Architect Archive

Llandros,

I do agree with your primary point that decay of harvesters should be considered carefully and if over done then it would make it so people won't buy them. There will always be a need for harvesters but we certainly don't want to make them so expensive that they screw up the economy as a whole.

Architects don't really make many personal harvesters since Artisans can make them and if I recall right they use artisan experimentation. Personal harvesters are essentially disposable right now anyway because the redeed cost is more than buying new ones.

The main bulk of our business is medium and heavy harvesters. My guess is that most of our customers arebulk mining operations or crafter types running their own lots for high end or rare materials.

Regarding your current business: Running 1 personal harvester is not a good return on your investment of time. I'd recommend that you consider instead:

1) deploy a full fleet of personals on all your lots, you can also static mine with much less of a time investment.

2) run artisan survey missions for spare change,... theed to shuttleport, repeat.

3) rent out your lots

4) subcontract to a big mining operation. they may provide you with harvesters.

5) upgrade your operation to mediums as soon as you can.

1 been considering for a while, although ill nevr be depooying more than 5-6 and id need another powre to run them, so wodl get 4ish for profits, i dont treat my personal as disposable, cost me jsut over the redeed cost and its quicker to reded ti than spend ages every week either checking bazar or heading for a vender

2 tend to hunt kaadu for my main income, now ive hit novice tk i can kill thme with relative ease and the avian meats reaasonalbe atm

3 actually been considering this but havnet looked into it yet

4never really thoguht obut it but i like independace, if i dont bother checking ym harvesters for a day then only i lose out, if im tied up with an orginisation id fele obligated to check every day

5 bene considering tihs as well, but bene spending all my money on equipment (2crates of low end brandy jsut swallowed all m savings so far)

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Llandros wrote:

1 been considering for a while, although ill nevr be depooying more than 5-6 and id need another powre to run them, so wodl get 4ish for profits, i dont treat my personal as disposable, cost me jsut over the redeed cost and its quicker to reded ti than spend ages every week either checking bazar or heading for a vender

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If you can find a power supplier that sells radioactive fora reasonable price then I'd recommend looking into that.

It just makes it easier to buy power and you don't have to chase 2 resources at the same time: power and what ever mineral you are harvesting. Also, you can often make more money by utilizing your lots to mine resources than what you save in harvesting your own power.

Here's an example:

Option A: 5 personals BER4 on a 70% spot of metal & buying power at 1.5 cpu = resource output: 20k, maintenance and power costs: 8k creds. Sell resources at 3 cpu or 20k x 3 = net profit 52k credits

Option B: 4 personals BER4 on 70% spot and 1 windmill BER9 on 50% spot = surplus wind power: 3.5k, resource output: 16k , maintenance costs 4k. sell resources at 3 cpu or 16k x 3 and wind at 1 cpu or 3.5 x 1 = net profits 47.5 credits

I picked numbers out of the air but I don't think they are really unrealistic. Of course YMMV it depends on what resources go for and what you can buy power for etc.

Standard disclaimer: The economy varies a lot from server to server.

The answer is relatively simple....

...it also gives us Architects a way to somehow participate in the GCW with our crafting abilities...

Player bases...

They should not be prefabbed deeds requisitioned from a faction recruiter. They shouldn't even come in one piece....

Bases should be completely modular; right down to the generator turbines that power the data terminals that control the perimeter defenses and all that gooey warlike stuff...

...andthose of us who are aligned with a factionshould be able to craft every single piece...

...and as we all know, bases do get destroyed on a regularbasis...

...and we should also get 10 more lots at Master Architect, considering our factories take up twice as many lots as everyone elses... /giggle

Yeah, sales are pretty meek. I make 10 times as much from my combat medic sales as I do from my architect sales in the span of a week. (12 point exp in both). My vendor has about 80 fusion gens, 20-60 of each heavy, 10-20 of each medium, and a few personals.

