User:Hirmuolio Pine/sandbox3

In the EVE universe, the vast majority of 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 (and is) manipulated, 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.

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.

Skills

The following skills are useful or required for T1 production, and are found in the Production skill category. Most or all of these will be needed for T2/T3 production as well.

• Industry (1x) - 4% reduction in manufacturing time per skill level.
  At least level 1 is required to use most blueprints, and level 3 is required for further manufacturing skills. The speed bonus increases the rate at which you can produce items (and therefore, produce profit) and reduces installation costs slightly (confirm?).
• Advanced Industry (3x) - 3% reduction in all manufacturing & research time per skill level.
  This skill adds not only a fairly substantial further time reduction in manufacturing, but also a time reduction in all research and invention jobs. Whilst less noticeable when building small items individually, these time-savers really add up when doing multiple runs and building large ships.

Increase number of concurrent jobs:

• Mass Production (2x) - Allows 1 additional job per level.
  By default, all characters can run 1 manufacturing job at a time. Training this skill lets you run additional jobs simultaneously from 2 jobs at I up to 6 jobs at V. Any industrialist who wants to create things will need to train this to IV or V fairly early in their plans.
• Advanced Mass Production (8x) - Allows 1 additional job per level.
  Once you train Mass Production to V, you can then train Advanced Mass Production, for a further increase in concurrent jobs. Having this skill at IV gives you 10 manufacturing lines (1 + 5 + 4), which is enough for most people. Training to V takes around 28 days, making it only of interest to dedicated manufacturing characters.

Allow remote management of jobs:

• Supply Chain Management (3x) - Allows starting jobs remotely. +5 jumps per level.
  Without training this skill, you can start jobs anywhere in the current system. Each level in this skill gives you the ability to start manufacturing jobs an extra 5 jumps away, to the maximum of 25 jumps at level V (this may include other regions).
  This skill is more of a convenience skill than a must-have for a budding industrialist - allowing you to manage your production lines for a distance. If you invest in this skill, training to level III or maybe level IV would offer the most return on time investment. Note that you still have to haul the materials and blueprint to the relevant station.

bascs of procduction

Not all T2 manufacturing jobs require every single input material.

Production of Tech 1 items - ships, modules, ammunition, rigs or even components - is the simplest of manufacturing tasks, within reach of even the newest player to EVE. Although whether they will actually be able to make a profit is another question entirely. Very few skills are needed for T1 production, and the materials are often fairly easily acquired.

All T1 manufacturing jobs require a blueprint. These come in two forms: originals (BPOs) with infinite runs and copies (BPCs) that can only be run a limited number of times. For most blueprints, a single run of a blueprint will produce a single item, but there are some exceptions - most obviously ammunition, which produces 100 units per run.

Many manufacturers use BPCs, copied from a BPO, to manufacture from, for a variety of reasons, including security and the ability to run multiple production lines. For more details, see Why should I copy my BPOs?

See Blueprints for more details on blueprints.

Selecting the item to produce

T1 BPOs are seeded by various NPC traders, with costs varying from 100,000 to 75 billion ISK. This can be a significant cost, especially to new players. Also significant is the amount of research time that may be spent on the blueprint. Selecting a good one versus a bad one is important!

A good item will have these characteristics:

• Inexpensive Materials - The material cost should be such that you can reasonably expect to manufacture a decent number of items, and you won't be bankrupt if you lose them while trying to sell them. There isn't a rule on how much cost is too much, but if you need a number then keep the cost of an item below 1% of your net worth. This will not be a problem for players with a large wallet, but can be an issue for new players starting out in manufacturing. Loading the potential BPO into the Industry window will provide an estimate of the material cost.

• Good Profit Margins - The difference between the selling price and the cost to manufacture should be worthwhile. Be sure to compare the absolute profit (ISK) and percent profit (% of selling price) and make sure both are worth your time. What makes it worth your time? It is up to the individual, but strive for at least 10% per item. Profits of 80% have been witnessed by players as young as 2 months to EVE, but they are rare and tend to disappear.

