. Activity is down across the galaxy, and it's driving the prices of everything down. This is temporary.
3) Ice interdiction should push people toward more ore mining. As it becomes more obnoxious to mine ice, people will switch to ore. With the interdiction winding down, I think this oversupply will dry up pretty quick.
Honestly, I predict that T1 minerals are going to keep sliding down into November/December (depending on when expansion is announced). Supplies stand to grow, and demand is slack right now. As demand picks back up, the prices should level off again.