The January EVE Online Economic Report Shows Destruction and Mineral Prices Soaring

CCP got us the New Eden Monthly Economic Report for January 2021 and, unlike the flawed December report, the numbers all look to be in on the second M2-XFE battle.

Also, I have a new banner picture for the MER that I think strikes the right tone. (Source)

Humans go in, crabs get richer

(For those unaware, “crabbing” is the in game slang term for doing things like mining and ratting in order to earn ISK or obtain resources.  It derives from the Russian slang for the practice and has become a common term in null sec.)

Destruction

Let’s go straight to destruction, where the regional stats indicate that there was 55.34 trillion ISK in ships and structures and what not destroyed in January, much of it in Delve.

Jan 2021 – Destruction by Region – Bar Graph

That bar graph shows Delve and then everybody else.  The top ten regions for destruction were:

1. Delve – 21.9 trillion
2. The Forge – 2.21 trillion
3. Catch – 1.82 trillion
4. The Citadel – 1.77 trillion
5. Lonetrek – 1.69 trillion
6. Sinq Laison – 1.69 trillion
7. Metropolis – 1.14 trillion
8. Vale of the Silent – 977 billion
9. Domain – 967 billion
10. Genesis – 830 billion

In an ordinary month The Forge is up at the top, ringing in pretty consistently with around 2 trillion ISK in destruction.  During the war you could tell which region was the most active battle front, as  it would pop to the top, as Fountain, Querious, and Delve have.  But the two battles at M2-XFE put Delve 10x The Forge for two months running.

Also, when it comes to the war, you can see that Catch, where Brave has been having such issues with The Initiative, is up in third place for January.

The Production vs. Destruction chart data, which keeps a running daily total of game-wide destruction, puts second battle of M2-XFE, the hull timer on January 3rd, at 15.35 trillion ISK in destruction, down a bit from the December 31st armor timer battle, which rang in 23.26 in destruction.

Jan 2021 – Production vs Destruction vs Mining

You can see the huge spike in daily data, and the temporary boost in the 30 day running average… the solid blue line… due to the two battles.

Of course, once I dug out that chart and the corresponding data I had to compare the totals to the region data and… they don’t match up, because of course they don’t.  The regional status total up to 55.34 trillion ISK, while the production vs. destruction data for January only add up to 51.71 trillion ISK.  That is a 3.6 trillion ISK gap, enough slop between the to data sets to hide a few regions worth or losses.  Go CCP.

Mining

Anyway, back to crabitalism.  According to CCP mineral prices continued to climb dramatically again in January thanks to their starvation economy plan.

Jan 2021 – Economic Indices

The mineral price index continues to climb at such a rate that it is skewing the chart and making the other indices look flatter than they would have in a more rational vertical scale.  And, in case you are wondering how the January peak compares to the historical highs.

Jan 2021 – Economic Indices – All Time

Yeah, we’re way out above any past peak.

As for minerals coming into the economy from mining, the regional stats put that at 20.4 trillion ISK in value, up from 19.9 trillion in December, though with the increase in mineral prices, that seems to indicate a further fall off in mining.  Though, honestly, it is opaque to me as to how the generate the basket of minerals to get the mineral price index.  The actual market price history in Jita doesn’t seem to reflect that much of a price spike.  But maybe the impact is being felt places that are not at the center of the economy.

The top 10 regions for mining were:

1. Oasa – 1.5 trillion (PandaFam)
2. The Forge – 1.2 trillion (High Sec)
3. Metropolis – 1.01 trillion (High Sec)
4. Sinq Laison – 937 billion (High Sec)
5. Domain – 932 billion (High Sec)
6. Lonetrek – 846 billion (High Sec)
7. The Citadel – 647 billion (High Sec)
8. Tash-Murkon – 626 billion (High Sec)
9. Everyshore – 610 billion (High Sec)
10. Heimatar – 585 billion (High Sec)

Aside from Fraternity in Oasa, mining remains a high sec game as AFK Orcas use mining drones to passively harvest veldspar to fill the tritanium requirements of New Eden producers.