• Good Transaction Volume - If you find an item that is extremely profitable but is only sold once per week, then it has poor transaction volume. There is no guarantee that you can capture all (or even most) of the sales of a particular item! To check the volume of an item, use the Market window. If you choose an item, click on the Price History tab. If it shows a graph, you can see daily sales volume by clicking the Show Table button in the bottom of the window. This will show you how many of an item were sold each day in the region over the past year.

There are many items that do meet all three requirements. Finding them is a matter of a lot of research time looking for items that meet your criteria. Typically it is easiest to search through the market tab looking for items with sufficient volume, then go to the BPO research calculator to compare the prices to selling volumes. Once you choose a blueprint, the BPO Research Calculator will also tell you what faction sells the BPOs you have chosen.

job installation fee

Raw materials are not the only cost of production. The act of installing the manufacturing job costs too.

Job fee = Base job cost × System cost index × Number of runs

The base job cost is approximately the cost estimation of the materials. The exact value can be gained from the ESI API if you need it. Where the system cost index is

System cost index = sqrt( Hours of manufacturing jobs in system in past 28 days / Hours of manufacturing jobs in universe in past 28 days )

The job installation fee is a factor which cannot be ignored in choosing where to base your manufacturing operation is the installation cost of industry jobs. This cost is dynamic, so if a large number of other manufacturers join you in the system, it may save you money to move elsewhere (weighed against the cost in time and effort of moving all your materials to a new system).

Running Jobs

Once you have a blueprint and materials ready, and decided which system to manufacture in, it's time to produce your goods. Most of the time you'll be using an NPC station to manufacture goods.

Engineering complexes and citadels with the appropriate service module online can also be used to manufacture goods. Engineering complexes provide a modest material savings (1%) and significant time savings (15% - 30% depending on size) over NPC stations; these savings can be further increased for certain categories of goods by installing the appropriate rigs to the structure.

Gather the materials and BPO (or BPC) in your station hangar, and open the industry window. You will need to find your blueprint using the drop-down selection boxes. Click the blueprint to install it to the main industry window. Or you can start te job from the blueprint in your hangar

Simply choose the number of runs, check the input/output locations (most of the time this will simply be Item Hangar, but if you have your own personal corporation or use containers for sorting you may need to change them) and press Start.

While the job is running, you can check on its progress using the same Industry window, in the Jobs tab. Select the Jobs tab, and a list of your currently running jobs will be displayed. You can cancel the job if you want your blueprint back for some reason, but none of the materials used or installation costs will be refunded.

Finally, once the job is completed, job listed in the Jobs tab will contain a large Deliver button instead of a time remaining display; press this and the results & blueprint will be returned to the station.

A long, long time ago...

You also had the option of selecting a Team to assist your manufacturing process, if there was one in the system. If the team you wished to use modified material efficiency, deciding whether to use it would be a simple matter of comparing installation cost increase to estimate input cost decrease (with the proviso that it was only an estimation, not an actual value). If the team modified time efficiency, it may have been more difficult to decide whether to use one.

Beware of rounding "errors"!

A particular problem that can quickly cost you a million ISK or two when manufacturing T2 items is the rounding that is applied as an effect of material efficiency. The rounding is done per job instead of per run. a single industry job with 3 runs can use less material than 3 single jobs from the same blueprint!

Additionally the manuring job will require at least one item of each type per run. This is most notable when the job requires one item per run. With 100 runs and 10% material reduction you would assume that you would need 90 items but you still need 100 items.

Booster production

Industry map of drugs. Manufacturing of improved and strong drugs requires multiple multiple raw gas sources.

Boosters are manufactured from mytoserocin and cytoserocin gas harvested from clouds in cosmic signatures found in known space. These signatures only spawn in specific regions of New Eden. These gasses are distinct from the fullerine gasses found in wormholes, which are used to create Tech III ships and subsystems.

Booster production requires following skill:

• Drug Manufacturing - Required for manufacturing drugs.

If you also want to refine the gas used for drug manufacturing you will need the relevant reaction skills.

Processing gas

Gas must be processed into pure booster material before the final product is created. This is done using reactors at a refinery structure.