What hasn't slowed down, is housing sales. I sell a couple large houses a day, about 4 mediums and 4 smalls, and maybe a guild hall a week.

There's a trade-off we took, for about 90% of our components and structures, resource quality means nothing. This is different than just about every other crafting profession. If that's our advantage, our disadvantage, obviously, is the tenfold amount of resources we require to make a saleable product.

I sure am glad candles decay though, without repeat customers of those I'd be without a roof! Oh wait, they're bugged. If not moved, they don't decay. Unless in crates, in which case, they do decay, even if not used.

Actually...on valcyn [Nitaon Sunrof if ye ever heard of me], my sales and orders have increased drastically these past 3 weeks...currently i have oncollective order of192 hvy harvestors, from 4 ppl...on building que...50 from one (of an order of 60, 106 from another (from 114), 10 fusions from another, and 6 fusions for the last (finished)

And between these, approx a million dollar decoration contract for a naboo town (interior of a gu hall), guild stuff for other harvs/houses/halls/etc...and then periodic orders for civics such as a cantina (which i crafted tonight)

From the hvy harvs, nearly 8 million, from the rest, another 2 million..and that excludes the 2.5 million i made from 30 hvy harvs i had to make/sell in 12 hours 3 weeks ago when dolovite spawned on valcyn....

Maybe its because I sell pretty low, many may consider its undercutting and not worth my time....but I sell in volume, and my sales have dramatically increased to the point where I can no longer restock my vendors..and actually have to turn/loose customers away because of that...I do not buy any resources, nor sell them...have enough energy amassed that I can keep 75 heavy mineral harvestors sustained and going for 10 days (i still use mediums, only around 5 hvy harvs for special purposes to keep costs down) at once

I normally have around 20-30 harvestors (mainly mediums) running at any given time..and every 10 days I have to invest around 300k in maintaince....as you can see 3 weeks ago when i made 2.5 million in 12 hours from so many harvestor orders [Simply put, that day broke my business...I am JUST starting to recover the impact of so many bloody orders] that I can keep my harvestors running for over 8 weeks...

I also have master merchant so i drive costs down on all my structures, I also have 2 structure factories up, my large house shop, and 2 small house storage facilities constantly running - also ive donated nearly 3 million to my city.

Of course, If I sold the normal 100-140k per harv like the norm, I would be up there among the richest crafters on valcyn by now...instead, for the 4 months of being a master architect there (launch commando on Chilly...use Valcyn to pass the time and give me a challenge) Ive slowly built up a profit of 12 million....not exactly the best of fortunes, but tie that in with the 8 million i got coming in the next few weeks from my few contracts...and to me, being a commando and a guy who built up 1.5 million (600k from a merchant who i helped w/ grinding...to make the 2.1 million i got on chilastra) solely through missions..this aint bad.

And to top it off, I never have to advertise...all my customers spread my business by word of mouth. I provide the best quality Customer Service I can, nearly all my customers go home happy - and thats what my business is all about.

Im not bashing anyone here...but perhaps this is why business for the mainstream architects is slowling down. I provide ONLY the best quality harvs (hvy 13's fusion 14's, medium 10's) and at some of the best prices Ive ever seen...why? Cuz again, I sell in volume [I give discounts on bulk orders as well, so I encourage large ordering]...and after 4 months, I only see business soaring...yes its hard work, but I love cultivating a thriving virtual business...and in my opinion Im taking the right steps to how even a RL business would run...competition and efficiency..the very basis for a capitalist society....having everything around the same price drives down efficiency, and demand in my opinion...

Again, my own thoughts..you may call be crazy, but then again....business is slow for you guys yet extremely huge for me - and this is also after the dip in hologrinding...there are still people out there willing to buy stuff from us....there is still a huge market out there, just standing around with "the norm" of pricing and prolly no unique business styles will naturally slow business down...yes, true that there are some limiting factors, especially with lots....but thats not the only factor...

