Architect Archive

Xukan:

Excellent post, I think you've hit the nail on the head here.

I'm not sure what the solution is though? Better crafted homes cost less to maintain?

We need to be able to esperiment on our items as well...

Houses:
Reduced Maintence

Harvesters:
Reduced maint.
Reduced Power
Increased Output

Factories:
Reduced maint.
Reduced Power
Increased Speed


Just an idea, we need to differentiate betwen quality and crap here

hehe

I found a great solution for my predicament.

I don't care what it costs other places, or what other architects are selling for. I'm charging 5c/unit on every structure I ever build.

My response (I've had to use it twice now and still got the sales):"Don't like it? Go become an architect or find another off-world that will sell it cheap enough that you still save the round-trip ticket cost."

But I am in a unique position, I'm the first architect (to my knowledge) on a fairly low-pop planet. But when it comes to houses and a beautiful / bountiful planet... I'd rather be this big fish in this little pond than a goldfish in the sea of Tattooine.

I say charge what you want to charge. Sure, sales may go a little bit slower, but at some point, the structure WILL sell.

I have found the same.. They will sell, especially if you dont make people wait,

But that is no reason we shouldnt be able to experiment with our items and make them better

Somone mentioned that folks want the Usage XP. There is no Usage XP with structures.

I agree that there needs to be a better way. The problem is that in the real world there is one basic motivation in business. Money. In a game, there are two if not three. Money, XP and maybe Social Standing. We will concentrate on the first two. XP and Money. The large issue here is that they are generally mutually exclusinve. If you want fast XP, don't worry about the money. If you want money, don't worry about the XP. I had been saying this for sometime. There needs to be some tie into the way XP and income are gathered in the crafting classes. This makes it more attractive to actually make money on your goods. I don't claim to know the best way to accomplish this but it would help the economy. Essentially, we have two economies running parallel to each other and conflict with each other. The monetary economy and the XP economy. Until they compliment each other, I think things will remain a little skewed.

I will keep my prices right around 5cr per persource. If I go broke for a while and cannot produce, so be it.

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Gargonix wrote:
Just as a note. Using something with 200 toughness/decay has a quite a higher chance to critical fail than something with 800 toughness/decay!! Even a success affects the durability which in turn could cause a critical fail on what the component is used on. A large house cost around 40k resources and i would hate to critical fail one because i chose a 90% spot instead of a 75-80%. I use good steel as my metal and usually copper instead of aluminum for non-ferrous. Definately fiberplast over any other chemical!!

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I would love to see some evidence of this so I knew whether it was true. I'd like to think it is, but I haven't seen anything from the devs or many other posters to say this is true. My number of crits seems up lately, and a lot of others are saying the same. I wonder if we suddenly got a bunch of bad materials? Has anyone run a test on this to see if it bears out?

I just made it to Novice Architect yesterday and I'm half way to Buildings I. My main objective as an architect will be building things for my PA but outside of that I will be charging 5c/resource and if the people won't pay then oh well, I've got other things to do (working my way up the Merchant tree as well). If I get low on money I'll run some delivery missions on Naboo and make about 1.5k / 2 missions. If I spent a whole day doing the delivery missions I would probably have a good sized bank account plus I'd probably be at Musician IV (always play instrument when waiting on transport hehe)

IMO, there will always be people to low-ball everyone else. So be it but if their products or service is bad they won't get repeat customers. There will always be someone out there to buy your stuff - just need to find em

This thread has picked up many replies stating that most architects are looking for exp more than they are looking to make money, and thatarchitects are essentially selling houses to grind exp and make just enough to pay the bills.

I completely agree with Brekanov's suggestion-- Architects do need something to grind exp off of.

Even still, architects that are grinding out items to exp as quick as possible shouldn't be able to screw the market. Weapon and armorsmiths also have these types of people, and yet, their markets remain intact.

Why?

The experience grinders can't bring themselves to undercut the highest reasonable price they seefor a high quality item by 80% just because they used slightly inferior materials and did less expirementation. Instead, they undercut slightly. This doesn't hurt the money-makers out there. The diversity in qualities and costs keeps the market relatively stable.

Architects simply don't have a quality/expirementation factor, and the only other thing that can put the going- rate in to stasis is the overhead of running your business. The current going rate pays the bills and leaves just a little leftover for extra expenses like travel and death. If you undercut that slightly, you run out of money.

