1. Overview
2. T1 Industry
3. T2 Industry
4. T3 Industry
5. Blueprints
6. How to get rich
7. Tools and Websites
I’m testing the forums by writing this guide. please don’t reply and don’t moderate for now until i’m done 
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1. Overview
What is Industry?
In EVE, Industry is the part of the game that handles the transformation of raw materials into items that fuel the war machine in this beautiful game. Without Industry, there are no ships to kill and without war, there is no demand for new stuff.
Almost every item you can find on the market has at some point been in the hand of an Industrialist.
Industry is an essential part of this game and requires a lot of interaction with other players. However, this interaction is mostly through the ingame market. As a result, a lot of industry can be done alone. However, getting a team of dedicated Industrialists together is often more rewarding in many ways.
What is this Guide about?
This guide is supposed to be a general overview. It will not give you step-by-step instructions on how to build items and make money by doing so, i will not delve deep into formulas and excel sheets. Other people have already written guides for that and i will link many of them in the Tools and Websites section at the end of this guide. Don’t be scared if you don’t understand everything i’m writing about. Industry is just like everything in EVE, surprisingly easy to learn and surprisingly hard to master.
This guide assumes that you buy all materials from the market. I will not explain how mining, refining, reactions and such work. Once again, there are other people who know how all of that works and these people have written guides about it. I will refer to them at the end of the guide.
How does Industry work?
It’s simple: First you need a place to build. Then you need a blueprint. Last but not least, you need a bunch of materials.
You can build in Stations, Citadels and (for now) in Outposts and POS. Not everything can be built in every place (Capitals can not be built in Highsec) and not every place is equally good at building everything (Citadels can provide a strong bonus to building specific items)
Blueprints come as Originals (BPO) and Copys (BPC). BPOs can be bought from NPCs. BPCs can be found as loot, via Exploration, bought from NPCs in the LP-Market or can be created via Copying and Invention
Materials come from many different places. minerals are mined, salvage is found in wrecks, pi goods are gathered via Planetary Interaction, moongoo comes from moonmining in Lowsec and Nullsec, gas is found in Wormholes, some components are found via Exploration.
In general, more complex industry adventures require more different materials that have to be gathered in different and potentially dangerous places around New Eden. More about that in the following parts.
There are three Tiers which will be explained in the following posts:
T1 (including Citadels, T1 Rigs, T1 Capitals and Supercapitals)
T2 (including T2 Rigs and T2 Capitals)
T3
(Reactions and Drug Manufacturing are excluded for now. Reactions are about to undergo major changes in the near future and Drug Manufacturing is an extreme niche market where i have absolutely zero experience in)
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Blueprints (WIP)
A nice collection of Blueprints is the base on which every serious Industrialist operates.
Blueprints come as Blueprint Originals (BPO) and as Blueprint Copys (BPC)
BPOs can be bought from NPCs, T1 BPCs can be made from BPOs via a process called Copying. BPCs for Faction Items can be bought from NPC-Corporations via their LP-Store or be found during Exploration. T2 BPCs are made via a process called Invention and can sometimes also be found via Exploration.
Every Blueprint has three values, Material Efficiency (ME), Time Efficiency (TE) and Runs.
ME goes from 0 to 10.
TE goes from 0 to 20.
All BPOs have infinite Runs, all BPCs have a finite number.
These values show you how good a Blueprint is compared to others for the same item. ME means that (up to 10%) fewer materials are required to built the item, TE means that the item can be built (up to 20%) faster.
High values are generally better, but don’t worry if you don’t have a perfect BPO (or BPC) for now. Just because someone else is making 10% profit on an item doesn’t mean that you can’t make 6%.
BPOs can be improved by researching them. BPCs can NOT be improved anymore.
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T1 Industry
T1 Industry is the most simple form of industry. But at the same time, it’s the bread and butter of this game. It only requires very few skills (even a completely new alpha player can build a surprising amount of things) and easy to farm materials. The required Blueprints are usually available as Originals and can be bought directly from NPCs.
