Friday, March 18, 2016

Building capital ships for profit: The guide


Part 1: Introduction


Welp, it's time to do this again. This guide will cover exclusively the building of jump-capable capital ships, in lowsec, from original blueprints, for profit. The tools and techniques contained herein could be applied toward the building of non-jump-capable capital ships, supercapitals, or building from blueprint copies, but these topics will not be covered.

tl;dr

Building capital ships can make money. How profitable it is changes with the market, but you can often make a couple of hundred million per hull. This is possible because capital manufacturing has high barriers to entry, in terms of player ability, knowledge, planning, setup time, and isk. It's very hard to get started with it, and the vast majority of people who try fail. However, if you can get a manufacturing process up and running, it only takes a few hours per month to keep it going.

Starting requirements:

  • 20ish billion isk, in addition to the cost of the items below:
  • A personal corporation, or tower roles for your non-personal corporation
  • A jump freighter and a cyno alt (recommended).
  •     Alternatively, Black Frog could work.
  •     Really, really alternatively, a covert ops hauler could work. Slowly.
  • A scout alt (recommended)
  • A blockade running tengu (recommended)
  • A jump clone (recommended)
  • An RX-804 reprocessing implant
  • Capital ship construction 3 (4 for rorquals)
  • Reprocessing 5
  • Reprocessing Efficieicy 5
  • Crokite Processing 5
  • Kernite Processing 5
  • Plagioclase Processing 5
  • Scordite Processing 5
  • Veldspar Processing 5
  • Mass Production 5
  • Advanced Mass Production 4
  • Advanced Industry 5 (recommended)
  • Metallurgy 5 (recommended)
  • Research 5 (recommended)
  • Laboratory Operation 5 (recommended)
  • Advanced Laboratory Operation 4 (recommended)

Part 2: The spreadsheet


We'll be using it a bit throughout the series, so you may as well grab the spreadsheet now.

Here's it is (libre office calc document). Download it.

The front page has three sections:


The profit calculator is meant to help you decide which ships are best to build at the present time. The build price is taken from forge mineral/compressed ore prices, assuming ME10 blueprints, and the sell price is taken from Forge region sell orders. These prices will update every time you open the spreadsheet, so there's no need to touch it.

Note that the build price may read slightly low because the compressed ore market is so screwed up. This shouldn't take more than a couple of percent off the profit margin.


Once you know which ships you want to build, the component calculator lets you put in ships, material levels, and quantities to build, and tells you how many components you will need. The "ship" and "me" columns are drop-down menus.
  • Note: Using a Thukker component assembly array and/or a capital ship assembly array can significantly reduce the cost of building capital ships. However, using these without an alliance to back you up would be insane, so the spreadsheet doesn't support them.
  • Note: If you want to build a ship not already on the list, you can add it on the "math" sheet under "ME0 component quantities for ships". See the directions there to add the new ship to the drop-down.

The compressed ore requirements section tells you how many units of minerals and compressed ore you will need to refine, at the refining rate set, to produce the minerals needed to build the components shown in the component calculator. We move mostly compressed ore because it has a much smaller volume than the minerals created by refining it.

The refining rate currently set is for refining at an intensive reprocessing array with perfect skills and a 4% implant. Because of the way Crius does refining math, it is VERY IMPORTANT that this number be either accurate or rounded up.

Unfortunately, the only good way I'm aware of to find this number is to actually do some refining. So if you're going to use a different refining rate, buy a good amount of compressed veldspar and refine it with whatever setup you're going to be using. Then divide the number of units of tritanium created by (415 * [number of units of compressed veldspar you reprocessed]). Round the result up at the fourth or sixth digit or whatever.

The tool also gives you the volume of the compressed minerals, and an estimate of how much they will cost. As with the profit calculator, the cost estimate is based on Jita buy orders and is updated every time you open the document.
  • Note: The spreadsheet assumes your components are ME 10. If you want to change this, go to the "math" sheet, and under "component mineral requirements" set your material levels appropriately.

