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Manufacturing, worth getting into?

Author
Ymirus
Brigandage
#1 - 2012-12-10 23:18:16 UTC
Since I started playing EVE in 2009 I've felt drawn to the life of the industrialist. Building the ships that fuel the entire playerbase, it's always been my favourite activity. Back then I never really got into EVE properly, as I was in a noob corp set up by noobs for noobs, or in other words we had no clue about anything. It took us weeks to build a single megathron which we sold at a loss. We mined our own minerals, at best ran level 1 missions and every isk we 'made' was used for blueprints and the likes.

So basically, that was shite. Fast forward a year, I joined a nullsec corp and found that I made alot more money ratting in belts than I did making stuff. My skills were scattered, but I could rat a bit, and had fun. Mostly forgot about building then and there.

Now, I have a second account with an 8 million sp indy char and I want to get into indy again, only this time doing it slightly better than before. I've been browsing these forums, googled, downloaded several tools (Isk per hour tool for one), bookmarked the starting industrialist blog by Beckie DeLey. Anything that seems the least bit useful I've absorbed, yet I can't help but feel like I'm missing the bigger picture.

I've found a few things that should make me a profit, in theory. I'm currently testing the waters with these items, using 200 million isk I sent over from my main. However, my isk reserves are very low (I funded this with isk from selling a GTC) so I cannot invest much in order to make more profit.
I'm also limited with regards to what I can and cannot do. I have no access to a POS so invention would require relocating to low-sec, which I could do if it would be helpful. I have no more than a few BPO's, for basic items, which I bought with my initial 200 million.

TL;DR my isk is limited, my knowledge basic but building, no research/T2 option available to me (outside of low-sec) and I'm looking to build stuff. Is there a profit possible for me? Is it possible to make the manufacturer pay for his own account at least?

I'll take any and all help I can get, no matter how basic it might seem.
Cap James Tkirk
Baba Yagas
The Initiative.
#2 - 2012-12-11 00:03:01 UTC
Install ISK PER HOUR
look at items you want to make
profit???
Liro Jedran
Boiled in Soup
#3 - 2012-12-11 01:29:49 UTC
To be honest it is not that easy to start out in manufacturing especially if you are trying on your own. I would suggest that you put your industrial toon in an indy corp that has access to a hisec pos and that has a large number of researched blueprints that you can copy and use for manufacturing.

With the current cut-throat market environment, manufacturing profits are at an all-time low. By that I mean that there is plenty of competition on the market. In my opinion profits from manufacturing comes from two things. The first is from cutting costs on what you are making. Keeping your mineral and mat cost as low as possible. This is generally done by supplying them yourself or from corpmates at a lower than market price or by buy orders. If you are using buy orders then you have to find an area where your buy orders will bring in the minerals you need without too much competition. The second is from finding the market to sell your products in.

Don’t get me wrong. There is plenty of profit to be made in manufacturing and plenty of people are doing it but until you have your manufacturing system in place it can be just as time intensive as pvp. Once you have enough isk to, if it is the method you choose, set up buy orders and contract haul them to your manufacturing facility it becomes a lot less time intensive but until you get to that stage it will take a lot of time and effort.
Roman Fuego
Brotherhood of Bankrupt Bastards
#4 - 2012-12-11 01:50:02 UTC
Cap James Tkirk wrote:
Install ISK PER HOUR
look at items you want to make
profit???



This.

ISK Per Hour is the single best tool I've seen in a year for mfg/indy work.

If you want to get started on 200mil look into scourge fury/precision missles. With such a low amount of funding you need to look things that provide a high return on capital (ie something you can make 50-100% on money invested)... they will probably take you longer to build but you'll get ISK faster because you don't run out of money scaling up number of concurrent lines.
Debra Tao
Perkone
Caldari State
#5 - 2012-12-11 01:57:32 UTC
Rigs and cap boosters are profitable items to manufacture yet they do not require a high investissement...
Razor Rocker
Super Mother Fan Club
#6 - 2012-12-11 02:09:16 UTC
Honestly with so little to invest I wouldn't even try to start manufacturing. Instead get into mining, or running anoms. You'll make more isk/hr if done properly, then when you've enough ISK try to get into manufacturing. I'd suggest at least 2b to start out, though if you don't mind tiny profits you could do 1b (hoping you already have the BPOs).
Kommandohoran
Viziam
#7 - 2012-12-11 04:51:19 UTC
Liro Jedran wrote:

With the current cut-throat market environment, manufacturing profits are at an all-time low. By that I mean that there is plenty of competition on the market.

