Introduction
Well it's like this, if you was to manufacture anything without first researching
the market, you may as well send all your ISK to me. Yep give me all your ISK,
now you might be thinking I've lost it here but I haven't. It's a stark lesson to
start building and then find out you can't sell it because the market is saturated
with the item you have made.
Also there seem to be people in the world of EVE that think if you mine the
minerals needed to build an item that the minerals are free. When this happens
you may find items are selling for less than you can actually build them for.
Remember mining your own resources costs you time, you need to get "paid"
for that time, so when you build an item and you mined the materials make sure
you add that into the final costing.
So number 1 golden rule to becoming a manufacturer is to find a marketable
item in a region which is in short supply. I cannot stress enough the importance
of market research before you start building.
Market Hubs and .01 ISK traders
Stay away from market hubs like Jita and Rens unless you plan on playing the
.01 ISK game. What I mean by that is we have a whole arena of people whose
sole purpose is to sit in the markets and undercut the lowest selling price, in
order to sell their own products before anyone else. This is absolutely rampant
in trade hubs, trade hubs are great for buying in, as the prices tend to get
pushed down to their lowest but they are a nightmare and probably the worst
place to sell anything at.
Starting out in manufacturing
I can't really advise you that much because EVE can be a very hostile place in
the markets, I call it market PVP :) but what I will do is tell you how I started out
manufacturing.
I found an out of the way system that was populated with about 40-50 people
during peak times. I studied the markets for basic items (tech 1) which were
missing from the market and that a person fitting a new ship might need. Things
like MWDs, Afterburners, shield boosters, armour repairers, guns, missile
launchers and most importantly ammo, everyone needs these items in EVE.
Remember not everyone in EVE is a veteran and there will always be new
players that still require Tech I items.
If you want to aim higher then look at ships, it's also worth noting that if you can
find a mission hub (a place with a lot of agents from which a lot of players use)
that you can sell all kinds of ships from Battleships to frigates.
So build basic necessity items in mission hubs is my advice, especially ammo
and lastly on this subject, if you want to see where I used to build when I started
out go visit a place called Ghesis.
Manufacturing an item
Every manufacturing job requires a set amount of things, these are:
* A blueprint (copy or an original)
* Material requirements listed on the blueprint
* Skills requirements listed on the blueprint
* A factory slot
To put on a manufacturing job simply have all the items in your hangar, in a
station with a factory slot and right click the blueprint and select manufacture.
The rest is straight forward in checking you have the correct items and
accepting the job.
Once your job is complete, open the Science & Industry window, click jobs tab
then Get Jobs and select the job or jobs which show as ready and click deliver.
Do not cancel a manufacturing job, you will get back the blueprint but you will
lose ALL the materials if the job is cancelled.
Skills needed for manufacturing
Industry
Allows basic operation of factories. 4% reduction in manufacturing time per skill
level.
Cuts down the time it takes to build an item, whilst you may not think this is an
important skill a lot of the skills below this and certainly for Tech II and III
manufacturing require Industry L5.
Production Efficiency
4% reduction per skill level to the material requirements needed for production.
Requires Industry L3.
This is the most important skill to a manufacturer, without Prod Eff L5 a
manufacturer simply cannot be competitive because it will cost more in
materials to build an item the lower the Prod Eff skill is.
Mass Production
Ability to run 1 additional manufacturing jobs per level. Requires Industry L3.
This skill allows you to run more than one manufacturing job simultaneously, it
doesn't allow you to use the same blueprint more than once at a time, it simply
allows you to use multiple factory slots.
Advanced Mass Production
Ability to run 1 additional manufacturing jobs per skill level. Requires Mass
Production L5.
This is the advanced version of Mass Production. With both Mass Prod and Adv
Mass Prod at L5 you will have the ability to run a total of 11 manufacturing jobs
simultaneously.
Supply Chain Management
Proficiency at starting jobs remotely.
This means YOU can be further away from your blueprint and materials (which
must be in the same station/location) and be able to start manufacturing jobs.
Level 1 allows for range within the same solar system. Levels 2 extends that
range to 5 jumps and then each subsequent level doubles it. Level 5 allows for
full regional range.
The above skills are the basic ones needed to become a manufacturer. Supply
Chain Management, Mass production and Advanced Mass Production aren't
necessary unless you plan on going into manufacturing big time. They simply
allow you to manufacture remotely and build more than 1 item at once.
