Hello! I recently came back to EVE after a 3 year break from the game and I decided that I want to return to what I loved most in the game, and that is the Industrial aspect of the game. I’m playing on a fresh-ish toon with 9m SP, ability to pilot Obelisk and Orca pretty well for hauling/drone mining purposes. I also have basic PI, manufacturing and research skills at level 4/5.
However, I’m trying to figure out what sort ISK earning potential a character like mine has and if it’s worth leaping in to manufacturing at all? I’ve done some research and it’s honestly been rather discouraging, posts from people who say it’s not worth it unless you have an army of alts doing PI/manufacturing etc.
My initial goal was to reach a point of monthly PLEX sustainability and expand further from that point. How feasible is this as a relative short term goal? How realistic/efficient is it to have your own Raitaru as a solo Industrial focused player?
Sorry for all these questions, getting back in to EVE Online after such a long time is pretty daunting and I don’t want to throw ISK and SP away at something that isn’t going to work out.
1 account with 3 characters can have 18 PI colonies, 33 production and 33 research slots with level 5 skills - 15/30/30 with more realistic level 4 skills. If you are manufacturing and selling T2 modules, you can easily earn enough to PLEX the account. I purchase advanced moon material and minerals, all other links in the value chain I do myself. Margins on most modules are in the 50% range or better.
For example, a damage control unit II currently costs a little less than 250K to make (including invention, reflects the fact that I make the advanced components and harvest the PI) and I’m selling them for a little over 600K. The trick is to buy moon material in Jita but sell your product in the smaller hubs.
Building your own Raitaru doesn’t make economic sense for 1 account - you’ll be spending close to 400 million/month on fuel with service modules for research, invention and manufacturing. Better to rent space in a public facility.
ATM buying items @SO and selling @BO in Jita DCII are worth 175 kisk/line/h if doing everything in a raitaru, in Uminas, for an all-V toon.
DDA II is worth 250k isk/h/line for the same system and conditions
To have a comparison, capacitor flux coill II nets 1.14M/h/line in the same conditions, small projectile collision accelerator II 870k/h/l (but with a 56% margin)
But with lower skills, you will make less money ; and the most interesting offers will be diffeent items.
Rigs work well, that’s how I got my start. Low barrier to entry means pricing can be volatile. I’ve used Small Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I frequently as an example in the forums and it’s still close to 50% margin: https://www.fuzzwork.co.uk/blueprint/?typeid=31716
Works particularly well when you’re just starting out - you can buy salvage at very low cost in small quantities at backwater stations and it’s tiny so you can use one of the exploration frigates as your hauler.
I’m curious though on what you think a good setup would be across 3 characters on an account? I was thinking about getting near perfect Industrial skills on my main, with a heavy focus on Invention & T2 manufacturing and have rather basic skills on the other 2 characters and use those primarily for ME/TE, copying and T1 manufacturing.
My dedicated industry alts have 4-8mil SP depending on what they are meant to do. The main difference between my build and invention characters is the 10 science slots and then the encryption skill books as those are needed for invention but not building. I typically take the science skills to 3-4 as they affect build time. All my charterers have the 10 build slots and most of the science skills, and then one or two characters per account have invention skills. I should probably do the basic lab skill on the build characters for the extra copy slots, but not really a priority for me right now.
From there it’s spreadsheets all the way down. Look at an item and figure out the cost to invent, and the cost to build and see what the profit looks like. There’s the t1 base items and t2 components where you want to figure out build or buy.
It’s almost always cheaper to build, but if you are tying up a bunch of slots building t1 items, then it’s probably more profitable to just buy the t1 and then you have more slots building the more profitable t2 stuff. It costs ~1mil to build a days worth (126) of missile guidance computer I and 6mil to buy those in jita. so if you can make more than 5mil/slot/day it ends up being more profitable to buy than make. And you could probably put up a buy order at ~2mil for 126 and someone will build them for you at that price, which makes it far better to buy. Although if one of your characters can only do t1 maybe then it makes sense to build, heck at that point maybe it makes sense to try and sell some. Looking at a t1 tracking computer that also costs ~1mil to build a days worth can be bought for <2mil in jita. Makes the MGC I look like a gold mine in comparison.
Can usually save a few 1000 isk/unit on the t2 components, but again is it worth tying up your build slots? I’ll let you do the math on that one.
Can go farther and decide if it’s worth it to do your own reactions. I’d guess there are some public moon thingies somewhere.