EVE New Citizens Q&A

So I've been exploring in low-sec, hacked a few sites and found a couple of blueprints. I suppose my question is how do I go about selling these as I can't work out how to sell them through the market in the normal way? Is it through contracts and is there a way to tell how much they should be selling for?

Right click the BPC and select "Find in Contracts", make sure you have the global setting on for all regions. You will likely find several similar BPCs on sale in the main trade hubs like Jita. Unlike the market where you are limited to the region, you can view contracts throughout New Eden.

You cannot list BPCs on the market, only BPOs that haven't been researched - ones that appear with the packaged symbol, once that symbol is gone you are limited to contracts.

Be aware that all BPCs for a certain product, while at face value appear the same, can actually vary enormously. Like the above poster says they may have different number of runs and they may have different research levels in both ME and PE, you have to view each contract to get the specifics.

Judging the value of the BPC - the lazy way is to look at the others as near as possible in terms of runs, ME and PE value as the one you have and undercut them by 1 Isk.

The more technical way. Is to look at the materials list to produce each run. Calculate the cost of those materials, compare that cost to the market price of the finished product and the difference, times the number of runs, is the theoretic value of the BPC.

You may be shocked to find that a lot of the theoretic values are negative. A lot of useless BPCs drop. The cosmos missions are notorious for dropping or rewarding with useless storyline module BPCs, that cost an absolute fortune to build and are worse or identical to T2 costing a fraction of the price.

If you do find a BPC that is theoretically worth something, then compare it to the price being offered in competing contracts. Some of those contracts will be ridiculously over or under priced. That leads to opportunity. Buy up the under priced ones and resell or build them and sell the finished product. If only over priced ones are available you can afford to over price yours a bit. Some people will pay over the odds for the convenience of carrying a BPC rather than the finished product and building it locally.

The biggest problem with contract is that they expire after 2 weeks (max) and you pay a deposit for public contracts which you lose if they don't sell. If you have a contract that is theoretically worth something, sometimes it is better to simply build the product and list them on the market, which you can leave virtually indefinitely. But there is a proviso to this, don't take the market price of the finished product as gospel, some items, cosmos items come to mind again, where so few are built that the listed price is often skewed out of their true value. Check the market history of a product to make sure that it does actually sell in reasonable quantities and for the price history.

Major Trant's answer is better, but to make it quick & easy for you:


If the items are worth anything, I think you'll probably make the highest profit by manufacturing the items yourself.


You can use websites such as this one: https://zofu.no-ip.de/bpo to get a quick idea of manufacturing costs. Also check that you have or can train the required skills to manufacture (usually quick and easy level 1 skills).

If market price > manufacturing costs + at least a 10% or so margin, buy the materials, manufacture the items, sell them.

If not, the bpc is probably worthless anyway.

Capital Gravity Capacitor is a "favourite" of mine. [Totally useless. Perfect for a probe Phoenix though (fail + fail).]

I'd personally pay no more than 16-17 mil max for that but yup, you got your maths right!

Also, welcome to FW!

Here's my suggestion to value blueprints you find or steal.


Blueprint Copies:

Firstly, go to fuzzwork.co.uk (an EVE fansite) and bring up the Blueprint Calculator.

Next, enter in its actual material efficiency and production efficiency ratings, and assume that skills are 5 (even if your skills are lower). Note that if it is a Tech 2 blueprint for a rig, you will need to change the ME/PE from the default -4 to the actual value (0).

Next, look at how much the item costs to build, and how much it sells for on that sheet, and the difference. Then, multiply this by the number of runs, and reduce it by 150 000 ISK per production line hour required to produce it in a POS.



Example:

You carry out a corp theft and in doing so, steal a Rattlesnake blueprint (1 run, ME 0, PE 0). (Rattlesnake prices are in flux right now; I am going by prices as at the exact time of this post).

These are one of the most valuable BPCs in the game.

Production cost: 148,410,408.44
Rattlesnake value: 582,222,221.22

Net value of BPC, excluding production time: 433,811,812.78
Time requirement: 3 production line hours
Time value: 450,000 ISK
Overall BPC value (to a willing but not anxious buyer): 433,361,812.78 (I would ask 430m).


Be aware that this will be less than zero for items of very low interest (such as tech 2 rigs that improve the speed of drones on a frigate, or many other items).




BPOs: These are harder to evaluate. I generally check what the major in-game sellers of BPOs would ask for the BPO in question at its present research level, and undercut that. Tech 2 BPOs are extremely valuable, if you ever steal one of those you are on a goldmine.