I was hanging out in Rookie Chat when a very new player ( or a vet with a new account ) stated something very obvious. Why isn’t the price of ores based on the volume?
The market is somewhat misleading when it comes to using fictional units to buy/sell ore. Mining ships cargo holds are rated by volume ( M³ ) and so are the laser speeds. If my 2 lasers are rated at 150 M³ per minute, it will always take 16 minutes and 30 seconds to fill up my 5,000 M³ mining hold on the venture.
What most new players see in the market looks something like this;
Ore
Unit Price
Location
Arkonor
3,028.00 ISK
1.0 Perimeter - Tranquility Trading Tower
Bezdnacine
10,700.00 ISK
0.9 Jita IV - Moon 4 - Caldari Navy Assembly Plant
Bistot
3,011.00 ISK
1.0 Amarr VIII (Oris) - Emperor Family Academy
Kernite
905.00 ISK
0.3 Sotrenzur IX - Moon 1 - Trust Partners Warehouse
Plagioclase
38.38 ISK
0.9 Jita IV - Moon 4 - Caldari Navy Assembly Plant
Pyroxeres
39.20 ISK
0.9 Jita IV - Moon 4 - Caldari Navy Assembly Plant
Scordite
26.49 ISK
0.9 Jita IV - Moon 4 - Caldari Navy Assembly Plant
Veldspar
11.46 ISK
0.9 Jita IV - Moon 4 - Caldari Navy Assembly Plant
This looks real tempting to fly down some wormhole and gather a load of Arkonor.
However look at this list price per volume;
Ore
M³ Price
Location
Arkonor
189.25 ISK
1.0 Perimeter - Tranquility Trading Tower
Bezdnacine
668.75 ISK
0.9 Jita IV - Moon 4 - Caldari Navy Assembly Plant
Bistot
188.18 ISK
1.0 Amarr VIII (Oris) - Emperor Family Academy
Kernite
754.17 ISK
0.3 Sotrenzur IX - Moon 1 - Trust Partners Warehouse
Plagioclase
109.66 ISK
0.9 Jita IV - Moon 4 - Caldari Navy Assembly Plant
Pyroxeres
130.67 ISK
0.9 Jita IV - Moon 4 - Caldari Navy Assembly Plant
Scordite
176.60 ISK
0.9 Jita IV - Moon 4 - Caldari Navy Assembly Plant
Veldspar
114.60 ISK
0.9 Jita IV - Moon 4 - Caldari Navy Assembly Plant
Now you can see why my team recommends Kernite mining. This means my venture mines more ISK at a faster rate and hauls more ISK per load to dock. Check the ore price by doing some simple math; Price Per Unit / M³ = M³ Price.
At those prices, I would rather mine Scordite in high sec, than fly into a wormhole after Bistot!
I thought this should get the attention it deserved and not be some one liner lost forever in chat.
Market prices have nothing to do with m3 or unit volume. Ore values are based on their mineral worth and nothing else. Nobody uses ore itself, you have to refine it into the minerals. And minerals have very different values. 100 units or Arkonor are over 10 times more valuable than 100 units of Kernite which is over 10 times more valuable than Scordite based on their mineral contents.
So how much your ore hold is worth is a function dependent on the mineral value of the ore and the unit volume of the ore. And that’s the kind of math you have to do when mining,
You either missed the whole point or attempting some sort of diversion from basic facts.
FALSE - players buy the kernite, not to refine it, but to turn it in on a high level mission. Otherwise I would expect all the other kernite variants to be just as valuable or more valuable.
These numbers were taken from today’s market. New miners would be insane to refine any of these items. They become of less market value and you have to pay to refine them. The large refining corps buy these items to save time and effort of mining them for themselves.
FACT - Laser collection speeds are measured in volume ( M³ ) and not ‘fictional units’. Let’s say, your lasers is only pulling 300 M³ total ore per minute. Kernite selling at 754.17 ISK times 300 is 226,251 ISK per minute harvested. Arkonor is 189.25 times 300 comes to 56,775 ISK per minute.
I would never refine this into minerals, because obviously the buyer wants raw ore. If you desire to continue a mathematical debate, why don’t you apply some real math formulas in your next reply.
Mining laser speed has nothing to do with market prices or ore value. And, to reiterate it again, neither does unit volume of ore.
What did I say in my post –
That is 100% correct. If you have other theories, you can share them, but attacking my math skills is not a valid argument to get to proving your point. And when it comes to missions requiring kernite – granted I don’t do missions in this game, and I concede that those missions do create some demand for Kernite, but I highly doubt it’s anything but a fraction of the demand created by industrialists.
I also said –
Again, this is 100% correct. So far my math stands and you haven’t presented any proof to the contrary.
