Artisan Archive

I was chating to an weaponsmith yesterday while waiting for a hunt to begin and he was saying that i was riping people off by chargeing 50k for a 94% durbailty swoop cause he only charged 35k for his. I told him like i have told so many others why should I sell a bike for less than i can sell the resouces for. The metal i use i can sell in a few mins on the barrar for 5 cpu and in not much longer 6 cpu. So that for the 8000 resources that it takes for the swoop i could get 40 to 48k depending on how long I wated to wait. All this with out ANY risk of loseing all said metal. So i asked him why he did'nt have any bikes for sale at his price. Seems he ran out of resouces and can't afford to get any more LOL. Later in the hunt it turns out he sells weapon power ups for 200 each which is about 12cpu and to him thats a perfect fair price. Strange how its ok for him to charge 12cpu but not for me to charge 6 cpu.

To (badly and wrongly) attempt to paraphrase a sketch by the marx brothers:


"Do you sell oranges ?".

"yes sir, their 10p each."

"10p? The shop next door sells them for 5!".

"Well, why dont you go next door and buy some".

"I cant they dont have any."

"Well sir, when we dont have any we sell them for 5p too".



Do you have to sell at 6CPU to make a profit? Would you only sell 1 or 2?
Can you sell at 4CPU and sell 20, thereby making more money overall ?

I understand the problem - I'm very glad I have around 100k of different metals, and a friendly master artisan to assemble them for me !

So, how many clicks does it take to make those vehicles? How many subcomponents do you need identical pairs (or more) of from factory crates? How many of the resources asked for are specific types and names of instead of a generic mineral?

How much more would you charge for an item that required a resource that has only spawned once on your server and then only on Dantooine where you spend an hour dodging aggro MOB's that not only deathblow, but are faster than you even when you burst run, just to harvest the stuff?

The reason for the higher cpu for items built by elite crafting professions is because the cost and complexity to make them have gone up, as well as the time involved.

I don't think 6cpu is a bad price for vehicles mind you. I myself charge 5cpu for them. But composite armor is going to cost you 60cpu, and for good reason.

Answer: Yes,for something as useful as a powerup, you can charge 200 gold, an affordable amount for almost any player.(or even more for the better ones!). Good weapons are a bugger to make, they take very specific resources of good quality, but they last a long while and they are very useful, especially the ones of good quality. You immediately notice the difference between a good and a crappy gun, so it's worth paying for quality. In contrast, for something that needs expensive repairs and can be blown up by enemies, it's hard to get people to fork out 70k, no matter how many resources it may take to build. Even a decent 45k for a bike will put a noticable dent in most players' pocketbook. It's the buyer as well as the seller that set the market price.

Why will weaponsmith not sell their powerups for less? Well, if you'd only gross 50-100 gold on a powerup, it wouldn't be worth the trouble of finding the top-notch materials, cooking up a decent schematic, making the powerupsand putting them on your vendor. If you bust a gut selling 100 of the buggers, you'd still only have made 5-10k (gross). At 200 gold, it's worth my time selling them. Below that, it isn't. Heh, for anything less than 200 it isn't even worth spending the time to complete the sale alone!

Contrast that with vehicles. A few minutes a daytakes care of my harvesters, and making the vehicle itself is a matter of 5 clicks or so. Even if you buy materials at 3cpu and sell for vehicles at 5cpu, one quick and easy sale nets you 8-15k in profits, easier than putting it on the bazaar even.

Weapon power ups require even less time and effort and resources then bikes do. Last time i checkedit was 2 metals which appear on every planet and are so easy to get even some onewho only started 5 mins ago can find them. So what so hard about that ?? nothing, the number of clicks it take to make abikeis the same as it takes to make a wepon power up so i should charge the same. The cost of the resouces is the same so i shoudl charge the same. There is NO reason to charge 60cpu for comp armour when all the resources are available to any one with a survey tool and a lil time. its not like a week or so ago when there was no link steel for laser rifles. There is a very good ore available right now for makeing comp armour and the rest of the stuff is all avaiable. maybe i should grind to master armour smith and start selling comp armour for 6 cpu and see how long it takes for all those rip off merchants to start complaing about people under cuting them. Should be all of about a mircosecond.

/bah

You should try being an architect.

"You want 250k for a Guild hall!?!?"

I can't count how many times I heard that. Part of the problem is some people don't understand what it takes to make guild halls (or in your case good quality bikes). Sometimes, if you're lucky, you can sit them down and explain to them that a guild hall requires 60k-70k units (? at work and don't have schematic in front of me) of resources or that if I don't use some really good resources you're going to get a bike with 3 HP and they see your price as more reasonable.

The best way to get them to see the light is tell them to go buy the resources off the bazaar and you'll make it for free. 95% of the time they would not bother returning or message you a hour later saying that they've thought about it and the price really isn't that bad.

Most of my customers are repeat customers since they know me and my work. I do my best to fill their orders as quickly as possible thereby building up a good name for myself. Word of mouth takes care of the rest.

Mu suggestion would be to not let it get to you and tell that fool to go buy that inferior bike from someone else if he doesn't like your price.

