Macro Level Invention

When I started out doing T2 invention/production I was looking at it from a micro point of view: What's my profit margin? How much will I make per hour? Etc.

As my T2 invention/production capable characters grow I run into a different set of questions: How many assembly lines can I keep going at full tilt? How many invention jobs can my POS support? And so on.

This isn't a basic T2 invention guide, so look for that stuff on the Eve wiki. It's complete and explains all the basics.

Also, if you're not using a POS for invention and production, you're missing out.

An important metric to consider is the copy/invention to production ratio: or, will my production time be lower than my time to produce the blueprint?

For all but the small frigate stuff this isn't a concern. T2 ships on the other hand typically have a 1:1 ratio or close to it.

Why is this important? There's a hard limit on BPC output. Mobile labs are fine by themselves for T2 ship invention as the single run BPC copy to invention time ratio is heavily skewed in favour of the BPCs, so it's a nonissue: You can keep as many assembly lines working full time as you have invention slots.

So for item BPCs, the source is Advanced Mobile Labs. Now, the output for a single Advanced Lab with a Science V character is approximately 650 max run BPCs per month.

Now, take the T2 items you're interested in and figure out how many runs a single line will require in order to be running full time. This is simply (24x30)/production time in hours. Multiply this number by the number of production lines you intend to keep running full time. For me this number is five for a given item.

Next factor in how many invention runs you'll need to do in order to have enough T2 BPCs. This is the above number divided by your invention success rate.

This final number is the number of BPCs you'll need to churn out each month to meet the production demand. This number can vary anywhere from 80 to over 600 depending on the T2 production time.

So, what does all this mean? There's a hard limit on the number of BPCs you can produce in a given month, which means that there's some planning involved with a POS (Advanced Labs, Assembly Arrays, etc) that goes hand in hand with the items you wish to churn out.