"Manufacturing" is the process by which players can create items within the game by converting materials and components into new items whilst using a blueprint.
Players can manufacture in facilities that offer this particular service, and there are no time restrictions or limits on how many Manufacturing jobs can be installed in a Facility. Factors that do affect a player starting a Manufacturing job include:
- Their distance from the Facility
- The amount of materials they have available
- The quality of their blueprint
- The cost of using their chosen Facility
Distance from Facility
A player can remotely start a job in another station or system, as long as the blueprint and Materials required to do the job are available in that location. Supply Chain Management allows players to start jobs when not in the station (+ 5 jumps per level). This is not limited to Region.
Available Materials
The Materials required to manufacture from a Blueprint are displayed on the left of the Industry window when a blueprint has been selected. As the number of runs are changed, the quantities of materials are changed automatically. When the materials are available in the Input Location, they are blue, but when not available, are shown as red.
Hovering over any materials shown as red will give a tooltip displaying the quantity missing:
Blueprint Quality
Information regarding the quality of a blueprint (its Material Efficiency and Time Efficiency) are displayed in the Blueprints tab in the Industry window, in the Show Info window of the blueprint itself, and in the sliding bars next to the blueprint when it is installed in the Industry window.
Manufacturing Cost
The cost of Manufacturing an item takes into account several aspects: the manufacturing activity in the system it is performed in, the time to manufacture and the average market value of the item that the blueprint produces.