Skills to Build On

I was once a fresh-faced, pie-eyed newbie in Eve Online.  My clone was the first of it's line and I had no idea what I was doing.  Sure I could read things online but usually just tested, failed, retested and succeeded.  It kind of rolled like that for a while. 

I wish I had someone to force the ways of Eve down my throat, somewhat like what parents do with their spawn.  I may have hated it and resented that person at the time, but looking back, it would have made things so much easier.  There is something to be said about conquering this yourself, but sometimes you need to take the smarter path.

If you want to be an indy person, here are some skills that you want to prioritize.

For manufacturing

• Industry 5 (reduces manufacturing time by 4%/level - also required for other production skills (T2 hull / capital/outpost construction as well as a prereq for other production skills))
• Mass Production 5 (adds 1 manufacturing slot per level up to 5)
• Advanced Mass Production 5 (adds 1 manufacturing slot per level up to 5 - combined with base (+1) and Mass Production (+5) for a total of (11) slots.
• Material Efficiency 5 (probably the most important, 5% reduction in material usage per level)

If you want to get into T2 or Capital manufacturing, you can start training for Frigate Construction, Cruiser Construction....Capital Ship Construction, etc.

For "standard" research (ME/PE)

• Science 5 (reduces copy time, but is a prereq for almost all advanced science skills)
• Laboratory Operation 5 (adds 1 research slot per level up to 5)
• Advanced Laboratory Operation 5 (adds 1 research slot per level up to 5 - combined with base (+1) and Laboratory Operation (+5) for a total of (11) slots

For "advanced" research & manufacturing (invention & T2 construction)

• Mechanical Engineering 5 
• Metallurgy 5 (5% boost to ME research speed per level)
• Scientific Networking 1 (allows you to remote run your research - level 1 will allow you to run research in the same solar system, level 5 allows you to run research in the entire region)  very handy if you need to run research in low/null sec))
• All advanced science skills to 4 - these allow invention of blueprint copies thus creating T2 blueprint copies used for T2 manufacturing.  Also need these skills to do the actual manufacturing.  [Examples: Amarr Encryption Methods, Caldari Starship Engineering, Hydromagnetic Physics, etc]

Having these skills will allow you the opportunity to manufacture high margin items (unlike the T1 swag for short ISK).

If you make the right decisions, you can make as much ISK as you can run invention and manufacturing jobs.  

As an example:

I have 4 alts that can do advanced and basic manufacturing work.  

• All 4 of my alts have ME 5 and Advanced Mass Production.  I can run 44 manufacturing jobs simultaneously.
• 2 of my alts can invent and build all T2 items (including ships under capital-class hulls)
• 1 of my alts can reverse-engineer T3 bpcs (haven't done it, but I can)
• 1 of my alts can manufacture capital-class hulls and invent and build jump freighter hulls
• All 4 of my alts can research 11 jobs for a total of 44.

You don't have to have 4 alts, but the more you have the quicker you can make ISK.  I don't suggest going out and buying multiple accounts if you don't have the RL money.  If you do, you can make a lot of ISK.

This isn't the end-all to manufacturing and research and I didn't discuss research agents to farm datacores.  That will be in another article. 

I hope this helps and as always, fly safe-ish.