Part 3: Moving expensive blueprints safely


Capital ship and component blueprints are highly gank-worthy, and you're going to be moving them from place to place, including, probably, through nullsec. The best solution I've found for this is the blockade running tengu:


  • Note: A T2 fit is almost as good and a lot cheaper. I move large numbers of expensive blueprints multiple times per year, so the shiny crap makes sense for me.

It aligns fast. It warps in bubbles. It has a covert ops cloak. It has stabs. It has a large, fully passive tank. It even has guns and a neut it case something goes wrong. I've been flying ships like this for years and have never lost one. I've been shot at a few times, but only because I allowed it to happen.

That said, flying smart is your first and best defense. Use a scout when moving things through null. And learn to fly the thing before you use it to move blueprints. Know that you can't cloak within 2 KM of anything. Know that there's a brief delay - based on your distance from the servers - between the time you tell your ship to warp and the time you can activate your cloak without it failing, and practice until you get it down. Know how to check the out-gate for a camp before warping to it (refer to situation 6, steps 2 through 4 here)


Part 4: Researching blueprints


Capital ship hull blueprints are very expensive to research, and it takes a very long time. Blueprint research cost and speed change greatly depending on your location, like so:


The player-owned outpost is clearly the best option. At 28% it costs about a billion isk to research a carrier blueprint from ME0 to ME10. In highsec this would cost about 4 billion.

  • Note: I've heard that it's cheaper to research blueprints in a player-owned tower, but haven't confirmed this. Once again, putting expensive stuff in a tower without an alliance to back you up is flat crazy. 
  • Note: Research implants decrease research time, but do not appear to decrease research cost. 

Capital ship component blueprints only cost about 30-50 million each to research to ME10/PE20 at 100% cost, and they're a lot faster as well. You can totally do those in in highsec.

To do research safely in a nullsec outpost, you need several things:

First, an outpost you can do research at. As of the time of writing, there are stations in Providence that let anybody dock. Alternatively, you could temporarily join a renter corporation or something.

Second, a scout to go first when you bring the blueprints to the outpost and when you take them out later.

Third, jump clones. Two of them, one for the scout and one for the character moving the blueprints. Once the blueprints are at the station and in research, you will clone jump out.

Fourth, a blockade tengu and a scout ship, which will also stay in the research station until the research is done.

With ships and jump clones in the station, you will be able to get your blueprints out even if the station changes hands while your research is in progress.


Part 5: Getting ship blueprints


To build capital ships, you need two types of blueprints: Component blueprints, to turn minerals into capital ship components, and ship blueprints, to turn the components into ships. Which component blueprints you need depends on which ship blueprints you have, so we're covering ship blueprints first.

How many ship blueprints should I get?

As a general rule of thumb, a character with 10 manufacturing slots can keep 3 capital ship hull blueprints in production constantly, using the remaining 7 slots to build components for the next three hulls.

Which ship blueprints should I get?

This is something you should evaluate for yourself. The market changes over time, so any advice I give you will be invalid eventually. If you have the cash, I'd recommend getting two of each hull blueprint. This will allow you to change your production as the market shifts.

Where can I get them?


You can also get ship blueprints from contracts. However, ME10 blueprints are rare and are likely to be more expensive than doing the research yourself.

What material level should I research them to?

The number of components required to build a ship drops significantly between level 9 and 10. So, probably 10.


In the case of the archon, going from ME0 to ME9 saves you 2%, but going from ME9 to ME10 saves you an additional 5%. The naglfar isn't quite as bad, but the last material level still saves you 45 million per run. At that rate it will only take 20 runs (200 days) to make back the cost difference between ME9 and ME10. And remember, the isk you spend on research isn't gone -- the blueprint is worth that much more if you sell it later.

What production efficiency level should I research them to?

