The most complex manufacturing mechanics in Eve might be the production of T3 strategic cruisers and destroyers and their related subsystems. Strategic cruisers were introduced more than a decade ago with the arrival of wormhole space. Very similar to triglavian ship production and space, you can only obtain the various materials to produce T3 ships and modules from killing sleeper NPCs and running exploration sites in wormhole space.
The actual process to get your T3 items is a mix of the mechanics we have already seen in previous parts of my industry guides and involves several research and build steps. Here is a high level overview of the step involved:
- Firstly, you will need to produce T3 blueprint copies for your desired ships and subsystems by a process called reverse engineering, which is very similar to the T2 BPC invention process.
- To build the T3 ships and subsystems you will need special T3 components, which are build quite similar to the normal components used for T2 production.
- However, to produce these T3 components you will need a special intermediate product called Hybrid Polymers, which itself needs to be produced out of Fullerene Gases. Fullerene gases can only be found in gas clouds in wormhole space.
Since the entire process is quite complicated, I will break it down in two separate posts. In this first one, I will cover the invention process for the BPCs and the production of Hybrid Polymers. In the second part, I will show you how to build the T3 components out of Hybrid Polymers and the final production of T3 ships and subsystems.
Reverse Engineering
To get your hands on some T3 BPCs you will need to reverse engineer so called ancient relics that can only be found in relic sites in wormhole space. These relics come in various qualities, which represents how well they are still preserved.
There are 6 different ancient relic types that can be found. Two of them are used to invent the T3 cruiser and destroyer BPCs (called Hull Section and Small Hull Section). The remaining four are used to invent the BPCs of the four subsystem categories for T3 cruisers (Armor Nanobot, Power Cores, Thruster Sections and Weapon Subroutines). All 6 of them come in three qualities (Wrecked, Malfunctioning, Intact), which results in a total of 18 different artifacts.
To reverse engineer any of them simply right click them in a industry facility, which will open the industry window for the invention process. In contrast to normal T2 invention using T1 BPCs, you cannot build anything from the plain ancient relic. They need to be researched into T3 BPCs first. All 18 invention process need a total of six Data Cores of two different types. Which types changes with each ancient relic.
The invention outcome and success probability can be modified by using the same decryptors used for T2 BPC invention. This is also when the quality of the artifact comes into play. Similar to T2 invention, each invention attempt has a success percentage to reverse engineer the T3 BPC. The better the quality of the artifact, the higher will be the unmodified success rate. Intact artifacts have a base rate of 26%, malfunctioning artifacts have a rate of 21% and wrecked artifacts only of 14%. This value can of course be modified by using Decryptors as with regular T2 invention.
Since there are a lot more T3 hulls and subsystems than artifacts, each artifact can be used to invent a number of different BPCs. Before the invention you have to pick the BPC you want to get if the attempt is successful.
Hybrid Polymer Production
With our T3 BPCs freshly researched, we can now move to the next step of the build process: getting your hands on Hybrid Polymers.
The first raw material you will need for this is group of gases called Fullerenes, which can only be harvested in wormholes. Fullerene gas comes in several flavours, each of them used to produce a different Hybrid Polymer. All Fullerene gases are quite bulky, but you can compress them like regular ores to get them into your hauler of choice. Remember that they are quite pricey, so don’t haul too much at once to avoid getting ganked.
The different Fullerene types are number by the following schema:
Fullerite-CXXX where XXX is a number that does not really mean much. However each type can only be found in a certain wormhole class, with the cheaper ones found in lower class wormholes and the more expensive ones only found in C5-C6 wormholes.
Next on our shopping list for Hybrid Polymers are the corresponding BPOs to produce them. These BPOs are sold by NPC corporations on the market and are actually called Formulas but work the same as a regular BPOs. They cannot be researched, copied or invented and are not consumed when you build from them. Just buy a full set of 9 Formulas on the market for 135 mill if you want to get seriously into polymer production.
Unfortunately, you cannot start a reaction formula from a regular industry facility. You will need a Refinery (Tatara or Athanor) in low sec, null sec or wormhole space with a Standup Hybrid Reactor installed.
The closest system to Jita for a publicly accessible Tatara is usually Tama, just four jumps out of Jita. But of course all major null sec power blocks will have their private alliance infrastructure you can use as a member.
Once you found a Refinery and hauled in all your gas and Formulas, you can start the build by right clicking the Formula and select “Use Formular”. Each Formula requires two different Fullerene gases, a small amount of one basic minerals and some fuel blocks to build. Which gases, fuel block and mineral exactly depends on the Formular, but all gases and fuel blocks are used in one of the Formulas.
From a price perspective the minerals and fuel blocks contribute very little to the total cost of the hybrid polymer, so it is not worth to build the fuel blocks yourself. Building one run of polymers takes about 1 hour 30 minutes and the only skill required to start it is Reactions to level 3, which is a rather cheap skill and quick train. You will end up with between 100 to 1000 units of the polymer again depending on which one you want to build. To run more jobs simultaneously you can train the skills Mass Reactions and Advanced Mass Reactions, which both give you one additional reaction job per level.
At the time of writing, Hybrid Polymer production was quite profitable with up to around 0,5 million ISK / hour for certain polymers. Considering that you can build huge quantities pretty much 24/7 out of the formulas, making these polymers alone can be quite a profitable activity. However, since the production facilities are in low, null or wormhole space, it is a bit tricky to get your raw materials to your production refinery. Without your own jump freighter or access to a cheap jump freighter service, you might simply not be able to get enough raw materials to your refinery to make large quantities. Also consider that the market for polymers is not huge, so dumping millions of each on the market might just crash the current prices and result in a loss.
That’s it for the first part of this T3 production guide. The next part will cover the production of T3 components and finally the actual T3 ship hulls and subsystems.