What to build
Don’t forget to read the chapter about getting rich! Not everything mentioned here is correct in every case. Sometimes building ammo is a terrible idea, sometimes it’s not. An experienced Industrialist knows the difference.
T1 Modules are actually not very popular. The high meta variants that drop from NPCs are often cheaper AND better than the naked T1 version and many players make the switch to T2 items as soon as their skills allow it. However, finding the few exceptions can be very profitable.
T1 items are also required for T2 production (see below).
T1 Ships are extremely popular and can be found anywhere in new Eden, from small Frigates to gigantic Titans. But building ships sounds extremely cool, so the market is often a bit overcrowded and suffering from low margins. You should also know the difference between ships that blow up all the time and ships that are rarely lost. Demand for the second group is naturally quite a bit lower.
T1 Rigs are super popular and super easy to build.
Only PVPers loose ships regularly, many players buy a ship only once and then fly it for months. That’s not good for an Industrialist. But the very same players need ammunition and Cap Boosters, they tend to abandon their drones all the time.
Think about the stuff that everyone needs all the time and built it.
Where to build
T1 Industry can be done pretty much anywhere. Use the Facilities Tab in the Industry Window to browse the options nearby. For the beginning, you can build in an NPC Station, but as you get more experienced, you should consider moving your operations to a Citadel that provides a bonus to the items you are building.
If you want to build Dreads, Carriers, Fax, Rorquals, Supercarriers or Titans you have to leave Highsec. Supers and Titans can actually only be made in Nullsec that is controlled by players.
Usefull Skills:
Industry and Advanced Industry allow you to build faster.
Mass Production and Advanced Mass Production allow you to build more items at the same time.
Supply Chain Management allows you to remotely manage your jobs.
There is no need to maximise these skills at the beginning, especially if you are just starting. Even the most experienced Industrialists rarely skill Advanced Mass Production past level IV since starting another character is faster and gives you an additional 10 slots, where as AMP V would only give you one more.
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T2 Industry
T2 Industry is a big step from T1 Industry and requires a much larger Investment in Skills, Money and Infrastructure. T1 BPOs are technically required, but they need to be turned into T2 BPCs via Invention first.
A T2 item usually requires material from all over New Eden. Raw Moon Materials come from Moonmining in Lowsec and Nullsec and are further refined via Reactions to Advanced Moon Materials (Don’t worry, those are easily available on the market). These Advanced Moon Materials are then manufactured into Components.
Last but not least, a T1 Item, some Morphite and something from Planetary Interaction is added to make the final product.
T2 Industry is, in general, more profitable than T1 Industry. But once again, exceptions prove the rule.
Whereas T1 BPOs and BPCs can easily be bought from NPCs or other players via the contract system, you usually have to make your own BPCs for T2 production.
Facilities for Copying and Invention are readily available, but not as widespread as simple production facilities. Once again, the industry window can help you find one close by. Player owned structures are much faster here, so it’s a good idea to move your operation to one rather sooner than later.
In order to start the invention process, you need a BPC of the T1 version of the module or ship that you want to build.
The ME and TE values of the BPCs are irrelevant, but each invention run consumes one run of the BPC, so in order to keep your production running, you need a regular supply.
In addition, you need the relevant Datacores and can add an optional Decryptor.
The outcome of the invention process is depends on the item category and the used decryptor. Skills can increase your chances for success and reduce the required time. Facilities do have an impact on the required time and fees that you pay to the ownder of the facility.
What to build
Everything. And nothing. The market is gigantic and changing all the time. A large Alliance introducing (or abandoning) a new doctrine can change the market over night.
Since the required materials are highly concentrated in different areas of space, even changes in sov-warfare regularly have an effect.
The big difference to T1 production is that T2 modules are extremely popular. Starting with these modules is an excellent (and usually profitable) way to learn more about T2 production.
