Manufacturing
Manufacturing
Introduction
In the EvE universe, most items are manufactured by player characters and traded in a relatively free way in the marketplace. Students of economics will note that these markets are neither perfect nor efficient in the technical senses; volumes of many items are low enough that the market can be manipulated (and is), and supply of materials and modules is partly provided by loot drops in missions, which can be adjusted without warning by the game developers. Similarly, the developers may adjust the requirements for a manufacturing process, or increase the availability of ore, or otherwise mess in the sandbox. So it's not a bad proxy for real life at that. (All these interventions have happened within the 90 days prior to this writing.)
Nonetheless, manufacturing and selling items can provide interest and ISK profit for the careful and canny player. The player must be aware, however, that there are plenty of items which actually destroy value -- that is, there are a great number of T1 items, modules especially, that are worth less than the cost of manufacture. There are many more items which can be sold at a profit, but only in a limited volume in certain markets. Manufacture in these cases may simply be an alternative to hauling stuff between markets.
T2 manufacture is a more complex venture, requiring more skills, different materials, increased infrastructure, and good luck. Individual items are worth more, but costs are much higher as well.
T3 manufacture is more complex yet, with a different set of inputs and months of skill training to do the whole process -- but again, the potential for profit is higher. It also rates its own article, here.
Blueprints
Blueprint Orginals (BPOs) are available from the market (Blueprints) for all pure Tech 1 (Meta 0) items. They start with a Material Efficiency of 0 and a Production Efficiency of 0.
Blueprint Originals
Blueprint originals (BPOs) for most T1 items are sold on the market from NPC vendors. They may be purchased and resold by player characters, so check prices. Blueprint originals for T2 items exist, but you'll never see one -- the system changed years ago, and these items are now worth many billions of ISK.
Researched blueprint originals may also be sold on contract between players -- but make sure that you're buying an original; it's quite common for holders of a well-researched BPO to sell copies. For expensive items, these may legitimately command prices similar to unresearched originals. Or you may have stumbled on another contract scam. As usual, caveat emptor.
A BPO can be researched to improve time and materials efficiency, can be copied to produce limited-run blueprint copies which may be sold or used in T2 production; or it can be used as a blueprint to manufacture something.
Research
Only Blueprint Originals can be researched.
Material Efficiency
All Blueprints start will a built in waste of 10%. This can be reduced by researching the Material Efficiency (ME) of the BPO. Since waste drops only by integer units, there is a ME beyond which it is fruitless to research further. This number is often quite low for small items.
Related skills: Metallurgy (Lowers material efficiency research time by 5% per level)
Production Efficiency
Production Efficiency research reduces the production time of the item. This can be less critical to the cost of production than material efficiency, but may still have a significant effect on your cost of production.
Copies
Only Blueprint Originals can be copied. The copies will have the ME and PE of the BPO being copied. In addition, they will be licensed for a set number of runs, the maximum of which is dictated by the BPO. Once the runs are used up, the BPC is consumed.
