Science & Industry

One big thing people overlook with a market alt is standings - the tax applied is massive and only having good standings makes it go away

That being said reprocessing is VERY VERY skill intensive now, so, especially if you are in high sec, just buy the minerals

Producing carriers requires A LOT of work, and probably should learn the ropes first, with almost anything

As far as what to produce find or make some spreadsheets and see what is profitable

I am sure there are noob friendly indy corps, either forums or in game adverts might help you find them

Most people start with ammo and frigates

You probably won't be competitive in Jita, but you can be competitive on some of the fringe markets

Invention is very skill intensive and when you start ammo is also a great place to start and you should have the BPO's from your T1 start

I'll try to answer your questions directly as best I can.

1) (a) Trade skills are essential. Taxes and fees are an isk sink and you can't compete well on the market without the ones that limit the skinks all being at level 5. This MUST be done. just do it. In my case I also chose to increase the number of slots to "tycoon" level 4 although in practice I seldom have more than 100 buy/sell orders up at one time. Other trade skills like ranged buying and selling are not really interesting for manufactures after about the 5 jump level.

(b) As for skilling your industry character. You will *need* advanced lab to level 4 and advanced manufacturing to level 4. Advanced industry should be to level 4 or 5 as well. I

(a) and (b) are pretty much requirements.

(c) after that, look at what blue prints you want to invent and just train your character for that particular blue print. Use evemon. Train everything to level 4 or 5.

rinse and repeat. As you go, train for the particular blueprint you want to make/run.

(note) refining, compression etc. are not manufacturing skills. Those are mining skills. You said you don't want to mine so you don't need to train that.

2) selling BPC's can be profitable. Selling finished product is usually more profitable, but also a little more involved. The earlier you cash out in the production chain, the less profit you'll make, as a rule.

3) invention/manfuacturing pays well as compared to the amount of time you need to put into it. It's more or less on par with null sec ratting although the scale-up options are different. With ratting you can make more isk by putting in more time. With manufacturing the amount of time you can put in is limited so you need to scale up with duplication.

The rest of your questions are about mechanics and the practical aspects of how not to throw away isk. If you're really interested in manufacturing as an occupation, what I can say to you is that there are good corps out there who will train you and teach you the ropes. It's not rocket science, although I'm happy that most non-manufacturers think that it is ;)

T-

POS was a solution, but what was the problem? Do you remember or are you newer than that? (hint: POS is no longer a requirement for the little guy because of the Cirius patch, but do you understand why...?)

As for ammo. T2 Ammo can be very lucrative *depending* on where you sell it, but it's a hard item to make enough of becuase the manufacture times are very long. If you live in nullsec or you ship it to a mission hub and sell it for a premium you can make a good income. If you're making it in Perimeter and selling it in Jita then you're not going to get rich on it. Me? If I were living in nullsec, I would buy it in Jita and ship it, as opposed to making it.

Here's another idea:

Question: what module does virtually every ship in EVE have?

Let that sink in and then run the number when you have a short list. (I'm not being evasive, I'm teaching you how to think as opposed to just giving you the answer). There are a few modules that have huge demand and even the combined efforts of everyone who makes them isn't enough to shrink the margins to zero.

On a related note:
- which modules do most shield tanking ships in eve have?
- most armor taking ships?
- which rigs (yes, even easier to make and HUGELY profitable)?

If you're looking to churn isk, then look at high volume items by thinking like this. Some will be profitable, some will not. You can use a simple tool like http://www.eve-cost.eu/ to get a rough idea what it will cost to make a given item (AFTER you have created the blue print and BEFORE the production taxes). Use the jita market to see if that number makes you hard or not.

T-

A POS is great for ore compression, but as a previous poster said, that is not industry. It could make a lot of money for you if you don't mind running a POS and hauling ore around.

For science or industry, the POS is not strictly needed. While a POS does decrease input costs slightly, its main benefit is that it lets you build things faster. Until you are nearly using your character's full capacity, you don't really need a POS. Even then, it might be more cost-efficient for you to train a second character to Advanced Mass Production 4, Advanced Laboratory Operations 4 than to set up a tower. If you get big enough, you will eventually find the need for one.