In essence, it's the experience grinders that set the market price, when it should be the high-quality item crafters.

I restate my idea with Brekanov's-- Make expirementation do something substantial; or, at level worst, give us something small to exp grind with.

Xukan Fallenhorse

Scylla

Building IV, Furniture IV, Installation IV, Construction III. Retired as commercial architect.

No PA

You all just need to sell for c10 per resource and stick to your guns about it.

If the undercutters see that half of the architects are selling small houses for c50k, they'll bump their prices to c40k. They'll still way outsell the honest crafters, BUT, since they'll sell more, they'll level quicker, and move past and stop making the small houses. They'll sit around at the top of the Architect tree for awhile, selling for peanuts and barely making ends meet, meaning they have to spend twice as much time working to get by, and they'll eventually get sick of working instead of playing a game and switch professions.

Meanwhile, if the majority of architects have stuck to their guns about 10 credits per resource, they will get more business as the Power-Levelers get burned out on working too hard for too little money. The honest players won't get burned out if they stick to their prices, they'll just sell less and keep a lot in the bank, meaning that they spend less time making houses. So take up marksman as a hobby and get together for rancor safaris. Enjoy the game and maintain a good price while the powerlevelers get ahead and get bored, and you'll dobetter in the long run.

On Scylla, therewas onetop-end weaponsmith who pretty much everyonewas goingto, and he'srecently announced some very long closures for his shop because he's sick of spending his whole play time filling orders and gathering resources. It sucks, it's boring. That's what happens when you power level instead of role playing your character. This game isn't about getting to the top of the ladder, it's about having fun on the way. So what if you make Master Architect in two weeks, you ruined your market base on the way up and now you canbarelymake a living off of PA halls. Master Architect is absolutely worthless if there's no market.

I'll be a novice architect in about another two weeks (I've got Eng4 and DomArts4, but I'm not really rushing), and I'm going to charge c50k for small houses. No one will buy, but hopefully other architects will get the idea and jack up their prices. Let the powerlevelers go, just be patient.

I absolutely agree, as with all items that are deeded (houses, harvesters,droids) the quality doesnt mean crap, you cant tell what it is before you get it, you cant shop for higher qualiy wares, like you can with virtually every other item in the game, this greatly hinders all the professions effected. If i want a great house and to pay a high price for it, maybe a house that has bigger rooms (same floor plan, just maybe 10% larger, or something to that effect, or maybe the maintenance would be lower because the materials are of such high quality, or perhaps different colors(would be great)). Customization of houses is currently severely limited, and should be given at higher levels of the architect tree, in my opinion anyway. I'd pay 5k more for a house painted to the colors of my choice, or maybe 2-3k more for slightly more room in my small-house. Or perhapse even a couple 1000 more to save me on the maintenance fees(not that their too high now, but if i could get them less, i'd take less .

Anyway, thats my 2 credits.

also ramses1, i think 10c per resource is a bit much

especially when you can mine it at generally less than 1 credit per resource unit.

I sell resourced at 5 per on the open market, and i make tons of money, perhapse your chance of critical failure does indicate a higher price is necessary, but it still shouldnt be double, IMO.

at 5 per , im making approx. 625% profit, i dont have millions, but i generally sit with 60-70k in the bank.

i could see a justifiable 7-8 credits at most, but i wouldnt pay 50k for a small house.

That's my field too, Mize. I sell resources for 4-6/unit. Any finished product though should cost the total price of its parts plus cost for labor and expertise, and time spent getting those resources and expertise. 10 credits per resource is a bit steep, but consider what the customer is getting. Certainly 5 is far too low. 8 is probably a bit more reasonable, but architects are a rare commodity, and if people want houses, they'll save up the money. Maybe they'll have to share a house with their friend at first, but so what, that's realistic. Houses are awesome commodities, and should be expensive/difficult to aquire.

I can't think ofone good reason houses should be cheap.

Ohh, i agree on the expertise and things, and thats why i agree that 7-8 is justifiable, but as far as getting the resources, thats already figured into my 5 per unit, because i have to get them to sell them also

I do agree, they should be more than they are currently (10k is too cheap i think, a brand new guy could spend 3-4 hours doing missions and have a house his first day , if not for the learning curve). 20k is more realistic, and gives more of a sense of accomplishment i think. 30k would be the ideal target for a small house price, but as they are, until they become more customizable and such i dont see them getting there.

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