Message Edited by StarNick on 05-09-2004 03:44 AM

Ahhh the undercutters...the one nice thing about being around for a while...the cash stockpile! I love to buy out entire pages worth of harvesters and resell them with a markup! Some people even ban me from their store /cry

Yes it is sad when someone comes along with access to lots of buddiescross-server lots,and then proceeds to undercut all the singleplayer lot users by offering their wares much much cheaper than anyone else. It ruins the game for all and sundry but I sense that they really don't care very much beyond their own ego self-servicing (the fact he does this as a part-time hobby - comes in, empties harvs, runs factory jobs, restocks vendors, etc makes it even harder to reconcile with).

As myself anda few others on the server have been discussing of late, we have been aware of this guy and what he has been doing to the server economy - not so much from any impact he is having onold hands like myself (my sales are still around the 10m per week), but more fortheup and comingarchitects who are just starting out. Most are finding it very hard to get started and when they hear that they are competing against someone who brings most of their PA accross for lot swaps, and then who sell at bargain basement prices, they generally just give up and either quit the game (we know of 3 that left when confronted with these activities) or drop architect and move on.

Its not about the service thatyou give Starnick(anyone can make and sell high rate harvies and mediums), but it's all about the pricingyou offer.

"Having everything around the same price drives down efficiency" - what a load of bulls**t!!

If you offer it massively cheaper than anyone else, of course you are gonna get flooded with orders - please don't insult our intelligence by making it seem as if you have some superior business model . Your business model is based purely on massively undercutting all other architects on the server and making a bare minimum profit on each unit, and then relying on the multiplier effect to make a significant profit after costs. Thats all there is to your business - nothing more and nothing less.

When it costs us all the same to dig stuff up, to maintain factories and houses and harvs and we all make the same equipment, then price gouging is the only way to make sales of that magnitude.I mean, running 1 or 10 or 100 harvs and factories and being a Master Merchant makes no difference to efficiencies over anyone else. If you make 200 walls with 2 factories - you do that in exactly thesame time (and at the same cost) as it takes the rest of us. So you have a few buddies from Chilastra hold your factories for you so can make 600 or 800 walls at a time - big whoopedy deal, thats notefficiency, thats using resources unattainableby most folks and hence getting a market advantage overyour rivals.Its good usage of friends, but not effiency.

And truely, if you were selling at the same prices as the rest of us, I severely doubt that folks would be walking in and giving you orders for 120 harvs . I know some of your customers and your price is the only reason why they are going to you (and believe me, its not for your "efficiency" as most complain about the time it takes fro you to fulfill orders, your unrealistic time-frames to supply orders, etc). If someone sold stuff slightlybelow what you charged, your order pad would dry up over night.

Still, it beats me why some such asyou insist on charging 2 or 3cpu for their harvestors, make a bare minimum after costs and then proclaim "we are just playing the game and trying to make a buck", or the old favorite trotted out by all the undercutters "its called capitalism" .

But I don't wish to turn this into a whinging session, I make my sales legitimately from a single account with factory lots provided by fellow residents and guildies, andon a business plan that I have built up over many, many months. I support many other crafters in the galaxy community and do not do need to undercut to sell my 20 or so harvs a week. If others choose this path thats up to them. They know the impact it has on others and don't really care much for it.

And at the end of the day, no matter how much they delude themselves over it - the only reason they do any business at all is because they sell for their wares for a song. And the first person who undercuts them will undoubtably grab most of their business. The bargain hunter is a fickle beast at the best of times.

It's people like StarNick that give this game a bad taste for all of us architects that work hard with only one account. The fact that he can't even keep his vendors stocked speaks volumes to me & shows his lack of true customer service.

I love the "Wal-Mart" mentality of some of these architects. They always view their methods of business as honest & upfront. I view it as hostile & aggressive towards those of us that try to work within the proper frames of gameplay.

Sad to say, but people like this make the player base view us asa "Dime A Dozen". When the holocron maddness wears off (which it is now), only then we will see who the true long timers are left from the ashes to remain as architects.