Artisan Archive

I would definitely charge someone I didn't know to survey for them. But it would probably be more than you are saying.

In the interests of full disclosure...why don't you tell us what percentage of the money you make on the resources you are charging as a survey fee. And also...why not tell us how much time it takes you to put down those harvesters compared to how much time it takes to find a good spot surveying.

Surveying is boring. You get aggroed often if you aren't careful. I survey for folks I know and like but not for non-artisans who want to mine unless i know them or they pay very well. I do occasionally get /tells while wearing themaster artisan title asking me to survey and not offering to pay...from people I don't know. Hmmm...I often suggest they might wish to invest skill points in the artisan survey tree.

i'm sorry, i don't understand what you are asking in your second paragraph, could you rephrase?

And i don't like surveying either, it seems like everytime i find a good spot of above 80%, it is either on a rough mountain, or it says "building is not permitted here", (what does that mean?)

Even though i don't like it, i still do it occasionally, thats what work is, most of the time, doing something you don't like for money.

What I am asking in the second paragraph is this:

Compare as a percentage these two things....(1) the amount you are paying the artisan for surveying a resource or resources for you and (2) the amount on average you ultimately make from the sale of those resources (or if you use the resources, the amount you could have sold them for had you wanted to sell them). Please assume for purposes of this comparison that you get in on day 1 or 2 of an 8-day spawn.

Please also compare the time required for surveying with the time required to drop harvesters on the nearest relatively level ground. Assume that you are only dropping 5-10 harvesters from one account.

Make them fend for themselves? No...not entirely.

Maybe regard this as a type of help that you give to your personal friends and that they know it's help they're getting because they're your friends and not because they're paying you a pittance compared to what their harvs...which they have no skill points devoted to operating...will bring in.

Alternatively, charge the people a reasonable fee based on what that other person's time is worth. I see far too many posts offering artisans 50k for a nice survey point. These posts don't disclose that the person with the harvs will make far, far more than 50k. Goodness...in many cases 50k isn't 10% of what the person placing the harvs will be making.

I would love for artisans to insist on say 20% of the likely profit to help with surveying. Given that it doesn't take much for uber melee types to place harvs, pay maintenence and power, then come back later and collect the resources. If we aren't going to get the certifications we deserve, surely we at least deserve a decent share of the profit. At least that's what I think.

We should price finding a waypoint based on the time value of our time. And based on what kind of character the other person is. If the other person is someone capable of making over a million a day doing combat missions, we should charge significantly more than 1k per percentage. Because that's really nothing compared to what the other player will get from mining. In fact, it's a low enough percentage to be insutlting in my opinion.

I'm not saying that artisans shouldn't do what they have to to pay for their harvesters. But I agree with those who claim that surveyors don't charge enough for good waypoints and for boring time spent surveying. I actually think there ought to be a way in the game to allow harvester owners to pay a percentage of the resources for surveying if artisans don't get their harvester certs. You want me to survey for you? Sure...for a mere 1/4 to 1/3 of the resources I'll do it. And I think a percentage of the resources is the way a crafter would really prefer to be paid unless the crafter is destitute. (And I've been destitute, so I know what it's like.)

i have been asked to find waypoints andi am generally willing to do so. you make a good argument for paying for time spent which i kind of do.

so combat guy A asks me to find some waypoint for "some kind of metal" or "some kind of ore" well, i'm not going to spend a huge amount of time looking all that hard, its clearly just reselling for grinding. so i find a high percentage spot within a day if i happen to be out looking for other stuff. i do not travel to hard planets. my take is usually small, its just a waypoint and i haven't worked all that hard (20k usually). hologrinding is coming to a halt soon so i imagine this kind of thing will also end soon. if they make a huge amount of money off the resource, it doesn't really matter to me, i haven't contributed much at all to it. i sell finished products, if they can make money off crap ore, then more power to them.

crafting guy B asks for a waypoint for some specific ore that has some specific stat. i'll put more time into that because that is more effort and clearly it is for crafting purposes. they will make money from the final product. they simply didn't have time to locate a waypoint themselves for whatever reason or its someone i know who knows i will likely need the same resource. unless its a guildie, I will generally ask more for this.

basically i am charging for effort, that is my prime determination. iadd on travel costs if i have to road trip. but for the most part, i'm not putting a huge amount of effort into it. as the original poster says though this was a nice money maker back when i was new at this.

Giami,

It can sometimes be very hard to find a good spot. And I use swgcraft, so I'm not generally out looking for resources or surveying unless there's something out there I need or that is a lot better than what my harvs are currently on.

