Guvante
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Posted - 2008.04.07 13:00:00 -
[1]
 Originally by: Matthew
It's not really the way it's meant to be, but it's the natural consequence of the current ore setup.
The real problem is that the ore quality and mineral quality are linked (i.e. the high-end ores yield mostly high-end minerals). Trit is consumed in massive quantities, and desipte Veld being a low-end ore, it is also the most efficient ore to mine to obtain trit.
The natural tendancy for miners is to want to move to progressively higher yield ores. The problem is that as you make that move, you also move from supplying low-end minerals towards high end minerals. The market still demands large quantities of low-end ores, far more than the newbie miners can produce, so it has to find a way to keep miners mining the low-end ores. The only way it can do that is by changing the mineral prices until the difference between the ores is eliminated. Which is what we are seeing.
Looking at the base prices in the item database, we can see that Jaspet is supposed to be about 2.8 times the isk/m3 of Veldspar. But the demand for Trit ensures that that cannot happen.
The way to fix this is to decouple ore quality from mineral quality - the often mentioned SuperVeld. So you release SuperVeld, gave it a yield 2.8 times that of normal Veld, and seeded it in belts next to Jaspet. Similarly, you release a MegaVeld, with a yield about 6.4 times that of normal Veld, and place it next to Crokite etc in 0.0 space.
Yes, initially SuperVeld and MegaVeld will be unbalanced compared to the other ores. But as people begin to mine it, mineral prices will shift in response. If this is done across the board, then the new equilibrium should better reflect the desired reward stepping between high-sec, low-sec and 0.0, and would prevent that stepping being distorted by changes in any individual mineral.
Actually I can say from experienced that mining Veldspar in 0.0 gets you the Trit you need quite quickly, there is no need for a change there. If anything, IMO, the problem is primarily caused by miners failing to adapt.
In fact, I can say with near certainty that 90% of players have never changed their valuing tiers of minerals since they started the game (5% of people from before the market settled to about a year ago, and the other 5% who pay attention) this is because the prices have not shifted too much, and it is not something that people often think about.
I know I for one could not believe it when I saw that Veld was worth more than Scord  (And no, this thread did not inform me of that fact). On the other hand I am currently saving my mats to build something, so although it would be more efficient to mine the most valuable product and then buy the mins you need off the excess profits, I kind of like mining a variety when building, just to allow me to mine more before having to grab my hauler 
As my last note, Jaspet being worth the least *****s me up, I wonder how much of that stuff is mined every day to make that true. 
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