How Grade-Zero Ore Breaks Highsec Freelance Operations

The mechanical difference between setting up a freelance job for Arkonor versus Veldspar highlights exactly why grade-zero ore is a massive administrative and financial sink for highsec industrialists. This change is just another direct benefit for nullsec with zero consideration for the effect it has on highsec operations—even when developers are being told directly about the damage it causes.

NUMBER OF JOBS NEEDED TO COVER ARKONOR VS VELDSPAR (examples)

UNIFIED GROUP MODEL (ARKONOR)
[JOB 01] Arkonor Group Order
(Covers all variations under 1 Group)
CAPITAL INVESTMENT: 1,000,000,000 ISK

VS

FRACTURED GRADE-ZERO MODEL (VELDSPAR)
[JOB 01] Veldspar Grade 0 (Raw)
[JOB 02] Veldspar Grade 0 (Compressed)
[JOB 03] Veldspar Grade I (Raw)
[JOB 04] Veldspar Grade I (Compressed)
[JOB 05] Veldspar Grade II (Raw)
[JOB 06] Veldspar Grade II (Compressed)
[JOB 07] Veldspar Grade III (Raw)
[JOB 08] Veldspar Grade III (Compressed)
(Requires 8 jobs for this single ore)
CAPITAL INVESTMENT: 8,000,000,000 ISK
(1b for each job is simply to show equal values, use any number you feel represents your wallet scale)

THE PRICE IMPACT ON THIRD-PARTY SITES (FUZZWORKS EFFECT)

This structure completely destroys how ore values are calculated across the game’s economy:

  • The Arkonor Baseline: Because Arkonor does not have grade zero, it maintains a stable, unified group profile. Third-party index sites pull direct, unpolluted data from market orders to give a true reflection of the ore’s mineral worth under a single group tier. Nullsec keeps its streamlined, protected loops.
  • The Veldspar Crash: When a site tries to calculate a group average for Veldspar, Grade 0 dilutes the math. Grade 0 loses literally half of its baseline mineral value compared to legacy rocks. When index sites blend this trash-tier data into their group averages, it completely skews the overall market valuation.

Highsec operators are forced to risk eight times the capital investment just to put up freelance orders, all while third-party pricing metrics are rendered inaccurate by low-yield Grade 0 noise. It breaks the efficiency of local manufacturing networks while nullsec continues to operate with absolute mechanical convenience.
(If this is one dev with the idea for Exordium plus gzero ore, BoB help us…)

I don’t understand why “compressed” is in the mix for Veldspar but not Arkonor? From what I can see it’s a 4:1 outlay (not 8:1). I do see your point about the various grade ores, though.

Feel free to clarify if I’m missing something here.

The Arkonor group option includes all variants, compressed and non.

They are basically complaining that they cannot do the same thing with Veldspar because if they use the whole veldspar group, people can fill it with 0-grade ore that is probably worth less than their purchase price (based, I guess, on some third party price index that probably excludes 0-grade).

Instead they have to make individual type orders so they can price the veldspar-0 appropriately.

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Appreciate the clarification, thanks (I don’t use Freelance jobs, so I was just curious). Isn’t this the same issue with arkonor? ie: they could just fill it up with 0-grade? Or am I missing something?

Uh, no one said you needed to have 8 billion worth of veld if you don’t want it. You can just put up for less in each project.

Even before they added Grade 0 though, you have mission ore that qualifies as veldspar as well that is worthless that gets turned in, you needing multiple was required.

Good. These Freelance Slave Scams should be as bad for the players as they possibly can be.

Also good to see that Exord is already causing exactly the negative disruptions that players predicted, CCP ignored and brown-nosers downplayed.

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There is no Arkonor-0 in the game last time i checked. Only Veldspar-0 and Scordite-0. In Exordium.

there is also pyroxeres

Funny. Didn’t notice Pyroxeres 0-Grade yet. Not sure if it is live in Exordium. Didn’t see it in the belts there…could be a faction thing.

Also it has a typo in the name “Pyroxeres__0-Grade”…there is one space too much…and it doesn’t have a compressed variant yet. So it might be not live.

But i remember to search for 0-Grade ore when Exordium did open…and Pyroxeres 0-Grade was not in the game then. So it seems they plan to add it and make the new space much more “worthless” than it is already.

no, it’s already in the game.

Alright…i see it in the market…makes me wonder why it has the writing error in the name and is not compressible…or maybe it is compressible but those blocks can’t be sold on market because the item is not listed in the market…