Architect Archive

OK well i'm an arhcitect nearing master, have lots of items I have made, am wondering how on earth i price everything, not wanting to undercut other architects and not wanting to overcharge i have no ideas where to go on pricing, for factories, all the homes, all the player city structures etc

Anyone got some tips or price guides?

Yes.

Find the vendors for many of the Master Architects on your server. Go visit them. Copy down the prices. Talk with miners and ask them where they get their harvesters and how much they pay. Check the Bazaar for furniture prices. Check the Trade Forum for your server.

Then sit down and figure out what kind of business *you* want to run. If you want to be a low-cost / high-volume guy, then figure out how you can keep your operating costs as low as possible and yet pump out lots of stuff (high-volume means you will need extra lots and/or people to mine for you). If you want to focus on furniture, then you need to make sure that your vendor always has a large selection on it and you need to advertise a lot. If you want to only service miners by making high-end heavy harvesters, then figure out the economics of *their* business and charge for your harvesters based on their payback (e.g., selling someone a money-making machine that never decays for an amount that they can earn back in 2-4 days is not a recipe for long-term success.)

You get the idea: price is only *one* aspect of your whole business model. Think through how you want to play and pick your prices to fit that model. Whatever you do, don't take some "rule of thumb" like "charge X credits per unit of resources that it takes you to build it" and call it a "business model". Take more control over your business than that.

Best pricing advice I have ever seen given on these boards.

It kind of depends on what you are making. For most things in the architect line (furniture and city buildings), quality and experimentation does not matter one bit. That is how it had always been for us. The small house a master makes is thesame as asmall house a novice makes. For things like that, doyourself a favor and pick a credit per unit price. Somewhere around 4-5 is probably safe. Much below that, and you are better off selling theresources in bulk.

Now, it is entirely different when it comesto harvesters. Only masters with good materials can make the BER 13heavies and BER 10 mediums that everyone wants.For these items, charge more. Keep in mind, however, that 150K for a BER 13 is only about 5.5credits per resource used, so don't get any funny ideasabout charging like an armor or weapons smith does.

Hope that helps.