Mass Tech 3 Subsystem Production

tl;dr

I spent 4 B on a bulk deal and aquired 305 T3 Subsystem BPCs. It will cost 38 B to buy the components to build 46 B worth of Subsystems. After the blueprint investment cost, the production run will result in a 4.1 B profit (9.13%)

Note: this profit estimation does not take in account for POS fuel or taxes. Additionally, there is the hauling, build, and trading time factor that I have not calculated. Time is money and the minerals you mine are not free.

Before Inferno Unified Inventory

Tech 3 in General

Another complicated production chain greeted my eyes as I started to learn the depth of the production process. Sleeper drops/salvage, gas reactions, and POS limited production oh my.

I found that the general price of Tech 3 hulls and Subsystems have been declining in line with the build Materials over the past year. Melted Nanoribbons, which account for a large percentage of Tech 3 items, are on the decline.

This price decline can be attributed to the general movement into Wormhole space over the past two years and that people have learned how to efficiently farm Sleeper sites.

Build Requirements

SQL all the things!

I’ve got a bunch of Subsystem BPCs which need Hybrid Components. These Hybrid Components are made from Materials (Salvage and Polymers). My level in the production chain will be to buy the Salvage and Polymers, make Hybrid Components and put these together to make Subsystems.

I needed to work with a custom table to get a master list of Materials that will go into the production run from my list of BPCs.

Using my custom typeBuildReqs table (creation details here in section 301), the following query will take the typeID of the Subsystem blueprint and give you a quantity and price of Materials needed. I have a price table called assetValues, so take that section or modify as needed.

SELECT typeBuildReqs.requiredTypeID, SUM(typeBuildReqs.quantity) AS totalQuantity, invTypes.typeName, (SUM(typeBuildReqs.quantity) * assetValues.value) AS totalValue FROM typeBuildReqs
JOIN (
 SELECT invBlueprintTypes.blueprintTypeID as componentBlueprintID
 FROM typeBuildReqs
 JOIN invBlueprintTypes ON (invBlueprintTypes.productTypeID = typeBuildReqs.requiredTypeID)
 WHERE typeBuildReqs.blueprintTypeID = 30227 AND activityID = 1
) AS comp ON (comp.componentBlueprintID = typeBuildReqs.blueprintTypeID)
JOIN invTypes ON (invTypes.typeID = typeBuildReqs.requiredTypeID)
JOIN assetValues ON (assetValues.typeID = typeBuildReqs.requiredTypeID)
GROUP BY typeBuildReqs.requiredTypeID

The Spreadsheet Magic

Breakdown of BPCs by race and what Hybrid Components are needed.

Breakdown of Materials needed to build Hybrid Components and total build cost.

Melted Nanoribbons account for 71.5% of the material cost.

Bottom Line

Production Strategy

For me 38 B is a lot of liquid ISK to be tied up while these Subsystems are constructed. Since Melted Nanoribbons account for such a large portion of the cost, I plan on purchasing all of the materials in totality but initially only 25% or 33% of the total number of Nanoribbons needed.

Everything minus Nanoribbons – 10.8 B
25% Nanoribbons –  6.7 B or 33% Nanoribbons – 8.9 B

My Kingdom for a POS

Subsystems cannot be made at a NPC station and must be installed in a Subsystem Assembly Array anchored at a POS. Since I do not currently have a POS up and running, I have a few options for producing these items:

1. Grind standing with the appropriate Faction. I do not like mission grinding. I might revisit this option once we have the (rumored) ability to change standings by trading in tags.
2. Pay a highsec POS anchoring service to drop a tower for me after joining my corporation. Probably the easiest option and I would get a anchored tower out of the deal.
3. Setup a POS in lowsec and hope not to be discovered. Risky as some bored gang could reinforce the tower, locking your assets until the timer is up.
4. Contract out the Subsystem production to a corporation that can build them. Higher risk for scams, less profit due to them taking a portion of the profit, but I wouldn’t have to deal with he production line.

Conclusion

I am going to put a hold on this project as I am going to put my liquid reserve into other ventures. The return is not high enough for the time invested. I’ll keep the BPCs in my hangar and revisit in a few months.