As I said in last week’s post about the late arriving September Monthly Economic Report, I was uncertain if I ought to bother with the October version. The October report seemed rushed as it was missing a couple of the regular charts, had some out of date charts (August numbers), and was missing two whole regions, Cache and Fade.
But on the Meta Show this past weekend Aryth suggested that the process that generates the charts monthly might have omitted those two regions because they failed to meet the minimum threshold of activity to be included. I do not know if that is a fact, but he seemed to understand that was how things worked, and it makes some sense. CCP wouldn’t want Jove space showing up on the charts.
That persuaded me to carry on with the post as normal. If the threshold value theory is true, then it is a statement as to what has happened in the wake of the Keepstar War. And, if it is not, well, it leaves open some room for a couple of conspiracy theories. Did CCP remove two regions from the game and not tell anybody? Or did that brief period last month when SpaceMonkeys Alliance suddenly shambled back into life and tried to return to Fade, like a ghost trying to haunt its final location in life, cause some sort of positive feedback loop that became a singularity of suck which devoured both the alliance and the region? And did that take Cache with it as well?
Anyway, I always feel that the history of New Eden is worth recording, so here we go.
As usual, I will start with the mining chart.
October 2018 – Mining Value by Region
As expected, Delve remains at the top of the list, up about 2.5 trillion ISK over September, proving that people are home from the war. The bar chart makes clear just how far ahead the region remains.
October 2018 – Mining Value by Region – Bar Graph
Not that the second highest region, dwarfed though it might be by Delve, is Querious, which is also mined by the Imperium, which passes through monthly in what is called “locust fleet” to harvest all of the moon mining operations in the region. That is followed by Esoteria, where TEST mines, Detroid, which is home to Triumvirate and Fraternity, two high sec regions, and the Fountain, the third region mined by the Imperium. It isn’t until after the high sec region of Metropolis that the first region in the north shows up, Deklein. Deklein ought to have seen a sharp uptick since it is covered by the September peace agreement between GotG and the Imperium. However Pandemic Horde has been attacking GotG because they paid off the Imperium with faction Fortizars or something. The north is busy suppressing its own economic output.
This is the point where I would normally try to give some context as to the value of those mining numbers, as they depend on the price of minerals on the market. However, the chat that would help illustrated this is from August, when minerals prices were at their war time high. We saw that pricing collapse in the September report and have no reason to believe it rebounded in any way. If it did drop even further, as one might expect give the influx of minerals on the market, that 19 trillion ISK number for Delve might understate exactly how much mining was going on in the region.
On the NPC bounties front Delve remains well ahead of other regions.
October 2018 – NPC Bounties by Region
Again, the peace dividend is in full force here, with Delve up from 8.4 trillion ISK in September to just over 13.4 trillion ISK in October. The bar graph shows best how regions stack up.
October 2018 – NPC Bounties by Region – Bar Graph
After Delve the next five regions are Esoteria, Detroid, Querious, Fountain, and Branch, which owned by TEST, Tri/Fraternity, Imperium, Imperium, and GotG. So you know who is getting rich. Unlike mining, which adds no ISK to the game and which depends on the market price for valuation, bounties are a straight injection of ISK in to the game.
October 2018 – NPC Bounties by Sec Status
And the peacetime boom means that null sec is pulling in an even greater share of the bounty pie, grabbing 93.8% of the bounties, up from 93.2% in September.
On both the mining and NPC bounty fronts, the regions of Branch, Vale of the Silent, and The Kalevala Expanse are places to watch for the November report. Pandemic Horde has been attacking GotG in Branch, while the Imperium’s economic suppression SIG, the NGSC, has been deployed to the other two regions. This could suppress mining and ratting in these regions.
The faucets chart shows that, while ratting remains near its peak, it was down a bit over the course of the month.
October 2018 – Top Sinks and Faucets
But the fact that it was close to an all time high for the whole month meant a lot more ISK being injected into the economy.
October 2018 – Sinks and Faucets and the ISK supply
I don’t usually include that chart, mostly because I don’t want to pull every single chart from the report into these posts, but this one shows the net input of ISK from NPC bounties. For October the number was 72.5 trillion ISK, up from 55.6 trillion in September. Lots of krabbing going on, with bounties making up 65% of the overall faucets category.
On the trade value front, the main chart was one of those that went missing for October, though the bar graphs were still posted.
October 2018 – Trade Value by Region – Bar Graph
The Forge region, home to Jita, continues to be the dominate trade hub of New Eden.
October 2018 – Trade Value by Region – Bar Graph, Forge Excluded
Without The Forge, Domain, home to the Amarr trade hub, and Delve continue to hold significant leads ahead of the rest of space. The lesser high sec trade hubs follow behind, then there is Esoteria, home of TEST.
October 2018 – Contracts Trade Value by Region – Bar Graph
For contracts, The Forge still holds its top spot, though it isn’t do far ahead of Delve and the Imperium as in overall sales. The Esoteria, Geminate, and Detroid follow on to round out the top five, homes respectively of TEST, Pandemic Horde, and Tri/Fraternity.
And then there is production, where we see where things are getting built.
October 2018 – Production Values by Region
Delve saw a post-war production boom. Output stood at 35 trillion ISK last month, but jumped to nearly 46 trillion ISK for October. The Forge, in second place, saw a slight reduction in production for October.
October 2018 – Production Values by Region – Bar Graph
While Delve dominates as a single region, what I refer to as the “Jita production cluster,” The Forge, Lonetrek, and The Citadel, still tally up to more than Delve. However, that number is only a little more than 51 trillion ISK, putting Delve close to passing the industries supporting the main trade hub of New Eden.
Following up Delve and the three sisters of Jita are Esoteria, which shows TEST is ramping up production, and Domain, supporting the Amarr trade hub.
Finally, there is the summary char with which I usually end these posts.
October 2018 – Regional Stats
So that was October. The report was flawed, but still had sufficient data to be of interest. You can find the whole October Monthly Economic Report here. It includes more charts and all of the raw data from which the charts were derived.
We will see in November how the trends continue, which areas are being suppressed, and whether or not Fade and Cache return to the report.
The Ancient Gaming Noob 