Eve Online - Manufacturing At A Loss? - How to Avoid It & Make ISK

[@fatiguejras]

Here's the most important thing. IF you want to go industry, you gotta make excel sheets. You really want to have all of the info, the prices, the amounts, the taxes, the research probability, the material efficiency in an Excel. That is the only way to actually know if something is profitable and what is the margin of your profit. If you canot be bothered, dont even start. Go fly a ship and shoot stuff. Also, the most important thing about choosing what to make, that nobody here on youtube is pointing to is go to the market, pick a group of items, be it drones, guns, ammo - whatever. Then check the market history of first item in the group, and then keep clicking down searching for the higherst volume over the last year. If the volume's there it means that the chance of selling the item fast is there.

[@hanoifilms503]

I don't think excel is essential. It depends on the person and what they do for fun. Saying this as someone who does well in industry but doesn't use any spreadsheets.... I work at a hedge fund IRL and just use a simple concept from work: Basically only make things where the margin is over 100% or so. Just eyeball it. Then the small details don't matter. As long as you are getting it right 6/10 times you will be up in the long run. Even if you sell 4/10 items for a small loss, this is more than offset by the big margins on the 6/10 items. Cashflow is also king here - selling something for a loss in order to get funds to build something with a massive margin is a winning move but many people don't get the concept

[@keldon_champion]

This is correct it makes it so much easier to punch in material costs, MFG cost, BPC cost, and sell price to get a fast answer to what the profit on an item is.

[@WayTooSuppish]

Hey, I admit, I'm a bean counter. A big one 😅 For me, Excel is a must. And then API pulls better be comprehensive and up-to-date! If a single percentage point of tax is off from my calculations post-production, I have to trash the entire material list and kick a fuel manager in the crotch because it's HIS FAULT for not making sure there was enough Dark Glitter for our run of Fuel Blocks. That JERK

[@forthehomies7043]

Mhmm need liquidity

[@alexlaw1892]

Not true...

[@nathan9903]

As a new indy builder in nullsec im making freighters from scrarch 2.7b for mats and i sell the hull in null for 3.6. they still sell. Value your time builders dont let the cheap minority complaining make u lower your price

[@Microphunktv-jb3kj]

... seems like you like inflation :D

[@zeehero7280]

When everyone is undercutting each other at Jita to make a huge over supply of cheap ventures, Me who's just there to load up my hauler with cheap ventures to sell someplace else... "I LIKE MONEY!"

[@darkarcanum1814]

Make a market somewhere else. Fabulous strategy! It pays for my other in game addictions.

[@asmi06]

I personally prefer doing T2 invention and production. It's much more skill-intensive, but profits are much better. You still have to know your market, and it's best to serve some local market where items you produce are in demand, as opposed to offloading stuff in the market hub. That said, I strive to only make stuff that I can offload even to a hub at a profit, such that if local demand collapses, I won't end up with an inventory I can't liquidate.

[@TrampyPulsar]

Its not just a 'if I farm it its free' mentality, but also a lot of people will produce a ton of things at a loss but away from trade hubs because hauling the materials is cheaper m3 wise than hauling the ships themselves, and saving 2-3 trips because you built it yourself at a loss can be worth it for some people, and when they're done with those ships they can liquidate them. For example you can put 5 packaged frigates in a fully cargo fitted blockade runner, or you could put 20 frigates worth of compressed ore, components, and BPCs and make it in one trip. And if you're hauling it out to nulsec, you're also probably marking up those ships quite a bit if you're selling them to your alliance.

[@evilmotorsports5076]

I kept getting blapped bringing materials into one of the trade hubs to manufacture, then sell Ventures to a high-paying sell order (100+). I then had a bright idea: sell them at the same price two systems away, before you get to the low-sec gate camped system. I sold 7 of 8, all at $40k over that sell order. Ironically ihe gankers brought 4 of them.

[@Scarter63]

They are trading their time to drive prices lower in the end. I think that's market PvP. It's like the guy who burns a 3 mil Catalyst to destroy a 750k Venture, just for the lolz. This is a very comprehensive video. Thanks for making it.

[@unknownunknown-ni1ns]

If you mine it yourself and no real cost to you, its free...dont need to put arbitrary value to "time".... Thier payment for time is enjoying playing the game.

