Science & Industry

Besides BPO's (and people offer research BPO's in sell forum and researching for you), missioning is very helpful for isk to buy skill books, if you plan on building T-2 then your gonna want full lvl 5 PI cause many T-2's use PI products however turning a profit is more difficult with T-2, I just got done building T-1 scourge cruise missles about 222,221 @ 155 isk and if I sold that now I'd make about 30 to 32 mil right now, without the need to go further, and also T-2 research also uses items you get from R&D agents and you have to buy incognito items which are expensive for each different items you intended on researching.
So mining to V (everything)
refining efficiency V
research / advanced research to V
mass production to V
metallurgy V
and much more.
You got atleast 6 to 8 months of skills to be pretty much self sufficient in indy..but its well worth it.

How to be self sufficient:

be small scale.


Someone that's maxing out what they can do, to get maximum profits, /cannot/ be self sufficient. There just aren't enough hours in the day.

Now, It's not a bad idea to cut other people out where you can, but doing so purely to avoid costs isn't a good idea.

In a lot of T2 manufacturing you need the T1 version of the module. If the isk/hr of that T1 module is low, you're wasting money by making it yourself. Just buy it and use the slot for something more profitable.

Since you asked for correction if needed, I'm going to give some

Mining/researching/producing everything you need is not the optimal way to play EVE. This kind of self-sufficiency is only feasible or worthwhile in the most primitive types of economies. On the whole, EVE is a modern, well developed economy and therefore strongly favors specialization.

Focus on the profitability (measured in ISK) of your activities, not strict self-sufficiency.

That said, variety is the spice of life - don't take the idea of specialization to the extreme and pigeonhole yourself into a 4 month skill plan to absolutely max out your mining yield (or whatever). You're new to the game, so find something profitable that you can focus some of your skill training on, but branch out and try out some other stuff as well. Having experience in other parts of the game will also make you a smarter and more knowledgeable industrial player as well.

not to mention, you'll prolly want to get some standings up with a few NPC corps so you can get a perfect refine at their stations. it takes 6.7 base standings (without connections) to achieve this.

Which is wrong in my opinion due to the inflation. I think you should consider calculating a fraction of a plex. Let's say you manage to make 50 mils per hour. That could be around 9% out of a plex or 0.09 plexes.

Edited.

The problem with Plex is that they too are not a stable market. Look at how faction warfate caused plex prices to skyrocket. What cost x% of plex three months ago would only be 1/3x% during the high point of plex prices. Additionally, plex prices follow a natural fluctuation based on external factors such as seasons and expansions.


As for being self sufficient... It is not really possible. Take a ship like the kestrel. You would either have to buy the 1 zidrine or mission and reprocess loot. If you wanted to make something bigger, same issue. If you start needing t2 missiles, you need moon goo products, pi, and minerals. Generally, you are either doing crazy things like ninja moon mining or you have to accept that there are limitations to self-sufficiency.

Also, as pointed out, time is money in eve. Mining doesn't beat the income of missioning. And spending a day make 50 kessies won't net you as much profit as making 100 t2 mods in the same time.

Still,play as you like. I could probably make more isk per hour if I didn't make my own pos fuel but used pi for higher profit items. Still, I like being a little self-sufficient. So really a lot of it is finding the balance of what you enjoy and what makes you enough profit.

OP, if you're thinking that making stuff yourself vs. buying it on the market will save you enough money to buy a plex each month, you need to realize that the eve market is really a pretty good deal, there aren't obnoxious markups on items at the regional hubs (usually). it will take a massive outflow of isk each month to 'save' enough to buy a plex.

example:

Let's say that you manufacture everything yourself rather than buying from someone else's sell-order on the market. For this example let's assume that the other people sell their items on average of 15% markup from the cost of the underlying material (note that some things are available at just 1-2% over cost)

In order to 'save' enough isk by making things yourself and thus retaining that 15% markup that you would have normally spent buying from someone else, you'll need to consume/manufacture/use ~3.667B isk worth of stuff each month.

(1 plex) 550,000,000isk / .15 = 3.667Bisk

Even if the markup of other player's sell orders was more aggressive like 30%, you'd still need to consume 2.75B isk each month in order to retain the 'savings' for the cost of 1 plex.

550,000,000isk / .3 = 2.75Bisk

Add into this example the cost of all the BPOs you'll need to acquire to be truely self-sufficient, and then the time to make each of the items, only resulting in a pure meta-0 t1 fit unless you're also investing in the t2 manufacturing skills and resources.... it just seems to most people like there's a better use of your time in game if the end-objective is to 'save' money to buy a plex.

as other's noted, if you bought just one of the BPOs that you need and focused manufacturing just that one item and selling it for that 15%-30% markup to other players, you'd likely come out ahead isk-wise compared to trying to do *everything* youself.

good luck.

It's not necessarily the t2 bpos that hinder you here. It has to do with using encryptors, competition from people producing components at profit to reduce ship production costs, what I mine/make is free mentality, and more.

That said, look to t2 frigates. Depending on the market, all bombers but the purifier can be profitable. Assault frigates and interceprers depend on the hull. Do your math and you may find a good profit. Also, look into producing your own materials to profit more.

less total demand for t2 [*battleship] hulls [* then t1 battleship hulls] as people tend to make them themselves or have friends to make them for cheaper then market,

vargur on market is close to 900 or so
build was maybe 150 or so less.

t2 battleships are a large investment for slow turnover. maybe should have researched a bit more about what you were trying to sell first.

Pure economic calculations will tell you you are doing it wrong,
decide what it is that you actually want to do, not necessarily what you have to do. but that doesnt mean shoot yourself in the foot trying to be completely sufficient in everything.