right now as far as I know the conversion of EVE ISK to Dust ISK is about 1/10 so using that logic, the Bantam Frig hull is actualy worth 513,290 ISK on the dust market while the Charybdis is worth 8,400 ISK on the EVE market. However this is only with the direct conversion of ISK. We have no idea what a LAV will cost to make or where the prices will stabilize.

The pricing is temporary npc prices.
Once the market opens so we can buy/sell with eve players, prices will change some will go down others will go up. Just depends how much people want something and are willing to pay.

The pricing base line will be set by the material requirements, which are set by CCP. Generally speaking, when items are taken from NPC production into player production, the price doesn't drastically change unless there is a reason for that to happen. Again, CCP does set the basic price and that price is then affected by market circumstances.

This is all moot though, because the price is currently, in my opinion, very good when set in relation to the income of a typical Dust merc. A massive (90%) drop in the price of a Charybdis due to production being moved over to capsuleers would require a massive restructuring of mercenary income lest every player on the field just pours Charybdises over everything like so much ranch dressing since they're suddenly expendable. Hence, the price we see currently in relation to our income is probably a good ball park indicator of the production cost + markup in EVE.

This is not true. You have to mine from asteriods, use planetary interaction to get resources to make things. CCP doesnt set any prices

So, to put my analysis in perspective, I have an economics degree in real life and am currently attending a Ph.D. program. That doesn't mean that what I'm about to say is correct or should just be accepted without question, I just want you to know where I'm coming from.

Thank you for getting involved, your expertise is appreciated.

EVE is based on a free market ideology, but the pricing schemes of free markets are and must be manipulated to avoid certain things. This goes doubly true in a game. Certain things regulate themselves. I realize you're familiar with this but I'm spelling it out so that everybody can follow along. Let's say manufacturing a Charybdis is not profitable, due to the cost of production versus what customers are currently willing to pay. Well, manufacturers will at that point stop making Charybdises. Those who want one will now have to pay higher prices in order to acquire one. Volume manufacturing will likely bring the price back down, and certain manufacturers will stop building them because of slipping profits. The cycle continues.

However, two things are at play here.

First off, manufacturing costs are to a large extent set by CCP. This is a necessity, because this is a game that takes place in a simulated universe. In real life economies, if the price of gold takes a dump, that's fine. Some investors lose some money, some new industries sprout up, things jumble about and then correct themselves. However, in our make believe economy, our enjoyment and thus willingness to pay our real world money for Dust 514 / EVE Online the product, is directly tied to the relationship between income and expense. If HAVs become too cheap everybody has them and gameplay suffers. If HAVs become too expensive there will probably be a correction based on manufacturing quantity, but even that has limits set by CCP through the mineral requirements for production.

Second, your focus may be clouding your common sense. There is simply no way that a pickup truck can cost more than a spaceship in a free market economy. It wasn't whittled out of a solid diamond the size of a house. It's a truck. It's not a one-off magic truck that flushes rivers of gold out the back end when you drive, it's just a truck.

I get where you're coming from. Let me make two points:

1. Whether the pickup truck or the frigate costs more is irrelevant. It might not be realistic for the truck to cost as much as two frigates, but the reality is that the value isn't based on real resources and real production. The value of a tulip bulb in Amsterdam at one point was higher than many houses.

2. The resources used to produce Dust gear is mined from planetary interaction. The ability of Eve players to mine those resources is tied to the value of service we provide. In this sense, it is a self-regulating system. That being said, I think the question is whether or not you have faith in CCP to set that system up in a way that lets it become a vibrant and functional marketplace or a stagnant pile of crap. So far in Eve I have not been confident in CCP's ability to manage these things as they have made many mistakes in the past. Still, eventually I think they'll get it right.

Having played EVE actively for almost a decade, I am familiar with the mechanisms in which objects are produced in New Eden.

If you go back to reading the post you just quoted, I said that the pricing base line is set by the material requirements, which are set by CCP.

Here is an example. You need 20,271 units of Tritanium (among many other materials) to produce a Bantam. This number is set by CCP. While it is not a price, per se, it does provide a certain base line, since Tritanium is generally not free. You need 8,335,395 units of Tritanium to produce a Raven. This means that a Bantam is less expensive than a Raven.

Obviously the somewhat fluctuating price of Tritanium (and other metals, etc) AFFECT the price, but the base production cost is still set by CCP. Clear?

Interesting research and observations, Gullegubben.

I'm just speaking out of my kittenhole here, because i haven't crunched any numbers to support what i'm about to say. I'm also an active long-time citzen of New Eden. Have mined/manufactured in depth, etc.

I can't quote you any examples off the top of my head, but I know that if you compare physical characteristics(mass, volume, etc.) with the material requirements for items in the EVE database you can find many examples of things that are deeply irrational. One could always engage in developing rationalizations to make such disparities more palatable(eg. although that amount of mineral is used in the constuction of an item, it doesn't neccesaritly end up in said item), but I gave up on that a long time ago.

The Charybdis/Bantam example may just end up being a particularly egregious example of this.

I would love to see the physical characteristics in the New Eden database rationalized, but it's not way up there on the priority list, however. For priorities, how about CCP man up and rewrite the core physics/celestial engine?

I really did my best to read through this thread thoroughly, since it is highly interesting, but if this has been mentioned already, I apologize:

It seems to me that we are missing key information regarding the Dust items needed to make a good estimate of the relative worth of the items in Dust vs Eve. That information is the materials needed to manufacture the items. Without the bill of materials we have no baseline for comparing the costs of manufacture, and therefore the minimum profitable selling price.

In addition to the size and role of the items, the complexity and scale of an item can also greatly affect the price. It may be that the items we are using in Dust are much more difficult to produce because they are small. Fitting a fusion reactor into a dropsuit might be as expensive as building one into a destroyer. We don't know the fiction CCP will use, but basically they can greatly affect the market value of items make making them harder to produce.

For example a Tech 3 cruiser is more expensive than a tech 1 battleship in eve, even if their relative sizes would suggest otherwise. All CCP would have to do to make Dust equipment more comparable to Eve gear is make it harder to build.

To go back to the OP's point, the Bantam (a Tech 1 frigate with logistics bonuses) is not a valid comparison to the Charybdis (a specialized logistics LAV).

For starters, the Bantam is, essentially, Meta 0. It is the base model of that ship hull. The Charybdis is Meta 3, its base model is the Onikuma, which prices out at 27,600 ISK.

So we are comparing the Bantam with the Onikuma. Of course, a jeep costing even half as much as a starship is still ludicrous.

I did this to offset the fact that the Bantam has specialized shield transfer equipment. This type of equipment is also present in the Charybdis. Any huge increase in price due to this equipment on the Charybdis would also affect the Bantam to some degree.