[@MickR0sco]

Ye but they'd make more money selling the mats. It's very counter intuitive

[@worlore1651]

Yes but not everyone wants to just make isk. Some people ENJOY mining then producing, regardless of profit. ​@MickR0sco

[@alexypolivany7148]

About "Free if I farm it," I would like to add there is the other important concept is Lost Opportunity.

[@chriswilson554]

And it's important to remember that if you get your materials from a buy order but the manufacturing aspect doesn't add value, don't make it! Sell those materials as a sell order

[@YuckWalnuts]

Great guide, as always. Time is the most valuable resource. The smartest thing I've done in this game was buying 500 plex and selling it. I can afford to lose anything but capitals and focus on just the things I enjoy the most in the game.

[@Amathylar]

As you say, the biggest issue with eve manufacturing is thinking stuff you mine is "free". Without considering that you can actually sell the minerals for 20% more than you can sell whatever you build with it. So lets see, I have been mining for 2 months. Option 1: Sell minerals for 1.9 billion Option 2: Build Orca and sell it for 1.6 billion - a lot of people choose this option for some ungodly stupid reason. The way I do it, I cherry pick the market - I only build things that I can make a profit on by BUYING from sell orders. Reason is that by the time the raw materials orders fill, the opportunity will be gone - if there was one to begin with.

[@RichMantaray]

go to null sec mine mercoxit ul have 4 bill a month and sell there and ul double it ,,,,dont waster yoru time mining in high sec there is no money there !!! y make 4 mill adn hour when u can make 250 mill and hour adn know who your emermy is lol

[@Dahrenhorst]

It's even often the case, that you can sell the compressed ore for more than the minerals refined from it.

[@Septicus_7]

@@Dahrenhorst if your compressed ore sells more than your refined ore is one thing. if your refined mats can build something that is THEN worth more than your compressed ore then it's worth to refine -> manufature rather than sell compressed ore

[@worlore1651]

Not everyone cares about isk in eve. Alot of people just like to chill in mining fleets and talk to friends and produce ships. Rather than sit by yourself mining for 2 months so you can sell it for not even 1 month of omega.

[@KeyOrion]

If you mine the resources yourself, and you use those resources to build, your losses are going to be minimal to none, and you'll make ISK. Second, be aware, if you're the seller, you choose the price and margin that you will sell the material at. The buyer doesn't choose the final price. The seller chooses the final price. You're the one selling. You're the one with the item that other people want. I'll take a look at the buy orders, and I will look at the sell order. I finally decided to have a 'garage sale' after selling every single drop that I had save for four years. I wanted to make good ISK on my sales. So I took a look at the sell/buy orders for every single item. Took some time. In some cases, I chose %20 margin on my sell orders, at minimum. at maximum I sold at 35% margin. This made my items not only affordable to buyers, who found my prices decently lower than the majority of sell orders, I also made a profit hand over hand. Which means my sell orders sold quicker than everyone else. I wasn't greedy, and at the same time, I wasn't losing money by selling at prices so low, that I would be doing so at a loss. But that was just from drops. Now If I was to manufacture, buy/sell material in order to manufacture, then what I want to do is make ISK, not only for the quality of the item, but for the time I personally spent in order to manufacture the final goods. You take the total cost of the manufacture of the goods and multiply it by a %. I chose 20% or even 22% at the low end, to make my goods easy to purchase and affordable. If the item is more rare, I might jump my margin to 30% to 35%. That's even more affordable for more rare items. A lot of players will go way overboard and do %50 margin or higher which makes the item unaffordable for many players, and only sells to players who have a lot of ISK to spend. Now, you have to think about that for a moment. How many do you want to sell. One expensive item that only a few players are going to be able to pay for, or are you going to sell many at a lower margin which is affordable to a larger purchasing base. Either way you'll make ISK, but sometimes in the long run, you can make more money at a more affordable margin, than have a really high margin on single items. At this time, many of you go, "Well there are many ways of earning LOTS of ISK, in order to purchase any item in the game you want." Every item in game is made by a manufacturer, provided by someone that farmed the resources. So, the fewer manufacturers there are, I'm sorry to say, the more expensive your items are going to be. Because if they are the only providers, then they can dictate higher prices. The more manufacturers that are in the game, the more competition, and the more the manufacturers will try to undercut each other in order to sell their goods. Competition breeds more affordable pricing. ISK only buys you a product, if the product makes it to the market. Support your local manufacturers, by making sure your buying/selling at an affordable price.

