An in depth analysis into the price of minerals
- Thread starter Cmdr Green Skin
- Start date
I think being able to search ingame for systems with multiple states would be of great use.
The best prices for Painite,Voids and LTDs was and still is it seems always in a triple state of Civil Liberty, Pirate Attack and Boom or Investment.
But alas the ingame tools do not permit a search for multiple states.
Pirate attack isnt even one of the filters we can use atm.
So the only way to find those states, without using the painstakingly laborious method of searching for For a Boom or Investment. Then Checking the system to see if its got both of the other states active, by looking in the system map or in the system its self.
We are left with player tools sending gathered data to a database for sites to read and report.
Which as we have seen is pointless when a gold rush is active as the data sent cannot keep up with the station demand ingame.
TLDR: Ingame tools for trade need better filters that actually suit how the states and other factors effect prices.
If prices are affected by 10 things let players filter for all 10 effects needed to find the market. In one search.
The best prices for Painite,Voids and LTDs was and still is it seems always in a triple state of Civil Liberty, Pirate Attack and Boom or Investment.
But alas the ingame tools do not permit a search for multiple states.
Pirate attack isnt even one of the filters we can use atm.
So the only way to find those states, without using the painstakingly laborious method of searching for For a Boom or Investment. Then Checking the system to see if its got both of the other states active, by looking in the system map or in the system its self.
We are left with player tools sending gathered data to a database for sites to read and report.
Which as we have seen is pointless when a gold rush is active as the data sent cannot keep up with the station demand ingame.
TLDR: Ingame tools for trade need better filters that actually suit how the states and other factors effect prices.
If prices are affected by 10 things let players filter for all 10 effects needed to find the market. In one search.
Fantastic work.
I'm somewhat surprised how flat are the price levels (median) and how it really doesn't matter what and where you sell. Expected profit seems pretty much the same.
I'm somewhat surprised how flat are the price levels (median) and how it really doesn't matter what and where you sell. Expected profit seems pretty much the same.
Now everyone gonna mine LTDs so the price will drop and the "LTDs nerfed!" threads will appear. Atleast some understanding of the market is required these today, fortunately.
Thanks for the kind words.
I'm constantly collecting data and I'm up to 3.5k stations in 2.9k systems now, and this is growing by the minute. If Ian Doncaster is right about the 70,000, I've got a long way to go, but maybe at around 10k stations I'll have a good enough sample size to do some top level regional analysis. I've just had a look at the maths an it is fairly simple to calculate LY distances between stars, so this is definitely something I want to do. I'll be interested to see how some basic cluster analysis groups these systems together.
I do also want to do more with the supply and demand figures I have and yes I have ideas for doing some logistic regression once I properly understand all the data I've got.
The supply-demand relationship is conceptually fairly simple - and can indeed be very sensitive to player actions.
1) Stations have a maximum demand (or supply, for exported goods) dependent on - simplifying slightly - their population and BGS states [1]
2) Selling (or buying) goods moves the demand (or supply) away from the maximum, which lowers the price (raises it, for exports) based on the percentage away from maximum. Some goods are more affected by this than others.
3) In the absence of relevant player activity, goods move back towards the maximum - generally the more expensive the good, the slower this is - cheap goods may get back to maximum after just a couple of days of no trading, whereas most of the core gems probably take about a year.
Here's a supply example (trimmed to exclude the effects of BGS state changes)
History of Consumer Technology at Whirling Station
cdb.sotl.org.uk
History of Consumer Technology at Colonia Dream
cdb.sotl.org.uk
So to find the optimal selling location you need:
- somewhere that good has not been traded for a long time (a very long time, for gems)
- somewhere that is in a combination of BGS states that all improve price
By definition any specific system you find which fits those criteria will stop meeting them as soon as you sell - though a larger population system will have a larger base demand so the price won't be as quickly affected - but there are deductions which can be made about where the next one might be.
[1] BGS states are themselves of course also the result of player activity or inactivity.
Don't worry. There will always be somewhere paying very high prices for LTD's as it would seem the market is being manipulated. Right now the 3 highest prices for LTD's are in Meene. Interestingly, 2 weeks ago the non-native controlling faction in Meene was below 1% influence, yesterday their influence was 81%. How they gained 80% influence in just 2 weeks resulting in every key state required for high LTD prices is beyond me. But it happened.
It's not possible for a faction to have less than 1% influence, so I suspect this is just a glitch in Inara's history data. (All factions have 0% influence on that date according to Inara, which is impossible. If you ignore that one blip the influence graph is generally stable)
"Every key state"
They stack pretty well, so it wouldn't be completely impossible to set them off in 2 weeks from a standing start - though I don't think this is what happened here.
- Investment and Civil Liberty can be maintained permanently by sufficient positive player action in a system
- that positive action for the controlling faction will tend to keep its influence high, causing Expansion to occur and be active about half the time.
- that positive action (specifically the trade component) can also lead to Pirate Attacks, which are active about 10% of the time
So about 5% of high-activity systems should have the correct state combination [1] on their controlling faction at any one time.
"The market is being manipulated"
Yes, but not intentionally - it's just players congregating as they naturally do for other reasons and consequences emerging from that.
[1] Strictly speaking, Meene isn't - the new Public Holiday state is much better for LTD prices than Pirate Attack is. But it's still a very strong combination.
I'm pretty sure players would find a system closer to the source of the LTD's if they wanted to create a high price market. Just why a group of players would invest the time and effort required to increase the influence of a faction by over 70% in order to benefit every other pirate & miner in the game is beyond me.
Because Elite is not only mining. Many groups play the bgs and keeping your influence high with the associated positive states helps to reduce your own workload.
At the minute, if you need to earn significant credits, mining really is your only option.
You may be right about the bgs though. The controlling faction in Meene are expanding in a few other systems as well.
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Why do you think somebody works in Meene especially to cause high LTD prices? States that give high prices for LTDs are also associated with high inf and high player activity in that system. Maybe the CMDRs working for the controlling faction want to expand, need to be over 75% inf for that, the high prices are a by-product of that activity.
Bad news today, OP. Looks like you'll have to go collect all this the data again. 
Mining Update (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/mining-feedback.536599/)
Mining Update (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/mining-feedback.536599/)