Science & Industry

With ships you generally are better off making 1 run copies, and targeting the best ME you can get. With components you are generally best off not using decriptors at all.

T2 frigates are a little more forgiving here, but when you get into larger ships the difference between ME -3 and ME-1 is way more important than number of runs. Having a ship BPO ith 9 runs does you no good if the ME level makes the build unprofitable. The cost of invention is minor compared to what to costs of extra T2 mats can make.

As I said the difference is small dealing with T2 frigates, but can be hundreds of millions or even over a billion on a jump freighter.

Generally anything Me -3 or better is profitable, even if only slightly. But even with building T2 frigates, a ME -1 single run BPC is better profit than ME -3 9 run BPC's. Even after factoring in the cost of invention for the extra 8 BPC's.

You really need to set up a spreadsheet and run the numbers.

Generally I have found that ships under 75M are cheapest with NO decryptor and ones over 125M are cheapest with a +2 or +3 ME decryptor. The ones which give more than 3 runs rarely (never?) give efficient cost numbers for sub-cap ships. I have never looked at numbers for jump freighters.

There are certainly ships for which the +9 run decryptors are profitable. Zealots currently look good. Based on my spreadsheet numbers.

A single Omen invention run costs $1.3mil per invention run and has a 29.6% chance of succeeding and producing a -4/-4 BPC. That zealot would then cost $138mil to produce and yield a ship worth $162mil (although that spiked this weekend... it'll go back to that within two weeks).

So put that all together and you get an EV of $5.8mil per invention attempt

Now do it with a Circular Logic

Costs $3mil to invent. Has a 17.8% success chance and produces a pretty crappy -6/-3 BPC. But that BPC will have 9 runs to it. Those ships cost $155mil apiece and yield the same $162mil. Total profit is $63mil for an EV per invention attempt of $7.4mil.

With the spike in zealot values, those numbers look even better for the +9 run decryptor.

It's all about finding your niche.

The ones that get me are the 1.8 probability decryptors... I rarely find any reason to use them and even when I do, there's something else that's ALMOST as good.

The throughput speed is a separate issue... if you're on ALOT, building things with lower times generally is better... if you're like me and on basically once a day at night, having things that take 1-2 days is pretty nice.

It's worth noting that
A) the +9run decryptors yield 9 run BPCs (unless you're foolish enough to use max run ship BPCs... which is... let's just say... crazy)
B) The +1 PL you get is a nice bonus (albeit recognizing that all the other decryptors give even more)
C) Have you TRIED building ammo... talk about long production runs!
D) The decryptor prices really matter... as does your balance of copy slots to invention slots... if you're hi-sec inventing without a POS, your Omen BPCs are going to be precious commodities... ABSOLUTELY you should use Sacred Manifesto (heck, right now the War Strategon is also economically viable)... if you're inventing with a POS, copy slots are much less of an issue so you can blow the BPCs to get the best profit (which, right now, is a toss-up between Circular Logic and War Strategon... both of which grant negative ML).

I'll buy every -6/-3, 9run zealot BPCs you've got for 30mil... they should cost you ~15mil to invent (roughly 3mil per attempt with just less than a 20% chance at success)... that's a double profit for you... Just contract them to me for 30mil each and I'll put my isk where my mouth is ;)