Artisan Archive

Oh, and as far as your moderately rude comment about "someone" not "searching", I did do some searching, and the thread "Question for today 7-25-03" didn't catch my eye as a thread pertaining to harvesters. Go figure. Which is why your heads up to said post was appreciated.

I'm glad you've got good business. But just because you have found how to maximize the system to make you the most money, does not mean the system is working well.

Look at it this way:

I pay .40 to .51 credits per resource,including power. If I sell a small building for example (3388 resources) I will spend roughly 1700 credits harvesting the materials. I sold my first few for 6-8k, but soon realized the market rate was 10k. Either way I turn 4.3-8.5k profit, along with some xp. Nice, i agree.

Now imagine thatinstead I buy all my materials from a miner at 3cr/unit. The miner spends the same .40 to .51 credits per resource. You have justearned 10k credits for gathering resources. I think I could sell a small house for 12k, making a profit of 2k and xp.

I lose 6k credits, but get about 7k xp for a house - the credit value of xp is debatable. Add crafting time, maintainance time, and critical failures. I'm probably still not in the red, I admit, but my profit margins are starting to look pretty thin.

So I don't think you've got much placeto callme greedy.

There are problems with the resource system. It is not near perfect as you suggest. It is obvious that it works well for you to makemoney, but it does not workwell for other purposes. In my opinion, the suggestionsin discussionwould make resource gathering better for everyone.

I want to be able to not play the **edit**game for a few days straight if I choose.

I also want to avoid as much tedious running all over the place as possible.

I believe that keeping track of the resource shifts is a good idea, but should not be necessary to play how I want to play.

Option #3: Buy your resources from a dedicated resource gatherer at a shop or on the bazaar. The economy on most servers should be stabilizing somewhat, and there seems to be a number of resource gatherers on each. Some of us try very hard to keep prices low (so that we get about the same profit percentage as you artisans should be getting). Of course this isn't always easy with the overhead costs of maintaining and moving harvesters, but nothing worth doing should ever be easy.

I don't want harvesters to be easier to maintain. I'm a miner. That is what I do. The difficulty and the time requirements help make sure that every character with a few open lots isn't out there mining away.

Grennitsch,

There HAS been a lot of discussion...someone just hasn't been "Searching" the forums or paying attention.

For example, see the Correspondants post for the date of 7-25. This very issue is discussed.

I've been typing my fingers to the bone trying to explain the haverster and resource system to people who are not understanding the resource game.

Your original post is based on a fallacy.

You CAN put five days worth of power and maintenance into your harvesters. Bu tyou have to know the spawn date of your choosen resource. It's that simple.

grennitsch: You have to consider both supply and demand. I sell my resources for less than the competition--for example, wind power on Tarquinas Corellia is generally sold on the market at a rate of 3 credits per unit of power. This is an outrageous markup, but still people buy it. I sell on the market at 2:1 right now, and will do private deals for less than that (since I like having a guaranteed income.) I would never go beneath 1:1 for power right now, simply because it doesn't make sense when I could sell it for much more on the market.

Now, there are a couple of reasons for the price. One reason is that there are a lot more people who need power than people who sell power. Another (or a part of that first) is that there is an additional "hidden" cost in the system: the plot limit. The really big crafters or mineral harvesting people don't have enough plots to also generate their power. A friend of mine bought some pwoer from me, then made a deal with a neighbor so that each would specialize in one resource and share the leftover stuff. This way they can be more efficient with their harvesters, and my friend can generate his own power. An excellent way to cut costs. Most resources on Tarquinas Corellia seem to sell at about 3:1, so assuming that the production cost is on the order of 0.5 to 1 per unit, you can see that the value of "plot time" is pretty high. The fact that the price for large sales (3:1) is pretty consistent across resources leads me to believe that a pretty big chunk of the "value" here is tied up in plots. Probably on the order of 5 credits per minute. (In a real economy, this would lead to an increase in the price of land.)

Anyway, another factor is that many people don't work with resources to sell, and many of those who do don't bother to actually calculate how much it costs to produce. They go to the market, see what it sells for, and offer their goods for sale. As supply increases, I think we'll see more people doing what I do (selling under the prevailing cost) in order to be sure that their goods sell before other peoples'. That's a healthy sign. Power certainly seems to be doing that where I am: I've seen a significant amount of power selling at 2.7:1 in the past day or so.

