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Blueprints. What purpose do they have?
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dov iday
Science and Trade Institute
Caldari State
#1 - 2015-02-06 07:44:39 UTC
Hey everyone.

Googled and searched, couldn't find me an answer so I feel like a bit of an idiot asking this question, but here it goes anyway.

The following goes for all blueprints i've found in every system:

- they cost at least 3 or 4 times as much as the part they produce, so they aren't a cheap alternative to buying the actual part

- the sale price of the resources needed to build a single item of any given blueprint far outweighs the price of selling the item that those resources combine to produce, so blueprints aren't profitable, either.

Now the question - if blueprints make you less money than simply selling the ores required for them, and they are FAR more expensive than the actual item they make - what is the point of them?

I just don't understand why anyone would waste thier ISK and ore on them. Am I missing something? I honestly thought that most of them would be free, and you have to put in effort mining instead of ISK to build them, but no - to me this system is pointless.
Seliah
Red Cloud Vigil
#2 - 2015-02-06 08:18:39 UTC  |  Edited by: Seliah
There are two types of blueprints : originals (BPO) and copies (BPC). If you bought blueprints straight off the market, they're going to be BPO's, which means you can use them an infinite amount of times (as opposed to BPC's, which have a limited amount of runs). That's probably why they're more expensive than the item itself.

As for the cost of manufacturing the item vs just buying it, you might want to research your blueprint's material efficiency to reduce the amount of materials needed to manufacture the item, and train up your skills so you're more efficient at building things. And then it'll probably become cheaper to manufacture your item rather than just sell the components.
erg cz
Federal Jegerouns
#3 - 2015-02-06 08:24:11 UTC  |  Edited by: erg cz
dov iday wrote:

if blueprints make you less money than simply selling the ores required for them, and they are FAR more expensive than the actual item they make - what is the point of them?


As already posted there are blueprints original and blueprints copies. Blueprint originals can be used infinite times to produce what you need. So you pay once and use many times later. Properly researched blueprints significantly reduce the amount of minerals, needed to produce stuff.
Many ppl mine semi-AFK and tend to see the retrieved ore as "free". So they have BPO, they have minerals from "free" ORE and can launch production. They sleep - their production lines makes ISK. Passive income, so to say.

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Erika Mizune
Lucifer's Hammer
A Band Apart.
#4 - 2015-02-06 08:51:12 UTC
Exactly, You have you have your two types of blueprints, BPOs and BPCs. The copies are going to be cheaper than the actual ship/part because they are just that, a copy. Each copy has a max number of runs that you can do. It will tell you on the information box what the run limit is.

Originals, the ones you buy off market, are unlimited. You can basically get out there and mine your ore and build your stuff yourself without really paying anything. To make blueprints more efficient/profitable, you can add material research, which cuts down the amount of minerals you need (up to 10% reduction) for that job, which does help.

There is a bunch of information also here as well:

https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Blueprint

If you want to check it out. I hope all that helps you :)

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Xercodo
Cruor Angelicus
#5 - 2015-02-06 09:01:31 UTC
BPOs are a significant investment and after having evaluating how much money you can make from selling the parts you can figure out a time frame for Return on Investment.

Likewise the same has to be done for a POS since POSes have many potential functions, but among them is the ability to
A) Build things with BPs with less material cost
B) Let you build in a system where there's no manufacture stations
C) Let you compress ore to be shipped to a more opportune manufacture location
D) Research the BPOs you have to reduce their material requirements, reduce their time to build, and make copies to use in invention (to get T2 BPCs) and copies to sell to others that dont want to invest in a full BPO. You can even charge a premium on your copies since they inherit the material and time research level from the original they were copied from.

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Elena Thiesant
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#6 - 2015-02-06 09:32:50 UTC
dov iday wrote:
- they cost at least 3 or 4 times as much as the part they produce, so they aren't a cheap alternative to buying the actual part


Well, one thing you're missing is that EVE has a player-run economy. Someone has to build those actual parts or they wouldn't be on the market. The modules and ships that you see on the market aren't sold by NPCs, they don't materialise out of thin air. They were built, by other players, using blueprints and materials.
Sabriz Adoudel
Move along there is nothing here
#7 - 2015-02-06 11:18:25 UTC
OP - Just an example of how research helps.

