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Building capital ships from BPCs
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Kolmogorow
Freedom Resources
#1 - 2012-01-03 21:46:42 UTC  |  Edited by: Kolmogorow
Yesterday I calculated the costs to build a Freighter (Fenrir as an example) from BPCs - capital component BPCs and Freighter BPC as well. Result:

- around 790 Mil ISK in minerals based on top (or almost top) buy order prices in Essence region with well researched BPCs
- around 250 Mil ISK for a full Fenrir BPC pack on contract market

Total costs: 1040 Mil ISK

Now, the current price for built Fenrir on the market in Essence is 840 Mil ISK.

I didn't check other regions like Forge. I guess this loss of 200 Mil ISK would be smaller, but cannot imagine that it disappears or turns into a win, does it?

Questions:

1) Is this situation that building Freighters is only a business for BPO owners "normal"? Does it exist since a longer time? I remember that I had done this calculation long time ago with a positive result (=builiding from BPCs was cheaper than buying the ship).

2) Is it the same situation for other capital ship classes?

3) Does the calculation look wrong? (I'm not sure, I did it by hand.)

4) Who the hell buys Freighter BPCs instead of the Freighter?

Update

I've confirmed the mineral prices with this capital ship online calculator:

http://eve.smith-net.org.uk/index.php?c=cap

If I use current Essence mineral prices and ME 5 for the Freighter and ME 200 for the component BPCs I get 796 Mil ISK. Using EVE-Central mineral prices reduces the costs to 741 Mil ISK though.

Fenrir BPC packs are currently for 220 Mil ISK on the contract market.

Total costs are still way beyond the 840 Mil ISK for a built Fenrir.
Tau Cabalander
Retirement Retreat
Working Stiffs
#2 - 2012-01-03 22:06:28 UTC  |  Edited by: Tau Cabalander
Kolmogorow wrote:
4) Who the hell buys Freighter BPCs instead of the Freighter?

Just the freighter BPC: it takes about 42 days to make a copy, and there is about a 42% chance of invention success.

It isn't all about cost. BPC packs are useful for the do-it-yourself crowd. They often approach it as a long-term goal.

Carriers, dreads, and Rorquals are also built in C1-C4 wormholes.

I built my first Drake and Raven. Lost the Raven (one day later), but still have the Drake. Built a Rorqual in a C2, and self-destructed it for the insurance before leaving (bought second Rorqual and moved it into C5).
RubyPorto
RubysRhymes
#3 - 2012-01-04 00:55:00 UTC
Kolmogorow wrote:

2) Is it the same situation for other capital ship classes?


No. Especially with Supers, whose BPCs are laughable cheap compared to BPOs (last I looked, you'd need to build ~60 Nyxes to make a BPO pay for itself compared to BPCs, and you can only do one at a time that way, so Roll)

"It's easy to speak for the silent majority. They rarely object to what you put into their mouths." -Abrazzar "the risk of having your day ruined by other people is the cornerstone with which EVE was built" -CCP Solomon
Brock Nelson
#4 - 2012-01-04 05:19:38 UTC
I would imagine that there are miners out there that have mined enough mineral to build a freighter. To a few of then, this freighter only cost them 250m (The price of BPC pack).

Signature removed, CCP Phantom
RubyPorto
RubysRhymes
#5 - 2012-01-04 05:33:51 UTC
Brock Nelson wrote:
I would imagine that there are miners out there that have mined enough mineral to build a freighter. To a few of then, this freighter only cost them 250m (The price of BPC pack).


Agreed. In Eve you can bet on Stupid and come out ahead. Works 60% of the time, Every time.

