why are ltd diamonds so valuable when obviously not so rare?

Darth Ender

D
Not just diamonds. But why is anything found in ice rings that expensive when metallic rings are far ...far....farrrrrrr more rare than ice rings.

It doesn't make a lot of sense. Commodities that are basically only found in metallic rings in any decent number are cheap garbage compared to those found in common ice rings

I've been on a recent explore stint with my carrier and after literally hundreds of systems (no nav filters, economy route) i've found 1 planet with a metallic ring and it was garbage. Untold numbers had ice rings and more than a majority of them have at least one ltd hotspot. The metal-rich rings dont seem to provide hotspots for things like platinum or gold even. There were maybe a handful of painite hotspots but none that overlapped or anything.


Seems like metallic rings should be where the most expensive commodities are found, since they're at least an order of magnitude more rare than ice or metal rich or rocky rings...yet they seem to mostly have items that are worth fractions of what is the most valuable... while logically they would be far more in-demand for practical uses than niche luxury items and their apparent natural scarcity doesn't match with the in-game economy's pricing and market availability.
 

Darth Ender

D
jankula said:
Did you try mining them in non hotspot asteroid belts?
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what them are you referring to? Diamonds? What would be the point? the hotspot locations are common enough that mining anywhere for anything not in a hotspot is a stupid waste of time.

If your them is referring to things like painite and platinum and whatever else counts for valuable even though it's worth 1/10th of what diamonds are ...mining them in just random metal rich rings is a futile exercise. It's bad enough blindly hoping to find them in metallic rings without hotspots. But my post is referring to the fact that metallic rings at all are possibly the most rare thing in the galaxy. Their content is not being reflected as such in the market.
 

Defacto

Defacto
Because there is no dynamism in the market. The entire playerbase can go to the same hotspot, mine megatonnes of the most valuable commodities in the game and dump it on the market. The sources do not run out, the market doesn't really get saturated, mining spots never get claimed, there is no credible threat from players or NPC's to dampen the diamond rush. Prices of other commodities do not surge while everyone rushes to mine diamonds and opals, because the Aluminium and Tantalum manufacturing that should be critical to supplying the economy with new goods, components and ships can be run on fumes and make-believe instead of bauxite and coltan.
 

Vasco Sapien

Vasco Sapien
I think from a mineral resource perspective the society in Elite Dangeorus could be regarded as post scarcity.
Interstellar travel being what it is in ED, the ability to span the galaxy in hours and what are essentially hobbyists in their own ships using automated labour to retrieve these resources along side the obvious professional mining outfits in game scattered around extraction systems, where it also follows that they are using fourth millennium automation and extraction technology. Not to mention that some economies use Slave labour.

The economies in the ED universe have a galaxy of mineral wealth to draw upon and they seem to be easily extracted using space magic while you watch Netflix.

But the economy in ED as we all know is nonsense, so its not worth worrying about.
I will bet my bottom dollar that Frontier will introduce Credits for ARX when Odyssey lands. They have been slowly devolving the role of credits in ED over the years and its not by accident.
 
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Defacto

Defacto
Vasco Sapien said:
I think from a mineral resource perspective the society in Elite Dangeorus could be regarded as post scarcity.
Interstellar travel being what it is in ED, the ability to span the galaxy in hours and what are essentially hobbyists in their own ships using automated labour to retrieve these resources along side the obvious professional mining outfits in game scattered around extraction systems where it also follows that they are also using fourth millennium automation and extraction technology. Not to mention that some economies use Slave labour.

The economies in the ED universe have a galaxy of mineral wealth to draw upon and they seem to be easily extracted using space magic while you watch Netflix.

But the economy in ED as we all know is nonsense, so its not worth worrying about.
I will bet my bottom dollar that Frontier will introduce Credits for ARX when Odyssey lands. They have been slowly devolving the role of credits in ED over the years and its not by accident.
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That's basically true, but this is in complete conflict with one of the fundamental ideas of the entire Elite franchise: That Elite is taking place in a cutthroat galaxy where resources are scarce and conflict is everywhere... nah, we're all hobby pilots, flying for fun. Have you bagged your Thargoid and purchased your personal carrier yet?

But the economy in ED as we all know is nonsense, so its not worth worrying about. - If you accept nonsense economy, sure. And there is much fun to be had in this game even with nonsense economy, that's why I'm staying around, posting on the forum and still playing the game. That's why I care and want this game to fix its economy!
 

Darth Ender

D
yes, i'm pretty sure credits for arx is in the cards for the near future. Since there is no skill mechanics involved in acquiring them, it's simply time and asking arx for time saved is kind of how all of those free to play games work..

And i get that if we look at the elite universe logically, raw materials should all be basically the same low cost. There should be no market variability between system to system except in wars basically.

But ignoring logic to a certain degree, within fdev's own twisted version of economy.... it doesn't make any sense why metallic rings being so rare aren't made the obvious choice for housing the most valuable commodities. Yet the most common ring type is.
 

