I’ve just come back to the game after 10 years, please bear with me.
I’ve been a miner and a PvPer in nullsec, but I have never really looked at the industrial side of things.
I have this crazy idea of building my own Orca - from scratch.
By looking at the Jita44 market I can see that there are multiple parts required to assemble the ship myself. Must I buy each part’s BPC (or BPO) and build each part, then buy the Orca’s BP and build that as well?
From what I understand, I can’t just input 15 B units of tritanium and axpect the Orca BP to do the job… right? Which means I’d need BPs for every part, and the ones for these parts’ parts, and so on. Am I understanding this correctly?
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Yes, you do.
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If you are into such things (and maybe even if not) you can consider documenting the endeavor either in the form of video footage and/or screenshots with text or even voiced narration and upload it in some format (screenshots with or without text added to them, an article on a blog or website, or as a video on YT or Twitch or such).
Of course to avoid any trouble and risk (if such exists) only uploading after the job is complete.
Just some random thought but hey could be something you (and others) are interested in.
Also as an aside: When at it could be a fun easter egg to call it Project: Maggie or such, in reference of the Frostpacker’s Orca confiscated and held hostage by Aiko. (Can link posts in reference if you are interested in the story but in short he gifted his Orca called Maggie which is now a source of extortion as a result.)
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When you left 10 years ago, this was surely possible for a single person. Back then EVE only had the basic minerals. But since then CCP modified all blueprints to need additional stuff you can only get in highsec, nullsec, wormholes together with reactions, PI, gas clouds, moon mining and whatnot.
It is far easier to stay in highsec, mine until you have the money and buy the components you can’t produce. Or just buy the whole ship.
And if you really have questions as in your first post, i suggest to start building a cruiser or battleship first. Something small to learn it. A cruiser is about the last ship to only need the base minerals. A battlehship already need additional stuff. Just check the blueprints for info and their chains if you click on the components industry info and then on the industry info of their components and so on. Long, long chains. You would need to build up complete industries spanning the whole universe today.
I’m already fully equipped with many ships and over 10B worth of gear that I’m selling here and there. My question wasn’t to find out whether it’s easier or not - I wanted to find out if it could be done at all.
Now what I’m understanding from your reply is that certain mats are not going to be available to me unless I head out to do some moon mining or some heavy researching and reactions. This is an issue until I decide “ah, screw it, I’ll just buy those mats”.
I checked Contracts and I did find out it’s WAYYY cheaper to buy BPCs for the proper amounts I need… especially for Orcas I’ve found many contracts that are setup to be exact and perfect for my needs and a really cheap price. Could be very interesting!
Agreed, this would be fun, and I’ve always wanted to get into making videos, but I don’t feel confident enough for now to do all this. But thanks for the suggestion!
I’m not a Pro Industrialist, but as I see from just looking at components build paths I’d say this:
Manufacturing everything by yourself from basic materials is definitely possible, albeit time consuming, but gathering all resources by yourself is a Sisyphus job
To get everything needed yourself you will need to do everything but combat (Exploration, Mining, PI) in all parts of space including WHs.
Thanks to recent industry changes, a solo player building an Orca ‘from scratch’ is a costly and time-consuming project.
When you say ‘from scratch’ do you mean you want to buy the blueprint originals rather than use copies? If so, get ready to spend 10b + on just unresearched prints plus another 8 months minimum to research them and billions more in research costs.
Buying fully researched prints off contracts could be more like 20b.
With blueprints out of the way your next biggest concern is procuring the resources.
If you really want to ‘from scratch’ it and procure everything the long way, yourself, then you will have to get into multiple career paths such as mining, running data & relic sites/ratting and salvaging.
Rather than get into all that potentially boring stuff my suggestion is just do whatever it is you enjoy doing, accumulate isk in a way that is efficient for you, and just buy an Orca when you can pay the market fees, or buy the components you can’t make yourself.
There is no longer any space that has ‘everything’ and even in nullsec the bottleneck for our manufacturing is usually Isogen and Mexallon, and sourcing certain materials can be troublesome for even well-connected large-scale manufacturers.
If you’re really dedicated, join an industry group who can get you up to speed and show you how things are done. (message sent in-game)
Good luck!
You might see if something like this can help organize your production plan:
https://ravworks.com/
I second the notion that a documented process of just what it takes to build ships of middling complexity these days would be a great resource for industrial players and theorycrafters. It might also provide a nucleus for discussion of whether CCP has taken industry down a path of excessive compartmentalization and segregation.
I believe CCP’s original intent for the mining/manu/industry changes was to promote cross-trade between regions and individuals. I don’t do industry but from the few industrialists I’ve spoken with, the trend seems to be “I focus on the parts I can make in my area and ship them to Jita for selling, then builders all just buy the parts they’re missing in Jita.”
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Is it somehow more complex to build an orca these days then it is to build the bulkhead to fit on it? Or the multispectral shield hardeners, in case you go shield tank?
Last time I built a whale, it was significantly more simple to build then any of the modules that were installed onto it.
I recently built my own orca using BPCs over a 3 month period.
I bought the following BPOs so I could build certain parts:
Auto-Integrity preservation seal, life support backup unit and researched these both to 10/20; I now produce these constantly as the reactions I bought feed these BPOs; I also mine moons regularly.
The other BPO I bought which was expensive was the core temperature regulator. Like the other BPOs I have the PI and reactions setup for the parts and produce these also constantly.
I’ve found the BPO part building more rewarding than building the actual orca as the orca for me was a let down as I play a single account, if I multiboxed the orca would be always on grid mining with me. At the moment I boost fleets when there is no-one else around.
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The Core Temperature Regulator, Auto-Integrity Preservation Seal and Life Support Backup Unit are “battleship components” that were introduced a few years ago. As the name implies, it’s also needed for battleship construction, which means there’s some demand for it, as the battleship market is larger then the orca market.
If you’re moon crabbing in highsec and have access to a reactor and are in for the long run, those blueprints and their research will likely return of invest. Most of the bots in null are still producing with data based on the pre-2021 production sequences, so they cannot build either of those components as their historic scripts don’t contain code for it, which means there’s less competitors on the markets for it and therefore larger profit margins.