Bio Engineer Archive

A lot of you make sense. I think the sticking point is trying to juggle feeling the market and doing some kind of percentage thing.

I actually have been trying to do the percentage and coming up with some formula for pricing. Its actually very hard to come up with something that gets you in the standard range and also makes sense. You usually have to end up fudging some constant that is out of whack with whats really going on. Basically pricing is somewhat inflated over what it actually costs to make items, but as it has been mentioned, our economy is kind of inflated also.

I am not in this to 'make a buck' by any means. I just like making armor and the crafting game, butI don't want to be the guy though that undercuts everyone. I'd rather be at the lower end of the spectrum, but still in range of the other guys. Its very hard to do this with a calculation I have found and there is no standard. I just think its a matter of going around and seeing what others are selling for and then decide what you are going to do.

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StarchMonkey wrote:

m is a constant in the range of 85-100 depending on current slicing rates

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So does this mean you are factoring in the armor being pre sliced? You could probably also use this as a "markup" value too I suppose.

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No, I am factoring in that the Mabari I make now with three experimentation points (I have a +11 skill tape) and the Mabari I made originally with one experimentation point are different ... so I wanted something in the formula to denote that fact. And basically, I see slicing as "post-production experimentation" ... so I figured I'd base my factor on slicing pricing.

As to the rest of the comments ... I tried to do some research as to what the market would bear when I first made Armorcrafter. But all I found was Composite up for sale. Kinda hard to judge a price for Mabari off of Composite. Oh yeah ... and in a week of searching I found one suit of Ubese ... also something I could not craft (for that matter, still can't).

So ... I came up with this formula to calculate out a "fair price" ... to get at least a starting point.

As to the formula being "a little low" ... all I can say is, fiddle with the constants until you get the price that feels right for you. This is just how I see my costs factored into a rough price (heck ... I round everything off to round numbers after I get them through the formula anyway).

Im at loss when it comes to pricing. My guildmates bought Adv Ubese for 110k at 69% resist(when i could only make it at 50%). Now I can make it in the high 60's. I get a tell asking how much, I say 55k thinking that 110k is way too much. The response I got wasthat his friend just bought a set for 16k, something like 2k a piece. Now mind you I spent money on the bazaar making this armor and 2k per piece is way too low.

But after seeing the price quotes above I feel more justified.

I charge different prices for different pieces Brutus. I dont like charging the same rate for all pieces, thats just me though. I have seen other vendors with the same for all so I guess it just depends on what you like.

I charge 5x standard resource costs and 10x special resources such as wooly hides (grrr I hate wooly hide) then round it up to a nice number. I make more than enough money to pay for my large house, facotry and harvesters, buy any resources I need and still go on weekly shopping sprees.

My mabari works out at 4k for a full set and chitin I sell for 10k for the full set. I havent even bothered pricing the tantel. Ubese, havent priced the full set yet though the jacket I would sell for 2.5k

I have no need to get rich - whats the point? Its not like I can even have a money fight.

I know my prices are right because my vendor is always empty and my bank is overflowing.

I've sold every piece of armour I've made so far up to Tech 4 and personal armour 3 and dont see any reason why I'd have a problem selling stuff all the way to master.

I have a little different take on pricing than some.

I have seen many varying numbers here, most around what I would go for, but some that are much lower than I would charge. Think of a graph between cost per suit, and profit. it would be a bell curve of some sorts. I will try to draw it below.

I X

profitI X X

I X X

________cost_________ (Don't know how this will look,but I will try)

Goal of course being to reach the maximum profit point (some have different goals). At a lower cost, you will sell more of them, but make less profit per suit, meaning you are below the maximum profit. Additionally, you must make lots of suits to keep up with thedemand. At the higher cost, you will sell less but make more on each suit, meaning you areagain below max profit. But, since your stuff stays around longer, you don't need torace to keep up with demand. I would muchrather be at this place personally. Call me lazy, but any descent armorsmith is seldom poor, so why rat-race in game to keep up with deamand is my theory. I would rather stockpile good resources, and spend them occasionally, while traveling and enjoying my game time, than use it all up trying to keep my vendor stocked.

To the person who had a customer looking for a ubese suit for 16k or 2k per piece. I would tell them to go to the Bazaar, and find it there then! You know they are pulling your chain if they quote less than 3k per piece and you know it isn't on the Bazaar in vast quantity.

Look at the Bazaar for an idea of what the market will bear, on the low end. You will usually see 1 or 2 massively failed ubese/padded, some poor chitin parts, and tons of mabari. If your stuff is better than that stuff, raise your price.

Oh, and about discounts. The first thing random people ever ask is if you can discount your stuff. I personally only discount on full suits, and only like 10%-15%. It is fair, cause it shows you are willing to play ball, but you have limits too. Any more is tacit consent that your prices are too high initially. If it is a multiple-repeat-future customer, I will give a 20% permanent markdown. But only to those that use you alot.

I live next door to another armoursmith who sells stuff of a similar quality and similar prices. 400 meters away there are another 2 armoursmiths. 1 has a vendor full of stuff that doesnt even appear to be experimented, her prices are 2x mine and her vendor has over 100 items in it. The other armoursmith has an empty vendor - I've never seen anything on it, but from glipses of the his stuff on the bazaar i'd say his stuff is of the same quality and about the same proice as the armoursmith he lives near. He sells at his price and I sell at mine and there is enough market for both of us - either that or he never sells anything and never stocks his vendor.
The reason you never see good stuff on the bazaar is it sells far too fast. I can put a set of chitin in the bazaar at the right time of say and its sold befer I rode my chicken 400m back to the shop. Its in my best interest to sell my stuff as fast as possible and sell as much as possible cos I dont get UXP offline.
Your points fail to take into consideration my circumstances, I'm a levelling armoursmith, sure ok you can make the same amount of money selling 1/3 of the number of armours as me but I've made 3x the xp.

40k for ubese leggings?! I know farstar has a slightly better economy but you can get Composite legs for 35k on farstar

PyrealGnat, I'm on Starsider and my Ubese is 50% or more now unsliced/unlayerd kinetic protection. I'd sell you a wholeSUIT for 40k...

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Brutus_Krylop wrote:

Crafters do not set prices. The market does.

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Actually, what do you think "the market" is made up of? It's made up of buyers and sellers. Crafters are half of that equation. Case in point ... someone asked me if I wanted to buy a Jedi Holocron. I said that I'd pay 4k for it (yes, I knew this was way below market value). Now, my reasoning was that I had 4k on me and I don't want to break my back to gather millions of credits to buy a Holocron ... it's not worth millions of credits to me. Of course, she politely told me that she just sold two for 4 million each the night before ... and that she would have to turn down my offer.

My point being ... prices are set in cooperation (competition?) between the desires of the buyer and the desires of the seller. If buyers are offering too little ... there will be nobody selling because it's not worth their time (c.f. many Master Artisan components).

I believe the Crafters set the price.

so far what ive seen and heard is this: crafters make a price, say 25k for composite chest. it sells out 50 pieces in one night, then the smith realizes that he could mark up the price 10k and still sell out, so he does. then he does it again, then again until his sales rates slow down, and that becomes his price.

on shadowfire suits with 50% resis are selling for about 400k, and now the armorsmiths are starting to complain about having to pay 4cpu for resources...give me a break

I'm a Supply and Demand oriented Armorsmith. On Lowca, the demand is astronomical compared to the supply, so the prices naturally go up. There may be an overabundance of Armorsmiths on your servers, though, but there are only 20-ish Masters on Lowca and not all of them are high-quality.