I would not recommend trying to break into the researched BPO market now. 6 weeks ago, 99% of the BPOs in player's hands suddenly turned into perfect/perfect prints. You cannot really compete with people who own pre-existing BPOs since research time and cost is much higher now after Crius.


You could start with ammo. It is very simple and cheap to get started. It will teach you the interface and the basics of manufacturing. It is also almost impossible to lose money. However, it is very terrible isk per hour.

The best thing to build is what is in demand where you are. Demand is generated by PVP. What do players lose and need to replace in your area?


My recommendation for a skill plan:
First the skills in the Trade tab. Start playing the market to find out what you can sell. This will help you choose which blueprints to pick up.
Second, T1 manufacturing skills: Industry, Mass Production, Advanced Industry, Advanced Mass Production.

Laboratory Operation and Advanced Laboratory Operation let you research blueprints. Research and Metallurgy help you research them faster. But it will be faster and perhaps not too expensive to purchase blueprints researched by other people. So check out contracts and do the math before you decide to buy a blueprint and research it for 3 months.

For invention and T2 module production you need the above Advanced Laboratory Operation. Then you need 4 encryption skills and 17 datacore skills. Each item you make will require one encryption skill and 2 datacore skills. So figure out what you want to build first to prioritize skill training. Level 3 of each is sufficient to begin. Then get them to level 4. The benefit for level 5 is not worth the training time at this point. Perhaps that will change with the invention overhaul that has been announced.

For T2 ship production, you need the above and then add Frigate Construction, Cruiser Construction, Battleship Construction, etc, to whatever level is required by the blueprint.

T3 production is like T2 production except you need a supply of relics to reverse engineer. That means either living in a wormhole or buying from people who do.

Building capitals is just like T1 manufacturing except that you go through two steps to build the components first and then the ship. Getting enough minerals and getting them where they need to be is your biggest problem. The skills you need are: Capital Construction, Veldspar Processing, Scordite Processing, Pyroxeres Processing, Plagioclase Processing, Omber Processing, Kernite Processing, etc.

While demand is created by PVP, as a beginner who builds ammo it is easier to focus on the demand created by PVE first.
Just look on dotlan for a nice system with many npc kills (usually with level 4 security agents) and set up your ammo store there, supplying the ammo with the damage type best used against the local npcs.

I recommend to start from BPCs- you can buy perfectly researched, high run ammo BPCs via contract from Jita for a very reasonable price.
The real money starts with T2 manufacturing /invention however, so you should strive to train all of the science skills up to at least rank 3. Rank 4 is pretty good already, rank 5 I would only recommend for very frequently used skills like Mechanical Engineering.

Get all the BPOs of the ship parts (stuff like Fernite Carbide Armor Plates or Laser Focusing Crystals) and research them all to perfect levels (goes pretty fast).

Then start inventing and going for the real money.
T2 ammo usually sells good (not all of it, but Scorch crystals for example are always a sure bet), as well as T2 weapons.
T2 shipbuilding is a little more complicated and has often a smaller profit margin, so I would suggest to stick with weapons and ammo for a while until you feel it is time to further expand your business.

Thank you all again for the advice!!

My main is in a low-sec PVP alliance that isn't too far from a major trade hub so I have already started buying low in the hubs and supplying to the market the items that are most used with some of them having some significant profit margins which are rather impressive. I looked at a few of the BPO's for some of those modules and I was honestly shocked at how cheap quite a few of them were for the modules. I honestly may look into the total production cost of those items and start manufacturing them if I can do it for significantly less than I set buy orders on the market for.

Thanks again for the advice folks! It is much appreciated.

And Tinu, thanks for the ideas mate, didn't even think to start there but I am catching what you are throwing! There are quite a few modules that almost all of our ships have, especially doctrine fits!

Thanks again!!

T2 BPO's were only given to the top 100 (?) people sorted by number of datacores. Or something like that. Impossible to get them now without buying.

Check out http://games.chruker.dk/eve_online/invention_chance.php for Invention chances and then use eve central to get prices.

You can only invent copies (invention is T1 BPC + data cores + interface = chance of obtainig a T2BPC). You don't use a BPO for invention.

Blueprint copies cannot be researched further (that goes for T1 and T2), only the originals can have their ME and TE researched. You cannot produce BPOs by any means, they're seeded on the market (the T1 ones, the T2 aren't obtainable any longer)