I don't just look at is as "fee for effort expended." Although you really don't know how much effort it's going to be until you've done it. So agreeing in advance to a low price isn't something I will generally do.

I prefer to look at it in this respect: my share of the work and my investment, compared with the other player's share of the work and his investment (and that investment will generally include the capital investement, the maintenence, and the power for his or her harvs) compared to the total profit to be made. And I will ask for something I think makes the equation equitable.

That isn't usually in the neighborhood of 20k.

Maybe I dislike going out and surveying for things I'm not going to use more than you do. I've sometimes spent 30 minutes and not found a good site until I go to a couple of different cities by shuttle. That isn't much fun, and 60k would give me a rather poor payout for time spent not having much fun.

Like you, I prefer to craft. I'm not master of my elite professions yet, so I'd rather be grinding my way up than out looking for a high percentage point for grinding materials. I think really that all prices have a "time spent doing x" factor built into them. And I guess different people value their time doing certain things differently.

1. Mining. I find very nice concentrations of very high quality resources. I have 30 lots to play with for harvesters. I make millions of credits per week selling stuff. I further keep some of the best stuff set aside for sale months later at signifncantly increased price per unit. This nets me 10's of millions per month. I can do this because a) I can survey and b) I know what's valuable. Those are the only advantages that I need to have over the schlubs who just dump harvesters wherever.


2. Powerups. This brings in drastically less than mining. But I do sell around 150 crates of powerups per day at 1250 credits per crate. Factor in resource cost and such and I'm still making 150k a day profit on those.

So, yeah. Mining is huge bucks of you want to put in the hours of surveying that are required and you know what you're doing.

Powerups are reasonably good money again if you know what you're doing and have a good spot to sell.

... I'm actually making more money off powerups than weapons, and I'm in the top 5% of weapon quality in the galaxy...

Halaster,

Are you selling powerups at 1250 per crate of 10? I'm curious because someone who's old school told me they were worth more than that on Kauri. I don't try to extract the very last credit from people. Now I"m wondering if it is price rather than location that impedes my sales.

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joined42904 wrote:

Giami,

It can sometimes be very hard to find a good spot. And I use swgcraft, so I'm not generally out looking for resources or surveying unless there's something out there I need or that is a lot better than what my harvs are currently on.

I don't just look at is as "fee for effort expended." Although you really don't know how much effort it's going to be until you've done it. So agreeing in advance to a low price isn't something I will generally do.

I prefer to look at it in this respect: my share of the work and my investment, compared with the other player's share of the work and his investment (and that investment will generally include the capital investement, the maintenence, and the power for his or her harvs) compared to the total profit to be made. And I will ask for something I think makes the equation equitable.

That isn't usually in the neighborhood of 20k.

Maybe I dislike going out and surveying for things I'm not going to use more than you do. I've sometimes spent 30 minutes and not found a good site until I go to a couple of different cities by shuttle. That isn't much fun, and 60k would give me a rather poor payout for time spent not having much fun.

Like you, I prefer to craft. I'm not master of my elite professions yet, so I'd rather be grinding my way up than out looking for a high percentage point for grinding materials. I think really that all prices have a "time spent doing x" factor built into them. And I guess different people value their time doing certain things differently.

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actually i was stating more of what i was doing as a newbie, armed with surveying..and that was kind of it at the time. and 20k was a HUGE amount of money to me back then plus travel expenses. and yes, i search for nothing without looking at swgcraft first, i learned that one pretty quick

these days the majority of my income (MA stuff only) comes from powerups and the electronic components that the elite crafters need, at least those that don't have MA (power conditioners and control units mostly). contacting masters in the elite professions and making deals with them as a supplier of either waypoints or products also makes for a nice constant income source.

vehicles come in third possibly because the market is a bit saturated.

for the most part i will still hand out waypoints free to guild when needed (everyone in guilddoes that) and to sell only if necessary because of effort involved. again these days, its generally only for people i know. but i do still see it as a good way for newbies to score some credits.

on your question to halaster maybe this will help, i price my powerups lower than what halaster does on my vendors in the high traffic areas mainly because there are many power ups to be had on the many nearby vendors. i don't know about your server, but on ahazi, the area around coronethas become one giant mall. from my experience, it is location that makes a difference, the guild vendors on dantooine are higher than what guildies have on naboo simply because the demand is higher, there is less competition,and buying theresaves people from taking a road trip back to corellia.

people are more than willing to travel for the elite crafting products, not the MA stuff at least in my neighborhood