Transitioning

I've been progressing as a miner ever since I entered the world of EVE 5 months ago. Other than a few minor skills to shore up here and there, Ive gotten about as far as I wish to go at this time. My character can fly a Hulk and process any non 0.0 ore with 100% efficiency. I have not yet trained Exhumers V nor do I plan to at this time. I think there are more important things I could be training in the 28+ days it would take.

I've been dabbling a little in manufacturing already. I understand the basics but I need to get more serious. What I really need to do is sit down and crunch some numbers. I've started to write my own program to help with this. I've looked at some of the ones already out there but I know the numbers and layout I'm looking for and I've not been satisfied with what's out there already. Writing my own program will also help me learn manufacturing better, too.

Manufacturing

I've been doing a bit of reading and have decided I would eventually like to get into manufacturing. I'm still a while away from doing this... I want to get my refining skills and manufacturing skills up to par before I begin.

BPO's (blueprints) need to be researched for a while to make them profitable. Apparently there are two types of research to perform on a BPO: ME (material efficiency) and PE (production efficiency). ME will make it so you spend less resources when you build and PE will reduce the time it takes to build.

To do ME research you need to create a job on your BPO. I read that the ME queues for NPC stations are horrendous... apparently they are averaging 30 days! That's crazy! When I got in game I decided to check it out for myself, and it was true.

But this could work to my advantage somewhat, as I am not quite ready to manufacture. So I invested about 8 million ISK on 5 BPO's and researching them to ME 10. They will be ready in about 40-50 days.

I have 40-50 days to get my manufacturing/mining skills up to snuff. I was kind of disappointed in having to spend the ISK now, but hopefully it will pay off in the long run. I was saving up for my last 3 advanced learning books. They will just have to wait a little while longer.