Look up the blueprint "Crystalline Carbonide Armor Plate" (this item is used in large quantities to build tech 2 Gallente ships).

Building 10000 CCAPs in the (quiet) system Ney will, according to this tool: https://www.fuzzwork.co.uk/blueprint/ - make you a mere ten thousand ISK if you haven't researched your blueprint. And that takes two days.

Research it, however, and you can make your 10000 CCAPs for over ten million ISK less, and as such realise a profit from them.

Research is somewhat necessary for blueprints to be of any real use. Just remember - a blueprint is an investment in working capital, and is a long term purchase.Usually you will need to build a lot from it to break even on buying it.

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Chal0ner
Hideaway Hunters
The Hideaway.
#8 - 2015-02-06 12:04:29 UTC  |  Edited by: Chal0ner
Seliah wrote:
There are two types of blueprints : originals (BPO) and copies (BPC). If you bought blueprints straight off the market, they're going to be BPO's, which means you can use them an infinite amount of times (as opposed to BPC's, which have a limited amount of runs). That's probably why they're more expensive than the item itself.

As for the cost of manufacturing the item vs just buying it, you might want to research your blueprint's material efficiency to reduce the amount of materials needed to manufacture the item, and train up your skills so you're more efficient at building things. And then it'll probably become cheaper to manufacture your item rather than just sell the components.


The one scenario I see where this isn't necessary is first week items. I remember e.g. when the Noctis was released, you could grab the bp and start building the ship from an unresearched bp and sell to ridiculous prices becasue everyone and their dogs wanted one. You'd recuperate the investment in the bp the minute you sold the first ship. Kept up like that for the first week.

Same with the mobile salvager, and most recently same with the Confessor.
It will no doubt be the same with Smeagol .... sorry Svigul (or however it's spellt).

Of course, once the first wave of customers are satisfied you need to start research the bps or you'd lose everything you made from that first wave.
Elena Thiesant
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#9 - 2015-02-06 12:09:17 UTC
Chal0ner wrote:
Same with the mobile salvager, and most recently same with the Confessor.
It will no doubt be the same with Smeagol .... sorry Svigul (or however it's spellt).

Of course, once the first wave of customers are satisfied you need to start research the bps or you'd lose everything you made from that first wave.


Mostly, except that you can't research the Confessor or Svigul BPCs, they're invented from sleeper components and there are no BPOs, so no material research is possible.
dov iday
Science and Trade Institute
Caldari State
#10 - 2015-02-06 14:49:40 UTC
Ahhh the devil lies in the research!!

Thank you very much for all of your input, asked and answered :)
Elena Thiesant
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#11 - 2015-02-06 15:04:21 UTC
dov iday wrote:
Ahhh the devil lies in the research!!


Which is why researched BPOs, which you buy on contract from other players, cost more than the ones you get from the market.
Seliah
Red Cloud Vigil
#12 - 2015-02-06 15:09:15 UTC
It can be worth buying a T1 ship BPO and research it a bit so you can manufacture your own ships, or sell ships at a profit to earn some ISK.

For modules, the vast majority of modules used are T2, which require an additional process (called Invention) to be manufactured, which is a bit skill-heavy, so not a good plan to get started I guess.

Manufacturing consumables like Ammo and Cap boosters can also be something worth looking at, at least for your own usage, if you're looking to save some ISK here and there.
Solonius Rex
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#13 - 2015-02-06 15:41:57 UTC
dov iday wrote:
Hey everyone.

Googled and searched, couldn't find me an answer so I feel like a bit of an idiot asking this question, but here it goes anyway.

The following goes for all blueprints i've found in every system:

- they cost at least 3 or 4 times as much as the part they produce, so they aren't a cheap alternative to buying the actual part

- the sale price of the resources needed to build a single item of any given blueprint far outweighs the price of selling the item that those resources combine to produce, so blueprints aren't profitable, either.

Now the question - if blueprints make you less money than simply selling the ores required for them, and they are FAR more expensive than the actual item they make - what is the point of them?

