I’ve been training up a research and invention alt. Been reading the wiki and various posts, but still uncertain what is the most “popular” way to go about this process and actually make a profit.
Is researching T2 BPCs and turning around to sell them generally profitable? How about T2 invention? I hear T2 modules are pretty good, but would I need to manufacture them myself in order for this to be worthwhile?
Just looking for some general advice. Also, anyone happen to know any decent industry POSes that are open to the public in High Sec?
Well if you want to buy the Data Cores it will cost you a lot.
If you want to “mine” the Data Cores yourself you need skills that each cost you around 20mil.
If you really want to get into that your starting investment will not be marginal.
If you think they’re too expensive to buy, so you “mine” your own instead, you should be selling them instead of using them because it has the exact same value regardless of how you source it.
That said, on a conceptual level the idea of sourcing your own datacores for anything but the smallest operation is fairly ludicrous. If every one of my characters had maxed out research agents, and I spent every waking moment running sigs, I still couldn’t keep myself in datacores.
Yes You.
He is a beginner. He has no skills maxxed like you. His ROI if he buys Data Cores is way worse then yours. For the beginning mining own Data Cores might be okay for him. With all the time he needs to train the skills he has enough time to blitz a corp to L4 R&D agents.
That does not change the math on the value of the datacore.
If his ROI on invention is such that he cannot afford to buy datacores, then he cannot afford to use his own datacores either because he is better off selling his own datacores at that point.
Datacores you harvest yourself are not “free”. They have the exact same value no matter where they come from.
With respect to specifically inventing and selling BPCs, it has never seemed like a worthwhile venture to me. There might be a few items where this makes sense, but there are some issues with it. Your intended customers (consumers of T2 BPCs, which are manufacturers) are probably producing their own BPCs in the first place. The prerequisites overlap anyway, so it’s really not far out of their way. You may also be competing against their overflow on the market.
You can also really only sell them via contracts and various side channels (forums/mailing lists), which can be arduous, imo.
IMO, the correct amounts of industrial activity are either “none” or “LOTS”.
It’s generally not efficient to just dabble in it.
because:
there is small group of people who have t2 BPO, from “old times”,
they can produce 10/20 T2 BPC almost for free,
they complettely control T2 market
This is largely nonsense that you can safely ignore, OP. There is absolutely profit to be had with T2 production via invention. It has been my primary source of income since 2010.
Pretty much any screeching you hear about T2 BPOs is little more than envious butthurt. They assert very little, if any, control over the market. It’s possible there are some very low-volume items where they are relevant, though I can’t think of any offhand. The great thing about invention is that it’s flexible - you build what makes a profit. Doesn’t much matter what it is.
I’ll use the example of a Hulk to point out why the claim that they “control the market” is a lie.
Suppose we are using a 10/20 Hulk BPO, and building inside of a T2 rigged sotiyo (lol at that, but just assume). We’ll be able to produce ~46 hulks per month with our BPO and max skills. You may squeeze 1-2 more out of it with a manufacturing time implant.
Let’s just round up to 50 to make it easy.
Now, let’s look at the market for hulks. Not the total market, mind you, just The Forge market:
See the volume bars? A BPO can produce 50 units a month, if we’re overtly generous with our rounding. Jita often moves more than that in one day, nevermind the rest of the markets in the game. The BPOs simply cannot produce enough units to assert any meaningful control over the market. At best, they can sell out a little bit faster, or enjoy slightly higher margins, but these are extremely minor benefits relative to the cost of owning the BPOs.
Alright, so I gather that unless I go into this hardcore and do some serious math / spreadsheeting, it’s going to be a lost cause.
I have a PI toon, but the micromanagement is a pain. I guess it would be the same or worse for Research / Invention?
Relative to PI, I would say production takes more spreadsheeting/out-of-game effort, but less in-game effort.
It is surprising that CCP never took care of that problem… For good sake, get rid of those T2 BPO and compensate the owners for a bunch of isk… This is really an unfair advantage…
You think they’re a problem because you’re bad at math and finance, or because you’re not bad at math and finance but you haven’t actually bothered to look at the numbers on T2 BPOs before kneejerking about how unfair they are.
Fortunately as you said, their might be a few number of those BPO (who knows how many?) And as you said, the number of perfect T2 BPC is limited by the time available in one day. But that is a hek of an advantage for the owner of such BPO…
Anyway, if you would buy it now, the price might be huge and it is going to be difficult to get a ROI before many years… Hope someone who got it as a prize still have it… gold mine for him.
Not really, though. Regardless of how you came into possession of it, it’s a chunk of “value” that you have tied up in an asset.
Say someone gave you a T2 BPO right now. Just handed it to you. You get it for “free”. The BPO in question is worth… call it 50 billion, and it will generate about 500 million in profit per month when used for production.
So you have a 50 billion isk asset, printing half a billion per month in income.
By comparison, you can generate a couple billion per week flipping only 5-7 billion worth of input materials doing invention.
So, is that BPO really a gold mine?
Yes! If you sell it, and do something else with the money. You could sell it, blow 45 billion on exotic dancers and Quafe, and use the remaining 5 billion to generate 2-4x as much money per week as that BPO would generate in a month.