Regardless, prices aren't going to drop significantly until there's more supply or less demand. As long as the market is willing to pay these huge prices, it doesn't make sense for the sellers to undercut current prices significantly, unless there's so much material on the market that price actually determines who sells and who doesn't. As these factors come to bear, things will change. The impact of PAs also doesn't seem to have kicked in strongly where I am: if people join PAs, they can probably get resources from their peers at significantly reduced rates. Within a PA there's likely to be a lot more trust, so I wouldn't be surprised to see folks sharing their unused plots to increase production. (Of course, that might lead to even scarier industrial wastelands than what I currently find while traversing the bush.)

There's my two credits worth.

Gren,

You need to keep in mind that Architects are a world unto themselves with regards to Resource pricing. On our server, like yours, structures generally sell at/around 3cr/resource. The price on the Bazaar varies between 2 and 6 cr/resource, with a good average in the 3 - 5 range. The best paying customers are Weaponsmiths and Armorsmiths.

Architects have several issues:

1. Main resource: Low Grade Ore. And generally found at 65% concentrations, it pulls out of the ground slower that most metals. Stable market price of 3cr/unit (this is the price where it is liquid).

2. Architects rarely care about quality, only quantity. Thus, all houses, harvesters, and PA Halls are the same. (Crafting stations are a different story, however.) Hence, there isn't much to different one Arch from another except for what they can produce and how fast... Not how good. That, and an architect that needs 30k+ of low grade ore alone that has to be EXACTLY the same.

3. Other professions are in greater demand (Weaponsmiths) and make an amazing amount of profit. This is because they price their weapons at 6cr/resource and UP depending upon quality. Because of Reaganomics (Trickle-Down theory), those high-profit Weaponcrafters share a percentage of their wealth with the Miners who supply them with the minerals they want and need.

4. Most Architect items are Luxury type items. Houses, Harvesters, Furniture... All 'nice things' to have. Compare this to weapons which are a necessity for almost any gamer out there. DEs and Chefs have this exact problem too.

I'm a full-time miner and benefit from their (weaponsmithing) success as long as I help them continue it. I get paid upwards of 6cr/unit. Would I spend my time catering to a 5cr/unit profession or a 3cr/unit profession? Every time I have mined Ore, I feel I lost out because I could have mined that uber steel and had gotten at least 5... Nowadays, the only time I mine Low Grade Ore is if I want to hire an Architect to build me something and I provide the materials for a lower cost. that or the specific type required for Weaponsmiths.

People pay for convenience. Someone who sells 30k resources should not sell it for 3cr, but for 4 cr because of the time saved to the crafter. Unfortunately, the architects have priced themselves at 3 which leaves this segment of the market at a loss.

So the only money the architects make is the value of the structures vs. the cost of them mining the goods themselves. And to do that with a Medium House, a factory.... that leaves 4 productive harvesters.....

The nice thing about Archs is that there is still plenty of demand out there. Its like pulling teeth to get an Architect to build a Heavy Harvester of any type over a PA Hall/Large House. Sigh.

Seems like there are now 2 issues being discussed here:

1) How do the harvesters function, and what do they require in terms of gameplay

2) How do people fund/market/use resources.

IMO, playing the market, trying to figure out what is the best price to buy and sell for, trying to make a profit however you like (selling resources, selling finished product) is (or can be) fun, and seems like a reasonable part of the game--you are participating in the free-market economy of the game world. I don't have any problem with the price of materials, the market determines the demand, and thus the cost. If you can afford to sell materials for 1c per unit, do so. If someone will pay you 10c per unit, you should take it, if you think that's a fair price. However, addressing some of the inconsistencies and illogical aspects of how the harvesters function seems to me to be a development issue. to wit:

There are no 'construction costs', I can just throw up a harvester wherever there is space. Why are there deconstruction costs? It makes sense at some level that I can't predict when a resource shifts, but it doesn't make sense thatpre-paid power and maintenance fees are lost when that happens. I could reclaim the harvester and get whatever is in the hopper when I destroy or move it, why can't I 'empty the gas tank', or 'cancel the service' formaintenance? I built the harvester (or someone did), why can't I fix it myself, or pay someone to do that? How about an option to have the harvester automatically deduct maintenance fees from my account if I want it to? In terms of gameplay, the functional requirement of having to log in everyday and do maintenance a) doesn't seem fun, it seems like work, and b) doesn'tallow the casual gameplay that (to answer theearlier question) that isa stated goal of the developers of thegame. Q and Holo both stated repeatedly during beta (and I think it's in the FAQ also) thatone of the goal was to have a game where 'casual' players would be able to participate more or less equally with 'hardcore' players. It seems like a harvesterwould address this: I can turn it on, paythe fees, and come back in a few days, ready to craft or sell, or whatever. Making the player attend them daily or lose credits removes the automation, it's just a less interactive form of handsampling.