20 would be nice - 2% faster construction means 2% more profit over time - but going with 16 or 18 will save you hundreds of days of research and billions of isk. People don't pay for PE like they do for ME.


Part 6: Getting component blueprints


Which component blueprints do I need? Where can I get them?


How many do I need?

It depends on how many production characters you have and what ship blueprints they are producing. I recommend adding up the component quantities needed to build on all your blueprints and using that to pick component blueprint quantities.


My quantities look a little like this. I tuned my component blueprint numbers manually, building on six characters, and ended up with numbers like one corporate hangar blueprint, two armor plates blueprints, three sensor cluster blueprints, and five drone bay blueprints. However, I have more blueprints than I can possibly produce at one with six characters. If you plan to build on all of yours simultaneously, you might want something like one blueprint per 100 components (rounded up).


Part 7: Location


Picking a region:

You want to build and sell your ships in a region where you can sell all the ships you build and where you can get the best prices. When I counted market volumes a few years back the Forge region had by far the most active market. Lonetrek was a distant second, followed by Domain, and Sinq Laison and Heimatar were much smaller still.

If you build in a less active market it may be possible to achieve better margins per hull, because when you're the only seller you get to set the price. However, hulls may sell proportionally more slowly in less active markets, making it possible to out-produce the demand.

I've always built in Forge, and have been pretty happy with it.

Picking a station:

  • It must have industry.
  • There must be a moon in the system with no tower on it.
  • It should be adjacent to highsec, making it easier to get your jump freighter out of the system after moving compressed ore in.
  • It should be in jump freighter jump range of a market hub. You don't want to be moving 10 billion isk of compressed ore through gates in order to get in range of your manufacturing system.
  • It should be possible to warp from the undock to the highsec gate without getting stuck on the station. Test this.
  • Buyers may wish to buy in a system which has capital mods and fuel on the market. If you don't feel like stocking them yourself, you might want to pick a system where somebody else is supplying them.
  • A station where too many other people are manufacturing will have increased manufacturing fees. You may want to pick a station which is not too active.

Part 8: Moving minerals


You've picked a station. Your blueprints are researched and in place. Now you just need to get minerals there.

You need four things: A jump freighter, a cyno alt, a small tower, and an intensive reprocessing array.

The tower can be anchored on any free moon, and the reprocessing array anchored near it. These should be torn down when not is use, as people will shoot them just because.

Pick what ships you want to build and buy the minerals and compressed ores listed in the compressed ores tool. You'll want to get them from buy orders, and this can take a few days. Once you have the minerals and compressed ores, put them in your jump freighter.

Use your cyno alt to online the tower. Set the shield password/corp access settings to turn on the shield. Once it's online, have your cyno alt light its cyno inside the docking radius of your station. Do not activate the cyno near the tower unless you're an idiot.

Jump the JF in, warp to the tower (note: get the shield access settings right BEFORE warping. Not sure if that's still a problem, but it has been in the past), put the compressed ore in the reprocessing array, reprocess it, and haul the minerals to your station. You may want to keep a freighter in your building system to make this process faster.

Once the reprocessing array is empty, have your cyno alt tear down the tower until it is needed again.


Part 9: Walkthrough


Step 1: Decide which ships you want to build and put them in the component tool.


Step 2: I recommend copy-pasting the component quantities somewhere, separating them into 80-ish-component runs if necessary, and using color-coding to indicate the status of each run. Thusly:


 Step 3: Buy the quantities of minerals and compressed ore

Get the quantities of minerals and compressed ore from the requirements tool and buy them. The market for compressed ore is bullshit, and you may want to base your buy price on the price of 100 units of uncompressed ore (or 95, or 105, or whatever works) instead of just 0.01ing the highest buy order.


 Step 4: Have your cyno alt online your reprocessing tower


Step 5: Jump to station


 Step 6: Warp to tower, reprocess ore, haul minerals to station


Step 7: Build components. If you're doing mass production, you'll want minerals for the next run of components available by the time your component blueprints are freed up from this run.


