Monthly Economic Report - July 2026

[CCP_Swift]

o7 graph loving capsuleers!

We’ve got the July MER ready for your review and analysis. We’ve made several changes to the backend of the MER process which won’t be visual in the graphs, but will allow us to make future iterations and address any issues that much faster. Our data team are excited, so we know you will be too!

Economic Trends

• Production and Mining Values are rising again.
• Mining activity in High Sec increased.
• Production in Low Sec continues to trend upward.
• Gas Volume Mined in Wormhole increased compared to last month.
• Active ISK Delta turned positive in June, a pattern commonly seen following expansions as previously inactive players become active again.

As always, for those who want a more detailed look at the data the raw data can be downloaded here

Fly safe!

[Syzygium]

hey @CCP_Swift , can we finally end all that mass-multibox semi/afk / botmining in the HS Icebelts?

Please split up the ice amount into smaller signatures and anomalies, randomly spawning througout the cluster, so they are available and attractive for smaller, mobile groups of newer players instead of feeding them all into the pockets of some 20-account massmultiboxer logging in his Orca+Exhumers a few minutes after the belts spawns in always the same systems, clearing them in record time? Thank you a lot for making your game better…

[Anna_Dyneaux]

In addition to Syzy’s apt request, the line about highsec mining growth is seriously alarming economically. You need to Implement some pretty serious buffs to ganking in order to attract more players back into going after the miners around the cluster and not just the mass-multiboxer freighter ganking fleets in Uedama.

[Syzygium]

you know, the afk part of mining simply really gets out of hand the more and longer people skill into ships that can do the stuff without requiring any attention…

This is all massmultiboxed afk crap. @CCP_Swift , really, that kind of stuff makes your game look pretty bad.

[Geo_Eclipse_Oksaras]

holy orca…

[Arthur_Aihaken]

I’m trying to figure out how you afk mine with Orcas. When an asteroid is depleted you still have to reassign the drones - unless I’m missing something?

[Anna_Dyneaux]

𝔅𝔬𝔱𝔰.

[Syzygium]

You can assign each drone to a different asteroid before you go afk. Because they mine so little, a single roid can last for hours. If my PyFa isn’t lying, such an Orca can mine for around 6.5hours before the ore hold is full.

Also… bots.

[Arthur_Aihaken]

@Syzygium

Because they mine so little, a single roid can last for hours.

That’s really, really boring… And only works on ice.

[Syzygium]

To a degree, also on Moon Ore. Those belts that are spawning there can be quite large, and even a medium sized roid lasts very long for a Mining Drone.

[Skander_Ollemari]

High sec increase in minage is about Campains, and people just throw out the mining yield

[Arthur_Aihaken]

I guess you could say the same for low-sec to some extent?

[Meridan_Night]

@Syzygium

You can assign each drone to a different asteroid before you go afk.

I’m not convinced high sec needs Orcas. Or industrial command ships. It would alleviate some of the botting issue, if they were banned.

[Aallin_Gicquet]

One This July report is where I would expect to see it at this time of year.. My take that exordium is not having any real impact on the economy over all. Which is great.

As for the above conversation. Gankers are some of my best customers. As are miners. And as I expand my BP library. I am not going to forget that it was those fine.. Ahem.. brave pilots that went out into the dark and became a pretty fireball. Those pretty fireballs are all ISK to me. As far as I am concerned. Ganking is something I wholeheartedly support. As long gankers and miners continue to buy. I will continue to be one happy filthy arms merchant.

I oppose any any attempts at making this game any safer. Won’t someone please think of us filthy arms merchants. We need to make a living to after all. How else do you think I am going to do that? By going out and blowing ships up myself. Are you kidding me that sounds like.. like.. like work.. I do enough to supply at a good rate so that others can go out and do that.. That work..

