Building something new

by A scientists life in Eve on May.08, 2012, under Eve online

Over the past few months I’ve expanded my activities into building Capital ships. This is something, to be honest, I’ve really enjoyed.

As I’ve said in previous posts, I try to balance my production with fast moving jobs which keep a steady flow of ISK, and also help to fill in gaps, as well as bigger projects – for example recently when I build well over 100 T2 cruisers and transport ships.

I’m getting ready to start an invention cycle for T2 ships again, although market conditions suggest that this might not be the greatest time to undertake such an endeavour. I view it that the biggest users of T2 ships tend to be those who reside in 0.0 space, and by that I include wormholes (as they are 0.0 space).

Players who live in wormholes and in 0.0 k-space tend to have more disposable income for ships, and although they will no doubt be complaining about the prices of ships, their income still allows them to fly, and lose, T2 ships.

I am sure that most players will end up being more risk adverse during the current economic situation, resulting in a reduction in demand and therefore prices being depressed due to oversupply. However, I also think that this will eventually even out as people adjust to prices. After all, I spent a couple of hours mining the other night and made over 70 million ISK. For those who are more organised, and for those who rat and run complexes (or for those in wormholes who harvest sleeper goo), the ISK is still there, you just get less for your ISK.

Anyway, all of that aside, I’ve had a request to build a slightly bigger T2 ship – a Jump Freighter. Now being a relative new-comer to the Capital Ship Construction party, I have not, to date, built a Jump Freighter. Now would appear to be an excellent time to start while we have the blueprints, resources and – most importantly – an order to fulfil.

I’m just double-checking with my CEO, but hopefully the Capital Components will start being made within 24 hours.

Once this has been built, it will leave T3 Cruisers, Super Carriers and Titans as the only classes of ship (that can be constructed in the game) I haven’t either actually built or been involved in building.

Thinking about it, the list of things I haven’t built is dwindling fast, which is quite a nice feeling. I’m not deliberately trying to build everything in Eve, although I would like to have a go at Super Capitals at some point in the future. I’m certainly not going to create a long list and start ticking them off module by module and ship by ship. Instead, it’s more like milestones, being able to, and having experience at, manufacturing different things. This, I believe, allows me to better react to situations where we, as a Corp or Alliance, might need to suddenly supply a particular need within a given timeframe.

I’m also trying to adopt the “eat what you kill” approach, where we use the resources we’ve harvested to either directly construct, or fund construction, of what we build. This may sound pretty obvious and too inclusive, but what I actually mean is that I’d use the ISK generated from mining Morphite to purchase Tritanium, Pyerite and Mexallon. The gross profit from the final sales is held back to cover operating expenses (system and office rental, POS fuel etc.) and investment in future operations (new blueprints for example).

To date, this method has worked well, although as I said in a previous post, sometimes the buffer of working capital we have could do with being a bit bigger, but I’m addressing that right now.

Thighzen

View 8 May 2012

I mentioned in previous comments that you have inspired me to start up some PI. I don’t remember if I mentioned that you’ve also inspired me to try out some industry. I have already purchased some blueprints and started production in a very small scale. I was wondering how you pick which item you will produce? How do you figure out how many of said item to produce? Do you ever run into problems with producing too much and then having the market dip because of the influx of goods or do you not sell them all at once then?

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- A scientists life in Evereplied:
  
  View 9 May 2012
  
  Although this might sound far too simple, I tend to stick to producing items that will sell well. This, therefore, usually means things that get blown up, or used to blow things up. I also almost exclusively produce T2 items, with the exception of Capital Ships and some T1 Battlecruisers and Battleships. Other than that, basic things that will always be fitted to a mining barge or a PvP ship are always going to sell well and return somewhere between a reasonable and very good profit margin. For example, Warp Disruptor II’s (and Scrambler II’s), Damage Control II’s, T2 shield and Armor modules and so on.
  
  Before you build anything, use a production tool like Evemeep to check build costs, and also look at where you’re going to try and sell your goods. A major hub will yield faster throughput but lower margins, whereas a market hub (other than the big ones like Dodixie, Amarr, Rens, Hek and Jita) will result in slower sales, but usually better margins.
  
  Also, keep rotating what you’re making. Although I tend to invent so that I have blueprints for between 1,000 and 2,000 T2 modules, I only produce maybe 100 or so at a time before I switch to a different module for a couple of days. By rotating around maybe 4 or 5 things at a time I almost always find my sell orders completed before I take more of the same thing to the market. Just today I’ve taken 1.5 billion ISK of T2 guns and launchers to Jita and half of that has already sold within 3 hours.
  
  Basically, I always look at the table in the market window for that item. I check how many have sold each day for the past 2 to 3 months, and how the price has changed during that time too. Then, when looking at the number of different sell orders already in place and volumes available, I can judge how many that market can stand me putting up for sale, and also how fierce the competition is likely to be. Sometimes it’s worth holding your stock for a few days as prices can jump and you can then make 2 to 3 times the profits you would have made if you’d put the sell order up earlier.
  
  Hope that helps a bit.
  
  Reply
Dino

View 9 May 2012

WH residents are flying BC, BS (for pos bash, rerolling wh), T3 and capitals. The only T2 used a lot are logi, rapiers for cap escalation, covops and maybe marauders. Add to the list maybe Ishtar since Gallente doesn’t have any ships that shines at PvE except that one.

T3 outclass most HACs. Recons are better at what they do but can’t really range tank since people usually flight or a wh ready to follow or on site under sleepers fire. In those situations, an ecm tengu will be more useful than a falcon. They are still used, but not has much as you would think.

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