You don’t seem to understand how the market works at all. You’re talking about laser mining speeds and ore volume in the context of market exchange. You think market gives a damn about how long it takes you to mine your ore? It doesn’t care. If it takes you longer to mine ore than someone else, that doesn’t make your ore more or less valuable. It’s exactly the same value as another person mining the same thing at faster speed!
Nor does it care about the size or your ore hold or how many units of any particular ore you can fit in it. It cares exactly zilch about any of this. All the market cares about is item value. And ore value is only related to mineral value in it. There is no other intrinsic value to ore. If you think there is, you must be playing a whole different game.
I take my scrap metal to Omni Source, I am sure this works the same way in Europe, and they buy my scrap according to weight. When I pull the truck up on the scale, the guy in the booth doesn’t tell me I have 20 units in the truck. The market is very messed up on ores and minerals for this part.
WTF is a unit? Can you say it is 1 gallon of water, 40 tons of steel, or 12 ounces of gold? M3 is short for one cubic meter. That is a “real” measure. All @Lusty_Lucy_Cybaritic is saying, one unit of ore should be 1 cubic meter, and I agree. If I were mining in this game, I would want to know the speed I am mining ISK as well.
Also …
I do. I buy ore all the time to play the market. I also buy ammo without using it on PvP or PvE. I wait for the price to go up and sell. Looks to me like you are wrong twice over on that statement. You keep bringing this back around to refinement, but if everyone who mined ore refines it. Who is buying and selling it in the market?
You took those words right out of my mouth, you don’t understand much at all. Apparently she is not refining her ore, she is selling it for profit, her statements and formula is factual.
What part of
5000 cubic meters of kernite divided by 1.2 = 4166 units
5000 cubic meters of arkonor divided by 16 = 312 units
are you not understanding?
@Lusty_Lucy_Cybaritic this was done to simplify the market. Components are sold in units, when the team got around to adding the ores. they used a generic ‘unit’ then added the factorial into the description. The alternatives would have been to made adjustments to the refinement tables in the database or have a separate market just to buy and sell ore. This is just worked best for the game and not necessarily the math deficient user.
they buy it because they can’t mine it in high sec any more. if CCP updated the missions and removed it as a requirement of the Air Career goals the trade volume would certainly go down.
But they do, because the Air Career path tells them do without educating why this is a bad idea.
False. The number of unit mined is the modular of its size. If you are mining ore that is 32 M^3 in volume per unit, there will be 12 M^3 of waste if your total M^3 per cycle is 300. Last I looked, items were stored as integers, so its not like you can have 3/8ths of a unit of ore, right ?
The buyer wants something that is easy to move and cheap. Why move 300 million ISK in mercoxit when the morphite is smaller? No, people buy the ore because null refine rates are good and everywhere else is awful, especially without T2 rigs and implants. If an industrialist is running into the usual bottlnecks they might even be running loads that are %100 mexallon, happily, because they can’t build squat without it anymore.
^This. The market does not care until those selling put the value on their time, vs the output.
Blueprints do not care how many M^3 of something you need, only units, therefore people looking to buy, only care about units and everything else is byproduct.
A unit is the smallest possible part of a load of that item in EVE.
Units are also used to calculate the amount of minerals you get, beause refining rates are defined on a unit per unit base. Volume is pretty useless there.
Of course for a miner who looks at their payment rate yield (which is defined in volume per second) it helps to know the prices of the same volume of ore for different ores.
A hauler too will care more about volume than units, as their main constraint is also volume.
But a trader or industrialist who buys ore on the market to obtain an amount of minerals buys units and cares about units of ore, and whether these are cheaper than buying the units of minerals directly. After all, both refining and blueprints care about units and volume is irrelevant there. Blueprints take as input a ratio of units, not volumes.
So, different use-cases will care either about volume or about units.
So, to answer the title of this thread: prices are defined in the market on a per-unit basis and volume is irrelevant on the market.
For miners who wish to know a per-volume price can either calculate the prices per volume themselves, or use one of the existing tools that exist, like
And as you can see even that website doesn’t care about the volume price of ore, it cares about how much you can get for the minerals in the volume of ore you mine.
A unit is a unit for processing purposes - yes, you could go to m3 only, but you could easily end up with weird an clumsy fractional amounts of processed materials per m3 - especially as processing volumes sometimes get tweaked for economic and inter-regional balance purposes.
There are some good online tools to save you doing all the mental juggling - especially since the question is normally “I’m in a belt, what is the most valuable stuff to take”.
I use Fuzzworks - you only need to pick a market and put in your own refining rate.