Pure boosters use Simple Reactions at a Standup Biochemical Reactor I. These structures can only be installed at a refinery in .4 or lower security space. Besides the gas, the reactions also require an additional unit, which varies based on the grade of the booster. Synth reactions need Garbage, Standard reactions require Water, Improved reactions require either Spirits or Oxygen, depending on the exact product, and Strong reactions require Hydrochloric Acid.

Booster creation

Boosters themselves are created as a normal manufacturing job in industry window. This has no security requirements, and can be done in high security space. Manufactoring the final booster product requires the pure booster material of the desired grade covered in the above section, megacyte, and an appropriate blueprint.

Tech II production

Main article: Tech II Production

T2 manufacturing requires T2 BPCs, which are 'invented' through the invention process. This is a chance-based process, requiring a lot of skill investment in advance, and you are not guaranteed to get a T2 BPCs at the end of it. Some T2 manufacturers do not invent, but instead merely buy T2 BPC packs from dedicated inventors.

Tech II manufacturing also drastically expands the range of materials needed. Whereas the majority of T1 production requires almost exclusively minerals, the range of input materials required hugely expands for T2 production - moons goo, planetary products and components are all potential sources of materials for T2 production. Not all T2 blueprints require every single source of input material, but one particular additional input required for most T2 manufacturing is a T1 item of the similar type. For example building a T2 nanofiber requires a single T1 nanofiber, some Remote Assembly Modules (Armor/Hull Tech R.A.M.s), extra minerals (Morphite) and some planetary materials (Construction Blocks).

T3 Production

Main article: Tech 3 Production

Tech 3 ships, also known as Strategic Cruisers and tactical destroyers have their own specialised construction process, which is a combination of invention using ancient relics from relic sites, and including datacores gathered from data sites - to discover the BPCs for hulls and subsystems, and then built using those BPCs with materials gathered from within w-space - including gas clouds (which are reacted in a reactor array), Sleeper salvage and normal minerals.

Capital Ship Construction

Capital ship construction can be an extremely lucrative business, although requiring a large initial investment, and, depending on what capital you are constructing, may need to be based in losec, or even sovereign nullsec.

• Capital Ship Construction (14x) is required in order to build capital ships or capital ship components. The following levels unlock the following blueprints:

Level 1: all capital ship components, all capital modules, freighters, Orca

Level 3: carriers, dreadnoughts, fighters, fighter-bombers

Level 4: supercarriers, jump freighters, Rorqual

Level 5: titans

Capital ships are built from capital ship components, which are in turn manufactured from minerals. There is no restriction on where capital ship components can be built, and apart from the increased skill requirement there is no difference from other T1 manufacturing. Freighters and the Orca can then be constructed in any manufacturing facility using the relevant T1 ship BPO or BPC, from the components previously built.

Carriers, dreadnoughts & the Rorqual are capital ships that may not enter hisec, and so you cannot build them in hisec either. They can be constructed in any station in lowsec or nullsec with a manufacturing facility, but apart from that restriction, are constructed in the same way as freighters or the Orca.

These ships may also be constructed at a Large or Extra Large size citadel or engineering complex (i.e. Fortizar, Azbel, Keepstar, or Sotiyo) with a Standup Capital Shipyard I module installed. This module is installable in lowsec and nullsec only. Engineering complexes, and structures with appropriate rigs, will provide their usual cost reductions as applicable.

Supercapital Construction

Supercarriers and titans cannot even dock in NPC stations, never mind enter hisec, and so you cannot build them in stations either. They must be built at a Sotye engineering complex with a Standup Supercapital Shipyard I service module. installed. This module may only be brought online in systems where the complex owner has sovereignty, and has installed a Supercapital Construction Facilities infrastructure upgrade. Supercapital construction takes an exceedingly long time).

Note that while appropriately fit Sotiyo engineering complexes can build and launch supercapitals, such ships will not be able to re-dock once launched. The only structures that support supercapital docking are Keepstar citadels.

Because supercapital ship construction must take place in a player-owned structure, this means supercapital ships under construction are vulnerable to attack, unless you can defend your infrastructure effectively. Many titans have been 'aborted' by a hostile force destroying the POS and assembly array during construction.

Useful Links

• ISK Per hour Very powerful windows program for T1, T2 and T3 production as well as refining.