Tl;dr-
Imagine that 'copies' are like buying both a Betty Crocker cake mix and the recipe together at the store. You still have to make the cake at some point.

'Blueprints' are like having the recipe with the right or permission to go to any cake store and make the cake there at no extra cost as long as you eat it there. The cake store is like pub matches. Or you can take the recipe and make it for your friends but you have to buy the ingredients first. This latter part is like PC or corp battles.

So in the game there are two types of equipment, blueprints and copies. With the blueprints you can get unlimited uses of this equipment and with the copies, you use it until the equipment is destroyed.

Especially with the giveaways in April, with what sounds like a tidal wave of blueprints coming on the market, it is making me wonder about how blueprints will be used in the future as opposed to copies. **Edit: CCP Unicorn confirmed giveaways are copies not blueprints**

Here are my thoughts...

Both blueprints and copies can be seen technically as licenses to use the prescribed technology. With a copy (as with Eve) you know ahead of time how much material is used for the given equipment. The efficiency of the manufacturing instructions is a part of the copy.

With a blueprint, you are getting just the unlimited basic manufacturing instructions. In Eve blueprints can be improved into copies that are more efficient that the blueprint when it comes to materials, but are nonetheless limited.

I'm guessing that when we get a Marketplace 2.0, blueprints will become licenses for 'free' equipment in public/FW matches where most of the raw materials for battle are provided for you.

Copies will be like limited use licenses with the physical material already factored into the license. So in a way, using copies in public matches means you are paying significantly more for special equipment that you could get for free. You are being 'taxed' for fighting with upgraded gear.

Conversely, corporation/ planetary conquest will require carrying all of your materials with you into battle. This way, if you would like to use a blueprint, you would have to manufacture it on the spot, from materials you bring with you. Copies on the other hand can easily be brought with you as they contain the necessary goods for battle already as part of their package.

In other words, blueprints will be free to use in highsec and maybe FW, but in lowsec/PC/nullsec they will require some other material. This source of material will somehow have to be preloaded prior to battle, possibly on the MCC, or in Supply Depot installations. This shouldn't be as significant of an economic impact as it sounds however, because the use of these materials probably won't be that different. FW/PC battles probably wont be using nearly as much MLT/ blueprint equipment as public matches.



Either way...at the end there will be cake...

...that you can have or eat...but not both...