Don’t get me wrong. There is plenty of profit to be made in manufacturing and plenty of people are doing it but until you have your manufacturing system in place it can be just as time intensive as pvp. Once you have enough isk to, if it is the method you choose, set up buy orders and contract haul them to your manufacturing facility it becomes a lot less time intensive but until you get to that stage it will take a lot of time and effort.



Lol u wut m8? I'm getting at least 35% profit margin on the new destroyers, and before the patch I got the same from cruisers for over a month. Profits are only low if you build stupid crap like Drakes & Canes.

Getting things started up is as simple as spending a couple hours building a decent spreadsheet, finding a station, sourcing minerals and BPOs ,and then waiting.
Colonel Tosh
The MorningStar. Syndicate
#8 - 2012-12-11 05:16:29 UTC
One suggestion...

If you mine, make sure the product your making costs more then the mineral sell order value. I have seen to many items sold that are under what the minerals would have sold for separately.
Celgar Thurn
Department 10
#9 - 2012-12-11 08:12:30 UTC
Colonel Tosh wrote:
One suggestion...

If you mine, make sure the product your making costs more then the mineral sell order value. I have seen to many items sold that are under what the minerals would have sold for separately.


Argh yes. Blink The mindset that 'all the minerals they mine are FREE' has to be defeated at every turn. Smile The biggest obstacle to realistic pricing levels in New Eden.

*Celgar waits for the argument to begin* Hehe.
Dave stark
#10 - 2012-12-11 08:19:51 UTC
Celgar Thurn wrote:
Colonel Tosh wrote:
One suggestion...

If you mine, make sure the product your making costs more then the mineral sell order value. I have seen to many items sold that are under what the minerals would have sold for separately.


Argh yes. Blink The mindset that 'all the minerals they mine are FREE' has to be defeated at every turn. Smile The biggest obstacle to realistic pricing levels in New Eden.

*Celgar waits for the argument to begin* Hehe.


but my minerals are free!
Beckie DeLey
Garoun Investment Bank
Gallente Federation
#11 - 2012-12-11 09:05:13 UTC
One suggestion...

If you mine, make sure to stop mining. Minerals are on the market. If you want to build, then build and don't waste your time with menial labor Blink

My siren's name is Brick and she is the prettiest.

Ruvin
Amarr Empire
#12 - 2012-12-11 10:18:06 UTC
Beckie DeLey wrote:
One suggestion...

If you mine, make sure to stop mining. Minerals are on the market. If you want to build, then build and don't waste your time with menial labor Blink



mining and hauling is for peons ®

Opportunities multiply as they are seized.

Dautrin Maize
Peirmont Industries
#13 - 2012-12-11 11:03:06 UTC
The only real way to significantly profit on most of the stuff you'll build, is to haul it to a region where you can mark up the price - which means slower sales. But if you're patient, it works well.

I gave up on making quick profit with industry a long time ago. Nowadays, I see the stuff I build as a way to tie up my ISK so that I don't spend it... I like to do everything in the game, so I tend to just irrationally blow all my money on toys if the ISK is just laying around. Building T2 ships and modules is a way for me to keep from spending all my money and to slowly bank profits over time.

Now I'm sitting on like 10 billion in inventory (about 2 billion of which is on the market at any given time to keep a steady influx of ISK). And I'm comfortable with that. It keeps me flying and entertained in the world of EVE.

And if I'm ever desperately in need of some quick cash, I just run a few level 4's (which, after Retribution's launch, may require some caution...)
Mhax Arthie
Doomheim
#14 - 2012-12-11 11:07:19 UTC
Only to buy minerals and still have a decent profit, I suppose you need to have some connections with some miner corporations that live in null sec. In hi sec no miner corp will sell their stuff under the regular jita prices. Or maybe I'm wrong and I just fail to understand how the fok you can buy minerals from the market, build stuff and still have a decent profit.
Liro Jedran
Boiled in Soup
#15 - 2012-12-11 11:22:52 UTC
Mhax Arthie wrote:
Only to buy minerals and still have a decent profit, I suppose you need to have some connections with some miner corporations that live in null sec. In hi sec no miner corp will sell their stuff under the regular jita prices. Or maybe I'm wrong and I just fail to understand how the fok you can buy minerals from the market, build stuff and still have a decent profit.


Buy orders preferably in a place that doesn't have that many so not Jita. If miners are mining far enough from market hubs they may be will to part with their ore and minerals for 5-15 % less than Jita to avoid the hauling and potential ganking of freighters etc...
Salpad
Carebears with Attitude
#16 - 2012-12-11 12:16:05 UTC
Roman Fuego wrote:
Cap James Tkirk wrote:
Install ISK PER HOUR
look at items you want to make
profit???



This.

