Having recently moved out of null sec and wormhole space where ISK making was done by doing havens and the rest of the time was PVP I thought I would try a bit of manufacturing. I’ve had the skills for a long time as it was what I did when first came to eve but they have been unused for a fair while.
However it would seem that a lot of the things in trade hubs sell for less than I can make the item for. Now I saw posts on this years ago where people were frustrated by the same thing and the kinds of answers bandied around were relating of old stock of cheaper minerals/items used by people, but this was years ago, can this surely still be a thing?
I would be interested in people’s thoughts on this and if they think that “old stock” is still the case. But it is frustrating when you look to do something and find that there seems to be no way to do what you want to do. I guess I am just feeling particularly frustrated this time as lately most things I seem to do in game are working out badly.
How can the little guy get a foothold in the manufacturing game and make a profit or is it something only the big alliances can really succeed in.
-If you mine your own ore and have good skills in mining or use crystals
-If you reprocess your ore and have good reprocessing skills/station tax
-If you have maxed out material efficiency on your blueprint
-Where you sell
-% of corporation taxes
-% Brokers fee/tax
The first 3 obviously help with margins a ton. I always try to sell at major hubs like Amarr and Jita for good prices/faster sales.
The last two are obvious.
I usually make pretty good isk with indy, but you need to know market sell/buy prices of materials required and the items you’re selling. Always check before you manufacture and try to keep up with market trends and see what items are selling well or what items no one seems to be making or charging too little/too much for.
I’m made tons manufacturing items people simply weren’t selling since I could price as high as I wanted, sometimes at huge margins.
I’m manufacturing in WH space so don’t build bulk stuff that means lot’s of hauling. If you are looking to manufacture in hisec you’ll need lots of capital to invest as %returns will be lower.
Hisec manufacture will mean finding a public access EC in a low industrial index system without ridiculous taxes. You’ll also need to use fuzzworks or similar to work out what will make you profit. You can manufacture in hisec now with EC’s being available but it’ll be harder work and lower profit.
I was going to start mining myself, decent skills and I think I can use crystals
processing skills are poor, but others in corp have max skills I was going to train toward max
yes maxed out ME and TE on BPOs
where I sell I think is the issue
the % tax is an issue that would looking into.
The main thing concerns me is the noticing of trends, I struggle with this, and I feel that part may be the downfall, anything else is just skills really 9accept where your selling)
Tech 1 stuff, atleast the cheaper ones, forget it. “Everyone” can make cheap T1 stuff, so theres rarely good profits. The harder or more expensive the item, more you can make profit, generally.
T2 is usually decent, not great but decent, since there is some skill, knowledge and isk investment.
ALSO Mining does NOT increase your manufacturing profits, in most cases you lose profits.
If you cannot make profit by buying most of your mats, just sell the stuff.
Yeah most t1 stuff I leave, these are T2 items I am thinking off, on a check list of about 10 things, the buy pirces for the mts in jita (which I assume are the cheapest place to buy) exceed the sell price in at least 3 of the trade hubs.
possibly they are, frustrating though as there seems to be no way around it for the small fry. I guess i’ll have to look into something else otherwise ill have to just mine and sell the minerals, and that would bore me rigid. At least making an end product mixes things up a bit.
Do some research, your best bet would be some types of Ammo to begin with, I started out industry as my first thing and begun through buying minerals from Sell orders and selling the product to Buy orders with profit.
Ammo has been really bad for proper profits pretty much always. Yes people use ammo but it is really bad isk/hour, moves pretty slow. Again i havent really looked to stuff lately but i dont see why it would suddenly be any better, especially after they made the build times so much faster.
Well, it helped me to boot up at least, so better start with something that is a guarantee profit than risking on something more expensive that might not even sell, I am by no means a person that worries about the best possible profit, which is why I sold to Buy orders, could be getting more with Sell orders, but I honestly do not feel like doing market pvp, only on specific items I feel confident about that do sell pretty well
This is a common kind of answer I find in EvE, rightly so I suppose as why would anyone endanger their profits by revealing information, but when you joined this game you have no idea of the steps taken in order to become profitable in industry, so may I ask, how did you go about finding the information you needed to know to be successful?
As i said earlier i have pretty much retired, but you dont need to know exact couple % ME savings to see which items are good and which are bad. I know some ppl make their own spreadsheets but i never needed to get that exact information.
I made lots T2 drones (all sizes) when i didnt want to think what to make. I did build up fully researched bpo library up to battleships and mining barges. So i had plenty to choose from.
Btw not saying drones are “good” item, usually they were decent, and i didnt have to stock more than like 10 different materials to make them anyway.
Reading stuff, watching the market, and reading again, especially patch notes. Also I think having a capitalistic mindset and looking at all things and changes for profit opportunities helps a lot. The industry mechanics themselves are really easy to master with the new interface.
I guess that is my disadvantage then, sure I can read stuff till the cows come home, but reading the market, it is just something I don’t get, if I did i would trade irl and be minted.
In the run up to the Lifeblood expansion you should expect the prices for Advanced Components and advanced moon material to go through the roof. Unless you stockpiled months ago - when CCP announced that there would be no overlap between POS and refineries for moon mining, you will have a hard time making T2 profitably.
Some things are still profitable, in some markets, some of the time. I’m doing well with T2 drones because I make my own PI. For modules, I’ve been successful positioning my orders to “catch the bounce” when market bottoms out but you need patience. The moon material market should sort itself out by Christmas.
