Artisan Archive

I have been a master artisan for a couple of months now and I'd like to make a few comments on the profession.

Initially, I don't really think Master Artisan is a viable stand-alone crafting profession. My best-selling products are weapon powerups, and I probably only sell 5-10 crates of those a week. That's about 15,000 - 30,000 credits a week (crates of 10 go for $3K on my server). It's not a lot. I can make more in a half hour of doing bolma lairs on Dathomir with my novice pistoleer skillsand a good group. Yes, the powerups are consumable, so there will always be a demand, but just making powerups will NEVER be a sustainable profession, in my book.

Now, let's take a look at the components you get to make at master artisan. I have merchant advertising 3, so I can register my vendor, and I still don't sell many of these components. Occassionally I'll sell a crate of control units or energy distributors, but very rarely do I sell the other stuff. I don't think I've EVER sold a memory module. Again, these components do not provide a viable stream of income.

In fact, the ONLY way I make money out of my artisan skills is as a miner. I sell a ton of resources, but gathering them is tedious, at best. Mining resources allows me to pay maintenance fees on my harvesters, houses, and vendors, and allows me to get some nice equipment, but should this be the only viable money-making scheme for master artisans?

I don't think so.

The problem is that the advance crafters who need master artisan components just pick up master artisan in addition to their other skills. This allows them to create their own components. Or, worse yet, they pick up master artisan, create a bunch of schematics for whatever they need (and the make sure to have enough resources to last them), and then drop master artisan altogether, and only keep their survey and engineering skills (or whatever they need). This is, to me, just like people who drop merchant and are allowed to keep their vendors.

I'm not sure how to solve this problem, how to make Master Artisan a more viable stand-alone profession, but here are a couple of ideas:

1. Give master artisans more consumable products that combat professions can use. Powerups shouldn't be our only offering to the combat classes. People constantly request more skill points, how about an artisanitem that temporarily gives the person additional skill points (say for a week or so) and that, when it expires, they loose the most recently trained skill? There would be a maximum cap on the number of additional skill points a person can have. Let's say 5 or 10.

1. Make it so we can sell specialized powerups, just like weaponsmiths can sell specialized weapons. What I'm thinking of are special loot drops that can be placed into a powerup schematic to enhance it.

Argh. These forums are so buggy sometimes. That's supposed to be a 1 and a 2.

2 is supposed to continue as follows:

It couldn't be krayt tissue, as it would make more sense to put that into a weapon so you have a permanent stat increase. It would have to be something that can ONLY be placed in powerup schematics. This would have the benefit of increasing not only the % effectiveness of the powerup, but it would also increase the number of shots the powerup is good for and the chance of getting a bonus to multiple statistics.

I envision a new loot drop from kimos or krayts that would let an artisan create powerups that increase the primary statistic by 50%, the secondary by 25% and the third and fourth by 15%. The shots per powerup would be increased from 100 to 150 or 200. Crates of these powerups would be pure gold to master artisans. I think a crate of these could sell for 30K, easily.

As far as the crafting of these powerups goes, these loot drops would need to be attained in groups of 10+, as you'll need a least 1 for the schematic and 10 for a single crate. Perhaps all drops with the same statistics would have the same serial number and stack easily (i.e. don't need to come from the same creature as long as they have the same stats). Powerups are produced in bulk, so the loot would need to be available in bulk. This doesn't mean the loot would be common, just that when it DOES drop, it drops in large numbers.

3. Make it so that master artisan schematics (or heck, make it apply to all professions) cannot be loaded into a factory if you do not have the master artisan skill. This would prevent people from dropping crafting professions but keeping the benefits of that profession by retaining pre-crafted schematics.

OK, those are my ideas. I don't really follow this forum, so I apologize if someone has already mentioned similar things.

Thoughts?

If you arent making it as artison than you are doing somthing wrong.Ihave no problem keeping my factory busy most of the time. ( thinking about geting second factory ) . I have regular customers ( usualy guild leaders ) that buy 50 crates at a time . Try networking or somthing. I personaly dont want uberer powerups ( special weapon power ups would be good ) because the first thing thay would do is nurf it. In a way it is good that you are not doing that well because we play the same server and that means a better customer base for me .

I haven't had a problem as an artisan, I easily sell between 10 and 20 crates of powerups a day on the bazaar in one city for 3k per crate, and I am pretty sure I have the highest prices. Also, I always have harvesters going and sell the resources at a huge profit. If you do it right, it should cost you less than 1credit per resource to harvest, if you play your cards right and hoard the really good stuff for when all the weaponsmiths get desperate, you can really rake it in.

I have made 90% of my money on artisan products. the Product is not to blame what you need is advertising and a vendor, get Merchant 3/0/0/0. So you can planetary advertise.

Your power-up salesalone will go nuts. Power-ups and 98 function rating repair tools made my nest egg.

I'm a master artisan.. and a droid engineer.. What I would really like is to stop making MA products like GP modules and memory modules.. control units and micro sensor suites.. i'd like to spend my time strickley crafting droids.. maybe you should find a droid engineer and work some kind of deal to sell crates of the above to DE's.. it would help save people like me alot of time..

My record is selling over 200 95% and 98% fishing poles in the coronet bazaar in one week. Right now, Im selling 99.604% repair tools, and 14.88 crafting tools for 250cpu resource cost ( on the copper). Yep, serious serious serious profit. I haven't even bothered with powerups! I have crates of travel packs on my vendor. Other merchants like to group merchandise this way for special orders, or suits. Crates of bofa treats (pet food) for 2500 each. The occasional personal harvestor still sells too. Jawa beer, and caf.. travel biscuits (all by the crate).

Something else not mentioned here is the primary rule of business: location, location, location. I'm not sure where your store is located, but if it's in a high-traffic area you should get more business, especially if you have advertising 3.

My store is located near Narmle (Corbantis server), and I average one sale a day. I don't mind, I actually like it this way because then I don't have to constantly tend my factories and restock my vendor. It leaves me time to do other things. However, I noticed that when someone does come in, they tend to buy many things at once, such as a crate of power-ups, a fishing pole, some batteries, a repair tool, etc.

I think it's important to carry a good variety of high quality artisan items. Power-ups are important (be sure you're stocking +33/+16 max/min damage power-ups), but one of my best selling items is my 99 rated fishing pole (I sell them for 2000 credits each). If you have novice scout, try making crates of basic camp kits. They are my next most popular item and I sell them for 2500 credits each (3000 credits when I put them up on the bazaar). I carry none of the master artisan only items, though I occasionally make them on request.

So, place your store in a good location, advertise and carry a wide selection of items for impluse buying (they'll come for the power-ups and leave with a crate of droid batteries, hehe).

Slim Vargo, Corbantis

To be a succesfull Master Artisan takes alot of luck, and advertising, along with timing.. I make about 300k per day or more easily off of my Powerups.. Thats from selling them for 3k per crate..