Science & Industry

I don't mind about isk/effort, I am looking for max profit gain on a single character, I don't mind importing/hauling lots of materials which may take hours of my day. I don't know whether I should be having max factory planets or be using extraction. All these spreadsheets don't seem to make sense or are out of date.

Help appreciated
Take care

If your wh system has a hi sec static exit then access to trade hubs is not an issue. Most people don't update and sell PI on a daily basis as that is just too much work. Once you get enough to make a trip to market worthwhile just start checking which hi sec system your wh exits to every day to see if you are within a reasonable distance of where you want to sell. But especially check that you don't need to cross any trade route bottlenecks where lots of pirate lurk (e.g. Uedema) if you travel that day. In general wh life with a high sec static exit might mean 1-4 days delay in when you go to market -- but can also mean as little as 2-6 jumps to markets like Amarr.

IF you are going to import lots of raw materials keep in mind that you are taxed when you import as well as when yo export. So the ideal situation is when your corp owns the POCOs and can set your taxes to zero. Of course there is risk of POCOs being destroyed -- more so in normal lo sec space or NPC null than WHs or sovereign null space.

My observation is that the higher level PI manufacturing as a whole sees quite a drop off in percentage profit over raw materials. That is you invest more and more in starting mats for less and less return. Not universally true and there are alwasy times like the start of Rubicon when you see particular items skyrocket for a short period of time (thank you mobile tractors). That paired with import taxes are why most try to extract, refine and then combine 2 refined items on each planet.

The best steady profits seem to be in modest levels of combining refined materials. That often works best at level 5 of Command Center Upgrades (or level 4 with 1 factory planet importing refined mats from your other extract planets). I am sure you can do better but then your workload and time spent in spreadsheets in marketplace monitoring tends to explode (KISS fan). If you find spreadsheet and research relaxing or and enjoyable then feel free to reap max profits via more complex product mixes. But most of us would rather spend more time in game than preparing to play.

For a player just getting into PI you may want to look at POS fuel components: Coolant, Enriched uranium, oxygen or robotics. Coolant can be manufactured on gas or storm planets. Optimally enriched uraniumcan be manufactured on plasma planets. Oxygen, while profitable, takes up too much space to really be worth while. Robotics needs mechanical parts and consumer electronics. So you would need 3 planets to efficiently produce this item. There is always a demand for these items and they usually sell very fast. If you are not sure, my recommendation is for coolant. It's very easy to manufacture and gas planets are in almost every system.