Industrialist build

[Jayce]

I'm thinking of making an alt industrialist, possibly including:

-Mining
--Refining

-Production
--Research

-Trading
--Hauling


First question: am I forgetting anything?

Second question: is it feasible to do all of the above? I'd happily drop mining and just buy underpriced ore, refine it with a high efficiency and resell it. 0.0 mining ops sound fun too, though, but a low priority.

Third: Which of the above has the best time/isk ratio?  My aim with this guy would be to make maximum isk to help fund other characters with the minimum playing time investment, though certain aspects do sound actually fun to me, like production.  Subsidiary question: is this a realistic way to make isk?

Fourth: Any obvious race/stats to think about?  I looked at the Goonfleet wiki suggestions, but all I really found were quickest time to be a good research alt, and quickest time to good refining efficiency.  Both of those are interesting but I don't want to gimp myself toward the other things.

[IainC]

I'm by no means an industry expert but I do a bit of light engineering on the side to supplement my income. It isn't hard to get to the point where you can make a profit but the guys making the crazy isk all had to spend crazy isk to get there. The best money maker in the game is invention but you need tens of millions of skillpoints and billions of isk worth of skill books to really get the most from it.

It is possible to cover all your bases but I'd drop mining as it's really not very profitable unless you have a pet moon in 0.0 and the skill points you sink into flying a hulk will be better spent on science stuff.

If you just want free money then I'd suggest getting friendly with some R&D agents (which will require farming faction with their corp first unfortunately), get Research Project Management and you'll basically be getting free money over time in the form of datacores. A level 3 agent gives you about enough research points for a datacore a day, a level 4 one will give you about double that. That's 1m or so per agent per day regardless of whether you actively do anything - you don't even need to log in.

As well as a pet R&D agent I also make mission running supplies for level 4 carebears - Cap Booster 800s, various types of Large Hybrid ammo and so forth. I have fully researched BPs for this stuff and I make a modest but reliable profit as a result. You will want to have access to a private research lab though, public ones are booked up weeks in advance in most places. It's not crazy money but it is a useful amount.

[Jayce]

Right - I have all the combat moneymaker points down.  I have a research agent grinding away, but I can't stay interested in missions enough to get it very high, plus everyone knows about that so datacores are not worth a whole lot any more.

I didn't intend the point of this thread to be "how do I make money", but "what's the best way to go about making money with an industrialist?" Thanks for the info on Invention.  I may work my way toward that.

I suppose I'm balancing this against "vat-growing" a combat character for sale once it reaches 10mil skillpoints or so.  That would require a lot less effort, but would obviously be a lot less interesting.  I'm wondering if it's more or less lucrative.

[Vedi]

If you want to build stuff, Production Efficiency is really the most important skill, and you need to take it to V in order to become viable. This skill reduces the minerals used when building stuff, and on T1 ships, the margin can be 5-10% over mineral costs if you are lucky. Since each level of PE reduces mineral use by 5%-points (I think), having it at IV instead of V will kill your profit.

For invention, it is not quite as bad as Ian says skillpointwise. You can do decently with skills at IV there. I've got perhaps 1.5 million sp in research skills and made decent invention money (although it was a year ago). The capital required is fairly large (500 million+ for modules, probably more for ships), and it is very beneficial to do without a POS with a couple of mobile labs where you can copy your blueprints.

[Slayerik]

I have so many ship BPCs and others that its almost ridiculous from ganking. Lemme know if you need something.

[Endie]

It is possible to cover all your bases but I'd drop mining as it's really not very profitable unless you have a pet moon in 0.0 and the skill points you sink into flying a hulk will be better spent on science stuff.

Even allowing for time spent at my POS when reds are nearby, and time spent hauling the results for refining then sale, my hulk alts bring in about 45,000,000 ISK per hour.

Edit: for clarity, that is each.