Getting Sidetracked

Ever since getting back home after Fanfest, real life has kept me busy. I finally got to spend a little time last night doing some research on where to find mining mission agent hubs in New Eden. I define mining mission agent hubs as systems containing 3 or more agents of a certain level. Ideally, the agents would all belong to the same corporation in order to build up loyalty points. Why disperse your efforts when trying to get those sweet, sweet implants that give a 5% bonus to mining or ice harvesting yield, right?

A funny thing happened during my search. I noticed a few anomalies. For example, why is Aldilur, a system in Metropolis 3 jumps from both a rookie system and a career agent system, a super hub? The Minmatar Mining Corporation has 3 level 1, 4 level 2, 6 level 3, and 5 level 4 mining agents in the system. Sure, the system has a 0.9 security rating which means the payout is much less than in other trade hubs, but a dedicated miner never has to leave the system except to go to Rens to sell loyalty store items and perhaps veldspar.

The corporations from the Gallente Federation are more spread out, with five systems containing three or more level 4 mining agents. Curiously, one of those systems is Ingunn, in the Minmatar region of Heimatar. A product of the Minmatar Mining Corporation's effective monopoly? Perhaps even more curious is Astral Mining Inc.'s presence in Annancale. The Gallente mining corp has 9 level 4 and 4 level 3 agents in the low sec system only two jumps from Intaki.

In the Caldari State, all of the level 3 and 4 mining mission hubs are located in high sec. Is that a product of corporate caution? Or were Poksu Mineral Group and Caldari Steel able to sway the Caldari government into providing additional security for their operations?

On the flip side, the two level 3 and 4 Amarr mining mission hub systems of Mamet and Ziriert are both located in 0.1 security systems located 2 jumps from Providence. If the two adjacent systems are treated as one, the hub has a total of 15 level 4 and 8 level 3 agents. The question I had when first looking at the hub is, why did Imperial Armaments and Zoar and Sons split the area. Imperial Armaments has 7 level 4 and 4 level 3 agents while Zoar and Sons has 8 level 4 and 4 level 3 agents in the area.

I know, I know. I'm just supposed to mine and obtain loyalty points. The agents were probably distributed via a random draw. Still, inquiring minds want to know why the cluster is laid out this way.