I finally got together enough alloyed tritanium bars to make two Cargohold Optimization I rigs for my Mammoth.
I decided to build rather than buy based on some pretty easy calculations.
On the market in my region of space, Cargohold Optimization I rigs sell for 43 to 50 million ISK each.
The blueprints for the rig cost 112,500 ISK.
The parts required by the basic blueprint are:
115 Alloyed Tritanium Bars – 34,500,000 ISK (300K ISK each)
136 Fried Interface Circuits – 5,440,000 ISK (40K ISK each)
78 Tripped Power Circuits – 2,340,000 ISK (30K ISK each)
Total: 42,392,500 ISK (plus manufacturing costs)
So anybody selling at 43 million ISK is not exactly making a killing on the market, at least not without some additional effort.
I thought I ought put in that sort of effort to try to get that price down a little bit.
I spent 167,372 ISK on getting the blueprints to material efficiency level 20, which along with my level 4 skill in Production Efficiency brought the materials down to:
100 Alloyed Tritanium Bars – 30,000,000 ISK (300K ISK each)
124 Fried Interface Circuits – 5,440,000 ISK (40K ISK each)
68 Tripped Power Circuits – 2,340,000 ISK (30K ISK each)
Which brought the total for the first rig down to 37,279,872 ISK (plus manufacturing costs), a savings of 5,112,628 ISK or nearly 12%.
While I had to wait nearly 20 days for the material research to run on the blueprints (during which time I also trained up my production efficiency), it clearly paid for itself right off the bat.
While I waited for the material research to finish up, I went about the collection process to make sure I had the materials to make two rigs.
Once I had the blueprints done and the materials in place, I did the production run, which took less than 20 minutes.
Fitted to my Mammoth, I was able to load up a couple more Giant Secure Containers in the hold, bringing my total to 7, and raising my total hauling capacity to 29,890 cubic meters of cargo. I can now haul more than a jet can worth of ore.
So now the jet can is a bottle neck along with the asteroids. But any real life (or virtual life) system has a bottle neck somewhere.
I saw a Cargohold Optimization II rig for sale in my region. The price being asked was nearly half a billion ISK. I have to wonder what the price of researching that blueprint must be.