How Many Dominixes?

It's no secret to any diligent miners that the values of each ore per cubic meter has become a little bit screwy over the past few months.

Who expected Hedbergite to become the most valuable standard rock in the game?
Chart source: http://bp.kiwi.frubar.net/ores.php from December 21, 2013

Despite CCP Rise's intentions to restore the value of mining in nullsec, success seems to have eluded him; nullsec ores are less valuable than ever before. What might be driving such a curious development? Lets take a look at what the Dominix, and what goes into building one.

Material efficiency level 100

Thanks to the potency of sentry drones, the addition of Micro Jump Drives, and their relatively low cost, the Dominix has become a major doctrine ship for many alliances, and a reasonably effective choice for mission runners. At a mineral cost of approximately 167 million ISK, it is affordable, and expendable. The Dominix is an easy and solid choice for a comparison baseline.

Battleships have long since lost their status as the mainline benchmark for conflict in null security space. The proliferation of super capitals, the evolution of ship capabilities, and the development of new strategies have made Archons one of the most adaptable, capable, and viable tools in an alliance's arsenal. As a capital ship, it's also much less affordable than a Battleship.

ME 100 on components and ship blueprints

A quick glance will tell you that an Archon's material cost is approximately five times that of a Dominix. Looking closer, the actual consumption ratios contain some interesting variations.

Rounded to three decimal places

The numbers are most interesting indeed. Each Archon contains 4.951 Dominixes worth of Tritanium, 5.173 Dominixes worth of Pyerite, a whopping 6.568 Dominixes worth of Mexallon, a comparatively meager 4.514 Dominixes worth of Isogen, 5.134 Dominixes worth of Nocxium, a paltry 4.028 Dominixes worth of Zydrine, and 4.734 Dominixes worth of Megacyte.

The value of mineral bearing ores reflects these disparities to some degree. Nocxium, Mexallon, Pyerite, and even Tritanium bearing ores have enjoyed growing value over the years, while rocks particularly heavy in Isogen and Zydrine at the expense of others have plummeted.

Capitals aren't the end of the story; let's consider the Aeon.

Though far from a complete analysis, these numbers are certainly suggestive; if we want to see an increase in the value of ores in null security space, some significant changes may be in order across a potentially broad spectrum of the game. The balance of battleships, capitals, and super capitals, the distribution of ores in space, the abundance of minerals within each cubic meter of ore, the capabilities of capital ships, the capabilities of battleships; all of these and more could have an influence on the miner's preferred finds and the builder's bottom line.

Where do we go from here? That's up to CCP's designers.