Eve is known for its high octane, hardcore PvP culture, though more in terms of blowing up ships and ganking. Given this is a market blog, we are focused on Market PvP everyday. Today, I’m going to discuss the T2 Salvage Market, which is undergoing a pronounced shift given the recent changes in exploration.
Target Scope
Target market: The Forge
Date range: 03/07/25 – 03/09/25
Commodities:
- Impetus Console
- Power Conduit
- Thruster Console
- Single-Crystal Superalloy I-Beam
All chosen off of TheOz.Space’s The Week’s OZ Report Dashboard, under priced list for the week of September 1st.
The Data
I start off with the ask and buys of all four components and the trend is down across the board.
There are plenty of spikes and valleys but not ones that are producing strong outliers. As you can see there has been a general decrease from the start of July before the 11 July exploration patch. The rate drop differs after the date, so to apply a blanket statement on the rebalance effect, other than salvage was already going down isn’t the story here.
Spread percentages are rocky but steady but in looking at the Thruster Console, it rose 150% points from 11 July to 03 September, which was beginning of a three day dip in the component that wasn’t experienced by any other of the components studied. The most volatile component was the Single-Crystal Superalloy I-Beam with some bigger spikes but for the most part, the salvage profitability remained stable.
I went in for a deeper dive into the volume for the Thrusters Console to see if I could pinpoint what exactly happened during that initial crash on 11th.
The crash in spread was not due to a supply and demand shift, but rather the shock of the market. However, given that the shock was only evident in the Thruster Console, that should highlight the importance of the material.
Additionally, I know of at least one whale that is heavily influencing the demand in the salvage market resulting in these waves of demand that has pushed the baseline higher.
Analysis
With the Thruster Consoles being prime materials in velocity rigs, the need for them is one of constant demand. For the markets, demand is currently high, whether this actual demand for production demand versus speculators in the market is quite another thing.
Salvage is known for intense speculation. Sir SmashAlot is well known in the EVE station trading community, who is regularly featured on Twitch streamer and market commentator Oz, for being a trillion ISK salvage speculator. Clearly some of the demand above is related to Sir SmashAlot getting into the market at a time when the spread percentage crashed, thus making it much easier to increase demand and move the needle in terms of baseline demand.
It should also be noted that, demand has not consistently outstripped supply, which suggests that the whales are biding their time to collect and then dump at the right time or at least release in spurts to not overwhelm the market.
Given the market is flush and healthy and so is production, there should be no problems with salvage prices becoming volatile overall. While supply is getting further buffed, this will depressed prices, at least for the moment, so again whales are building a stockpile.
This generally means we are going to see hull prices continue to sink and may offset some of the pyerite costs.
Recommendations
Explorers: Amass your salvage and hold onto these items until they are worth more. I would prioritize data sites over relic sites because the data market is still solid, but given the exploration changes affect both types of exploration sites, it is likely data salvage is also likely getting depressed as well.
Station Traders: This is a buy and hold situation. I don’t see spread really opening up until the prices stabilize and CCP finding equilibrium in the salvage markets vs production.
At the end of the day, it’s a lot of whales moving the markets but I would argue to hold onto your salvage until there’s better stabilization of the drop rates and production rates really ramp up.
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Sources
Adam4Eve API – Market Price History
Discord