Once again, you are talking about end production and refining ore. I don’t know any newbro miner who is running a production plant on that scale. What I see 2 vets here probably with a large production facility. Raw ore is delivered to any ship by lasers that always cost the same amount of time no matter what the ore you choose to mine. Mining akonor is 16 M3 with a 150 M3 per minute, means you will have 9 units ( 27252 ISK ) per minute on that laser. That same laser mining kernite, means you get 125 units ( 113125 ISK ) per minute. This is because you are receiving more units per cycle on the kernite. Unless they tell me otherwise, Lucy is talking about mining ore and selling it directly in Jita without make ships, guns, and modules for BPOs.
That’s odd, the last I checked, all the kernite over here in Amarr is all found in low sec and wormholes where are you mining it in high sec? I am sure the galaxy would like to know.
You fellas can get back to your knitting, I am done here.
That is not using the ore, you dense tw•t. You buy ore you hold on to it and you sell it when it’s profitable. The ore is still there after you sell it, for the person who bought it to use. It didn’t f•cking vanish into thin air, nor did it gain any value from your market shenanigans. You’re just a middle man who is turning a profit on it.
I never said everyone who mines the ore refines it. But the worth of the ore is only tied to the mineral content of it. Nothing more. Learn to read, before you answer. You’re embarrassing yourself.
You’re arguing on a technical topic without understanding the basic terminology? No wonder you’re so confused.
Who is stopping him from selling his ore for profit? Nobody. He doesn’t need to invent a new base unit for the market. It already exists and works fine for everybody except those who can’t wrap their head around units and value, I guess.
Units are indeed ‘fictional’ measurement tools, but very useful to standardize and facilitate market trading. At the end in a game (and in real life), the ultimate measurement unit is Time.
The volume is an important measurement and key input into the time-to-mine consideration (isk per minute, per hour etc) and hauler capacity (iSK per haul), but kind of useless on its own.
Market prices are determined by supply (rarity and difficulty in obtaining) as well as demand (of the minerals or the ore itself). This is largely determined by player actitivity and quite dynamic, despite or because of complex supply chain dynamics.
This determines some of the core strategies for miners ( i.e. what Ore to go for at which price). Doing a little bit of math on the fly or have some spreadsheets on the side, make Eve such an interesting Sandbox experience.
I regularly buy veldspar.. As it is cheaper for me to buy that ore than mine it. Also Tritanium ridiculously low anyways. I keep a large stockpile of both. As the time per isk to mine it is not that much. As i use the krab station to refine the ore is cheap anyways. Thus the stockpile of veldspar.
And yeah compressed is always more Isk. But still I have to wonder is veldspar really worth it? Maybe yes maybe no.. Most days leans more to. no. Considering the low Isk per second of actually mining it?
One of my characters used a player station offering compression for free, or maybe free is the standard? I stored a lot of ore in there compressed and then loaded up a miasmos. Took a long while, but it paid off well. This was done a few years ago. The reason I was given for compressed ore being more valuable was the large amounts being hauled into null sec.
Another thing I have seen players do is place mission minerals and ores into the career center markets at the stations. They will offer it for maybe 150% to 200% the going price. A lot of rookies don’t care about the price when they ‘need it’ to complete those missions ASAP. They are buying the pyrite and the mexilion at a slightly higher price to make those cap boosters.
This is not entirely right. Newbros who are tending to tidy up their pockets will receive a nice treasure in the Industrialist 9/10 Mission.
6000m³ Kernite, and it’s absolutely safe in a Newbro Venture in the most secure Highsec.
And I like OP’s miner’s pride. Go for Kernite, prices are great. You’re going to learn much more, but until then, just have fun and make some hard earned ISK!
But if you want to help rookies: Build Salvagers and sell them there. If they don’t like to travel, your offer is their saving of time, that’s worth some ISK.
To explain this to everyone, yes prices will change, these are from Eve Tycoon website. The last column is estimated ISK value in one venture 5000 mining hold. Fresh rookies in the game can seldom afford much more than a venture. Mercoxit and Kernite are the big boys on the list.
I know when players ask about mining in rookie chat, they almost always ask about increasing speed, which relates to ISK per hour. You will find the fastest mining lasers and upgrades are very expensive, the ORE Miner is currently over 160 million per laser and really not worth it setting yourself up to get ganked. Skills can’t be ganked, get your skill up then, whatever you fly will be improved by you and not the ship or modules.
An untrained rookie should not expect to see better than 1 full load every 22 minutes or more. While a fully trained alpha pilot in a venture with upgrade should get close to 14 minutes per load. Remember, you might be able to dock and drop a load off, but you will still have travel time back and forth to market. People can tell you they make 20 million ISK per hour but then don’t include the hauling.
Real mining ISK is made when you get to gas mining. The big delay factor is finding the gas clouds, I find harvesting no issue, the hauling can become a challenge depending on your location. One miasmos with half billion ISK in the hold can get ganked hard and fast.