Luckily, most items require a huge pool of different materials, so fluctuations in one of the base materials don’t always end up changing the final price much. However, if you use these fluctuations to your advantage, you can increase your profit by quite a bit.
Usefull Skills
There is a huge number of skills that play a role in the Invention Process, but luckily, the skilltree is much wider than deep.
Laboratory Operation and Advanced Laboratory Operation allow you to run more Invention and Copy Jobs at the same time.
Scientific Networking allows you to manage them remotely.
Skills from the Science category will improve your chances for a successfull Invention, but they will not improve the resulting BPC. Each Invention Job is influenced by three Skills, the Racial Encryption Skill and the skills that are related to the two different required Datacores. These Skills have Physics or Engineering in their names. They are also required to actually manufacture the components and the final item and they improve manufacturing time a little bit.
Once again, maximising these skills is not required to start with Invention as the possible gains are minimal once you reach the level required for manufacturing.
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T3 Industry
The mechanics in T3 Industry are very similar to those of T2 Industry. However, the required materials come from different places (Wormholes) and different Skills are required in the process.
In general, gas from Wormhole sites is combined with minerals and turned into Polymers to make the required special materials.
The blueprints come from invention on Ancient Relics that are also found in Wormhole Space. The mechanics are pretty much exactly the same that i’ve explained in invention, stuff just has different names and comes from different places.
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How to get rich
If you came here to get some concrete tips on how to get rich with Industry, please leave again. It’s not going to happen. What i will tell you is what kind of things you need to keep in mind when building on a bigger and bigger scale.
An awfull lot of this chapter overlaps with Trading. Sometimes it’s really hard or simply impossible to draw the line between the two fields.
There is one thing that you always have to understand if you want to be a successfull industrialist:
How, when and why is value added in the process of turning materials into a final product.
This is best explained with an example:
Say you are building Vexors. Assuming prices in the nearest major trading hub, they cost about 9m to make (materials + fee + transport + various) and sell for about 10m. That’s 1.000.000 ISK profit from industry. Quite decent actually for a ship that takes 2 hours to build.
Now let’s modify things a bit. You are still buying materials at the major Tradehub. But you found out that you can sell Vexors for 13 Millions a few jumps away. That means you now make about 4 million from industry on each Vexor, right? WRONG. You still make 1m from industry and another 3m from Trading and Hauling. That’s still a totally viable business model. In fact, it’s quite a good idea as long as you don’t mind the Hauling time (or the increased time it takes to sell your product). It’s called a Vertically Integrated Production.
After selling a couple Vexors at the new place you realize you could also try selling Drones for Vexors. Makes perfect sense, you customers can now find everything they need in one place!
A Warden II costs about 1.4m ISK to make. And people in that small hub are buying them for 2m. That’s an awesome 600k profit for only 40 minutes of building time. Awesome!
Oh, wait. It’s not. Warden II sell for 1.3m ISK in the nearest large Tradehub. (This is because people are sitting on large stockpiles they were able to buy under production price after Carriers couldn’t use Sentry Drones anymore)
In that case you would actually loose ISK when producing Warden II. I’m not saying you shouldn’t sell them in the small hub. I’m just saying it would be dumb to produce your own.
After a while, that small markethub you’ve been selling Vexors at has been growing. Some clever industrialist (you!) has made sure that everything a mission runner needs is always available at a fair price. Now mission runners are starting to sell the stuff they don’t really need for themselves. Salvage for example. And apparently, they are selling it super cheap so you decide to grab some to use for your production.
At this point you should be clever enough to realize that being able to buy materials cheaper than at the main hub doesn’t increase your margin on industry. It’s just trading profit. And you should grab it whenever possible. The same is obviously true for any kind of materials that you have farmed yourself. Always value your stuff correctly, the prices at the large markethubs in the galaxie are a very good indicator, but don’t forget about transport costs.
There are a couple other things you need to keep in mind:
- What’s happening in EVE?
