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.