The question is in the title

The empire market is tricky, but it's still possible to make a decent profit. It really doesn't matter what you're manufacturing. You just have to find ways to reduce your costs.

For example, when my corp holds mining ops, we take 25%-50% of the minerals and send them straight to the corp inventory. The rest is used to pay the members of the op at market prices. We sell the excess minerals to cover the costs of the rare mins. This way, we reduce our costs and find a decent profit margin.

Been playing Eve for more years than I care to admit across different toons, and it still never ceases to amaze me how people expect to have complex answers ("What sells best?") just handed to them.

Here's a tip: learn what the hell you're doing, or don't do it.

I wasn't asking "what sells best" I am simply asking if the tools (updated) exist that can compare the actual mineral value vs the constructed item. Since your expertise is beyond me I will never understand so thus I shouldn't ask questions.

To the actual replies that are on topic thank you all for your input and I will continue researching options and different spreadsheets.

The ship construction market in highsec is one of near perfect competition, the only thing giving anyone an advantage is the number of pos'es they have available. The market is pretty saturated up there, so you can expect the ship costs to closely mirror the mineral value

In order to make real ISK off of ship construction you will need to transport your goods to an area of space where the market is less saturated. This means lowsec and NPC nullsec. Player owned nullsec will have lots of ships for sale transported there by the owning alliance and their indy corps. Ships pop constantly in low and npc null, meaning you can charge a slight premium due to the higher demand, as well as people not wanting to fly too far to reship

Even then, transporting the goods in question is likely to eat all or the majority of the added profit margin for the new area. This is one of the things I hate the most about industry in the game. Too much competition.

I have to say that at least around Jita, I have yet to view a ship worth making. Many are well below the cost of their mats, and most of the rest simply take too long for their level of profit.

With perfect skills and perfect BPO you can make 2-5% manufacturing profit. By sourcing you mats and using buy orders rather than buying from sell orders you can make an extra 5-10% trade profit giving you up to 15% profit on the total project. So say a battleship sells for about 100 mil you can make up to 15 mil profit. To make loads of isk you need to produce loads of ships, at least 100 ships to make 1.5 bil profit. That is a load of logistics to generate that amount of production and keep supplied with mats. But there are players who do it and enjoy i

Depending on how you value the minerals and time you spent mining you can make a small profit on T1 ships. The best way to make a bit more on them is to take them to a smaller market zone. For example I believe there is fighting in the delve going on. Find out the most frequently lost ships and then stock some in that area. you can add a convenience premium to the ships since they are close and less time lost reshipping the better. In manufacturing there are more profitable ways to make isk than T1 ship building though. That being said i do build some myself from time to time but only when I can mke a modest or better profit or if its for a friend.

1 bil bpo is an investment you dont need to make it back. Only the time spent researching the thing. You can sell it off later for 1bil or even a bit higher.