We got the Monthly Economic Report for June on Thursday and it once again gives us some insight into both how CCP’s economic starvation plan is going as well as the quiet nature of World War Bee since PAPI gave up trying to attack the Imperium and tried to settle for containment.
EVE Online nerds harder
Yes, I know that just yesterday CCP announced that scarcity would be ending at some point in Q4 2021. But Q4 is more than a month away and nobody said changes would hit on October 1st, so we have go to war with the economy we have, not the economy we might want. Or something like that. It is time again time to take a look at the numbers that CCP provides, imperfect though they be.
Production
I’ll start with production, the focus of the MER since the big industry changes hit in April, and the red line on the chart that represents how much is being produced in New Eden.
June 2021 – Production vs Destruction vs Mined
Production continued its decline since the peak right before the change, which represented producers attempting to get some inexpensive builds done before the rug was pulled out from under them. The slope isn’t as steep as it was April, or even May, but the trend is still downward.
That chart also shows destroyed (blue) and mined (yellow) in decline as well, no doubt in part due to battleships and capital ships being so much more expensive to build that people are even more reluctant to risk them, which in turn help keep production trending downward.
The top regions for production were:
- The Forge – 16.75
- Delve – 8.59 trillion
- The Citadel – 6.63 trillion
- Lonetrek – 6.09 trillion
- Fade – 4.47 trillion
- Vale of the Silent – 4.34 trillion
- Sinq Laison – 3.79 trillion
- Domain – 2.76 trillion
- Malpais – 2.30 trillion
- Querious – 2.28 trillion
All of the top ten save for Fade were down from May, and Fade only broke even. Overall production amounted to 88.87 trillion ISK in value, down 27 trillion from May and 80 trillion from April.
Destruction
Since it is tied in with production, I’ll move on to destruction. That ships and modules are destroyed is what gives EVE Online a viable economy, it makes industry a useful path in New Eden, and it was down.
The top regions for destruction in June were:
- The Forge – 1.76 trillion
- Delve – 1.63 trillion
- The Citadel – 1.62 trillion
- Lonetrek – 1.43 trillion
- Vale of the Silent – 1.16 trillion
- Querious – 1.08 trillion
- Genesis – 959 billion
- Sinq Laison 944 billion
- Pochven – 738 billion
- Metropolis – 715 billion
High sec regions around Jita, The Forge, The Citadel, and Lonetrek, resumed their peacetime position of dominance when it came to destruction. Delve came in second, there allegedly being a war going on there, but it rang in 400 billion less than the June 2020 MER, which was the last pre-war look at destruction.
The one surprise, at least to mean, is to see Pochven on the list. Hidden away from most of New Eden and requiring a rep grind to be a viable place to earn ISK, there are clearly a few people fighting over that particular street corner. Also, CCP has managed to drop if from the data before.
Total destruction for June totaled up to 27.65 trillion ISK in value, down 5 trillion ISK from May, but way down from the 45.67 trillion ISK destroyed in the June 2020 MER. The regions around Jita have been especially slack when compared to that time. The trend is down.
Mining
The third leg of the economic engine of New Eden, mining represents raw material demand needed for production and, with demand slackening, mineral prices continued their descent from the all time high in April when producers were bidding up supply to get those last jobs building.
June 2021 – Economic Indices
The drop wasn’t as steep in June, and there has been some rise in specific minerals like morphite, but the trend is following production and destruction. With asteroid yields having been nerfed and prices descending, less people will likely undock to mine… unless they’re high sec Orca bots.
For June the top ten regions for mining were:
- Vale of the Silent – 1.98 trillion
- Domain – 1.24 trillion
- The Forge – 1.16 trillion
- Metropolis – 828 billion
- Insmother – 668 billion
- Sinq Laison – 657 billion
- Malpais – 612 billion
- Everyshore – 584 billion
- Genesis – 579 billion
- Lonetrek – 565 billion
Fraternity, determined to be an economic power, tops the list with Vale of the Silent, one of their newly conquered regions. Malpais, a PanFam region, was the other null sec region to make the list this month, the rest being high sec space.
Total amount mined was valued at 24.45 trillion ISK, down almost 6 trillion ISK from May.
ISK Faucets
Where people get their cash money in New Eden. As expected commodities remained the top ISK faucet, a situation unchanged since the final round of NPC bounty nerfs that came with the ESS and variable bounty rates.
June 2021 – Faucet end of the chart big chart
That said, both commodities and NPC bounties were down from May, while incursion payouts remained about on par with the previous month. The simple answer seems to be that there was less ISK earning activity going on in June.
The sinks over time chart seems to bear that out, with commodities and bounties in decline.
June 2021 – Top Sinks and Faucets Over Time
Looking just at commodities we can see where the drop occurred.
June 2021 – Top Commodity Items Over Time
Sleep components, which represent the wormhole space ISK faucet, look to be down a little, but Triglavian data, which are the rewards from Abyssal Deadspace runs, look to have fallen off a cliff from a peak in May, likely representing the bulk of the decline.
For NPC bounties the top ten regions were:
- Vale of the Silent – 2.13 trillion (Fraternity)
- The Kalevala Expanse – 1.09 trillion (PanFam)
- Insmother – 1.05 trillion (FI.RE)
- Tenal – 1.01 trillion (Fraternity)
- Esoteria – 989 billion (Army of Mango)
- Tribute – 982 billion (Fraternity)
- Branch – 961 billion (Fraternity)
- Querious – 925 billion (Legacy & 3rd parties)
- Delve – 849 billion (Legacy)
- Malpais – 827 billion (PanFam)
I decided to drop the “PandaFam” title that I picked up from Jin’taan a year back as it is becoming clear that Fraternity is vying to be a major power in its own right, which we can see in their ratting operations. PanFam is still making some money back home while the war smoulders on the other side of null sec, but Fraternity is trying to bank a serious war chest… and they haven’t been spending it on World War Bee.
Total bounties were 26.33 trillion across New Eden, down 3 trillion ISK from May.
Trade
The measure of how much is being bought and sold, which is driven by everything above. Total trade was valued at 489 trillion ISK in value, was down from the 598 trillion ISK in trade done in May. That is nearly a 20% dip.
The top ten regions for trade were:
- The Forge – 354 trillion (Jita)
- Domain – 42 trillion (Amarr)
- Sinq Laison – 14.48 trillion (Dodixie)
- Lonetrek – 11.69 trillion (Caldari high sec)
- Delve – 11.62 trillion (Imperium/PAPI)
- Metropolis – 7.85 trillion (Hek)
- Heimatar – 6.49 trillion (Rens)
- The Citadel – 4.45 trillion (Caldari high sec)
- Essence – 3.83 trillion (Gallente High Sec)
- Vale of the Silent – 3.63 trillion (Fraternity)
While many of the larger trade hubs were down, with Jita representing 68 trillion ISK of the total decline in June, some of the smaller high sec regions like Lonetrek and The Citadel were actually up a bit. Not a significant amount in the face of the June fall off clearly, but not ever region was down.
And so it goes with New Eden, where the other metric that seems to be tracking down along with the economy is the online player count as measured over at EVE Offline.
June 2021 – One Year Online Count
The question is of course whether it is the economic starvation plan that is driving down the player count, or is the player count down because the economy… mining, ratting, production, and destruction… is in a down turn.
I suppose we’ll see once CCP thinks we’ve suffered enough economic privation.
As usual, more charts and all the MER data is available for download from the dev blog.
The Ancient Gaming Noob 