Industry and Prod Efficiency are important skills and you really need them both
at L5 before you think about starting to manufacture anything.
Skills needed for Tech 2 & Capital Manufacturing
There are a whole host of additional skills required for building Tech 2 and
Capital items.
To check out the skills required for a build simply look at the Blueprint
information. It will tell you which skills are required. See the blueprint section
for a better understanding.
Basic skills for T2 manufacturing you will need at least:
* Industry L5
* Production Efficiency L5
* Electronics L5*
* Science L5
* Mechanic L5*
*Dependant on what you are manufacturing
Additionally for T2 ships
* Racial Starship Engineering Level depends on what size ship you are building
* Frigate Construction
* Cruiser Construction
* Battleship Construction
* Mechanical Engineering
For Modules (basic skills also required)
* Science level skills related to the technology the module belongs to
For instance if we take the Expanded CargoHold II it requires Industry L5 -
Molecular Engineering L1 (requires Science L5 and Mechanic L5) and Nanite
Engineering L1 (requires Science L5 and Electronics L5)
For Rigs (basic skills also required)
* As with modules T2 rigs also requires 2 science based skills
* They also require a Rigging skill related to the type of rig you are
manufacturing
For instance if we take the Polycarb Engine Housing II it requires Industry L5,
Molecular Engineering L1 (requires Science L5 and Mechanic L5), Nanite
Engineering L1 (requires Science L5 and Electronics L5) and Astronautics
Rigging L1 (which requires Jury Rigging L3 and Mechanic L3).
Skills needed for Tech 3 Manufacturing
A natural step for T3 manufacturing is if you have trained to become a T2
manufacturer, it will not be easy to create a character just for T3 manufacturing
as it will take a very long amount of time to train up for.
Subsystems
A subsystem requires Jury Rigging L5, Cruiser Construction L4, Starship
engineering L4, Science related skill L4 and the new subsystem technology L1,
sounds easy doesn't it.
It's not actually, when you consider all the secondary skill requirements to just
get those listed above, you will need Mechanic L5, Science L5, Research L5,
Engineering L5, Frigate Construction L4 and a second Science related skill for
the Subsystem technology skill at L4. That's not taking into account you should
also have all the basic skill listed at the top of this page.
Hulls
Hulls require slightly less skills in numbers but at a higher level, also take into
account that a T3 Hull also requires subsystems fitted so unless you just plan
on making Hulls you will need all the subsystem skills also.
Typically to manufacture Hulls requires Starship Engineering L5 (requires
Science L5 and Mechanic L5), Cruiser Construction L5 (requires Frigate
Construction L4), Industry L5 and Mechanical Engineering L4 (requires Science
L5 and Mechanic L5).
Amendment to the below screenshots
Production Limit has been renamed at long last - it now shows on Blueprints as
"Max Runs Per Blueprint Copy" thanks goes to CCP for listening to us
constantly whine about the old name and changing it.
Blueprints - where to get them
Most (but not all) Tech 1 Blueprint Originals (BPOs) are sold in NPC stations in
empire. Some BPOs are regional so for instance you might have to travel to
Gallente space to get a Gallente ship BPO. Mining barge (retriever, procurer and
covetor) BPOs have been seeded for some bizarre reason in 0.0 space, they are
available in one of ORE stations:
4C-B7X VI - Moon 1 - Outer Ring Excavations Refinery
4C-B7X VIII - Moon 1 - Outer Ring Excavations Mining Outpost
NM-OEA V - Moon 4 - Outer Ring Excavations Mining Outpost
NM-OEA VI - Moon 23 - Outer Ring Excavations Mining Outpost
But be aware unless you know what you are doing you will probably get shot
and killed. If you are willing to pay slightly over the normal price you should find
some in Jita.
No Tech II BPOs are available in game anywhere with the exception of buying
from another player. Now you might think this in not right but the universe of
EVE is ever changing. Tech II BPOs were given out once by Research &
Development (R&D) agents, this process was a lottery and most think it was
unfair. Anyway to cut a long story short the Tech II lottery was scrapped and
Invention has taken it's place. So the only way to manufacture Tech II items
without a BPO is to invent them (see Invention section).
Faction item BPOs do not exist, some Blueprint Copies (BPC) are available for
COSMOS items (not really faction I know but still) so the only way to get faction
items is by killing another player who has them fitted, from Officer NPC spawns
or buying them.
