Economy in 5.2+

[Karst]

Well.

You can base a route from Denver or Deshima/Tsukishima, that's where you'd be selling whatever you brought, presumably, and depending on which direction you're going (almost certainly south), you'd be at a disadvantage when buying in one of the directions. Ionic isn't even far from the field; it's basically mindistance from the gate, which itself is ~30k or whatever from the field.

But really, the math is simpler than that. Numining plat takes a lot longer than oldmining, obviously. Regardless of where your base is. The base price is also higher than old mining, but it isn't enough higher, unlike Gold. If you consider 80cu a reasonable rate for oldmining, and you pay 150cu for numining plat which is pretty close to the highest amount you can pay, you're paying less than before. Because it definitely takes longer than 187% of the old mining time. If you're then selling the ore for 110, which would be reasonable, your base isn't getting (much) more than before, and the shippers also aren't getting any more than like, a 70cu oldmining route like Copper or Molybdenum.

It's just more work for less money.

Edit: Worth noting that fuel is much more expensive in the Platinum region than it is for Gold, which doesn't exactly help its margins.

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