ME research reduces the amount of minerals needed to construct an item (technically it reduces waste). Ignoring character skills, the formula for this is 0.1/(1+ME). The first few levels of ME reduce the necessary minerals quite a bit, but although each level takes the same amount of time to research, the returns rapidly diminish.
Below are the numbers for selected MEs and the amount of Megacyte “wasted” (and value assuming megacyte is 4000 isk) in the construction of a Raven battleship. This gives an idea of the savings that levels of ME will generate (this is just for the megacyte – the actual savings will be significantly greater).
The question is: what is the most optimal level for ME research? Higher ME equals less mineral costs, but fewer blueprints researched. It looks to me that somewhere between ME10 and ME15 would be optimal.
Disclaimer: I’ve read a lot on production & research, but haven’t actually done that much – I’m sure there’s some stuff I’ve left out or failed to consider.
ME 0: 10.0% Loss
100 units wasted per 1000 units
Raven: +225.4 Megacyte, +901,600 Isk
ME 1: 5.0% Loss
50 units wasted per 1000 units
Raven: +112.7 Megacyte, +300,533 Isk
ME 5: 1.7% Loss
16.7 units wasted per 1000 units
Raven: +37.6 Megacyte, +150,267 Isk
ME 10: 0.9% Loss
9.0 units wasted per 1000 units
Raven: +20.49 Megacyte, +81,964 Isk
ME 15: 0.6% Loss
6.3 units wasted per 1000 units
Raven: +14.1 Megacyte, +56,350 Isk
ME 20: 0.5% Loss
4.8 units wasted per 1000 units
Raven: +10.73 Megacyte, +42,933 Isk
ME 25: 0.4% Loss
3.9 units wasted per 1000 units
Raven: +8.7 Megacyte, +34,677 Isk
ME 30: 0.3% Loss
3.2 units wasted per 1000 units
Raven: +7.27 Megacyte, +29.083 Isk
Research POS: Optimal ME Level
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