Skill Discussions

It's a long complicated answer. I probably won't cover half of the issues.

First off.
There are skills that reduce costs for the marketing fee's.
Having good faction standings also helps with fee's.
Researching the blueprints is important.
Sometimes, BPC's are a better deal than BPO's
There are skills that reduce materials needed to build.

You're doing the right thing, by looking at cost FIRST. And also by giving your materials a value.

Part of the problem, is some players think that they get materials for "free" because they mine them. Then they undercut the market and think they are killin' it. When in reality, they are just working a lot for cheap.

Other players have built huge amounts of their product at some point before prices went up.
Other players put in ridiculous low buy orders and fill them at dirt cheap.
Some players might get tired of having 67 Cormorants in their ship bay, so they dump them for a loss.

Some corps sell at a loss, but they do corp ops for materials, so they just want fast moving items.



Keep researching. There are items that make a profit. At one time, I had 90 market orders going all the time. My wallet seemed to blink non-stop. It was work though... Like a job almost.
Try and find items that have high volume, move fast.
Pick a price that makes 10% or 5 or whatever, and let that item sit until it sells.
Noob stuff in noob systems.
PvP stuff in PvP systems.
Ammo in mission hubs.
etc
etc
If you've found a place where your ore moves fast, work that.

Look in other forums for more experienced players. Guys who are current with what they do. Nobody is really going to give you 'their golden goose' but basic information is there.

You can make a very good living in Eve as a manufacturer. When just starting out you will need to do a lot of research.

In general, everything in the game is over produced. There are few barriers to entry and manufactured goods last forever - unless they get blown up.

The market tool has a history tab that you can use to see the cycle for anything you are interested in over the past year. If you sell in the top half of the cycle you will (usually) make money. If you sell in the bottom half, or to buy orders, you will (usually) lose money. Web sites like https://www.fuzzwork.co.uk/blueprint/ will show you current manufacturing cost and selling price for any blueprint.

As a small producer, you will probably do better at one of the smaller hubs like Dodixie or Rens - Jita is a lot more competitive.

T1 ships and modules will usually be low margin. T1 rigs are OK in the top half of their cycle as are T1 structures like mobile depot and MTU (science skills required).

I make most of my ISK selling T2 modules but that is skill intensive.