Nocxium and Zydrine

I know I was going to post about something else but the Nocxium / Zydrine break is too interesting to be silent on. As of this morning, Nocxium has risen and Zydrine has fallen to the point where the two minerals are essentially equivalent in value (645 vs. 663). In fact, you could argue that the sheer weight of market perception is what's keeping them apart at this point because momentum certainly appears to be on the side of an inversion. It's also worth noting that, unlike a few weeks ago, Mercoxit is now back to the top of the leader board with a bullet. What's causing all this? I think a couple things are at play.

1) Null-Sec mining is not well prioritized. It tends to be strip mining operations designed to despawn a grav-site and force a respawn for additional mining. This almost certainly leads to things like Omber and Spodumain being mined in null-sec.

2) Targeted mining, when done, has the weight of history on its side: When you do undock to do targeted mining, you're likely going to your local belt (rather than a grav site) and mindlessly farming whatever ABC your system spits out. You know, with complete certainty, that the ABCs are the most valuable. It's the null-sec equivalent of the mining noob that doesn't bother to mine Veldspar because everyone "knows" it's worth the least.

3) Null-sec Logistics make bringing Zydrine and Megacyte to market far more attractive then Isogen and Nocxium. Especially if you use clever, inocuous, compression items. A Radio L has almost its entire value mixed up in the 33 megacyte it requires (as opposed to the 12 Tritanium). Heavy Energy Neutralizers also yield a fairly substantial chest of Zydrine and Megacyte. Nocxium, on the other hand, doesn't really have a good vessel. ECM Multispectral Jammers look good, but actually are compression negative (meaning they expand during construction, not shrink). Other items either are awkward to produce or don't really have a high nocx content. And, if I'm going to trouble of taking product to market, it's probably more efficient for me to deliver mega/zydrine items and bring BACK nocx and other low-ends.

All that explains why Zydrine / Megacyte are so cheap (particularly Zydrine). But it doesn't really explain why Nocx is so expensive (and Isogen to a lesser degree). Nocx especially should be easily supplied by what's mined in null-sec. Jaspet, Hemorphite and Hedbergite produce an ample supply. There are a couple of possibilities that I lack sufficient knowledge / information to guess between:

1) Grav sites don't spawn those three as much. In an effort to give null-sec people what they thought they wanted rather than what they really needed, CCP gave them grav-sites weighted towards Veldspar, Scordite, ABCs and Mercoxit. While the others spawn, they do so in lesser degrees.

2) Null-sec miners haven't trained for all the T2 crystals. I can totally see how you would train for ABCs, and Veldspar and Scordite and just not get around to training for the others. That 12.5% yield hit could be hitting here.

3) The ACTUAL mineral basket (rather than the proxy I guesstimated last week) uses alot more Nocx than people realize. Given that mission drops still get salvaged, this is only really possible if SHIPS produced (which never drop) take a fair clip of Nocxium while Modules dropped actual reprocess to very little. This would be an interesting determination.

4) The drone minerals are still working their way out of the system and this is just shocking the market.

All of these are possible. The only one that I feel on solid footing about is number 4. I know that previous data released by CCP indicated that most of the Isogen (I think like 75% at one point) was supplied by Drones and that a good bit of the Nocxium was as well. It's possible that we're finally hitting the end of that limited supply and the market will whip saw back.