Science & Industry

Hello, I'm new to this game and am trying to get into the same kinds of things I always do in MMOs: Crafting (or production as you call it here) and helping out my friends, but I'm kinda lost right now and have no friends here. I've already read several guides on production and related subjects but I could do with some easy pointers and possibly a direction as some of the info is either confusing or very theoretical. Here's a bunch of issues I'm struggling with right now:


- From what I understood it's "no use" to start producing until you have maxed out the cost lowering skills, otherwise production cost will be too high compared to market value. How much of that is true, right now I'm training up those skills and not really playing much at all because of it, waiting till those skills are done. Am I doing it wrong?

- what kinds of items should I be looking into as a starter, not too expensive investment, difficult or elaborate but fairly good to get into it all. I'm not looking for easy/lazy stuff, more of a "proof of concept" kind of thing to learn the tricks. Note that I have bought and sold a PLEX in order to give myself some starting capital, so "expensive" is fairly relative.

- should I be mining my own minerals? I tried mining but found it terribly boring to a point where it makes me stop playing, instead I'm trying to train my trading and refining skills to buy ore from others and do it that way, using my freed up time for other stuff (I've been doing some exploration, not very successful yet but it's a start). Not sure if this is smart or that I should be looking at other options.

- invention, should I be looking at this right away or first get my normal production skills and experience up before touching that?

- How would I be useful to a corporation with these skillsets and style of play? I've already learned about Logitsitcs ships which is something I'll be looking into after having a decent production based skillset, but I'm trying to figure out what kind of corporations and playtyles would mesh well with my goals to "craft and be helpful".



I have many more questions but these are the most pressing ones right now, any help is very much appreciated.

Maybe. Maybe not. Do the math. That's the answer to nearly all industry questions.


Ammo, rigs, scripts. Avoid ships like the plague.


No. You will never be able to mine enough. You can however supplement what you buy through mining, as long as you include the cost of the minerals in the final price (minerals are not free).

Don't do anything in EVE you don't enjoy. If you are doing something only to earn ISK, then you really should keep looking for something you like doing.


Stay away from invention until you know what you want to produce, and all the details of how much you can earn from it, and how well it sells. You can test the waters with inventing ammo. Modules is where the ISK is at. Avoid ships like the plague.


Chances are that any corp that needs industrialist has alts of their own. However, that doesn't mean there aren't industrialist corps you could join to socialize with people with similar interests.

All good advice above. If you want to mess around with an industry program, check mig sig. Might give you some help.

Not ture, mining is time invested, time that could be spent doing other things, the breakdown of isk required to plex vs time spent in game equals how much your time is worth.

This is totally correct. Most items you will be making (more so with the first few weeks getting into industry) your profit margins will be very slim, from negative profit to 10%. 5% is a good realistic profit to shoot for unless you spend time researching market / supply and demands, etc.

That being said not having Production efficiency trained to level 5 pretty much means you will make nearly no profit when manufacturing



Personally I would say focus or look into T2 (Tech 2) production. T2 production items when manufactured require a t1 version of the item. I'm pretty sure no one is going to tell you what tiems to make for profit, so what I would suggest (it's what I am doing) is start with making items that will benefit you. For example having a few miner alts I go though alot of T2 mining crystals. And luckly I can manufacture these for less than the current market. So I will be able to make items I need for less than I would be paying on the market (and not need to fly around collecting them)

So make items you need, once you learn the ropes of manufacturing you can then start looking into the market industry




One of the biggest mistakes players make when manufacturing items using minerals they have minded is thinking of the minerals as being free, which is always a mistake. Yes you will most likely make more isk per item mining your own minerals, but its pretty small extra isk. If you hate mining do something else equal to or more isk per hour and just buy the isk.



yes yes yes. Buy up several BPO's and ALWAYS have every research slot you have available doing some type of research. I would suggest starting out by picking several items you want to make and start researching them, or making blue print copies (BPO's). These will be needed for making T2 items. It takes a while so getting advanced labs to level 3 or 4 is a good idea. You can always sell any BPO's you have researched or BPC's you make for a good profit if you decide to not use them as they sell for a premium and researching BPO's //BPC's is a bottle neck for players who do not have several accounts




Corps and alliances are almost always looking for people to manufacture ships for them. Once you find a corp / alliance you enjoy and have fun with find out what their needs are, and work out a deal with them. chances are you'll be able to help supply there needs while making a profit and still having fun

One final note. I would personally suggest you focus on basic research skills before your manufacturing skills. Get science V, advanced labs III or IV, metallurgy V and research V would be good too. Start by copying several BPO's (you can use non-researched basic BPO's since ME/PE dosen't carry over). Next start doing ME / PE research on items you want to make

Once you have the basic researching skills trained up start focusing on the manufacutring skills. I suggest research skills first because it can take weeks and even months to research BPO's or copy BPC's, so you will be better off getting these started THEN training manufacturing skills (can't manufacture without good BPO's)

Also you might be tempted to buy BPO's from contracts. Keep in mind that the isk you spend on these bpo's will need to be made back from selling the items you manufacture, so when buying these BPO's research how much you will make off each item and how long it would take to break even.

Oh, and 1 hint that most people getting into research/manufacturing sometimes dont realize at first. You can queue up your research / manufacturing jobs on top of existing jobs in stations. Meaning you do not need to find a "free" (open slot). Since nearly every material research and copy installation will be in use you will want to find one that has the least amount of time for current jobs. Once you find one you want to use your job will be queued up behind it. So for example if you have a copy job that will take 10 days, you find a copy installation with only 5 days left you can queue up your job which will be pending for 5 days, and in progress for 10 days, with a total of 15 days to complete.

As it did me, since I'm looking to try my hand at industry now, after I've played EVE for 3 years. So thanks from me too.