I just don't understand why anyone would waste thier ISK and ore on them. Am I missing something? I honestly thought that most of them would be free, and you have to put in effort mining instead of ISK to build them, but no - to me this system is pointless.


They are, for the most part, and depending on the BPC, useless.

If the cost of building it is 3-4 times the amount they are selling for, then no amount of research will help. The item is probably an extremely niche item, that no one wants to buy.

Try looking at https://eve-central.com/, and checking whether there is someone willing to buy it. But otherwise, they are probably not worth making.
J'Poll
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#14 - 2015-02-06 16:09:55 UTC
dov iday wrote:
Hey everyone.

Googled and searched, couldn't find me an answer so I feel like a bit of an idiot asking this question, but here it goes anyway.

The following goes for all blueprints i've found in every system:

- they cost at least 3 or 4 times as much as the part they produce, so they aren't a cheap alternative to buying the actual part

- the sale price of the resources needed to build a single item of any given blueprint far outweighs the price of selling the item that those resources combine to produce, so blueprints aren't profitable, either.

Now the question - if blueprints make you less money than simply selling the ores required for them, and they are FAR more expensive than the actual item they make - what is the point of them?

I just don't understand why anyone would waste thier ISK and ore on them. Am I missing something? I honestly thought that most of them would be free, and you have to put in effort mining instead of ISK to build them, but no - to me this system is pointless.


A.

If you look on the market, those are BPO (BluePrint Originals), you can make UNLIMITED amounts of that item with it. So, the cost of the blueprint is spread over the amount of items you want it to be, to break even.


B.

Cost to build something >>> Keep in mind, you are low skilled, you are competing with max skilled industrialist players. They can build the stuff cheaper, they have a more stable, high volume production line, they use researched blueprints.

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Inxentas Ultramar
Ultramar Independent Contracting
#15 - 2015-02-07 00:46:02 UTC
Sometimes, making ISK isnt even a factor, but saving it is.

80% of what I fly has the same cookie-cutter rigs. The BPOs of those rigs were a good investment, ISK-wise and convenience-wise.

Not every item is properly marketable, but anything can be produced. Lots of things in Eve happen so far off a trade hub the extra cost involved is a better alternative to shipping.

I have built a crapton of ancilliary-anythings because it was more cost-efficient for me to use minerals instead of ISK. I now have a nice stack to slap on PVP ships and I only had to move them 1 system through lowsec, instead of many.
Tau Cabalander
Retirement Retreat
Working Stiffs
#16 - 2015-02-07 01:27:55 UTC  |  Edited by: Tau Cabalander
dov iday wrote:
I just don't understand why anyone would waste thier ISK and ore on them. Am I missing something? I honestly thought that most of them would be free, and you have to put in effort mining instead of ISK to build them, but no - to me this system is pointless.

I've probably got over 80 billion ISK worth of T1 BPO. I lost count of the actual value at least 2 years ago, so it could be a lot more, as BPO prices went up.

The majority of my BPO have not returned their value, but those that have, have done so with gusto (e.g. enough to buy over 80 billion ISK of BPO).

The trick would be to know which ones are profitable, and pass the others over.

However, I do consider myself a collector of BPO (Pokemon: "Gotta catch'em all!"), so I even cherish the duds.

And a large collection does allow me to switch production whenever the market changes.

BPO are also reasonably good investment for maintaining their value, if you can find a buyer. Of course there are more lucrative investments.

CCP also sees BPO as an ISK sink. One of the few left.

EDIT: Cap charges are also more convenient to build on site than to haul, as the BPO and minerals are smaller volume.
Chainsaw Plankton
FaDoyToy
#17 - 2015-02-07 07:31:27 UTC
I made a good bit of isk on my BPOs back when I bought them. On second thought that might have been on BPCs I purchased even before I bought my BPOs. then I have a few bpos I purchased and then researched, and well, never even got around to producing.

with the multiple character training I mostly made research alts, so I have every frig/dessy and most cruiser bpos in research right now. I feel like worst case I just start making blue print copies and selling them. I will say I found that the logistics involved in battleship construction got annoying rather quickly.

people get stuck up on the whole manufacturing vs trading profits discussion. yea, well whatever, I made isk

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