Production

All those minerals are feeding somebody out there.  The top ten regions for production in January were:

1. The Forge – 22 trillion (High Sec)
2. Delve – 11.7 trillion (Imperium/PAPI)
3. Lonetrek – 6.8 trillion (High Sec)
4. Sinq Laison – 5.9 trillion (High Sec)
5. The Citadel – 5.5 trillion (High Sec)
6. Domain – 4.4 trillion (High Sec)
7. Vale of the Silent – 3.7 trillion (mixed small groups)
8. Heimatar – 3.5 trillion (High Sec)
9. Tribute – 3.4 trillion (mixed small groups)
10. Oasa – 2.8 trillion (PandaFam)

The total for production in January was 109.6 trillion ISK, which is about 2 trillion more than December.  Though, once again, if mineral prices are up as high as the indices show, it seems like that number should be going up more significantly as well.  The production/destruction data, however, only shows 80.6 trillion ISK products in New Eden in January, so once again CCP remains an unreliable witness.  But we have to work with the numbers we have.

Production remains heavily focused around The Forge and Jita.  Delve falls into second place, where the Imperium is still building, but PAPI has also been doing their own industry as well.  It would be interesting to know what the two sides look like on that.

And then there is production around Oasa, Vale of the Silent, and Tribute, which also happens to correspond with a low intensity war between Fraternity and the Freemen of the North.

Trade

Trade was up noticeably in January, with the total New Eden trade in the region data going up from 609 trillion ISK in December to 675 trillion ISK in January.  No doubt some of that was related to replacing losses after the fights at M2-XFE.  The top ten regions for trade were:

1. The Forge – 467 trillion (Jita)
2. Domain – 56.2 trillion (Amarr)
3. Delve – 29.9 trillion (Imperium/PAPI)
4. Sinq Laison – 20.8 trillion (Dodixie)
5. Lonetrek – 17 trillion (Caldari High Sec)
6. Metropolis – 12.3 trillion (Hek)
7. Heimatar – 11 trillion (Rens)
8. Essence – 5.8 trillion (Gallente High Sec)
9. The Citadel – 5.3 trillion (Caldari High Sec)
10. Tash-Murkon – 4.5 trillion (Amarr High Sec)

Delve and The Forge were both up noticeably, once again hinting at the impact of the war.  Amarr remains a solid second place, so it seems as though the removal of the Niarja route between it and Jita has not hurt it as a trading hub.

NPC Bounties

Finally, the big ISK faucet… or the secondary ISK faucet these days.

Jan 2021 – Top Sinks and Faucets Over Time

Once again, NPC bounties are down the list.

Jan 2021 – Faucet end of the chart

Commodities… drops from NPCs that you can turn in for ISK… brought 40 trillion ISK in to the game while NPC bounties brought in just 20 trillion ISK.   Well, 28 trillion ISK if we include the ESS Main Bank payouts.  CCP may need to add commodities to the top sinks and faucets chart and include ESS payouts in a chart somewhere.  I’m not sure if there is anybody around to do any sort of complicated changes any more… these charts look like somebody runs the scripts to produce them then publishes whatever they get without any error checking… once again, see last month.

Still, the regional stats seem to include the ESS Bank Payouts in their totals, as they also add up to 28 trillion ISK.  I am almost suspicious that two different CCP charts correlate.  So the top ten regions for NPC bounties were:

1. Oasa – 1.61 trillion (PandaFam)
2. Vale of the Silent – 1.29 trillion
3. The Kalevala Expanse – 1.26 trillion (PandaFam)
4. Cobalt Edge – 1.25 trillion (PandaFam)
5. Perrigen Falls – 1.13 trillion (PandaFam)
6. Insmother – 1.12 trillion (FI.RE Coalition)
7. Tenal – 1.1 trillion (PandaFam)
8. Delve – 959 billion (Imperium)
9. Branch – 924 billion (PandaFam)
10. Feythabolis – 890 billion (FI.RE Coalition)

Once again, PandaFam… Pandemic Legion, Pandemic Horde, NCDot, Fraternity, and some smaller groups… seem to be the biggest beneficiaries.  And, in the war, that is the group that has not had to issue any sort of bonds to raise ISK nor has had any Legacy Coalition style leaks about dire finances.  There was a report of alliance tournament ship sales, ever the Pandemic Legion ISK reserve, but nothing dramatic.  They seem likely to come out of the war in the strongest position as the Imperium and Legacy Coalition will both need to do significant rebuilding once the war comes to some sort of resolution, while PandaFam’s territory has remained largely intact.

Anyway, such is what we get to see about the New Eden economy.  While I may kvetch about some issues, it is still more data than we get from any other MMO that I know of.