ISK Per Hour is the single best tool I've seen in a year for mfg/indy work.

If you want to get started on 200mil look into scourge fury/precision missles. With such a low amount of funding you need to look things that provide a high return on capital (ie something you can make 50-100% on money invested)... they will probably take you longer to build but you'll get ISK faster because you don't run out of money scaling up number of concurrent lines.


Whut? Manufacturing T2 scourge missiles may be good advice in general, but with the recent change to T2 misiles in the Retribution expansion, I'd imagine market prices will fluctuate a bit. Is it a good idea to advise a noob to start producing an item whose market price may be in flux?
Beckie DeLey
Garoun Investment Bank
Gallente Federation
#17 - 2012-12-11 12:38:45 UTC
Dautrin Maize wrote:
The only real way to significantly profit on most of the stuff you'll build, is to haul it to a region where you can mark up the price - which means slower sales. But if you're patient, it works well.


If you have to haul your merchandise to sell it for profit, all the profit you aremaking is pure trading profit. So you shouldn't be manufacturing that thing. You should just buy it from the market and then haul it, the manufacturing process is just costing you time and money in that case.
If you find that a certain thing you build sells better in a different region than you are building it in, you have two options:
- build something different. if you still want to sell that thing, just buy it on the local market and haul it --> trading profit
- move your base of operations and build that thing directly where you want to sell it --> manufacturing profit

My siren's name is Brick and she is the prettiest.

Lolar55
Banana Toaster
#18 - 2012-12-11 12:41:55 UTC
If you want to be a low life industrialist sure 200m will do.If you really want to get into it you will need large pos(1.5b to fully set up)to even think of starting it.Then you should have about 5b set aside for bpos and atleast 2b for minerals and misc. items.Then you will make decent profit per month.In manufructuring there's always room for more basically the more isk you put at it the more profit you will get.Tbh if I had 7trillion it still wouldn't be enough to build everything i wanted.
Roman Fuego
Brotherhood of Bankrupt Bastards
#19 - 2012-12-11 13:30:52 UTC
Razor Rocker wrote:
Honestly with so little to invest I wouldn't even try to start manufacturing. Instead get into mining, or running anoms. You'll make more isk/hr if done properly, then when you've enough ISK try to get into manufacturing. I'd suggest at least 2b to start out, though if you don't mind tiny profits you could do 1b (hoping you already have the BPOs).



This is incorrect. You can make plenty of ISK on 200mil buying exclusively in Jita.

Mining is a horrible choice because it will tie you up and additionally... its really boring. It also forces you to waste skillpoints that will be useless later on. Instead of mining setup some PI... with the amount of cash you have available it will actually supplement you quite nicely (it's pointless later on unless you focus on it).

So here is a recipe that I think will help you out a bit:

1) start inventing scourge fury/precision bpc's... you can buy the BPC's required from contracts. Inventions costs are low. Don't pay more than 100k ISK per BPC and use caldari navy missiles to increase your invention chance.
2) make some of the missles and sell the rest of the T2 BPC's on contracts (you'll make millions)
3) at the same time you are doing this... find a decent place to setup P2 PI... you can set these up so they practically run themselves... in HS if you cycle them once a day you'll probably get about 2-3mil ISK a day from 4-5 colonies. Once setup these are close to zero effort
4) run missions that improve your Caldari faction and the caldari navy faction... this will be useful later when you start buying materials in the billions of ISK

I hope this helps.
Beckie DeLey
Garoun Investment Bank
Gallente Federation
#20 - 2012-12-11 13:36:06 UTC
Roman Fuego wrote:

So here is a recipe that I think will help you out a bit:

1) start inventing scourge fury/precision bpc's... you can buy the BPC's required from contracts. Inventions costs are low. Don't pay more than 100k ISK per BPC and use caldari navy missiles to increase your invention chance.
2) make some of the missles and sell the rest of the T2 BPC's on contracts (you'll make millions)
3) at the same time you are doing this... find a decent place to setup P2 PI... you can set these up so they practically run themselves... in HS if you cycle them once a day you'll probably get about 2-3mil ISK a day from 4-5 colonies. Once setup these are close to zero effort
4) run missions that improve your Caldari faction and the caldari navy faction... this will be useful later when you start buying materials in the billions of ISK

I hope this helps.


Good advice, i especially like how you directly worked invention in. But the OP should remember to make his own research on what is profitable and what isn't. Depending on the region where he lives and on the week, ongoing manipulations etc, prices fluctuate enough that pointing to a specific item and saying "build this!" doesn't really work.

One thing i generally don't recommend is settling near Jita, however.

My siren's name is Brick and she is the prettiest.

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