"It's easy to speak for the silent majority. They rarely object to what you put into their mouths." -Abrazzar "the risk of having your day ruined by other people is the cornerstone with which EVE was built" -CCP Solomon
Alyssa SaintCroix
Leihkasse Stammheim
#6 - 2012-01-04 06:38:47 UTC
Some people enjoy baking cakes and others would rather just run to the store and purchase one.
Mmily Ylimm
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#7 - 2012-01-04 09:25:31 UTC  |  Edited by: Mmily Ylimm
Your mineral costs seem quite a way out. I take it you have the skills to make it (ie Production Efficiency V) and the BPC had a reasonable ME? Also you can pick up freighter BPCs for alot less.

It may be worth rechecking the numbers.
RubyPorto
RubysRhymes
#8 - 2012-01-04 11:25:39 UTC
Mmily Ylimm wrote:
Your mineral costs seem quite a way out. I take it you have the skills to make it (ie Production Efficiency V) and the BPC had a reasonable ME? Also you can pick up freighter BPCs for alot less.

It may be worth rechecking the numbers.


He's buying the whole BPC pack.

A freighter BPC is ~150m

"It's easy to speak for the silent majority. They rarely object to what you put into their mouths." -Abrazzar "the risk of having your day ruined by other people is the cornerstone with which EVE was built" -CCP Solomon
Mmily Ylimm
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#9 - 2012-01-04 12:11:12 UTC
Yeah sorry I mean't the BPC pack. I see them going for around 150m usually, not 250m as the OP mentioned
Kolmogorow
Freedom Resources
#10 - 2012-01-04 12:48:18 UTC
Mmily Ylimm wrote:
Your mineral costs seem quite a way out. I take it you have the skills to make it (ie Production Efficiency V) and the BPC had a reasonable ME? Also you can pick up freighter BPCs for alot less.

It may be worth rechecking the numbers.


I did now, see the Update in my first post. Essence mineral prices are probably bad. I don't know if EVE-Central represents more or less Jita prices. A Fenrir BPC pack I could find for 220 Mil ISK. Nothing to see in the 150 Mil ISK range, but maybe one has to wait and check the contracts for a few days/weeks to pick a good occasional offer.
RubyPorto
RubysRhymes
#11 - 2012-01-04 14:08:28 UTC
If you think Freighter are underpriced, buy them and sell them higher.

If they're overpriced, build them.


Freighter production is largely run by BPO owners because it takes several times longer to copy a Freighter BPO than it does to just build off of it, and Freighters are not so terrifyingly expensive that you can't just constantly run them so long as you make a profit. When you're not going to make a profit on a build, stick it in for another level of ME instead of copying.

Freighter BPCs are mainly for Invention, and are basically priced as such.

"It's easy to speak for the silent majority. They rarely object to what you put into their mouths." -Abrazzar "the risk of having your day ruined by other people is the cornerstone with which EVE was built" -CCP Solomon
Celgar Thurn
Department 10
#12 - 2012-01-04 15:48:00 UTC
I built my own Fenrir a while back from scratch. I believe I made a financial saving at the time but I cannot be absolutely positive. I enjoy the 'crafting' part of the game so you have to take that into consideration as well.

I mined all the ore myself except for the Megacyte & Zydrine and manufactured all the various cap parts etc myself. You will need one of the more expensive skillbooks trained to be able to do this. Smile

I bought all the cap part bpcs and the Fenrir bpc separately. The Fenrir bpc was bought in Hek general area for between 40 and 45 mil isk. I bought the cap part bpcs separately on contracts at Jita. You WILL make an isk saving by buying the bpcs separately versus buying a 'BPC Pack'.

PS I am NOT of the opinion that all mined ore is free. Big smile
Tekota
The Freighter Factory
#13 - 2012-01-04 16:06:19 UTC
Typical BPC costs for freighters almost always wipe out the entire profit over Jita mineral sell prices, and often more than that. Have done for some time.

Now, prices of Fenrirs in particular are a little icky right now - the recent upswing in mineral prices naturally takes time to filter down to freighter prices and whilst Charon and Prov (and to some extent Obelisk, but the margins on that are always poor) have adjusted somewhat at the time of writing the Jita Fenrir prices still represent something of a bargain. Remember that the freighters on the market today used minerals from 20-24 days ago.

