Draw Down of Production

I am closing down most of the first part of my production experiment.  I have managed to go in and prove that money can be made with some basic blueprints in EVE Online.  I ended up producing the following items:

Flameburst Missile
Production Cost Per Unit 6.33 ISK
Average Sale Price 8.84 ISK
Comment:  The first item I decided to produce.  Because I use a lot of these missiles, it made sense.  While I ended up with a net profit after all costs, including materials, I did face a lot of price pressure in some systems, so I did not exactly get rich making these missiles.

Sabertooth Missile
Production Cost Per Unit 10.91 ISK
Average Sale Price 17.89 ISK
Comment:  A slow seller, but there was also not much competition, so I made back my investment over the course of my run.

Widowmaker Missile
Production Cost Per Unit 29.10 ISK
Average Sale Price 31.01 ISK
Comment:  Chosen more for the fact that I couldn’t find any close by one night when I needed some heavy missiles.  Depending on what system I was selling in, I either faced a huge amount of price pressure or I was able to charge freely.  I did not make my money back on this blueprint directly, but that does not take into account the fact that I fired a good chunk of the missiles I made out of my own launchers.

Antimatter Charge S
Production Cost Per Unit 10.45 ISK
Average Sale Price 12.10 ISK
Comment:  I picked this up on the suggestion of Debes and it turned out to be a good deal.  I made my money back and, because I have gone all missiles with my Drake, I did not even fire off any of the inventory.  Money made back on my investment.

Iron Charge S
Production Cost Per Unit 8.02 ISK
Average Sale Price 5.17 ISK
Comment:  Simply the worst thing I produced.  I bought the blueprint way back in January when I was starting to think about production.  I found the blueprint when I was moving stuff to our corp HQ and decided to produce a run.  A full run of 150K charges.  I had the materials handy, but I should have checked the market first.  The price point is horrible.  And even priced way below costs I have only sold 1/3 of the lot.  Anybody want some iron charges, cheap?

Expanded Cargohold I
Production Cost Per Unit 959.92 ISK
Average Sale Price 4824.80 ISK
Comment:  The best item I chose to produce.  I don’t sell huge lots of these, like I do with missiles or hybrid charges, but they sell consistently and at a decent margin.  I will continue to produce these as time goes on.

But why would I stop producing any of these (except for the iron charges) you might ask.

I finally woke up to why the price competition was so fierce and why some people seemed to be selling below the cost of producing these items.

The thing with EVE is that it does have some of the same problems that other MMOs face.  One of those problems is often misunderstood mudflation.  The term implies that all prices rise as a MUD or MMO ages.  But, in reality, some items fall in price because they become too commonplace.  And one reason they become common because easy mobs drop them all the time.

And what do easy mobs… say NPC pirates… drop all the time in EVE Online?

Light missiles, small hybrid charges, and frigate modules.

So I found that I could buy things like Flameburst missiles, antimatter charges, and even Widowmaker missiles, for as much as 35-65% less than the cost of production. 

Why spend 29 ISK making a Widowmaker missile when you can put out a buy order and pick them up for 15 ISK?

So my economic empire has shifted priorities.  It will be arbitrage rather than production for most things now.  I have buy orders out now for my area to purchase millions of missiles and charges at prices well below my cost to produce, even with material effeciency research.  And the missiles and charges are coming in, so I have begun replenishing my sales channel with these lower cost items.

Still, some things are better to make.

Expanded Cargoholds, for example, do not drop very often and have buy orders all over for pretty close to the cost of production.  So I am better off making those, as they sell for a large mark-up and move at a steady rate.

So for my next round of production, I am looking for things that are in demand that do not drop, or do not drop very often, from NPCs.  Mining crystals might be something to look at.  And rigs, though the parts are hard to come by.  And then there is always blueprint copying and invention to look into.