Step 8: Build hulls


Step 9: Sell hulls. If you're doing mass production your next run of components should be done by now, allowing you to put the hull blueprints right back into production.

26 comments:

  1. That's a really good and comprehensive guide.

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  2. Great guide mate. The spreadsheet doesn't update sell price, profit and profit% for me though. Did I fuck something up, or is it the sheet?

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    Replies
    1. Hm. When you open it, it should ask if you want to update links to other documents. If you say yes, it should update. Seems to be working for me with libre office 4.3 and 4.4, though the current version seems to be 5-something, which I haven't tested.

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    2. In the current download of the spreadsheet, the ship prices update but the ore prices do not. When I look at the links it appears only the ship one is still there? I tried making my own link/api pull but I can't seem to get the formatting correct. Any chance you have a link to a tutorial? I am running LibreOffice version 5.1.6.2 Thanks!

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  3. Hi Parasoja,

    I'm a long time reader and I always wanted to get into cap building. I'm curious what your thoughts are for trading profit?

    My main gripe with some production tutorials is that it advocates using buy orders and then value the end product based on the original input buy price. I generally consider that when input has a stable market, you should always value your costs to the percentile sell price not the buy.

    Let me give you an exaggerated example: Minerals for Archon cost 100 from buy order and 120 from sell order, let's see two points of view:

    I - Building the Archon costs you 100 and you sell it for 130;
    II - Building the Archon costs you 120 and you sell it for 130


    I 30 profit YAY, totally worth it I should keep doing it
    II 30 profit but wait:
    - If I just resold the minerals as sell orders I could have gotten 20 so this is just trading profit
    - 10 is production profit
    - well in this case I'm not sure if 10 is worth all the effort maybe I should just trade minerals


    The above is a clear exaggeration, but I am trying to illustrate something not many people seem to be discussing. Sorry if it strays too much for the thread at hand feel free to ignore if so :)

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    Replies
    1. You're describing opportunity cost, which is where by doing one thing, you lose the opportunity to do something else. In this case, the opportunity cost of margin trading vs capital manufacturing.

      Factoring opportunity cost into your numbers wouldn't be wrong, but I do question how useful it would be. I think it would make more sense to work out which activity makes the most profit per hour and do that. This is a basic case of opportunity cost -- if you can make 10m/h mining and 40m/h running missions, then you can say that the opportunity cost of mining is 30m/h. Once you've picked the best activity, you can just calculate profit using your actual outlay and income.

      Let's use your example. If it takes 10 minutes of work to buy and sell 100 worth of minerals, but 60 minutes of work to build a capital ship, then you're making 120 per hour margin trading but only 30 per hour doing capital manufacturing. You're definitely better off spending your time doing margin trading.

      For a slightly more realistic example, let's use 20 and 60 minutes (buying minerals is by far the worst and most tedious part of capital manufacturing), and say that you can sell the minerals for a profit of 1 (margin trading profits are razor thin) and the capital ship for a profit of 15 (realistic). In this situation we have a profit of 3 per hour versus a profit of 15 per hour, and you're definitely better off manufacturing.

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  4. I am stoked to see you write a guide for cap building. 2-3 years ago you wrote a series of posts that helped me a ton to get started in building a nice business of capital production. Now I have a decent sized alt corp and I am pumping out caps for a midsized notorious alliance. You helped tremendously in the start of that with your previous guide.

    Interesting, using the BPO's to manufacture instead of copies. Takes less clicks but more game time. I use BPC;s and a POS and more slots to do more cycles of builds. However , there are many ways to skin a cat.

    Thanks again for the help starting out.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well, won't BPC take more game time? Since you need to make the copy first.
      Anyway, I guess advantage of BPC and POS is you save a bit on the NPC tax, and can do it in system with no NPC factory, so a lower utilization, though you do need to do more logistics..