My average profit per freighter over the last 26 I've made is 92.3m - so if your BPCs are costing you more than that then it's not looking such a hot deal.

(my standard disclaimer / competition discourager: if you're thinking "wow, 92m per freighter, I gotta get me some of that", consider that profit per manufacturing slot per day really struggles to hit 3m and my rolling 30 day return on capital has varied between 1.6% and 5.9% - ie. it's pants)

That said, I have a Fenrir, a Charon and a Providence next coming out on the 7th Jan and I can probably sort you a deal (at least private contract saves 9-10m of tax and broker fees).
Salcon Cliff
Zephyr Corp
#14 - 2012-01-04 16:19:15 UTC  |  Edited by: Salcon Cliff
I also built a Fenrir about a year ago (maybe more) by buying BPCs for the ship itself and parts. At the time, I had a minor savings but just felt like doing it.

I just dug up the old spreadsheet I used to do the math, and it doesn't look like it would make sense at all currently. Even using the 'buy orders' price (assuming you would just sell to them instead of build) to keep mineral values low, the mineral values are 5% or so higher than the cost of the ship - and this is before calculating in any BPC cost. Assuming your BPC costs are accurate and current, then you would be in the hole from 200-300 million isk by building a Fenrir.

Sometimes there is a discrepancy due to changes in the game. A while back, T2 projectile ammo was all whacked due to BP material requirements and/or moon materials being 'adjusted'. The end result was that I (and many others) could sell at what appeared to be a loss based on current values, but still make more than what the materials had actually cost me (and I could not just sell the materials back to the market at a profit, since I had already manuf. my ammo). I don't think that is what happened to the fenrir, but not sure if there just might not be a lot of inventory out there that was built for a cheaper cost basis.
Velicitia
XS Tech
#15 - 2012-01-04 17:40:48 UTC
Salcon Cliff wrote:
...but not sure if there just might not be a lot of inventory out there that was built for a cheaper cost basis.


actually, it's most likely this.

Assuming the ships are ~30 days behind, the "low cost" would coincide with the fact that minerals have been steadily climbing in the past 4-6 weeks or so...

One of the bitter points of a good bittervet is the realisation that all those SP don't really do much, and that the newbie is having much more fun with what little he has. - Tippia
Nevryn Takis
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#16 - 2012-01-04 18:07:10 UTC
This issue doesn't only apply to freighters .. it also applies to other capital industrials like the orca.

By shopping around for the BPCs, and working out the best ME vs price point for the Orca BPC itself I managed to build mine for 16m under the market price at the time.
However this ignores the 40m for the capital construction skill book ..

Still I can now build any of the capital modules and some of them even at a profit taking into account the bpc cost and mineral value (and no minerals I mine are not free .. they have a value equivalent to what I can sell them for which is less than the value I can add by turning them into modules/ships)
Velicitia
XS Tech
#17 - 2012-01-04 18:25:21 UTC
Nevryn Takis wrote:
This issue doesn't only apply to freighters .. it also applies to other capital industrials like the orca.



it actually applies to all the caps... granted, if we're limiting ourselves to hisec, then the only capitals to be had are freighters or orcas.

One of the bitter points of a good bittervet is the realisation that all those SP don't really do much, and that the newbie is having much more fun with what little he has. - Tippia
Mike Ant
Worthless Carebears
The Initiative.
#18 - 2012-01-04 18:29:43 UTC
As a capital ship builder, I can only say that if you are not one of those who enjoy the do-it-yourself aspect, the best option is to buy the freighter off the market. Even with current costs, the margin of profit/loss is minimal. I could very well run missions or incursions and make the money to buy the ship quickly, but just seeing the capital ship that you spent hours on building is a pretty amazing feeling. So if your doing it strictly for costs, your better off just buying it.