Science & Industry

I have spotty access for the next few months. I checked in to discover one of my research agents had provided me with enough points to buy 16 electronics datacores.

What's the next step? Buy a blueprint and make something? Buy a few blueprints and start researching them?

16 anything datacores aren't going to get you far, even if you're selling them. A quick check says that Electronic Engineering in particular is losing money on each core, but you'd have to verify in game.

But let's assume you'd want to use them. They're used for invention. Invention requires blue print copies (which can either be bought on contracts or made at a lab). If you want to make them yourself, you're in for a long wait and you need the BPO.

Each invention job uses a fixed number of datacores, and each job uses two types, which you can see here, so you would need at least 16 of another type. Once you had those, you could invent up to 16 things, with a success rate that would also vary based on what you were doing. You'd also need to train, in addition to Electronic Engineering, at least one other datacore skill and the racial decryption skill for the job you wanted to run. Success rate is based on how high you have those skills; ballpark 45% for all three relevant skills at 4.

So out of those 16 invention jobs, you now have ~7 T2 blueprint copies. If you were inventing modules and using a max run BPC then those copies would have 10 runs each. To produce them you'd need the aforementioned skills plus whatever materials are listed on the BPC; at minimum that would involve at least one moon goo product and frequently involves more than one and some PI on top of it.

Do all that; now you have about 70 T2 items to sell or use.

you cant research t1 into t2.

1. research the t1 bpo - only needed if you want to produce t1 items
2. make a copy of the t1 bpo so you get t1 bpc
3. with the t1 bpc and at least 2 different datacores you can start an invention job, which will, if not failed, give you a t2 bpc
4. manufacture t2 items using moon materials, pi goods, minerals and t1 items
5. profit

Alright, if you're just dabbling, here's what I'd probably do.

First, pick a blueprint. A full list of what uses Electronic Engineering can be found here. For these purposes, let's assume you settle on inventing Garde IIs. You'll need 15 Mechanical Engineering datacores to match your 15 Electronic Engineering datacores. Since each invention job consumes three of each, you'll be able to run five invention jobs (and have one of your original datacores left over).

In addition to the datacores, you'll need 5 Garde I BPCs, preferably with 1500 runs each on them. These, along with the datacores, will be consumed by your invention jobs. In addition, you will need an Incognito Data Interface. Once you have all these things in the same station -- one with a lab -- you can install your five invention jobs provided you have the skills (Gallente Encryption Methods, Mechanical Engineering, and Electronic Engineering plus enough research slots). You could also add a decryptor at this phase but I wouldn't recommend doing so. Your invention chance based on your skills can be calculated here or many other places. Invention should take about two hours.

Once that's done, deliver your jobs. For each blueprint you invented from you'll either get a T2 BPC or you won't. If you used max run T1 BPCs, the new T2 BPCs will have 10 runs each at ME -4/PE -4.

To build from those T2 BPCs, you'll need all the required materials. For each run, that's 3 morphite, 3 robotics, 3 guidance systems, 2 particle accelerators, 1 Garde I, and 10% of a R.A.M. - Robotics. Morphite is obviously something you could technically mine yourself. Robotics and guidance systems are PI. R.A.M. you could either build yourself out of minerals with the required blueprint or just buy. Garde Is you could, again, either build from a BPO/BPC or get off the market.

Particle Accelerators are something you could build from a blueprint, but the inputs aren't minerals: they are advanced products that come from the moon mining process. In this case, you're looking at Crystalline Carbonide, Fullerides, and Hypersynaptic Fibers, and you're probably best off buying those (or, quite frankly, buying the Particle Accelerators in the first place). If you decided to trace that rabbit hole back a bit, you'd need a POS with a reactor on it in low, null, or w-space to make each of those; the inputs would be refined moon goo. Keep tracing that back and eventually you'd need some moon mining arrays and you're way out of the scope of dabbling.

So all in all, if you wanted to build everything yourself short of POS reactions, you'd need:

15 of each datacore
1 data interface (blueprints and materials for those drop in radar sites)
1 Garde I BPO, researched to a reasonable level, to both copy from and build Garde Is from
1 R.A.M. - Robotics BPO (preferably researched)
1 Particle Accelerator BPO (preferably researched, though it doesn't take much)
PI chains to produce both Guidance Systems and Robotics
Enough Crystalline Carbonide, Fullerides, and Hypersynaptic Fibers to build your Particle Accelerators
Enough normal minerals to build everything else
Some Morphite

The more of the final build components you build, the better your profits....

... IF you've done your maths to make sure all your effort is going in to build something that might actually make money
... IF you not of the 'the minerals I mine are free' school of thought
... IF you dont intentionally undercut other t2 product manufacturers (in which case, I hope you get podded with a head full of faction implants and an insufficient clone... because thats what you deserve).

Have a nice day.

You can't mine them, but you can run reactions there. Sorry if that was unclear.

I use around 100 datacores a day, of a mixture of types, at Pucherie 1-11. Sometimes a lot more, if I'm inventing heavy drones en masse (I can use as many as 400). You could sell them to my buy orders there, I pay 3-5% above trade hub prices.