I like being in the rear with the gear. Much more profitable. Without gankers and miners. I might have to get a real job.. One that might require me to be flying as a line member of some corp. shudders

The idea of actually having a job.. The sheer horror. As long as gankers are going to be shooting fish in a barrel. I will be there with ships, modules, and ammo. As long dozy miners not paying attention to their dscans and overviews. I will be there for them as well. With ships and modules. All at affordable prices and pinky swear am on their side. And to answer the question before it is asked. The answer is, yes.

[Syzygium]

Not convinced about that. I mean, public mining fleets with boots and compression is a nice tool to attract people, get to talk to them, explaining them the benefits of cooperation and joining a player driven corp. So, while there are certainly black sheeps among those, I believe there are also good people out there who genuinely want to help newer players to progress.

HOWEVER: The amount of boost mining links currently give is pretty much absurd, and the increase you get from using the InduCore is not that big. Just for comparison (max skills + Mindlink):

S-size Combat Command Destroyer: Pontifex 20.6%
S-size Mining Command Destroyer: Outrider 38.7%

M-size Combat Command Ship: Absolution 22.5%
M-size Mining Command Ship: Porpoise 38.7% without and 41.6% with the InduCore

L-size has no real combat command ships, and Orca is something between L and XL already

XL-size Command Carrier: Salvation 23.4%
L+ Industrial Command ship: Orca 46.5% with the Inducore running
XL Industrial Command ship: Rorqual 61.5% boost with the Inducore running

It would be a lot better to adjust all the mining values down to the values of the combat boosters and then add another +50% efficiency bonus if they dare to use the Indu Core (100% bonus instead of 50% for the Rorqual).

This would result in:
Outrider: 20.6%
Porpoise: 22.5% / 33.75% with Core
Orca: 23.4% / 35.1% with Core
Rorqual: 23.4% / 46.8% with Core

This would achive multiple things

• Using the Core is dangerous, but really rewarding, the difference is very noticable. That can lead to engagements if fleets are caught. Content is good.
• A Mining Command ship is not automatically the best “second ship” in a Mining Fleet (currently it is, bringing Booster+1 Exhumer is more efficient than even 2 Exhumers). So that threshold would move up to like 3rd ship if using the core and 4th or 5th ship if not using the core. The game suddenly gets much more tactical, because if you bring the booster into a fleet thats too small, you will actually get convenience but lose efficiency. It really shines to boost fleets tho, when brought as 4th or 5th ship and beyond.

But, back to the HS afk mining problem: All Belts, no matter if naturally spawned or blasted moon-roids, should attact NPCs that focus on killing drones if present. If the player is afk, he can’t scoop them, they die, he will mine nothing. And all waves after the first one offer no loot, no bounty and no salvage to prevent people bringing a ship to attract them and afk-farming the NPCs instead all day long…

[Arthur_Aihaken]

@Meridan_Night

It would alleviate some of the botting issue, if they were banned.

That would be totally unfair, as the primary benefit is not “botting” but compression and storage. If you want to curb botting in high-sec - place a cap on the sizes of fleets.

[Meridan_Night]

@Syzygium

Not convinced about that. I mean, public mining fleets with boots and compression is a nice tool to attract people, get to talk to them, explaining them the benefits of cooperation and joining a player driven corp.

Sorry, I didn’t explain my point behind my suggestion. The problem I see with Orcas (and other industrial command ships of now and the future) in high sec is not that they can boost and compress ore – those are useful and necessary functions that I’m not arguing should be removed from high sec. It is my opinion that any ship that is allowed in high sec should be killable (or gankable, if you will) with a reasonable force that can be mustered in high sec under average circumstances. And that is not a fleet of 30+ alts/people flying battlecruiser hulls.

Orcas are a bit problematic in that they do not exactly fit that description (being killable with a reasonable force in an average situation). I understand that is why they are used for AFK botting/multiboxing so much – you can just set them up and go to work and when you come back home at the end of the day, you’ll have full Orcas of ore welcoming you without you having put in comparable effort to get it.

If you want to fly it in high sec, then the hull should have a vulnerability in that space that renders it easier to kill. That’s another option rather than a blanket ban.

[EM00]

@Meridan_Night

I’m not convinced high sec needs Orcas. Or industrial command ships.

