Mountains of Molehills (3 of 10)

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Objectives

Acquire 2 x Civilian Afterburners (10.0m³) and deliver them to your agent.

Mission Type: Manufacturing

*No encounter.*

Overview

In the third mission of the Industrial career arc, you are tasked with learning the ropes of manufacturing items from blueprints. As for the mission objectives themselves, they can also be completed by just purchasing the modules needed off the market—though, in this particular case, the expense of doing so far outweighs the cost of production.

The blueprint copy comes with the two runs of Civilian Afterburner you need to manufacture them using the one resource they require, which is a small portion of Tritanium. You will very likely have more than enough Tritanium left over from the previous missions that you can use for this, as each run of the afterburner takes only about 70 Tritanium to create, give or take a bit depending on your relevant skills.

Purchasing Tritanium off the market to acquire what you need to build the afterburner is a fair second option if needed, liable to cost no more than a thousand isk or so. The completed modules, on the other hand, due to their limited use and manufacture outside the beginner career arcs, tend to be sold for very high prices—around half a million isk at the time of this writing.

A Basic Outline of Manufacturing

Manufacturing is another station service performed through the Science and Industry tab. It utilizes the minerals acquired from refining ore or breaking down items along with blueprints in order to manufacture new items, which can then be used or sold.

Finding a Station

Typically, Manufacturing stations are less common than simple reprocessing services; however, you can search for all available stations in your region through the Science and Industry panel by selecting Manufacturing under activity and changing the range in which your search is conducted.

Most manufacturing facilities you’ll have access to at this point in the game are public—first come, first serve—so it’s worth paying attention to whether or not there are free slots in whatever station you have selected. You’ll probably have to look at least one jump outside the rookie systems to find an open slot, thanks again to these systems’ popularity. When you find a slot that reads free, you can right click the station’s name in the window and set it as your destination for convenience.

Using the Blueprints

If you click on the blueprint you wish to manufacture from, you can get a reading of what materials and how many of each you’ll need for the manufacturing process. You’ll have to take both the blueprint and the required minerals to the station at which you’re going to manufacture them and deposit the items into your station inventory, remembering to multiply resources needed by the number of runs of the item you are creating. From there, you can install the job though the Science and Industry panel or by right clicking the blueprint and selecting manufacture.

Meow Gallery: The layout none is not available in this version.

Starting Production

After you’ve selected the slot and the blueprint and hit ok, you’ll get the quote window, which will tell you the total time and amount of minerals the process will take, along with confirmation that you have the minerals required. Hit accept quote and your job will start production.

Delivering Jobs

You can find active or finished jobs from the Science and Industry panel by selecting the Jobs tab, making sure the search options match the range, the state your job is in, the owner (you), and the proper activity (or just set them to all). Then hit get jobs.

If you select an active job, you’ll find the timer counting down, and when it reaches 0, the bottom right button will switch from cancel to deliver job. Hitting the deliver button deposits the finished items into the station inventory where the job was run, along with the blueprint if there are any runs left on it.

Note: You can queue a job on a manufacturing line that is currently occupied with another job; however, your job will not start until the currently active job and any queued after that one are finished. The time it will take your job to start, if installed, is represented with the yellow text under the next time till free column.

More on Blueprints

Blueprints can come in two varieties, Blue Print Copies (BPCs) and Blue Print Originals (BPOs) and it is important to know the difference between the two. This information tries to focus on important aspects for new members, though there is much more advanced information to be found which will eventually be covered in its own guide.

BPOs are sold at certain npc stations and are the games way of seeding most items into the market. Players can purchase these BPOs and take them to special space stations where they can spend time and isk researching their BPOs, decreasing the time it takes to produce each run of the blueprint (Production Level) or reduce the materials needed for each run (Material Level). The higher both of these levels are researched, the more efficient the BPO becomes, and the more it is worth to players as a result. BPOs can be used an infinite amount of times to produce items or BPCs (see below) without ever depleting, being consumed or running out of “runs”.

BPCs are essentially photocopies of BPOs, produced using the original in the blueprint copying process. BPCs cannot be researched like BPOs can, instead inheriting the Material and Productivity level of the original at the time of copying. BPCs also are created with a set number of runs, meaning they can only be used to produce the item they are for a limited amount of times before being consumed. BPCs are also not capable of being copied again and each BPO has a max number of runs that can be given to any BPCs made from it (differs depending on item).

The purpose of BPCs is to provide a means for owners of expensive and high level BPOs to create and sell cheaper copies to other players, whom in turn have access to more affordable if limited production options as a result. They can also be used to allow multiple manufacturing jobs to be run simultaneously to avoid having to level up several of the same BPOs to do so. Finally, it also allows owners of BPOs to keep them in a secure location where they only need to make copies, then move the copies elsewhere for manufacture or sale, limiting the risk of losing the expensive BPO during transport.

Protip: Some scamers will try to sell off BPCs as though they were BPOs. Always double check any potential trades, especially if it sounds too good to be true or your going to drop a lot of isk.

Rewards:

• + 0.6557 % corporation standing
• 1 x Civilian Afterburner Blueprint (Copy, 2 Runs, ML 5, PL 2) (granted)
• 1 x Expanded Cargohold I
• 292,000 Isk bonus (6 hours)