Architect Archive
Thread: Suggestion from a consumer...
I want to start off by saying I have the upmost respect for crafters of all kinds. I tried my hand at it for a while, before all the patches that multiplied the difficulty of these proffessions, and I gave up right before making master Artisan. I read the crafter's forums a lot just to see what's going on, and check prices to see if I should buy or not. I also see a lot of complaints, just like most proffessions. Although I do feel that crafter's in general have more of a right to gripe than any combat class, I see a similar trend in a lot of complaints. It goes something like this:
"I have to move my harvesters every 2 days, I have to gather this this and this, I have to craft for this long, then I have to maintain all my structures. I then have to put up this in my vendor, but that costs a lot to maintain, and I can barely make cost with my sales because PA crafters have 100 lots to use. I've seen a lot of other stuff or the same stuff in different words, but what it comes down to is that your taking too much on at once.
One problem/blessing with crafters is that they're **edit** enough to do all this crap on their own. It's good in that you take pride in what you make, and want to control every detail so that it is right. It's bad because you really can't handle it all. If you could these forums would be a lot more pleasant. Sure PA's have access to many lots, resources, and help. But so could you. You don't have to be in a PA. More so than I've seen in any other proffession, crafters seem to have a bond, even if it comes through mutual misery. Start working together. You have these forums, and the galaxy specific forums to work with. Some of you let go of building the actual houses. Spend your time gathering the resourses, and supply your buddy and let him make the houses.
Find you a good merchant that does no crafting at all, and let him sell your houses, weapons, and whatever else. It will take some time to trust in each other enough to let go of certain aspects of your craft, but in the end, I doubt it will take as long as the way many of you are going about your proffession.
Have one guy focus on powering, maintaining, moving, and storing resourses. I'm sure you could find some combat class guy who would be glad to pick up some survey skills and do this for you, he doesn't even have to be able to build a droid battery. He could also be the one to transport your completed items to the merchant I spoke of above. He could do all the fighting he needs on the way, because there are plenty of critters around the harvesters. I think this would be a much better way to get paid and get xp than running simple, boring missions. You should have no trouble finding someone to do this, and that is also trustworthy. I've seen several people in my galaxy that are for hire for "anything". This would be right up they're alley.
With just these two people, harvest mover guy 
and the merchant, you have 30 lots among you. The mover won't come close to using his, except maybe for a house. The merchant may want to have more than one shop but there are plenty who won't. You'll end up with around 22-25 lots for use. Add a few others to the mix, form a tight circle of trusting people and you can craft houses all day long without worrying about any of the other stuff.
Sure the price will go up, but you'll still sell plenty. Say 5 people involved want to make 3k profit per house fromt he venture. And (just guessing to have an example) cost for a medium house is 45k. That still would only put the house at 60k, which is extremely cheap. Go ahead and sell them for 90k. The guy selling them for 40k will sell steadily, but he'll also be so backed up he'll have 20 customers waiting weeks on a house. These people (see me ) will get tired of waiting and buy your 70-90k house. Since all income in the game is disposable, because you really don'tNEED much of anything, people can make as much money as they need for whatever they want to spend it on. It may take time, but it's very easy to make 6k every 30 minutes running simple critter missions. You guys should not drop your pants just to sell houses because other's are lazy. Just like all clases you do this for the xp, but it's not worth it. Delegation is the key to success... Well that or having 12-16 hours of free time every day to grind your competitors out of business.
This is in no way a stab at any of you. Nor do I claim to know what I'm talking about. This is just the way I see things after observations in game, and here on the forums. I hated Economics as well as Accounting, so I'm in no way qualified to give advice. Just a perspective from a consumer rather than a crafter. Good luck to you all. Hope things start working out for you.