Respectfully, I disagree.

From personal experience: After Orcas were first introduced I could see a big positive increase in people forming fleets to mine together in the corporation I was in at the time. Instead of just mining solo. As they flew together people talked more, got to know each other more, friendships were formed, and the game was clearly more fun for them.

The boosts and compression makes joining fleets and corporations more worthwhile - especially for newer players. When they join mining fleets they are also helped to experience some basic fleet coordination, which can be a good first step to learn how to follow the FC, warping to fleet members, staying in range of boosts, and using fleet chat. Having this basic knowledge makes it easier to learn the next steps when they form up with other types of PVE or PVP fleets.

I cannot say how to solve all the problems, but personally I feel that if Orcas were removed from high sec it would have more of a negative impact on fleet gameplay for many people, and would be a move to more solo gameplay.

CCP has kept an eye on the balancing side and has reduced some of the problems. For example, originally Orcas could boost from anywhere in the system - CCP changed it so they have to be on grid, feels more part of the actual fleet. There are other examples about mining amount, etc. It can probably be called a work that is still in progress to get the balancing right.

@Meridan_Night

It would alleviate some of the botting issue, if they were banned.

Maybe… Maybe not… I cannot say for sure how much it would help. Before Orcas were even in the game there was already crazy amounts of botting fleets running around in barges. I’m guessing if Orcas were removed they would just simply switch to Porpoises or back to cheaper barges. Because their isk per hour would be reduced it might actually have an opposite effect and cause them to run more bots to keep up the profits.

[Meridan_Night]

@EM00

Respectfully, I disagree.

There’s nothing to disagree with, since I didn’t talk in absolutes.

@EM00

The boosts and compression makes joining fleets and corporations more worthwhile

That is not the thing that is problematic in case of an Orca.

@EM00

originally Orcas could boost from anywhere in the system - CCP changed it so they have to be on grid, feels more part of the actual fleet.

That wasn’t specific to Orcas, but to all ships using command bursts, mainly command ships that were boosting from inside POSes in null sec fights.

@EM00

if Orcas were removed they would just simply switch to Porpoises

Which is why I specified ‘industrial command ships’ and not just Orcas.

[Syzygium]

But Porpoises can be ganked easily. Besides that, whats the problem with having “Command Ships” for Mining in HS? The only problem with Orcas is, that they are impossible to gank with at least decent efficiency AND can mine for hours completely AFK.

Tbh, i think FC has multiple screws they can use, depending on which issue they want to adress.

Against “afk drone mining”, the only real solution is to add “threats” to the mining area that can kill drones. Not instantly, but if you don’t react to them. Unless they want to completely remove mining drones, which I doubt.

If that is fixed, imho it isn’t even nessessary to be able to gank Orcas efficiently any more, as it wouldn’t be viable any more to mass-use them for afk farming.

I personally would like more threats and challenges in mining operations anyway, to adress the sheer boredom of the activity and keep easy massmultiboxing in check. I’d like to see randomly appearing

• aggressive NPCs, trying to bust the Mining operation. Their strength/composition could be adjusted to the Mining Fleets size, reflecting that those pirates did some scouting. Repelling them would require either support ships and/or the combined drone-power and remote-reps from the fleets mining ships. Bringing some Skiffs and RemoteRepair and ShieldLinks on an Orca could probably help in the more challenging sites.
• environmental hazards like radioactive deposits that deal high damage if you (or your drones) come to close to a certain roid, magma chambers that can explode if you mine a roid, ionized gas that disturbs your sensor array if you enter the cloud (losing locks), ancient artifacts that you can retrieve with a relic analyzer once detected, but that get destroyed or activate some effect (EMP shockwave, Drone Swarm Release, Nanoswarm release for a permanent debuff of all ships hit) if you don’t stop mining that roid and hacking them in time.

All that stuff would work against afk mining and massmultiboxing, while rewarding paying attention and gathering knowledge about how to deal with certain threats, using adaptive fittings, bringing support ships etc…