[@TheKauff]

Sell below going market in Jita & someone will buy your orders & resell it at the higher price. What you're saying might work locally, but you're leaving ISK on the table in a Hub.

[@KeyOrion]

Not everyone is going 40 to 60 jumps to Jita just to sell, and there are 5 main hubs and about 40 smaller one's. If someone wants to become a strawman and rake in everything at one hub and sell at the higher price, nobody is stopping them. Anyone can do that. But I guarentee if your price is unaffordable at the newer higher price, that little market timer will run out before you even sell 1 unit.

[@smoore6461]

This is a cool video! I have often wondered how industrialists make money. When i look at the prices, it always seems stuff us sold less than materials plus the BPO cost. That makes sense what you said, people are selling at material costs. Very interesting. Nice video, sir! Thanks for the info.

[@happytravelling]

I also disagree with using spreadsheets. I use the philosophy the other guy mentioned, but I have the following take on the matter, which you do not touch on. Manufacturing is like compound interest with each stage in the manufacturing process giving a percentage profit. 8% for PI or reactions whatever, intermediate stage another 8% for each component needed... and final stage, hopefully, another 5-10%. TAke the profits and reinvest into mats and repeat. I have built up over time and am now making 3 Jump Freighters this month. 7.5B to Plex my 3 accounts and the rest is gravy to plow back into making more stuff. I focus on one type or ship at a time, but vary what i make. I did all my manuf in High Sec, but i live in nullsec, where i do PI> I will be moving my manufacturing base to nullsec. It turn out there are NPC stations with full services, like clone bays, manufacturing, and repair. After having to move 3 times, I am just done with POS. The cost index is 1/4 that of the highsec station, i use and will be much cheaper to make stuff out there.

[@MrHardstyleTaco]

I recently got back into the game. I'm stuck in high sec just mining while my skills grow on alpha status until I get some spare cash to buy Plex. I wanna join you in null sec where I can make more for my manufacturing, but don't have a clue where and how to safely make it in null sec, as I haven't left high sec. Any decent corporation you know to help me get into null sec?

[@ModeKaioken]

Its not that they don't value there own time its more if you mine your own rocks you can take a 20% price cut to price people not mining there own stuff out of the market. Which is kind of smart to limit competition.

[@AVerySillySausage]

But you are missing the obvious fact that if the mineral value on the market is higher then the person making their own stuff could just sell it directly for more isk rather than waiting time on the manufacturing process to sell the end product for less money. I guess they just find the manufacturing experience fun and satisfying and don't really care about efficiency, Eve is a game after all. It is annoying though that t1 manufacturing is basically pointless.

[@anthonyzullo]

Starting out, get some trade skills up and produce and refine in Perimmeter, transport your wares to jita, then go back to perimeter and sell from there. 1% fee from station. POS structures with rigs so not NPC.

[@potato88872]

That would give money to null sec

[@mrtomato5132]

if someone sells at a loss why not just buy that order and sell it at profit? there's a small profit margin no?

[@nelsonhoover8462]

I think this is miss something in that if the market rate for an item (using the venture as your example) is lower than material cost, then you are losing money in time regardless of where you sell the item. For better margin, I could buy below cost in a trade hub and freight it to the location of final sale and make more money than someone who took the time to gather the resources themselves. The only exception would be if you were completing the entire process from T1 materials to Venture in a low or null sec system. Then you may have a point, as the cost associated with getting stuff from the trade hub to the final point of sale would be cut out. The real issue in this market economy is one of three things. You either have an outsized group of manufacturers, an undersized group of miners, or an undersized group of freighters/ outsized risk in shipment. If people don’t care about losing margin on manufacturing, then your best way to profit is in shipping or mining. Full stop. Which you do hit on. Honestly I’m a bit surprised that we continue to find ourselves here, as my perception of the EVE community is one where most people are competent and numerically motivated.

[@seamusmcmasters114]

On tge subject of devaluing your time, in Economics its called Opportunity Cost. Wasting time costs both time and money. While you are static blasting rocks, what money could you be making elsewhere and are missing out on.

[@Izawwlgood]

Very glad to hear you mention opportunity cost! People in all games don't seem to understand that it's not free if you gather it yourself!

[@Darth_Insidious]

Every material you gather by hand for industry still has the opportunity cost of you instead selling it to market.

