Artisan Archive

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Mojomaster2704 wrote:

I have heard from a couple of people that they have been making a loss on some of the vehicles, and that they pulled out after a short while.

I am just wondering how much hassle it is making a vehicle, and whether there is much profit to be made?

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Here's my take on this. There's no hassle as such, each vehicle only takes 2 different resources which are general resources and readily available. You'll have a new vehicle or schematic in a few clicks.

I've never sold any vehicles crafted using poor resources and only sell above 90% experimentation, so I have no idea about the market for those. To get 90% + experimentation you need really nice resources, which I could sell for more than the price of what I could sell the vehicle for (with ease).

For some reason, people are prepared to pay premium for quality resources but won't pay anywhere near that for a well crafted vehicle. I just stock them as a convenience for customers visiting the shop.

It takes 8k of resources to make a swoop - 1600 non ferrous and 6400 ferrous with a high shock resistance.

very simple to make really.

I have no idea how the price of these things ever got so low - if you had to buy your resources at 3cpufrom the bazarre it would cost you 24k to make. As I mine my own resources ..... I'd probably be tempted to sell them at 28k for a swoop which is 3.5 cpu.

At the moment I don't sell them, only make them for friends .......

If I recall the cost of repair in our city (with a small surtax on the repair) a full repair on a swoop is something like about 10k credits, so 28k for an initial sale may even be too low .......

Not sure really - if it costs 10k to fully repair (as in from almost zero) a swoop, how would you price up your initial sales ? 4x repair cost ?

one thing I don't get is - why does the X34 use less resources than a swoop ? other than to make the swoop more expensive because it is faster ........ Completely unrealistic in terms of the mass of the vehicles :-)

I personally decidednot to sell vehicles. Too many yahoos selling it for 2-2.5 cpu who are NOT grinding - just yahoos. If your goal is to sell high quality vehicles (90%), you'll sell them at a higher price (45k+) but, again, you'll actually make more money and sell it in volume faster by just selling the resources.

Artisans shot themselves in the foot with vehicles. It's the only crafting profession where you make more selling the raw materials than the finished product. You'll also get people responding to this thread defending their pricing position - but no one can argue that simple truth.

all i can say is LOCATION!!!!

my prices are cheap!! 16K -12K - 10k (swoop /speederbike/ landspeeder).

Starting out I was in the middle of nowhere, I put out a few adds, and I didn't sell jack really. ThenI started studying towns on my favorite planet, and moved to the one that had the most action. THERE i was selling atleast 6-8 a week. (and only good bikes too, all high SR and 80-90%)

BUT... i joined a guild shortly after, andleft that town for a new one.NOW I'm back to square one. So once again I will look for a new town to set up a small shop and i will adjust my prices soon, most likely by 1-2k.

So yes it is good, but you just have to find the market, bc most times it won't come to you because of price or OQ.

Message Edited by Korlan on 06-03-2004 08:15 AM

I am currently selling 94% Durability Swoops (34k) & Speeders (26k), these sell very well since they fixed the auto-repair exploit.

I mine all my own resoucesand if I do have to buy any resources I will not pay more than 4cpu.

I have 2 vendors selling these one is located 800m south of Coronet and the other 1.5km from Theed.

The Coronet vendor sells more due to the fact it is in a better location and it is a busier place.

Egri

I do sell vehicles. I sell them as a loss leader that I don't make much from as I sell for 25K and won't sell them unless they're at least 65% (so I lose some due to critical fails and others due to failed experimentation). I haven't started factory runs of them but might consider doing that. Just the volume of resources would be astronomical.

I mostly sell them so that folks will get used to shopping in our player city mall as a place to come for whatever they happen to need. My profit is on my armor repair kits and powerups. And I sell vehicles primarily to make a contribution to the community.

Well the profit is in fact there, how much overall we have yet to fully see. It is only until recently we are getting repeat business since the "shuttle" bug was fixed. But they are worth it

looks like we're reaching a consensus here ... that swoops ought to be selling for a minimum of 30k on any server :-)

now - I'm not into price fixing at all, but the current expectations of the 'punters' means thatsome of us have been pricing them way too low .... but we can change that: