Guides – EVE HOW TO

Life of a Scientist (Part 2)

In this second part of my research guide, I will put the mechanics explained in the last post into action and show you how to make some serious ISK by researching blueprints and selling these on the public contract market.

The general process how to do this can be divided into the following steps:

Find a good Engineering Complex (EC) to research in
Check contract prices for researched blueprints or copies
Research or copy blueprints which make a decent profit
Sell your researched BPOs or BPCs by the contract system

How to find a Structure

First step is to find a proper structure to do your research in. As explained in the last post, Engineering Complexes (ECs) have build in hull reductions for research time and costs, so these are usually the best options you have. To find an available EC, open your industry window (Alt + S) and select the Facilities tab. This tab lists all available locations to research and manufacture in within the selected range. Now you filter for Material Efficiency Research. This will now show only structures you can research ME and TE values in.

Next step is to sort the results by type, and look for Sotiyos and Azbels, which give the best bonuses for your research. If you hover over one of them in the list, you can check if they have research rigs fitted, which gives another big bonus to research speed.

This is how it will look like:

Searching for a good research Sotiyo or Azbel

Each system has also a system cost index, which will increase the cost of a research job. Costs for research job are in general not too big for blueprint other than capital ships and battleships/ battlecruisers. Even a month of research with high system costs index is rarely more than a 10 mill job cost.

Now its time to find one that has the biggest bonuses, least system cost index and is still close to Jita, which is where we will sell our final product.

Checking Blueprint the Market Prices

To figure out what blueprint to research, you need to check the contract system for blueprints that show a good price compared to the unresearched blueprint cost and the time required to research it. Most blueprint on the market will be sold with perfect ME and TE values, which are ME 10 and TE 20.

First thing you need to do, is to check how long it will take for the blueprint of your choice to research it to 10 / 20. You can get an estimate by clicking the View in Industry button on the item info dialog.

You will now see the Industry Window with the selected blueprint, select ME research and set the job run to 10. This will now show the research time without structure bonuses and only your skills and implants applied.

The time to research the TE value is always equal to the ME value for the same amount of runs. So for this Medium Shield Extender I above the research time would be 11 days and 8 hours for ME 10 und TE 20. This will be further reduced by the structure bonuses and rigs of your EC, which I will just assume sum up to around 50%, which reduces the research time riquired to around 6 days. To figure out the exact research time required, you would need to buy the BPO and use it in your selected EC, but for a first profitability calculation, this estimate is usually fine.

Next you open the Contracts Window and search for your blueprint in the Available Contracts tab. Use the Item Category filter and set it to Blueprint Original to filter out all other results. Now you will see all available researched blueprints.

For BPOs that are very time consuming to research, you sometimes can get along with researching the TE value only to 18, which significantly reduces the research time.

In this example we could get 14,5 million ISK for the Medium Shield Extender I blueprint at max levels, which comes to a bit more than 2 million per day of research. Of course you need to subtract the cost of the blueprint itself, which is 125k ISK, and the cost of the research jobs from this price. For this example, both together are less than 500K ISK for the two jobs and the blueprint, which does not change the profit per day significantly.

Once you found a couple of good ones, you buy the unresearch originals either from NPC sellers or in Jita, haul them to the EC you picked as your research station and start the jobs.

You will now do this calculation for as many different blueprint as you would like to research and find some good ones with high ISK per day of research value. Usually 5 million per day profit on a BPO is quite a good profit, while a value less than 2 million per day is not recommended to research.

I highly recommend to research as many different ones at the same time as possible. The blueprint market is not very big and researching 20 blueprints of the same time can easily crash it for that BPO.

Selling by Contract

Once your research is completed, you haul your perfect BPOs to Jita and sell it on the contract market. At least 90% of all researched BPOs are sold there, so there is not much of a choice where to sell your product.

You open the contracts window again and search for your BPO and check the current price. If it is still ok, right click your BPO and select Create Contract.

In the contract wizard, you pick an Item Exchange Contract, put in a price that is a bit lower than the current one and select 4 weeks as the contract duration.

Researched BPO contract in Jita (ME 10 / TE 18)

After that, you just wait for your BPO to get sold, which can take a while for most BPOs. I have usually around 40 contracts on different characters up at any time and rarely sell more than one per day.

What’s the profit?

So what can you expect as a profit for researching BPOs? If you find about 20-30 good ones at any given time and sell these within a month, you can easily keep 30 research slots running at the same time on the three different characters of an account. Of course you have to put in the skill training on all accounts first, which can be 1-2 million SP per character depending on the skill levels you want. The more SP you spend, the more isk can you make by more slots and faster research times .

Lets say, in the best case we found 30 excellent BPOs, which make 5 million profit per day of research. This would make the following profit per character per month:
5 mill * 30 day * 10 research slots = 1,5 billion ISK per month per character

With three character running jobs, this comes to a stunning 4,5 billion ISK per month per account. If you only find BPOs that sell for 2 million per day, this is reduced to 1,8 billion per month per account, which still is enough to PLEX it easily.

So what is the ISK per hour value? If you spend 30 minutes every day to restart your jobs, buy and haul BPOs and find new ones to sell, this comes to between 120 and 300 million ISK per hour, which makes researching one of the very highly paid activities in the game. However, once you found good BPOs to research, the time required is even smaller, with only buying new ones, hauling them to your EC, restarting jobs and setting up contracts once every couple of days.

Of course you need the proper skills first on all characters and also a decent amount of ISK to get started. To buy enough BPOs to fill all research slots at all times and have another 40 BPOs on the market on contracts, you can easily spend at least a billion ISK on blueprints. If you aim for the higher value blueprints, like capital ships parts or capital ships, this can go up to 100 billion investment. The higher values ones also have longer research times and profit margins, so the actual time investment on your side is even smaller if you can get your hands on these.

I hope this explained the research profession good enough to get you started in your new career as a (mad) scientist!

Life of a Scientist (Part 1)

One of the quite unique features of Eve is that almost all items you use in your Eve career have been produced by other players. Each ship, each round of ammo or cap booster you use was once manufactured by a busy industrialist, who gathered the different raw materials to produce it.

To produce an item in Eve, you will first need a blueprint for the item, secondly the raw materials to build it from, and lastly a location to build it, which can either be an NPC station or player owned structure that has a factory module included.

In this first post of my industry series, I will only explain how the blueprint part to produce an item and the mechanics to improve these blueprints work. The actual process of building the item will be covered in a later post.

So how do you get these blueprints? Most blueprints can be found on the public market. You can find them in the market window under the Blueprints & Reactions folder:

Blueprint Originals in the Market Window

Some special blueprints are given out as rewards from mission agents or can be found in NPC wrecks or exploration sites. All blueprints that you can find on the market are originally sold by NPC corporation at a fixed price and unlimited volume. However, players can resell these at different locations for higher prices, since not all blueprints can be found in a all regions of New Eden.

Bueprint Originals vs Blueprint Copies

There are two different kinds of blueprints that can both be used to produce a particular item. Firstly, there are blueprint originals (BPOs), which can produce an unlimited amount of an item. The second type are blueprint copies (BPCs), which can only produce a limited number of the item. The amount is specified by the number of runs on the blueprint copy. For many BPOs and BPCs a single run will also produce a single module or ship. However, for some items, usually the ones which are used in large quantities, e.g. ammunition or drones, a single run of the blueprint will produce several units. If all the runs on a BPC are used, it is destroyed.

BPCs can be created by a process called copying the BPO. BPCs themselves can not be copied again . You will always need the original to create a copy. Eve has a very strict copyright laws!

An unresearch Shield Rig BPO, details for TE research are shown

There are two metrics on a blueprint that specify the quality of the BPO or BPC. There is the Material Efficiency (ME) value between 1 % and 10 %, which reduces the amount of input materials required when an item is produced from the blueprint. The second metric is the Time Efficiency (TE) value between 2 % and 20 %, which reduces the time that is needed to use a single run from the blueprint.

a 3-run Blueprint Copy with ME 10 / TE 20

The ME and TE value of a BPO can be increased by researching the blueprint. Both values must be researched separately by ME and TE research jobs.

You cannot improve the ME and TE of a BPC. If a BPO is copied from an BPO, the BPC inherits the ME and TE values of the original. So if you have a perfect BPO (ME 10% and TE 20% bonus) , you can also make perfect copies from it. When you buy a BPO from the market, the ME and TE values will initially be zero. BPCs that you sometimes get as mission rewards or from exploration mostly have some level of research on them, which also cannot be improved as with regular player made BPCs.

Once a BPO has been researched it cannot be sold on the market anymore. The only way to sell a researched BPO is to set up an Item Exchange Contract by the not very user friendly contract system.

Most blueprints can be researched with a couple of hours invested in skill training. Many only require various levels of the Science, Research and Metallurgy skills and some very basic skills that are related to the item, e.g. Rigging skills to research the Medium Core Defence Field Extender blueprint shown below. Some even require no skills at all to research them .

Industry Window

In game, all research related activities are done in the industry window. This window will show all your BPOs and BPCs in the lower part of the window. By selecting one, you now have the options to either build the item, increase ME or TE values, or make one or more copies of it. To pick one of these options, simply select the corresponding icons just below the blueprint in the center of the window.

Each activity will take a certain amount of time and costs some money. Both values are based on the number of runs you pick for the research job, which you can configure by the Job Runs field below the blueprint. One run for ME research will improve the BPO by 1% ME value. One run for TE research will increase the TE value by 2%.

To start the job use the Start-Button in the lower right side of the window.

If you select to copy the blueprint, you can specify the resulting number of runs on the blueprint copy and the number of copies to create.

Jobs can only be started if the total research duration of all selected runs is below 30 days, with the exception that you can always start a job if a single run already takes longer than 30 days, which is the case for some very time intensive BPOs like capital ships or capital ship parts. How long a single run takes can be viewed outside the industry window by the details of the blueprint.

If you want to know how the cost and time for your job is calculated, just hover the mouse over the price or duration, which will display a summary of the calculation with all skills and other effects that affect the job duration or price listed.

As a rule of thumb, the cost of a research job per run is proportional to the cost of the actual item that is produced by it, not the cost of the blueprint. The same is true for the duration. The longer it takes to produce the item, the longer the research time required per job run.

Science skills

There are several skills that will reduce the required time for a ME/TE research jobs and increase the number of jobs you can run at the same time.

The Metallurgy skill reduces the time required for ME research by 5% per skill level.
The Research skill reduces the time required for TE research by 5% per skill level.
The Science skill reduces the time to copy BPO by 5% per skill level.

By default, you can only start one job at the same time. By training into the skills Laboratory Operation and Advanced Laboratory Operation you can start one additional job per level of each skill up to 11 research jobs at the same time.
Lastly, the skill Scientific Networking allows you to start and deliver research jobs remotely. Each level increases the range by 5 jumps to the station the BPO is located. This one is handy, if you don’t keep your research character always in the station it researches in.

Implants and Structure Bonuses

There are also the three types of implants that further decrease the job run duration similar to the related skills. Each of them decreases the time needed by either 1%, 3% or 5%. All three use different implant slots, so you can use one of each type at the same time.

Another option to decrease the time required for your research is to use a publicly accessible Engineering Complex (EC) or buy your own EC for your corporation to research in. Research can also be done in NPC stations, but since Engineering Complexes provide bonuses to reduce the required job duration, this is almost never the best way to do it.

Engineering Complexes come in three sizes: The Raitaru (medium), Azbel (large) and Sotiyo (extra large)

Each EC provides a fixed reduction bonus for all research job (ME / TE and copy) depending on the size, which are 15% for th Raitaru, 20% for the Azbel and 30% for the Sotiyo. They also reduce the job cost by 3% (M), 4% (L) and 5% (XL).

These bonuses can be further increased by fitting research related rigs on the EC. Rigs come again in three sizes. However, there are different rigs for the three EC sizes that give time and cost reduction bonuses.