[@Razman23]

^THIS^ I would not spend the time to mine ores. It is basically what is my time worth. Do I want to spend an afternoon sitting in a ore belt or do something else? Buy the mats with buy orders instead. Build a spreadsheet as well. List the costs of the mats AT THE TIME of purchase/mined. List the costs, broker fees, usage fees, and especially sale fees. At the bottom, put in how much isk you want to make. 10%? 20%?. That is your sale price. Do not go below that. For noobs, another option would be building ammo or modules at first. Learn the process and make crap profit and then you can upgrade to more costly products. Always look at things that will cut costs. Be it buy orders, sale locations, researched BPOs, and skills.

[@JustSuds]

If they sell at Jita for lower than material cost, just buy them at Jita and run them out to null sec.

[@Streifer]

im a miner and only sell ores as main source of income in game for my combat char that does only faction missions and combat, should i train all trade skills for my miner?

[@Blobstermcblobster]

I would focus on accounting to lower that sales tax then the rest depends on if you want to sell to more stations from the one your currently in.

[@yuribigboss]

Less than a week playing and I'm already in deep watching these videos, I barely understand all the acronyms used. I haven't yet decided whether I want to focus on mining, production or fighting, for now I'm trying them all. Great video nonetheless.

[@AHO7I2399]

Good news is you can always train into the skills, I am starting because I live in remote ns and the main market hubs are empty which makes it really easy to mark up and make a profit

[@Drak976]

16:45 Nooooo you can't just undercut me and have fuuuun!

[@reysilencio360]

Should I mine my own minerals or buy firesales n cheap minerals?

[@thecomposerchanginggames5250]

If you like mining and aren't an alpha so you can actually do it well, go for that. Otherwise, find best prices to buy at, perhaps consider hauling items that you can buy at a big discount elsewhere

[@MannyKunV]

i suffer from the "free if i farm it" mentality. i try to break out of it by thinking to myself "if i go do something like homefront missions and make x isk per hour, i can do that and buy more materal than i would farming in the same time frame".

[@Enjoy_my_1st_Amendment]

I think alot of new players see a venture full of ore typically around 500k. They think they are profiting for their time also. Not realizing thats just the raw base price of the cargo. 500k is 500k kinda thing no further thought needed if you get what im saying. If you had a slight maintenance expense on the mining fittings or a raw ore processing/handling fee at stations could buffer this unrealized under selling maybe. Which would maybe simulate in a way an expense on your time. Might make up for that short for the greater good of the economy. If they figured out how to incorporate war bonds im sure this underselling can be buffed somehow. Thing about free market though is it works both ways and i bet alot of folks dont turn down below market prices. Whats good for the goose is good for the gander in that regard. How much integrity toward a strong market does one tend to have? Change can be made from both ends of a free economy not just from one end. If it dont get bought, its kinda hard to undersell it.🤷‍♂️ I know that doesn't work for everything but it can have an influence on alot of things.

[@deydraniadiancecht8298]

Why would anyone buy a ship in Jita? Too many gate camps to and from there looking for unfitted ships to kersplode. It's far safer to spend a bit more and buy ships closer to your actual home. It's 18 jumps to Jita and 18 jumps back to my home system and that goes through 0.6 and 0.5 systems. Whenever I go to Jita, I make sure and take a small, fast, and cheap ship to go take care of business. That way, I stay off the radar and blend in with the new people. I'm sure if I traveled to or from Jita with an unfitted Battleship, I'd get kersplatted super quickly!! 😂 Unless I was willing to also fit it in Jita and make it a one-stop shop, but still- too big of a target :)

[@anthonyzullo]

Mine ice blocks. Open fleet manager and find open fleets for compression and boosts. Easy day 1 alpha claps. In between mission running, PD, PI and exploration, can go wrong. Also hits all the AIR programs which are again, easy claps. Isk and free ships all of which can be sold.

[@NeilDeBarna]

1:12 damn them for playing the game for fun! How dare they!

[@angrygolemgames393]

Now imagine that these players with the "free material" mentality behave exactly the same way in real life when it it time to manage their own life.

[@rayderrich]

Good talk, I will not spend more time on training Industry skills.

[@RichMantaray]

high sec is a real life money pit ,, dont mine there ,,,,go to null sec and make 250 mill an hour not high sec 4mill an hour lol ,,,, then ul never have ot pay for eve again

[@immorttalis]

I like making a profit, but many people just don't give a damn. They just want to build stuff and it's okay.

