Science & Industry

A little while, having not long returned to EVE, I asked a couple of previous questions here:

Previous Post

..and received a couple of helpful replies; particularly from Tau Cabalander, although I thought the maths presented was a bit strange, I now see where he's coming from.

Firstly, however, a note - the BPO detail in the EVElopedia is now wrong (certainly it appears so, and I assume it has been since the Crius patch), although the in game BPO detail that can be seen against each item is correct. If a Dev sees this, can they please advise whether the EVElopedia will be updated?

At a guess, and given I have the BPOs and saw the detail, I am going to assume that the mineral requirements for BPOs was set around the Covetor needs, given the serious round numbers seen - although even there I suspect a rounding error or two has crept in!

Having been previously used to the old ME & 'PE' detail and, using the old 'perfect' detail I could find in the EVElopedia, then it was worth the maths to determine where further research became pointless, but it is now certainly simplified.

Along with a few other things checked (see below), I then found I had an unresearched Battleship BPO (a middle of the road BPO given my previous Capital focus) - and thus threw up a temp POS to do some experiments (having first checked the costs/time at NPC stations!). Please correct me if I've made a mistake, but:

- Each clean, unresearched, BPO can have up to 10% of its building materials saved (the maximum of ME10%); or expressed as 90% build costs based upon the initial figures (all are rounded up and, as others have noted, rounded after the number of runs is determined - so greater production numbers = more savings)

- Each clean, unresearched, BPO can have up to 20% of its building time saved (before any other Skill/Implant/Array savings). Thus a battleship BPO with an initial production time of 5hrs can have it reduced to 4hrs at TE20% - each run of +2% will reduce the building time by a base 6mins

- the build amount saved, or production time saved, for each level of ME or TE is linear - but the costs and time are ever increasing to rather large numbers indeed. For example (figures are, of course, not entirely consistently based due to changing System index):

Megathron BPO - Time to research 1% ME - Cost to research

1% - 49m 59s - 2,569 isk
2% - 1h 9m 2s - 3,548 isk
3% - 2h 44m 14s - 8,551 isk
4% - 6h 29m 51s - 20,300 isk
5% - 15h 26m 18s - 48,234 isk
6% - 1d 12h 48m 39s - 115,008 isk
7% - 3d 15h 16m 0s - 340,162 isk
8% - 8d 3h - 1,533,000 isk
9% - 18d 9h 12m 47s - 13,133,286 isk
10% - 45d 22h 58m 53s - 45,973,004 isk

The material savings costs for an ME10% researched BPO to the base ME0% are about 17misk per run. So, if you research the BPO fully to ME10%, taking some 80 days and ~61misk (plus POS costs), then make and sell 5 or so and you will have your money back.

However, in the course of my research I noticed the following:

- firstly that the difference between POS-based research and NPC-station in High Sec is most certainly very marked! To take a Rorqual BPO the final stage from ME9% to ME10% would cost 396m at a POS and take 146d, whereas at an NPC station it would take a bit longer at 208d, but a whopping 3.25B!!

- that this then makes me wonder if indeed the Capital ship BPOs reasearch cost is actually based correctly? For if the relationship to the Battleship BPOs is maintained then, for a Titan BPO:

- Going from ME6% to ME7% will cost 2b
- then from ME7% to ME8% should cost 9b
- then from ME8% to ME9% should cost over 77b
- and finally to reach ME10% would cost over 270b!!!

For a BPO that costs 72,5b! An Erebus costs (based upon current mineral prices) about 55b at ME6%. If someone then spent >350b of research (5x the cost of the original BPO) to get to ME10% they would save some 2.5b each build - ie they would have to build over 140 Titans to get that saving back.

Is that actually right? Are Capital ship BPOs research costs being based upon sensible metrics? That a comparing an Erebus BPO at 72.5b original cost to a Megathron BPO at 1.25b (58x as much) results in research costs that are over 5,800 times as much?

What should be noted overall, however, is that high ME research can take a great deal of time to pay off and that high TE research is probably not worth it at all.....

Any comments? And please point out if I have something awry....

Also note that BPO less than ME 10% can still be perfect for 1 run, but the rounding will catch-up with you when doing more runs.

Total Material = MAXIMUM(Runs , CEILING(Runs * Base Material Amount * (1 - ME %) * any material reductions from facilities or teams))

As an addendum, if the base requirement for a component is 1 on an unresearched blueprient, no matter what reductions you get or what batch size you do, it'll still be 1 per run.



Yes, every blueprint has a modifier that affects the cost and time of it being researched now. Read more here. It would appear that the excessive amount of extra time at the station is really ramping up the costs for you.

As for the Erebus price, sure. It's your ISK after all.

There seems to be two factors: research rank and cost of produced item.

Then factor in facilities (10% NPC tax), and system index.

Thank you both.

I shall therefore just state for the record - I think the bigger Capital ships certainly seem to be somewhat beyond excessive.

ME9% to ME10% on a Titan/Erebus (no station, no tax, merely System index) costing 27bn would be a great deal - but 270bn! That honestly seems like a mistake.

This could be true for all the Capital ships.........

As did I for these tests/experiments. These incredibly high costs are for POS-based research. NPC station costs would be somewhat beyond rediculous.

Still rather hoping a Dev will confirm that this is by design - and that a coder didn't slip a decimal......

Your reasoning contains a major breach:
You try to compare one ME 10 of an any ship with ship capital


We increased Bpo of any ship to ME 50+ in old system, except for a ship capital which is a bpo of assembly of component, the number of component being low. it was an economic nonsense to take up a BPO in ME 50 in them do the BPO was at the most in ME 7 / + 8

time for each Me level .. almost 1month ...

10% of 3 part gain ... 0

Just add...

With the new information presented in the Industry UI post Phoebe:

An Erebus' Base Cost for ME is just under 164b; whilst it's Base Cost for TE research is just under 69b.

Still seems large to me.

Wish I knew that before researching my Small Blaster Battery blueprint
Screw you CCP, you're still letting us over-research