There are alot of T1/T2 medium sized rigs, which decrease either cost or time of an ME, TE or copy job, with each bonus having a different rig.

The large rigs always decrease both cost and time of an ME, TE or copy job, with each type of job having a different rig.

Lastly, the XL rigs decrease both for any type of research job in one rig.

The final point to get some more bonuses for your research is, if the EC is located on high sec, low sec or null sec/wormhole space. The effect of each rig is increased by a factor of 1.9 for low sec and 2.1 for null sec and wormhole space.

So that’s pretty much all there is to say about research jobs and blueprints and cost/time calculations.

In the next part of this guide, I will give you some advice how you can turn all this theory into some serious profit with minimal effort. Sounds good, eh?

Cosmic Anomalies: Emerging Conduits

In one of the recent updates, CCP added a new cosmic anomaly to the game which is available in all regions of New Eden: The Emerging Conduit

Emerging Conduit Site in Probe Scanner Window

Lore wise, this anomaly is caused by an triglavian attack of the system, which in this case consists of a bunch of frigates, destroyers and cruisers which enter the system by a small gate located within the site, which directly leads into triglavian dead space and will last until a player defeats all hostiles in the site. The artwork of the anomaly looks very similar to an abyssal deadspace pocket, but allows the player to zoom out the overview as usually in k-space.

These sites were designed to be run by small groups of player, but can also be handled solo by an extremely tanky ship or by warping off field
a couple of times to repair at a station if the damage gets to high.
The difficulty is a bit harder than that of level 4 security missions, so you will need at least a battleship or T2/T3 cruiser to run these sites solo effectively.

The triglavian NPC don’t act like regular NPC in security mission, but use the new NPC AI and feel more like they were player run ships. They are also much harder to kill than normal NPCs – again more comparable to player ships. So even a bunch of frigates and destroyers can be a serious threat to a single player. Furthermore, the Triglavians will use lots of ewar modules like energy neutralizers, stasis webifiers and tracking disruptors on you. However, the NPCs in these Conduits very rarely use warp scramblers or disruptors on you, so there is almost always the possibility to warp off if needed.

The Ship

The most cost effective ship you can run these site in within a timely fashion is the good old Praxis battleship that any pilot can fly with the default skills. Of course you could use an expensive pirate battleship like the Rattlesnake or Machariel to run the sites, but this would require a significant amount of ISK invested in the hull and fittings.

The praxis however is a very cheap alternative and performs still reasonably well. It also does not require a lot of skill points to be piloted, since the damage bonus of the hull does not depend on any skills. So max damage bonus without training battleship V!
The following is the pretty standard passive shield regeneration fit I used to run the sites:

In the high slots I use ‘Arbalest‘ Rapid Heavy Missile Launchers Is which apply a fair amount of damage against destroyer and cruisers sized ships. Since there are no battleships in the conduit sites, a battleship seized weapon does not apply damage well compared to a medium sized weapon system. The utility high slot is filled with a Salvager I to salvage some wrecks while fighting the Triglavians.

In the mid slots we have a couple of Large Shield Extenders II to give a nice buffer tank and a explosive and thermal shield buff to increase the resists against the triglavian main damage types. There is no need to adjust your tank like in level 4 missions, since the triglavians always do the same damage types. Finally, I use a Parallel Enduring Target Painter I to increase the damage application of the missile launchers and drones, since some of the targets in the site are very small.

In the low slots I have 5 Shield Power Relay IIs to increase the shield regeneration of the buffer tank and 2 Ballistic Control System IIs to increase missile damage.

In the rig slots I fitted 3 Large Core Defence Field Purger Is to further increase the shield regeneration rate. These increase the shield regeneration rate to 330 EHP/s, which is quite a bit combined with a 50k EHP buffer tank.

In the drone bay I have Republic Fleet Berserkers to deal thermal damage as my main drone system. If there are only frigates left, you might want to switch to Warrior IIs to better apply damage to smaller targets. Lastly, I bring 5 Salvage Drones to salvage the site after completion. Additionally I use a Mobile Tractor Unit in the cargo hold to tractor in drones and wrecks while I run the site.