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    2. Those posts still drive more traffic to the blog than anything else, even though they've been invalid (with a notice and everything) for almost two years. Finally got to link 'em here so visitors don't have to be too disappointed any more.

      It's pretty cool to hear they helped somebody. There have been a few over the years - like, maybe fiveish - and I figure for every one I learn about there are probably a few I don't, which is all fuzzies and stuff.

      Delete
  5. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  6. Great guide. Actually, its the best that I've seen so far about this topic.

    You mind if I translate it some day, from English to Russian? I'll give you proper credit, dont worry.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am completely down with that. If you do it, drop me a link so I can include it with the post.

      Delete
  7. I agree Nice guide.

    But how did you come to the decision to use those ore's?

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    Replies
    1. The tedious way. Tried to find all the combinations of ores that would give all the mins to build ships. There weren't any because of the bullshit CCP did with zydrine and megacyte. Discounting those, there was only one other combination that even worked, using I think spodumain, and it cost like 10% more.

      The new mineral compression is absolutely terrible.

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    2. Yeah, the mineral compression formula is complicated. I used Arkonor, Bistot, Crokite, Spodumain, Gneiss, and dark ochre to fill up the missing Isogen, though I normally have more Isogen than I need.
      Also found that scordite price on average higher than other high sec ores.
      Note that sometimes higher quality compressed ore can be cheaper after you take into account the 5%/10% extra you will get, so you might want to get those instead, although it is more troublesome when you use buy orders.

      Delete
  8. There has been alot of changes from March until now.
    How is everyone finding the capital building industry ?

    I'm finding sales very slow except for Nids and Thannys

    ReplyDelete
  9. CArrier Ratting has become a 2 horse race.. Nid/Thanny... or half as much isk per hour with the others. Very nice guide and thank you for the effort to get it so clear. Was wondering if reasonable to work from just making capital components for profit.. I seem to remember a WH corp just doing capital armour aand selling them

    ReplyDelete
  10. CArrier Ratting has become a 2 horse race.. Nid/Thanny... or half as much isk per hour with the others. Very nice guide and thank you for the effort to get it so clear. Was wondering if reasonable to work from just making capital components for profit.. I seem to remember a WH corp just doing capital armour aand selling them

    ReplyDelete
  11. With last Decembers release it is no longer possible to deploy a POS. Can you please give us an update on your guide? Do you reprocess at the NPC station or an EC/Citadel now?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I would do it at an EC/Citadel, probably out in Null. I think you can get like 87% with max skills.

      Delete
    2. You're confusing POS with Outposts. You can absolutely still set up an POS.

      Delete
  12. You're confusing POS with Outposts. You can absolutely still set up an POS.

    ReplyDelete
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  15. Here is my Titan fit for both Anti-Bee Coalition and Bee Coalition:

    Have the shield to be bumped up with max rating resistance. If you can get the rating to 90% then per 1 shield repair equal to 10 new damage.

    Have the armor to be moderately bumped up with resistance, and added armor. Balance it out, high resistance with low armor is like 9X1, while having low resistance with high armor is like 1X9. What you want is 5X5. The armor is to buy time for the shield repair, and most importantly, to avoid being alpha-strike.

    Have one emergency hull damage control to buy time for the shield to be repaired as well as the armor to be repaired.

    If you are a capital ships then use capital module like remote capital repair if you still have enough power grid.

    Don't fit tracking computer, don't fight sensor boost with the resolution script. Capital slot is for Capital need if you cannot get it from another ship. Have smaller ships do the remote boost, remote tracking and remote sensor modules are rarely used and that is a missed opportunity. In fact the remote sensor boost is stronger than the on-board sensor boost.

    QuantumZen997

    P.S. There are some players who complained that Titan, Super/Dreadnought made the sub-cap fights become irrelevant. Well, my Titan and Dreadnought fit should address this complain.

    The fleet fight will first involve the sub-Cap fight in order to eliminate the sub-cap which are boosting the Titans...

    ReplyDelete