Science & Industry

1 - You will need to not only move minerals, PI mats, T2 BPCs, T1 variations of items, etc etc around for manufacturing if you used this option. You'll basically be doing the same exact thing as you would be with a POS, the only difference is you will have unlimited slots in a POS (well limited to how many arrays you setup) and will have the costs of fuel (and 1 time cost of POS items).

2 - Not only do you get an increase in invention speed, but in manufacturing speed.
Here is an example.

Using your 80 slots you currently have and manufacturing a T2 10 run module BPC that takes 30 hours to manufacture and a profit of 200,000 isk each unit (1m isk for all 10).

At 720 hours in a month each slot can manufacture 24 runs. At 80 slots that is 1,920 total runs of 10 units, or a total of 19,200 modules. With a 30% increase in manufacturing at a POS this means you will manufacture 5,760 units more per month, or 1,152,000,000 isk / month profit. After POS fuel costs that is roughly 700M isk / month profit manufacturing in a POS.

I build modules and T2 components at a POS. Having a private supply of manufacturing slots will also allow you to do more precise production planning. No more watching a production cycle get staggered over several days because of waiting times.

A large Caldari tower will allow you to fit 4 mobile labs (basically for 20 invention jobs at a time; also for ME/PE research), 6 advanced labs (mostly for the 18 copy slots), a hangar array and 11 manufacturing arrays of any type. Having the manufacturing arrays set up as 3 component arrays and 8 module manufacturing arrays is probably right. This will allow you to have 40 T2 manufacturing jobs running while having the other slots do things like T1 module, RAM or T2 component building. With some juggling you should even be able to run T2 module building cycles while simultaneously building T2 ships (the shipbuilding gets done in a station, components and RAM at the POS) or capitals (at a remote lowsec office). You probably will not be able to keep the factories fed 24/7 until you have about 120 job slots. Expect to run 300 or more invention jobs per week, possibly over 500.

A medium POS will allow you to mount about half of each module type listed above. 70 manufacturing slots should allow you to keep the factories ticking over 24/7. Getting enough BPCs and running through enough inventions to keep everything ticking may become a headache and don't expect to run a capital copy shop on the side.

Having a freighter to keep the factories fed is pretty much mandatory though moving out T2 end products can generally be done with a blockade runner. Keeping a spare toon (a copy slave) at the POS to shift materials between arrays makes things a lot easier than having someone fly out from your office station. Always assume you'll be buying all materials (datacores, minerals, advanced materials, PI goods) from the market. Build your own fuel blocks from market or homebrew PI materials. Figuring out how to get materials for capitals into lowsec is left as an exercise for the reader.

A PI-like setup would be ideal. No storage on the labs/arrays themselves, but you can set them to pull their materials from a central hangar and send the results somewhere. I know the reaction setup is godawful, but when it's rewritten, you could reuse that code for this, as well.

In general, I think the game could use more automatic routing of local stuff. Having to babysit labs and assembly arrays adds nothing to the game other than a time sink. If I could spend less time on shuffling things around my POS, I'd have more time to do the fun stuff like working my market orders or blowing things up.

And, yes, for the love of all that is holy, please reduce the face-smashing clickfest that is Invention. Let us kick off multiple invention or manufacturing jobs at once!

425mm rail gun I's and a blockade runner works pretty well for me

Gratitude to all the people who responded

I've come to the following opinion - if I could be bothered to partake even more in the revolting click-fest orgy that is Eve invention and manufacturing, a 'build' capability at a POS is probably worth it with enough volume.

In the past, I've been the gun mining mission runner, and the anomoly running nullbear. I've sat in barges and munched rocks, couriered and traded and honestly its more boring that a wet weekend holiday with Germans. Indy is no more exciting but it seems to be the only thing keeping me from unsubbing 6 accounts.

CCP need to do something to make the click fest suck less.

They manufacture in 3/4s the time, as some have already pointed out. Time is money, and your production will increase by 33% by using them. If that outweighs your fuel cost, good for you. Keep in mind, however, that the fuel costs do decrease the profit margin. In the end, this works out for slower-to-manufacture items, as they generally have wider profit margins. A small POS will cost about 3 million a day, a medium one 6 million, and a large one 12 million. If you manufacture ten products at once, each with a profit of 100,000 ISK per hour in a normal station, you will make about 7.2 million ISK more per day in a POS than in a station, which would make up for the fuel costs of a small or medium POS, but not a large one. Of course, the larger the POS the less inclined people are to wardec it and the more you can get out of it. If you want research slots, there is always that as well. Tech 2 manufacturing generally produces more ISK per hour but requires lab slots, in which case there is no alternative to a POS.