My next suggestion would be to get out of the speeder business. With the deed not showing the quality of the bike, there are MANY people using CRAP resources and making speeders that show no visable difference on the deeds. I was making 94% bikes and selling them for 30-50k. I saw tons of others selling from 15k and had some customers say my prices were too high. Sollution: I now only make speeders for myself and closest friends and direct speeder requests to other shops, with a warning that quality may or may not be high.

I am personally tired of people trying to guilt me into lowering my prices... I set the prices, not you. It's MY time I used to create them, not yours. If you want the item, you'll pay my price (usually very middle of the road) or you'll keep looking for it. THAT is your choice. I cut tons of deals to repeat customers, but to the guy who I've never met who strolls in and demands a bargain....I don't really even want your business. You obviously place so little value on my time, effort and aspirations that I feel justified in not really caring about your concerns either.

Ain't craftin' fun?!!

MERRY NEW YEAR!

Please, by all means, master Armorsmith and charge 6cpu for Composite. Your chest piece price will be 3120 credits at 6cpu. If you do it on Starsider, I will even use my lot to put a small naboo house anywhere on the planet you'd like......

My only stipulation is that you make no money outside of selling your own goods and services. You must pay for upkeep on the house, the factories, and the harvesters as well as buy them yourself. You can buy your resources if you wish, or harvest them yourself. Oh, and you must do as I do an destroy any piece you make that gets less than a great success.

You can't do it. The daily cost to run one heavy harvester is 2160 credits, with power requirements at 1800 units. You can maintain all of your harvesters on the fusion output of 1 generator on a good location. A high BER Medium is cheaper, running you 1440 credits a day in maintenance and 1200 power for the output of an unexperimented heavy. If you're real lucky, you can buy power at 1 cpu. You will need a chemical harvester as well.

Factories are 1200 a day, and you only need one. You need at least a small naboo house at 384 credits a day for your private crafting station. A vendor listed on the planetary map is another 648 credits a day.

You won't have time to hunt much, so you'll pay at least 10 cpu for good hide, around 15 for woolys since they are a pain to get.

In all, a suit of composite takes 2853 resources, some planet specific, some named, some rare spawns. Subcomponents are required, as are items from factory crates. Its easy to turn out crap composite, hard to turn out 50% and higher resists.

You may undercut me at will. Others have done so, others will do so, but in the end I will still bemaking armor and supporting my Droid Engineer habit.I started out as an Artisan, made and sold personal harvesters to start while using the same to begin amassing resource stockpiles. I sold Elite crafter specific resources to crafters who needed them to amass the credits I needed to buy my medium harvesters from an architect. When I finally made Armorsmith, I sold chitin and bargain basement PSG's on the bazaar until I made tech IV. By then, I was a Merchant and I set up vendors in my first house to sell my armors.

Long story short....by the time you reach Master Armorsmith, you'll think 60 cpu is too cheap. Trust me.

But artisans have the same issues... We have houses, vendors, harvs to upkeep too. A sellable powerup takes 1k conductivity. A good quality speeder takes 1k shock resist.

Long story short, I think other masters are a bit too full of themselves and thinking they are the only ones with any kind of massive overhead.

don't flame me, please...just playing a bit of devil's advocate while I wait to go out for Christmas dinner #1 !!

MERRY NEW YEAR!

You know that you too, as an Artisan, can sell powerups for 200? They're not weaponsmith items, they're artisan items.

I know, I know.. that's beside the point, I just find it funny that that's what's being use as an example.

To make a 96% Durability Vehicle (which is max atm on Bria) takes

Steel/Iron with970+ SR

Aluminum/Copper with830+ SR

If you look closely at resource stats,resources with this kind ofSRusually havestats thatare highin the other attributes as well.

Meaning: you could sell the raw resource itself for 4-5cpu easily (some even over 10cpu).

50K for a 94% Swoop doesn't seem too expensive to me.

I have a vendor selling 59% - 96% Swoops, Speeder and Landspeedersat4-6 cpu depending on Durability.

I sell about 10-15 vehicles a day on averageand the higher Durability ones seem to sell first.

Also, in the final stage of crafting, rename your vehicles and put the Durability on it so customers will know.

If your naming is correct and you're not ripping people off, you'll eventuallyget repeat customers and referrals.

Artisans and Architects are soooo under-rated.

But I guess it all comes down to supply and demand.

There are people willing to spend 1 mil on a great Krayt weapon or a set of the best composite.

I think this goes to the heart of one profession not knowing other professions very well. I am a weaponsmith and have never been an amorsmith or an architect. So it is sometimes difficult to understand why one profession charges x cpu and other charges y cpu. But, when I hear about what is required, I begin to realize why. Anyway, as to this specific argument. I have no bones about the 6 cpu for a bike. But, your complaint about 12 cpu for a powerup is unfounded. I am a master artisan and commonly craft both of them. To make a bike takes me a substantial amount of resources and since I always build the best for my customers, this takes away from some of my better resources as well. But, building a bike is extremely easy. I mean...a few clicks and wait for the hopper to complete and I am done. Powerups, on the other hand, don't take many resources but are very time consuming. Sure I can whip out any powerup in a coupel seconds. But to create a schematic that is good, will sell, is a perfect (all greats), and has 3 stats on it takes more than a few tries most of the time. The extra cpu costs for the powerups is because of the lower cost (and thus lower overall profits) and the added time needed to get a quality powerup.

- Jiist