Copying is the process of creating copies of a blueprint original to use for manufacturing in dangerous locations without risking the blueprint original. Copies can also be used for Invention of Tech II Blueprint Copies. A blueprint copy will have the same Material and Time Efficiency as the original at the time of copy. Further research on the original after a copy has been made will not affect the copy.
Blueprint Copies cannot be researched further and will only provide a limited number of licensed production runs. Once the last production run of a copy has been used up, the copy will not be returned at job delivery and is destroyed.
Copy Job Requirements
Most copy jobs on Tech I blueprint originals do not require additional materials to be provided or skills to be trained to start the copy job. However, for the blueprints that do require material input for the research (usually Tech II Blueprint Originals, as well as the "Prototype Cloaking Device" blueprint original), the following is usually needed:
- Data Sheets, an NPC trade good
- R.Db of different kinds. Those can be manufactured from blueprints available on the market.
- a set of skills, often also needed to invent or even manufacture the blueprint.
Required Input material, if any, will only change with the number of job runs (copies produced) and is not affected by the number of licensed production runs of each copy.
Job Runs & Runs per Copy
Job setup for a copy job differs slightly from setting up jobs of other activities, as it does have two numbers affecting the job duration:
- Job Runs
How many copies should be produced in total. Setting this to 10 will produce 10 blueprint copies with the specified amount of production runs specified in "Runs per Copy" - Runs per Copy
Sets the number of licensed production runs that each produced copy from the job shall have. This is limited by the maximum number of production runs listed in the Bill of Materials for the "Copy" activity of the Blueprint Original that is copied.
The duration of a copy job effectively calculates on the total number of licensed productions over all copies to be produced.