Architect Archive
Thread: “SWG housing and resource economics 101” or “Is the .2 credit/unit resource theory cor
For the purpose of this post, subscripts will be in the format (x) where x is the number of the subscript at the bottom of this post.
This is from the Firms (as in Firm vs. Household, not my guild lol) perspective. This also assumes that the market is in equilibrium (supply meets demand), which it is NOT right now. If there is enough interest, I can post reasons why we have market saturation right now, and why people are selling crafted items for next to nothing, if there is enough interest… but I digress….
Background information:
For this economic model, I’m going to use personal extractors. For most of you this is a review, but I wanted to make sure that everybody understands some basic extractor concepts.
Wind Generator:
Spec Rate: 5KG/H
Maintenance Rate: 30
Mineral extractor
Spec Rate: 2KG/H
Maintenance rate: 15
Power Consumption: 25
Spec Rate
The Spec rate is the maximum rate that the extractor or power generator can gather resources. Although it’s listed in KG/H, it’s actually units per minute. This is the rate, if you had the extractor at a 100% source.
Maintenance rate
The maintenance rate is the number of credits per ½ hour. So a maintenance rate of 15 will cost you about 30 credits per hour.
Power consumption (resource extractors only)
The power consumption of the mineral extractor IS the hourly rate. So with 25 units of power, the extractor can run for 1 full hour.
(Post 1 of 4)
One step further:
Now that we know what the raw cost is for each unit of resource, let’s figure out how much we should charge for this. This is where time comes in. Many people don’t realize this, but time IS a resource. So how do we convert time in a monetary value? In RL this is a difficult thing to do, but in SWG we can compare characters with ‘equivalent’ skill levels.
Let’s assume that it takes us 1 hour every three days to gather the resources, and maintain our extractors. Let’s also assume that we have Survey IV so that we have the skill required to find new resources, and plant our extractors(2).
A marksman with Pistol IV, grinding missions for 1 hour SHOULD be able to make 30k. We can use this as a direct comparison to us. If we spent our time, working on the skills required to get Pistol IV instead of Survey IV to find resources, this is what our time should be worth. Let’s start to calculate this by week. Rounding down, it takes 2 hours every week to manage our extractors. We know from above, that we are getting 504 units/hour with all of our extractors. That’s 12,096/day and 84,672/week. This means our time is worth approximately 0.7 credits per unit. 84,672/(2hrs * 30k).
Now, including our time as a valuable resource, the total value is 1.2. So that’s it right?
(2) Resource change, and surveying time is ignored for now.
Appendix:
Why I chose 30k/hour:
I used 30k/hour for a number of reasons. If you go on missions at YOUR level on other planets, and subtract the travel cost as well as the down time this value is fairly accurate. There's down time in crafting items, or going to your extractors as well, and I didn't include this in my analysis. I also didn't include possible overhead costs like maint. on shops/vendors, or time spent trying to sell your resources. If you added that time as well to the cost of the resources, and lowered the amount that a fighter could 'actually' generate in an hour, you'd find that they cancel each other out. I used the same theory for the 150k/hour for the Architects time.
Ecirb
Master Architect
TheFirm Guild Jester (Naritus)
All very cute,
You can come to the samebase resource costquicker at swgcraft.com they have a claculator that I have now twice verified as just about dead on correct.
You are correct that overhead should NOT be figured into resource costs, it is added into the finished product price over a period of time, a week or a month and divided into the price of the products you make in that time.
In fact theonly thing I disagree with is theconclusion you seem to be comming too.
There is not set price for a given product, some will say a product is worth what people are willing to pay for it, no more, no less. I respond that I can teach the consumer to gladly accept a lower price, and I have. That a business can directly effect what people are generaly willing to pay. Sometimes I have sold for less than a product cost me to make ( rarely but it has happened ) I often sell at a rate that pleases me, rarely I have sold for a price that everyone elese thinks I should sell at.
There is more to business than the figures, there is the future.
If there was a set need for our products and a set income that everyone had, then you would be 100% correct. But that is not the case, there is a declining need for our products, and everyone has a somewhat variable income. A good business is one that also takes those factors into account also and acts accordingly.
I do not believe that charging people 3.5 cr per resource is a rip-off, I have never said that. ( I know you all wont believe that I have not said that, but go look, I never have ) What I have said is that a good business can be established that sells for much less than that, and I have defended people that sell for even less than I do.
Some here assume I sell for 2cr per resource, I dont, I sell for more than that, but I defend people that choose to sell for 2cr per becasue I see the numbers and someone that plans resources properly and shows good business sence can indeed make a profit at that rate. When the time comes I am prepared to compete at that rate. I am not now as I dont need to yet.
Dayln,
The reason I stated that this is from the 'firms' perspective, is just that, it's from the 'firms' perspective. Obviously, if you decide to go into business as an Architect (or resource supplier), you would have to look at things like Market price, and Market saturation. Then do a reverse analysis on what you would ACTUALLY be getting based on what the current market price is for a given product. My intent was to show what things 'should' be worth in a constructive way, instead of saying "People who sell for 2 credits per resource suck!!!". lol. Actually, I respect people who can make a living at this for 2 credits or less per resource unit. Personally, I don't think it's worth my time to hunt down the resources and sell the finished product at that rate. Just my opinion. 