Understanding the Blueprint
You wont get far with manufacturing unless you understand the blueprint and
what the sections and numbers on one means.
First of all there are 2 types of Blueprint, a blueprint original (BPO) and a
blueprint copy (BPC). A copy is either made from a BPO or looted from a NPC
pirate or complex. Some blueprints in the game are only available as copies like
booster blueprints and factional control towers but to name just 2.
So when you are manufacturing a product you either need the BPO or a BPC.
Most Tech 1 BPOs are purchased off the normal market, if you can't find a BPO
for a tech 1 item it's likely that the BPO is only seeded in certain regions so
shop around.
You cannot make a BPC from a BPC and you cannot research a BPC in any way
to improve it. The BPO has to be researched and new copies created from it to
improve BPCs.
Lets look at a blueprint in more detail
Two very important aspects of a blueprint is the Material Level (ME) and the
Production Level (PE). The higher the ME the less materials the blueprint will
take to make 1 item. The higher the PE the shorter amount of time it will take to
make the item. So ME reduces costs by reducing materials and PE reduces the
time it takes to make the item in question, this also reduces costs as the factory
slots are paid for by the hour..
I deliberately took the above screenshot using a character with maximum
manufacturing skills so you can see the difference between the times. If you
look at the "manufacturing" section you can see the time of 12 minutes, this is
to manufacture 1 of the items with no skils. Underneath that line is a
Manufacturing Time (You), this is taking your skills into account.
A note about the "Production Limit" information, a lot of people think this is the
maximum amount you can build at a single time. So using the above BPO as an
example I would only be able to make 1000 of these items in one go. This is
incorrect!! the Production Limit figure is the maximum number of runs you can
make on a single BPC.
Lets look at the materials tab on this BPO
Pretty straight forward in this case, the materials listed is what you require to
make 1 of these items. The skills above it are required by the person inserting
the blueprint into the manufacturing slot to be able to make 1.
You can see from the above screenshot a set of extra tabs where you have bill
of materials for - manufacturing, copying, research material efficiency and
research time productivity. On a BPC these extra tabs will not be present as
you cannot research a copy.
Blueprint Research
BPO = Blueprint Original - BPC = Blueprint Copy - ME=Material Efficiency - PE=
Production Efficiency
Why research a blueprint?
Well the answer is easy, if you build from a blueprint that has a material
efficiency of 0 then you are wasting materials building the item. Every BPO has
a 10% wastage on it at ME0 which you can reduce by researching the ME of the
BPO. Researching the PE on a BPO will reduce the amount of time it takes to
make the actual object.
Skills for BPO Researching
Science - Basic understanding of scientific principles. 5% Bonus to blueprint
copying speed per level.
Research - Skill at researching more efficient production methods. 5% bonus to
blueprint manufacturing time research per skill level.
Metallurgy - Advanced knowledge of mineral composition. 5% Bonus to material
efficiency research speed per skill level.
Laboratory Operation - Allows basic operation of research facilities. Ability to
run 1 additional research job per skill level.
Advanced Laboratory Operation* - Further training in the operation of multiple
laboratories. Ability to run 1 additional research job per skill level.
Scientific Networking* - Skill at running research operations remotely. Each
level increases the distance at which research projects can be started. Level 1
allows for range within the same solar system, Level 2 extends that range to
systems within 5 jumps, and each subsequent level then doubles it. Level 5
allows for full regional range.
Skills marked with a * are not necessary unless you intend on researching a lot,
the rest of them are essential to a good lab rat.
Material Efficiency (ME)
So researching ME reduces the wastage factor on a BPO, means you use less
materials to make the item and thus can reduce costs and enhance profits.
I'm going to put the next bit in bold you DON'T need to research ME to stupid
amounts to reduce wastage most BPOs you will get less than 1% wastage by
ME researching to 25. Tech 2 BPOs take MUCH MUCH MUCH less ME
researching to get less than 1% wastage, on average ME2 will do the job.
Players researching ME to hundreds are fooling themselves if they think they
are actually doing anything to the wastage. It costs far too much to do the ME
research to stupid numbers to actually gaining any benefit to manufacturing.
If I had my way I would cap BPO ME researching to ME50, after that a BPO
shouldn't be ME researchable. Anyway enough of the argument about ME
research and on with the guide.
