After have a few alts buzzing around for a few days in NPC corps I was surprised at the number of times questions came up about blueprints and production, clearly some help is required. Having had a look through the player guide on the CCP site, I can see why, that thing is outdated!! So, it being patch day and me being bored I thought I'd sit and write up a guide to T1 Production.
So, first some ground rules for newer players, the T1 market is very competitive, run to very tight margins and you can have a hard time selling stuff, you need to do your research, don't assume that buying a Frigate BPO or a Cruiser BPO is the right first step, do your homework, what sells well where you live, can you make it for less than it's selling at on the open market, and can you sell enough to make it worthwhile, as an example, I, like I suspect a lot of other players, have quite a number of researched BPOs that only ever get used when I want something cheap, because using up minerals to manufacture and sell would not be profitable for that item.
Secondly, skills are not hugely important, you can be at broadly the same skill level as a very experienced manufacturer within a comparatively short time (measured in weeks), and this is because unlike combat, a few key skills will go a long way, that's EVE skills, because the real skill in T1 manufacture is not in the doing, it's in the selling, as we'll see later, and EVE can't help you there, you need to engage brain.
First up is production efficiency, if you don't have this skill, stop reading this and go out and buy it right away!!. "Skill at efficiently using factories. 4% reduction per skill level to the material requirements needed for production." What this means is, that until you have PE at 5, every time you look at "Bill of Materials" for a BPO or BPC, it will have a bracket along the lines of [ you: 10 Perfect : 8] for a given material. That's bad ;) and here's why, remember I said about T1 being very competitive, well, you need to minimise costs to be competitive, so any time it's costing you more than someone else to produce something, you're margin will be slimmer and you'll make less money.
At Production Efficiency 5, you are deemed by EVE to be a perfect manufacturer, it'll take less than a month to train, and once it's done, you'll be as efficient as a player with 5 years in game at using an NPC factory.
You can't build anything without minerals, and please don't call them ingredients, it makes people annoyed, there are several ways to acquire them. Including:
Personally I mix between mission loot refining and buying them, I pretty much hate mining these days although I did an awful lot of it when I started out, it's still a great way to make money when you start out.
Minerals gained through any of these methods ARE NOT FREE!!!! Why, you got them for free right, you didn't pay ISK - NOT TRUE!!! The time you spent mining or acquiring them was time not spent missioning, or ratting, or other directly profitable ventures like gate camping or destroying gate camps, so your time cost, in fact it should have cost the exact same amount as the minerals are worth on the market. Time is money; don't forget that, it's important.
Set yourself a "hard" mineral limit, that is the best average of minerals for each type that you are prepare to pay and then stick to it as much as possible (record it as a note) . Don't just buy or sell the cheapest on the market, as they will not likely actually be very cheap and if selling you'll be helping someone else make lots of ISK (PvP manufacture, see, and you thought you didn't do PvP)
Lots of ways of acquiring BPCs, so I'll leave that to you to find out as you enjoy the game, and we'll concentrate on T1 BPOs. Look up Hammerhead BPO on the market and take a look at it (or any other BPO, but I'll use the hammerhead as an example). The first tab to open is attributes and it gives us some important information.
On the next tab we have the bill of materials, this is your list of components required to build a single unit, in this case one Hammerhead drone. To work out how to build 30 Hammerheads, just multiply all these quantities by 30, s'easy. Ok so far.
Buy an ammo BPO, seriously, whatever ammo you use the most, make that your first buy, they are cheap, they are fast to research, if you hate manufacturing when you're done it's cost you very little, and if you never manage to sell any at least you can make your own ammo at cost (though not free, as already discussed ;) ). Now, here comes the rub, you need to research that ammo BPO, you need to get some ME on it, PE, not so important, but ME is a must. At least ME 20 I'd say, that's the rule I use for non-ship items, be more scientific if you want but let's go with 20 for now.
Now, you're about to discover one area where older players while get all misty eyed about the past (unless you're Ricdic : ). It is very hard, neigh, impossible these days to find an empty NPC research slot in anything that's not 0.0 space, and possibly even out there, used to be a lot easier, but these days it's hard and frustrating, queuing is the order of the day, clearly the brits have taken over this part of CCP, we excel at queuing :p
So, how to find a slot, well, as we will certainly have to queue, the goal will be the shortest queue, and that will probably be in low-sec. So, your choice, risk taking your beloved new BPO to low-sec, or wait another 2-3 weeks in high-sec only to get ganked at the Jita gate by some idiot in a suicide domi.... as you're not safe anywhere let's go with lowsec. I use a shuttle. I'm seeing a counsellor about it and one day I may use a covert ops ship, but for now I use a shuttle, they are fast, they are manoeuvrable, they take a while to target, and they are cheap. YMMV clearly, but generally I use a shuttle to get BPOs moved about and the only time I've lost one I was in deep 0.0 and fully expected not to make it then anyway, I've been targeted a few times, but shuttles are quick, and with warp to zero and no warp bubbles, if you're smart and careful you'll be ok.
So, the labs screen, it's new, ignore the one they show in the CCP website player guide, that was the good old days. We need to search first for Material Efficiency research slots.
So, now you've found a slot, you know how to use it, go take a look at the map, study how many pods have been destroyed along your route in the last hour and weigh the odds. Pick a better time, weekdays or after DT, then blaze out there as quick as you can and get docked in the station with the lab in it and get researching, well, ok get queuing, but eventually you'll get researching :. Once you precious BPO is done researching, blaze out there again, click "deliver" in the labs screen and your BPO will be returned to you.
And so we come to building, here are the prereqs for a new builder.
You can find an NPC station with a factory the same you as you found your lab, just use manufacture as a criteria. PLEASE note the hourly rental fees, all NPC factories are not the same and charges may vary, don't pay over the odds. So, once you've met the prereqs, we can enter the job, hopefully there won't be a queue, but depends where you are. You can monitor progress using the jobs tab in science and industry. When it's cooked, click deliver, and voila, you just made something from a BPO you researched, congrats, now rinse and repeat for everything else you'd like to make and most importantly, have fun doing it, I get a tiny buzz every time somebody buys something I've made, some may say thats sad, but that makes the game enjoyable to me.
No big tips here, except use your head, don't sell for less than it cost, your minerals aren't free and it helps to start learning skills to reduce your tax rates on sales. Know your market, and be prepared for some disappointments.
Hope this helps someone, if you spot any errors or think anything needs expanding, let me know.