Science & Industry

Well, nobody has bitten yet, so I'll take a stab.

Can you narrow your focus down to what you are sort of wanting to focus on ? What kind of mods, or rigs, or ships, etc.?

Your asking one of those really really broad questions that are frankly hard to answer, like those who ask "How do I set up the most optimal PI system ?"

Not interested in ship production. Mostly leaning toward PVE modules, plus drones and ammo, as the volumes seem good. Players will always run missions, so the market is certainly there.

I've trained some invention-related skills on an alt: hydromagnetic/quantum for shield mods, mech/elect engineering for combat drones, nanite engineering (found the book somewhere). For now, maybe I'll just focus on modules within these trained skills. Shield extenders/hardeners/boosts for example.

I'm using the wikipedia chart cross-referencing pairs of invention skills and what they can produce. For example, looking at Explosive Deflection Field II - big split right now, with decent volume over time. However, there are several sell orders for over 250 units with high prices. I would think that one of those guys would drop the price a bit to generate some sales, or somebody would be making more units to take advantage of the opportunity. I'm thinking there may be some market manipulation here, or am I missing something?

Use Eve IPH or a similar tool to identify modules with good profit margins.

Don't worry about long term production. Module BPOs are cheap. You don't need to research BPOs for invention. Build whatever is profitable under current market conditions, then move on when the market shifts.

Trying to limit yourself to a small subset of science skills probably won't work in the long run. You need to be able to build whatever is profitable.

If you want a starting point, you might start with T2 drones. All drones take the same 3 science skills to invent. There is always a huge market for hobgoblin IIs. You don't make a lot of profit on each one, but you can sell a ton of them without flooding the market.

Bump for T2 drones, you can make hundreds every day and they are all sold when you log in the next day, you can make atleast couple runs each day.
EVEIPH is great tool to check specific items, just make list of T2 items over certain SVR there and check which would be your item to make, minimal marketresearch needed so good info already from previous posters.

I like to sit down and work out how much it should cost me to invent and produce various items and then compare that to how much they are currently selling for.

If they're selling for more than my estimates of cost, then I'll make them.

As for manipulation, look at sale history\other region prices for things.

Yeah drones are really good if you will be logged on when they complete, IIRC light drones make a good 300k-400k per production line per hour and heavies are not much less. They do, however, require a ridiculous amount of micromanagement.

Until recently my top profit lines were 1600mm tech 2 armor plates and tech 2 active armor hardeners, however the market on both of those has crashed hard lately and I've stopped building them at all.

It also depends on your target market.

Most organized/larger alliances have a very strong internal market. Even though my alliance isn't the largest or most powerful, there is still a strong need for certain commodities. Your alliance/coalition has set doctrines (certain ships with certain ship fittings) which makes it easier for you to decide what you should make because you already know what will be in demand. So, it's pretty easy for me to decide what to produce because there is a constant demand and a smaller amount of suppliers.

Even if you can't make everything, it's really easy for a marketeer or industrialist to make money by simply moving things from point A (Jita, or whatever) to point B (alliance's rally point) and slightly marking up the products.

People have different tastes, but my over-arching thought is: why compete in a largely competitive environment serving strangers when you can supply a lesser competitive market, serve your allies, and still make lots of money?

Now, if you don't have access to an internal market and you're serious about supply chain management, we should talk. Throw me an evemail. Can always use more market and contract seeders.