Ecirb
I agree, I liked your post a lot.
Take a look at that calculator at swgcraft.com when you can. Someone on this board ( I dont remember who but thanks to them
showed it to me, I was not going to trust it until I proved to myself that it was darn good.
It is nice to see someone else ( you ) that knows how to apply overhead, everyone around here wants to try and factor overhead into the cost of a single unit of resource.
I agree that the correct price is whatever makes your busines sucuessfull for you, if you can do it at 3 or 2 or 5, if you are sucueeding at that, then you have done well. The only fools I have seen are the ones that insist what price others MUST sell for.
I may not sucueed in what I am trying to do, it is dificult without direct advertizing, the closest thing I can get to that is my vendors name on the map. I dont like ad's on discusion boards, hence I dont use my real in-game name here. The only kind of advertizing I have now is word of mouth ( or fingers in this case ), that makes it tough, so I have to make darn sure every single customerwalks away very very happy.
There is also the factor of when they reboot the servers. I seem to lose a crap load of maintanance and power. (more than the down time even)
I have yet you measure how much though.
Also dont forget the newbie factor.
Typical scenario:
Joe Shmoewalker decides "I am going to be an architect and make LOADS of money!!"
Joe tosses down some mines and starts his grind.
Joe makes small houses and finds out nobody wants them.
Joe freaks out and sells things supper cheap so he can say to himself he actually can sell.
Joe makes it up the ladder a bit and thinks that because he is not selling things instantly, he has to sell cheaper.
Joe is broke, frustrated and picks up a gun.. No, not to kill himself. but to do something FUN for a change that he can actually make money doing.. KILLING THINGS..
Joe leaves the architect profession forever.
The result:
I see many many Joes. Joe, because he sold so cheap, set a standard and an expectation on prices.
The Master Architect that has hung in there and is determined to make a living gets the shaft.
Even the undercutters that are just breaking even every day get laughed at for their prices.
"50k for a medium house you say? BWUAHAHAHA! I got mine from Joe last week for 30k! At least there are some NICE architects in this game........."
I still sell to people that understand that in order for me to be around in the future they need to pay an average price. I dont go lower that 4cpu. I still manage to turn a small profit now days because of my client base but sales have recently taken an even sharper decline.
Dalyn,
Your first words were........."All very cute". I had to struggle to read beyond that.
Troll, go away. You're one of 2 people that truly stink on the boards. Let us big boys chat about this stuff.
LOL,
Then you have no idea what I said... hence ignorant.
When you are as old as my kids are you can talk to me about the big boys.
Im far older than your kids, sonny.
"ignorant" How classic. Not even a good troll at that. You really want me to read your threads, after poisoning my eyes with your filth for weeks?
You post in just about every arch thread there is. Aren't all your posts the same?
dalyn disagrees with the original poster, and attacks, making it his mission that day.
dalyn takes a moment to tell us he sells cheaply, loves it, and how he's running a successful business while we aren't.
dalyn tells us he won't use his name, for his "business purposes"
dalyn replies to every post directed to him, and still follows the same mantra.
dalyn then tells us he sells cheaply (using numbers to continue to push Lord knows what), even though we have all seen his position in hundreds of threads already at this point.
dalyn attacks anyone that disagrees with him.
This is a great thread, but you starting out with "Very Cute" was all I needed to see, wasn't it? If I expected anything new or original out of you, outside of your typical above MO, then I would have indeed proven myself ignorant.
You should spend less time trolling boards at work, and make more effort in paying for these "ancient" children of yours, sonny. Your trolling has now become stale and obnoxious. I don't want to look at the Architect boards now and again just the see Dalyn's multi-post topic repeating the same old jargons (insert any of the above).
Staying anon is a transparent device of a board troll who knows he makes poor statements while dodging responsibility. You're act is now skippable.
<--glad to bump this great threadin any way.
I have learned a lot of things I didn’t know in these discussions, I have also seen a whole lot of kids upset by real business practices.
I only respond belligerently with those that are belligerent with me, or those that slam people that price differently then they do.
Like the fool that say anyone that sells for less is a duping cheater
Or anyone that sells for les than ( your favorite number here ) is an idiot.
Those folks deserve the rough treatment that they give others.
You already lost the argument, because you attack in a personal way and not against what I am saying. That can only mean you concede the argument and now just sling mud. I agree with you, I think you lost too.
I did not mean anything negative by very cute, I don’t know how you took that, but the person I responded too didn’t seem to take it badly, we ended up agreeing on almost every single point, the only one whining is you.
I still think my kids are likely older than you, but that is just an opinion based on your post. I am pretty sure you are older than my granddaughter. 
Dayln wrote:It is nice to see someone else ( you ) that knows how to apply overhead, everyone around here wants to try and factor overhead into the cost of a single unit of resource.
If you are figuring the cost of the resource you must include the cost of the resource. If you are calculating subjective numbers for accounting purposes then you are free to include only such costs as are required to arrive at your predetermined subjective figure.
Creative accounting is a wonderfully magical thing, but its not based in reality, just like your resource cost calculations. Why do I get the feeling that you were on the Enron accounting team?