Are there any major changes coming? Will these changes shake up the markets? More demand usually means you can make a bit of money in the first days. Less demand means falling prices.
- Customers
Who are you actually selling to? A trader that has set up buyorders in Jita? Or directly to customers in a small and mostly irrelevant minor tradehub? You can make a lot of money in both cases, but you need to understand why you make that money. Maybe the trader in Jita doesn’t know the production price of a certain item and his buyorder is clearly higher. Do you actually think this buyorder will stay up for a long time? Or are there other industrialists that are pumping their lines as fast as they can?
In a local trading place, the daily volume in jita might be what is sold in a year. In that case, you need a vast collection of blueprints and quite a big margin between material and end product to actually get rich.
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Usefull websites and tools:
Manufacturing Calculators:
EVE Isk per Hour: https://eveiph.github.io/
Not completely up to date on mechanics (lacks support for Citadels), but reasonably close in most cases. Allows rather complex calculations for lots of items at the same time. Also comes with a simple Blueprint Manager.
Steve Ronukens Toolbox: https://www.fuzzwork.co.uk/
Offers various tools usefull for an industrialist. Very good for quickly looking up things, but lacks the ability to manage a more complex operation.
EVE Industry: https://eve-industry.org/calc/
very minimalistic tool for simple lookups. Fast and easy to use
EVE-Cost: http://www.eve-cost.eu/
Allows management of more complex operations.
Blogs:
Youtube/Twitch
MindFluff: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcDVu3mIiW37rix7V1g_RQg
Has a bunch of videos about industry and trading.
CCP Flight Academy: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuyyCPSovFqgbqZ4-oq0fgeI9QcdH78lr
They have few videos related to industry, but they are only usefull for absolute newbies.
Websites and other Ressources
The UniWiki from Eve University: https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Main_Page
Fantastic collection of in-detail explanations of gamemechanic. Sometimes a bit overloaded and out of date, but usually a really good place to look for information.
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Mobile Test
Also: last reserved Post
Expect Updates and a lot of editing later tonight
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Seems like this will be (and already is) a great guide. Thank you for your time!
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How about another section for cap building?
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If you want Screencaps of stuff - id be happy to contribute in a little way
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thanks for the feedback guys
as you see, it’s not done yet and i will definitely write a bit about caps at some point, i just have to find the time first
i want to keep the entire thing free of any screenshots or detailed instructions as it’s only supposed to be something that will help people understand what’s going on in industry. not something that will delve into mechanics in great detail.
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Great guide. I’m a dedicated miner, looking to branch to manufacturing in the future and this has been very informative.
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dont fall for the “i mined it, therefore it’s free” mentality trap. Just because you spent time getting it doesnt mean that that time didnt have value (compared to running missions or null ratting).
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Well, I just like mining. Manufacturing just seems like an interesting way to increase my profit margins. But I see your point.
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It is, but there’s also the consideration that while it might increase margins, it might increase margins even further by mining for profit yield, rather than material requirement. That way you’d be able to acquire minerals “on demand” as it were, much more quickly than by simply mining. This would increase the turnaround on your industry jobs as opposed to mining a week to queue 5 different 1 day runs, have nothing going for 6 of 7 days while mining for the next run, etc.
Huh. Saw the title, was expecting a bunch of MIMAF-ery and conflation of manu/trade profit. Glad to see you actually highlighted the delineation between those.
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You can ‘Tag’ the OP of your thread with ‘guide’ which will show in a blue marker when players view the threads listed in this ‘Industry Gameplay Center’ category as well as the ‘Science & Industry’ subcategory.
This should be: “The ME and TE values of the original BPO are irrelevant as the Invention process determines the BPC ME and TE values depending on the Decryptors used.”
This invention section might need a bit of a re-word/re-think as it doesn’t quite follow the steps actually taken and is a little confusing.
I’m keen to see this develop as it’s already an awesome start for helping new industry folks out, good work!
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