The Site

You can simply warp to the site from the Probe Scanner window and there is no acceleration gate that guards the site. The Triglavian ships will show up after a couple of seconds and you can actually watch the entry gate spawn in space in a small animation.

The Traglavians will come in three waves, each one triggered by killing the last ship of the previous wave. The first one consists of 4 to 6 ships, with up to 2 destroyers and the rest in frigates. The second one will be slightly bigger with 4 to 7 ships and up to 3 destroyers. The final wave will be even again bigger with a single cruiser and 6 to 11 other ships. Especially the final wave can be a big problem in the above fit, if you get a big spawn. On the final wave, try to kill the destroyers first to decrease the dps of the wave. If the triglavians are down to 8 ships, you should be able to tank the rest fine.

Each ship can have ewar modules equipped, with the naming of the NPC in the overview indicating the type of ewar.

Usually its a good idea to kill the Remote Repair and Neutralizing ships first before killing the rest of the wave, if you are able to tank the room. Some of the ships will drop expensive loot, so drop a Mobile Tractor Unit when you enter the site to scoop the loot. While working on each wave, you can also start to salvage the wrecks with your single Salvager in the high slot to make some extra isk. There is no point in moving your ship within the site, since the triglavians will quickly approach your ship from the spawn point, which is about 80 km away from the warp-in.

When the last NPC is killed, the site will despawn from the probe scanner window and a new one will appear about one minute later. It never happened to me that I ran out of sites in my system, so you will never have to move to different systems to search for sites.

What’s the Profit?

The profit from the site consists of several components. Firstly, you will get 4,5 mill ISK when the last NPC of the third wave is destroyed. You only need to be in the site when the last NPC dies to get the payout. If there are up to three players in the site, everyone will get the full amount. After that the 13,5 million will get divided by the number of players.

You will also get 300 Concord Loyalty Points each, for up to three players. For more players, they the amount will be again split by the number of players. The Concord LP are actually worth quite a penny, with many items selling for 3K ISK per LP from the Concord Store.

Finally, you can salvage the wrecks and scoop the loot. Of course the payout can vary quite a lot from site to site, since the loot drops are very random. I ran sites that dropped only 2 million in loot and salvage but also one that dropped 32 million ISK. In average I made 11,5 million ISK in loot and salvage from each site, with most ISK coming from Triglavian Surveys and a little bit from the salvage and other loot. In general the salvage is not really worth the time salvaging it, but as long as you wait for a new site to spawn, this is some extra ISK.

So in total, a single site makes about 17 million isk if you run it solo ( 4,5 million payout + 0,9 million ISK from LP + 11,5 million ISK from loot), 22,5 mill if run by two players ( 2 *4,5 + 2 * 0,9 + 11,5) and 27,7 million if run by three players ( 3 *4,5 + 3 * 0,8 + 11,5). From that point on, the payout will decrease again, since LP and ISK bonus will be split between players.

In my solo Praxis, I was able to finish about 3 sites an hour which comes roughly to 50 million ISK / hour, which is really good isk considering an investment of only 180 million ISK and almost no risk since if you run the sites in high sec. The exact number of sites per hour highly depends on the size of the last spawn and how many times you need to warp off.

With two Praxis running the sites, I got the completion time per site down to about 15 minutes, which will pay out around 45 million ISK / hour per player ( 4 * 22,5 / 2).

Finally, with three Praxis the completion time went down even further to about 9 minutes, which will pay out about 60 millions ISK / hour ( 6,6 * 27,7 / 3) , which seems to be the sweet spot for best ISK per hour payout.

As always, these numbers are only my personal experience and might be different for you, if you use ships with higher dps or better tank.

I think at the moment these sites are one of the best easy PVE options in the game. There is little risk to run them and they payout of the sites is comparable to null sec ratting. The skill points needed to run them are very little and the investment in the hull quite cheap compared to Level 4 security missions, which require a 500 million+ ISK investment. A big plus is also that is is worth to run them in a team, which might make them not as boring as solo mission running. I think all new players should consider to run these sites instead of grinding standings for mission agents in high sec.