Armorsmith Archive
Thread: Is a Master WS & AS good?????
The two greatest challenges you'll probably face have to do with gathering resources and experiment SEAs. Both professions require some very specific, high quality resources and there is little overlap between the two. Getting good stats on these resources is even harder ... when they do come into shift, often the stats are mediocre at best. As for SEAs, there was a thread below that talked about being a "12 point armorsmith". Being a 12pt weaponsmith just doubles the effort/cost you'll need to make and, given the current situation with experimentation in AS versus WS, the weaponsmith SEAs may be a higher priority.
The only advantage that I see are is that you get some benefit from the force sensitive crafting lines both when making weapons and armor.
Well, actually, it is not so important from armor anymore - but I think you should be able to grind the lines much faster with AS xp.
Also, from a merchant point of view, I think it would be nice to sell both armor and weapons from the same shop 
It's a nice combination to have, from a "one-stop-shop" perspectivefor combat folks, but as others above mentioned..... it is a resource NIGHTMARE! I would recommend starting with one of the two, possibly armorsmith, to get some income flowing.... then add weaponsmith as you locate/mine resources for it. My goal (eventually) is to be able to produce everything that is of top-of-the-line quality. To do this, you have to track about 50 resource/resource stat combinations for Armorsmith, and about 125 for weaponsmith. So, for example... you see a newDuralloy Steelspawn on your server.... will it be your top resource for:
1) OQ/SR Steelfor Armor Segments
2) OQ/SR Metal for Kin/En Layers
3) SR Duralloyfor melee weapons
4) CD/OQ Duralloyfor ranged weapons
5) CD/SR Duralloyfor blaster ranged weapon components
6) HR/SR Duralloyfor projectile ranged weapon components
7) SR Steel for melee weapons
etc, etc. There are about 28 total possible uses of Duralloy Steel between AS and WS (most are in WS). You really need a good system to keep track of all the resources you have, and be able to jump on spawns as they show up.
Just as someone else mentioned above, you probably wont be able to mass produce on both professions for quite a while, just be prepared to take your time. I enjoy being the "hobbysmith" type.... just making custom armor orders, for now... until I get settled enough with all the resources to really open the shop up for the masses. I'm finally hitting over 8100 layered armor, and my overall weapon resource quality average is in the mid 90's, so I'm close... but it's taken about 6 months to get here.
If you do decide to go with it, make sure to refill your prozac prescription, and welcome to the club! 
I have both and the challenge was getting 1 suit that was for both because I was very sick of switching outfits all the time but I did it.. I will freely admit though while I can make good armor so far only 8153 energy recon (I am going to check my resources again per the WH thread above and try for better) my weapons are medicore and its not even due to resources just time spent on it.. good example is here in the AS forum there is a post floating around that has all the cap info explains layers/segs/core really nicely so you know what to shoot for what makes the best combos etc...
The WS forums kinda sucks in that regards and there are sooooo many things to consider and many more lines to exp in. heck I still havent spent the time to figure out which line to exp in for each sub and then final.. so yea while it is totally possible its going to be very very difficult to be good at both..