Today CCP announced a set of incoming changes to Moon Mining in EVE Online, due out with future releases, that has the potential to permanently change the economic state of New Eden. Moon Mining in EVE has long been a pretty laborious and specialized process. The developer previously made the process much more accessible by turning the system into a controlled Asteroid spawning mechanic that would allow player groups to access the raw minerals in higher concentrations than regular Asteroid Belts.
The moon mining changes are being built up as prep work for an entirely new mining system in New Eden. The goal for the developer of the game is to eventually create a system that dynamically adjusts the mineral wealth of an area by taking into account both player engagement and overall economic health of the region, as well as the game as a whole. It’s a very ambitious system, and we are just seeing the opening stages now.
The plan consists of three phases:
- Shortage phase
- Re-distribution phase
- Dynamic distribution phase
When combined with the changes teased as part of the February 2020 release today, EVE Online players are in for a rude awakening if they plan to hop into their Rorquals and start mining in NullSec. CCP already handed pretty big nerfs to mining in Null in 2019. Now, the nerfs hit Ore Anomalies and Asteroid Belts even harder. The input of raw minerals into economic supply looks to have been hit really hard. And the really fun part about all of this is that the changes affect all three main regions, aside from Wormholes.
Let’s focus on NullSec to get a picture on how this could affect Sov-holding groups. Estimates for the new state of mining in NullSec show that Ore Anomalies spawn up to the 90% less raw Ore compared to pre-patch. According to some sources, this could kill Rorqual mining altogether. The size of rocks, and their associated yields, in NullSec is way down, that’s for sure.
This has had the entirely intended effect of a lot of outrage fires being lit. There is some pretty genuine concern over economic health as a result of these changes. The effects of inflation and speculation are already being discussed as the consensus seems to be that many Rorqual mining alts will be converted into ratting toons. And with the proliferation of minerals drying up, we could also see the supply of ore collapse even more than from just the supply-side nerfs. Although this effect will take time to develop as ore stockpiles have to be burned through first.
It feels like CCP is preparing the game for a major demand-side shakeup as well. Perhaps we’re about to see some major new conflict driver that pushes more players into Sovereign space than ever before, forcing larger groups to burn through their stocks replacing lost ships and infrastructure. That’s a big ask though.
Overall the net effect of these changes is market chaos and increases in both raw mineral prices and finished goods. It will be interesting to see how the data breaks down post-patch in terms of overall mineral distribution, gathering that is CCP’s goal by the way. There’s also the impact this will have on both capital and sub-capital ship stockpiles, as the smaller player groups are at a huge disadvantage compared to the likes of GSF and PanFam.
