I hear a lot of folks in my pocket talk about how they really need to get their indy skills up so they can start building. And while I will nod my head to the realities of skill requirements for purely industrial toons like Kym, the truth of the matter is that folks who just want to build a little bit on the side don't really need much skilling at all. The real question casual builders should ask themselves is, "why do I want to build?"
There are generally two ways to answer that question, and I think addressing both answers here could be a good road to journey down. If the answer to that question is, "well, to make ISK", I think there are probably other ways to make more ISK faster. Let's be clear: if you build something and someone buys it, you will get paid. The only variables here are how long it'll take to sell, and how much your wallet will increase.
Notice I didn't say "profit". There are people in Eve obsessed with ISK/hour and profit margins. Good for them. I am not really one of them and have no intentions of becoming one. Do I track my costs via spreadsheet? Yes. I do that for two reasons: I don't have time to mine much any more, and I want to know how the market looks for an item. It wasn't always that way, though.
When I first started to build stuff in Eve (I believe my first BPO was for a Tristan, and it took a while for me to get around to researching it), I didn't buy the minerals. Kym was a small-time, low-SP toon and so I did what every Eve-expert says not to do: I mined and refined, and then I built and sold. You know what? Kym's wallet went up. ISK increased. Would it have increased more doing other things? Sure. If I really just wanted to maximize my ISK though, I'd go WH ratting and pray to not get blown up. The fundamental issue here is not making ISK at a particular rate. The issue is even more important: What do I want to get out of Eve?
Eve, at the end of the day, is a video game. It's not real life (but how cool would it be if it were???). If it were, I'd care more about how much money I was making. But since there aren't those nagging worries of real-life constraints, I don't have to concern myself with them. Instead I can choose whatever path I want in the game that is most satisfying, and as long as the wallet is generally going up, I see no need to worry about how fast. As I mentioned in an earlier post (the only earlier post, actually), seeing someone else fly around in a ship that I built is pretty cool. Same goes with modules, rigs, and ammo. If you know who bought your stuff because you check your transaction history regularly, then seeing other players flying around in the game takes on a whole new level of curiosity: Did they put that trimark on that ship? Is that guy who's ratting still using the ammo he bought from me, or did he use it all up? Should I make more?
Manufacturing opens up all of those questions to players, and more. On more than one occasion, a new-ish red player was able to dock in a station (NRDS and Provi aren't perfect, but that's not the focus right now). Guess what? He bought one of my ships and some of my rigs. I watched the transactions pile up and I called out that vital information to the PvPers. When he undocked, I made sure I was safe and cloaked, and watched the ship that I built go boom. Similarly, sometimes an unknown neut enters the system and everybody gets jittery. Then he buys a Venture. Or a Retriever (why a retriever in null-sec, I'll never know, but if someone wants to buy it, I'll build it). And I generally stop worrying at that point and let folks know what he bought.
Anyways, back to the original question that has been meandering through all of this: What do you want to get out of Eve? If it's ISK, go forth and rat those wormholes. If you want to experience a whole different side of Eve that is deeper and richer than a PvE experience, and you like the sound of seeing the digital fruits of your labor flying around in beautifully rendered outer space, then some casual building might be a good thing to try. Don't worry about skills, or profits, or any of that- you can always mine, salvage, or rat at the same time something's building or waiting to sell. Just be patient and eventually you'll be rewarded with seeing that ship you built flying around Eve with you.
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