Vasco Sapien

Vasco Sapien
Darth Ender said:
yes, i'm pretty sure credits for arx is in the cards for the near future. Since there is no skill mechanics involved in acquiring them, it's simply time and asking arx for time saved is kind of how all of those free to play games work..

And i get that if we look at the elite universe logically, raw materials should all be basically the same low cost. There should be no market variability between system to system except in wars basically.

But ignoring logic to a certain degree, within fdev's own twisted version of economy.... it doesn't make any sense why metallic rings being so rare aren't made the obvious choice for housing the most valuable commodities. Yet the most common ring type is.
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More fleet carriers.... More microtransactions.
That is the only reason in my opinion.
Also, I find it far to much of a coincidence that these triple hotspots happen just when fleet carriers are about to launch.
 

Defacto

Defacto
Vasco Sapien said:
I think from a mineral resource perspective the society in Elite Dangeorus could be regarded as post scarcity.
Interstellar travel being what it is in ED, the ability to span the galaxy in hours and what are essentially hobbyists in their own ships using automated labour to retrieve these resources along side the obvious professional mining outfits in game scattered around extraction systems, where it also follows that they are using fourth millennium automation and extraction technology. Not to mention that some economies use Slave labour.

The economies in the ED universe have a galaxy of mineral wealth to draw upon and they seem to be easily extracted using space magic while you watch Netflix.

But the economy in ED as we all know is nonsense, so its not worth worrying about.
I will bet my bottom dollar that Frontier will introduce Credits for ARX when Odyssey lands. They have been slowly devolving the role of credits in ED over the years and its not by accident.
Click to expand...
Vasco Sapien said:
Frontier wont. Its been 5 years and in that time its only got worse.
Credits for ARX.... watch this space.
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Well, I can dream, can I not?
And some things have actually gotten better. For example, commodity market dynamism means that some times when everyone trades the most expensive commodity, the second most expensive commodity becomes more profitable! For example, trading tobacco out of agri-worlds can be less profitable than trading tea. Not that anyone cares about commodity markets, but I was still very happy to see that something like that going on.
 

Vasco Sapien

Vasco Sapien
Defacto said:
Well, I can dream, can I not?
And some things have actually gotten better. For example, commodity market dynamism means that some times when everyone trades the most expensive commodity, the second most expensive commodity becomes more profitable! For example, trading tobacco out of agri-worlds can be less profitable than trading tea. Not that anyone cares about commodity markets, but I was still very happy to see that something like that going on.
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There is a game here, buried somewhere below the piles of poor balancing.
 

GraphiteGB

GraphiteGB
Cutters transport Peanuts in ED..
Mega ships make even more money transporting cargo and items than the Private flyers do...
Even FC that can transport 25K do so with tiny amount of Cargo storage on the bottom of the FC...
Mega ship transport Many many more times this in there cargo racks...
EL7q44MXkAEFlq3

What the player base moves is nothing...
How do I get in on there tonnage transporting contract...
 

[Diplomacy] Carnegie

[Diplomacy] Carnegie
Unknown Zombie said:
A few hundred/thousand player pilots digging up several thousand tons of diamonds and selling them to stations in star systems with populations in the tens of billions doesn't really make them any less "rare."
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If they're not rare, why are they so valuable?

Edit:
Oops! Misread completely.
 
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Defacto

Defacto
Unknown Zombie said:
A few hundred/thousand player pilots digging up several thousand tons of diamonds and selling them to stations in star systems with populations in the tens of billions doesn't really make them any less "rare."
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Uh... not at all?
For bulk goods no, a few kilotonnes would not make much of a difference in such an economy. For goods that are literally worth several orders of magnitude more than gold, I think a few kilotonnes would make quite a difference. Imagine if some alien haulers would level a few blocks landing outside wall street, ''Bring us to your commodity trade handler'', and sell off two times the annual gold production of our entire civilization (that's a few kilotonnes). I think that would have quite a market effect. Especially if the aliens return three times a week and do the same thing.

Edit: And then there is NPC mining, which includes both independent miners and large-scale mining... why would they mine bauxite and bertrandite when they can get access to low temp diamonds?
 
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Unknown Zombie

Unknown Zombie
If 1,000 T-9's fully loaded with diamonds sell to a station with a population of 10 billion, only 7.9% of the population get a diamond. That's still rare. Stop looking at it only on the pilot's perspective. Pilots are rare in of themselves, the vast majority of humanity can't be pilots.
 

Defacto

Defacto
Unknown Zombie said:
If 1,000 T-9's fully loaded with diamonds sell to a station with a population of 10 billion, only 7.9% of the population get a diamond. That's still rare. Stop looking at it only on the pilot's perspective. Pilots are rare in of themselves, the vast majority of humanity can't be pilots.
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Only 7.9% of the population get a one-tonne canister of diamonds? Sure, there'll be no price variation from that...
Even if it actually only was one teeny-tiny diamond, that still would cause a huge price variation. You are literally writing arguments against yourself!
 
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