[@eriknordqvist9016]

And now the price for a Venture is 230k ISK.

[@JonTaRW84]

One thing to mention is in your video you have the venture as an example, so the material is 420k and the venture is 350k that means for example it takes 5 hours (for easy calculations) to mine all the materials the profits is 84k isk per hour is you sell the materials and the profit for manufacturing the venture is 70k isk per hour. That's and example that could help people's mindset not to sell to cheap and actually make more isk / hour

[@Boonedale]

I havent had a good expierence with the Eve market for years now. Most items are worth less then the mats used to make them.

[@Redishere]

People sell at such a big loss, often i bulk buy stuff below the cost of its reprocessing value. So i am actively destroying other peoples stuff cause it is cheaper then buying it off a miner.

[@marakuyovimalesh3793]

Way to put that Notepad to good use!

[@sert_winner3678]

To be honest I only build if it’s at a profit else I don’t do it and I’m the only builder in our corp because of it

[@Megagon10k]

Don't pay buy price. Setup buy orders

[@razadaza9651]

So just buy the undervalued end product and sell it in other areas

[@DanGifford-c4g]

Manufacturing is broken. Wish I would’ve looked into it more before investing in tons of BPOs

[@keldon_champion]

I'll definitely be playing Necro, I have always loved the whole army of the damned thing. As to pre-ordering I will only pre-order a game that I have seen positive reviews for from a trusted source or I have played the game pre-release such as a beta so I guess we will see how the beta goes that is when I'll make my decision. I really do hold to this too I have beta tested a fair number of games and I have cancelled pre-orders because I was unhappy, for example I was a closed beta tester for elder scrolls online and due to the state of the game days before launch I cancelled my pre-order for it.

[@pythonxz]

Sell the components, not the end product.

[@rabbishank]

NEVER NEVER NEVER sale at cost ALWAYS sale higher... The point is profit

[@aaronstillwell9492]

Well made guide. There has been so many changes to Indy since I returned from my long hiatus.

[@WayTooSuppish]

Sound wisdom.

[@MnemonicHack]

So, people say "Everything I mine is free". And someone will respond "You're spending you're time, it's not free". But if I mine with 10 alts who are skill/PI farms that pay for their own accounts, isn't the minerals I mine close enough to free?

[@frenchiemike42]

Trading is easier + way more isks, I tried industry but I rather stay one more hour at work and buy 500plex instead of dealing with this jacks**t UI and management 🤣. Industry is messed up and gatekeep by the people who are selling isks illegaly at half the cost of CCP.

[@razorbackblood06]

wtf is a "proc"?

[@FoobarSG]

I am not positive, but I think in this situation it is short for “Procurer” (the ship)

[@XeLYoutube]

literaly 1 second intro lol

[@jarirepo1172]

What I wonder about "free if I farm it"-mentality the most is that if the people are doing it for the isk, they could just sell the resources.

[@kgthegman]

I think that "free if I farm it" mentality is blown out of proportion.. the real reason that cheap t1 stuff is selling below the material value for noobs is because the people building those ventures are buy-backing their ore for well below Jita BUY prices, their reprocessing skills are maxed out, and they have maxed out BPs, which brings the cost to manufacturer WAY down.

[@frechesferkel2749]

My experience so far, dont bother with this shit called industry. In the time you try to figure out how you can make a resonable amount of profit there are plenty other option where you can make ISK faster.

[@jollygreen4662]

My BPO used to be 90% PE. But eve f that up by nerfing it

[@chrisklugh]

My biggest gripe about Eve is how many players 'play for fun'. They don't value their time cause its 'just a game'. Not only are people mining for below costs, but logistics is not even valued. I do Faction Warfare and I find it amusing that people wont pay 1M/T1 Frigate (for an example), yet they will pay 100% Jita on the parts they will fit that frigate. Logistically speaking, its much easier to move in 10 fits for a ship at Major Market Prices, then it is to bring out 10 ships. Its no wonder why most people spend more time in stations/running errands then they doing activities that make them money. If only everyone put a price per jump or something in some way to objectively measure the costs to move things. If more people did that, more industrialist would be active outside of Jita as there would be real fair profits to be made, and more people can spend more time doing other Eve things.

[@cyrus991]

Imagine playing a game for fun crazy!!! 🤨

[@TinyTein]

Yea you should help people quit and it was a dead game