CCP was a bit quicker here in December in getting out the monthly economic report November. However, in their haste it looked like they had omitted almost all of the charts I usually write about. Frustrated by that, I decided to just grab the raw data this time around and make my own damn charts, only to find that all the charts I expected were included in that .zip archive.
So I have already learned something new this month. I’ll check that off my list.
And, unlike last month, the Fade region actually made the cut for inclusions again. The Cache region however remains unaccounted for.
As usual, I will start off with the mining to see how peace in the south and small scale conflicts in the north are doing.
In a completely expected turn of events, Delve continues to be the region seeing the most mining activity. The bar chart shows just how far ahead Delve is when compared to other regions.
By this measure the mining output of Delve is greater than the next seven regions combined. (The newly returned Fade region is at the bottom of that list as well as others, perhaps confirming the theory that it was missed last month due to not hitting some minimal activity threshold.)
And yet the Delve number is down. In October the amount mined was measured in excess of 19 trillion ISK, but for November it is down to 15.5 trillion ISK. Did people get tired of mining in Delve?
Maybe not. As usual, there is another chart here to figure into things.
As you can see, the price of minerals has continued its post-war slide, landing at a three year low in November. Since the mining amount is measured by the value of the ore, falling prices can mean falling numbers even if the total cubic meters of ore mined remains the same.
As for the price of minerals, while they are not at an all time low, they are headed there. I think we are firmly in the zone where, if you have a researched Charon freighter blueprint, you can build the freighter, insure it, have somebody gank it, and still turn a profit. That was a tale I was told at the bottom of the last mineral price dip and we’re now well below that.
So mineral prices seem like something CCP needs to address. Maybe. There is a production aspect to that.
In production, while The Forge region was up a bit (as was its feeder region The Citadel, while Lonetrek held steady), Delve continues to be the single region with the greatest production output.
Production, of course, requires inputs, of which mined minerals are a significant portion. Aryth said on a recent Meta Show that production in Delve enjoyed a certain advantage in that the ore and minerals were available at a discount when compared to the Jita market.
There is a not insignificant cost to ship compressed or and minerals all the way to Jita in order to sell. That makes what I would call the effective parity price of minerals in Delve lower, and since Delve is producing all that ore for the engines of production to consume, Delve’s economic power might be causing a greater dip in the economic indices for minerals than one might see in Jita.
Anecdotally, tritanium seems to be cheaper in 1DQ1-A than in Jita, but I cannot tell how much weight to give that observation.
And since we’re here, I might as well through the sales charts up on the page.
For all the pride of the Delve region, Jita and The Forge remain the economic center of New Eden.
That chart is so lopsided that CCP has to exclude The Forge in order to get some insight into other regions.
Domain, home of Amarr, remains in second place with Delve not too far behind. But you have to get down to seventh spot, which is Esoteria, the home of TEST, before another null sec region shows up.
NPC bounties are more straightforward.
No we’re back to things Delve dominates and which do not depend on variations in market prices in order to measure. NPC bounties are a direct faucet into the economy. On that Delve was down by half a trillion ISK.
Following behind Delve are Esoteria (TEST), Detroid (Fraternity & Triumvirate), Querious (Imperium alliance training ground), Fountain (Imperium), and Period Basis (Red Alliance).
In the north of null sec, where infighting around Branch and Venal is keeping everyone busy while the Imperium’s Space Violence squad is active and the NGSA is trying to oppress the numbers in Geminate, Deklein is the highest earner for ratting, bringing in just over 2 trillion ISK in bounties.
Overall bounties continued to peak.
While mineral prices are at a recent low, NPC bounty payouts are now at an all time high. The question remains as to what CCP will do, if anything, and if there is anything they can do that Malcanis won’t make a mockery of.
Overall, bounties are down slightly as a percentage of the income faucet total, ringing in at 63%. The number was 65% in October.
But that is because other faucets like incursion payouts and agent mission rewards and bonuses were also up for November. The overall money supply was up another 37 trillion ISK for the month.
So there it is, another month and the economy of New Eden hasn’t fallen over yet. Aspects of it look bad, but it keeps on chugging along.
Finally, the chart that I choose to end with most months, the overview and comparison of regions.
And so it goes until next month. You can find all of the raw data and charts over at the dev blog post for the November report.