Bio Engineer Archive
Thread: Price guide
Well the going rate for 67/54 composite on my server is about 250K. I make 57/48 and 58/49 advancded composite, I sell it for 120K a set. Pretty popular but not insanely so.
As for pricing on peices? easy-helmets, leggings and chests are 20K everything else is 10K. Easy for me to remember.
Just noticed the last post. NancyJ, I would say your prices are way too low, here is why.
Just pricing 5xregualr resources and 10xspecific resources doesn't take into account so many factors.
First is material quality. I can get crappy materials easy, but for really good steel, copper, etc... prices can far exceed 5cr/resource. and for specifics, especially hides, prices of 15+cr/resouce arennt rare. You need these to make descent armor. Add a profit on top of that, and you are already selling for a loss.
Second, is that your time is worth money, specifically the time you spend crafting each day, as well as the time you have spent before now earning your experience. Simply charging based on resouces isnt' enough, cause the higher armors don't take that many resources more than the lower ones. Using your assumptions, a piece of composite chest (approx 510 resources) has a maximum price of 5100cr. This would equate to a suit cost of only like 40k or so. If that was the case, wouldn't everyone have composite, even the newbs. It is already the most popular armor, but at least there is demand for the others since a higher price is prohibitive.
Third, the differences inresists from one type to another must be taken into account. Composite not only took you alot of time to get able to create, but it is the best armor out there. Padded uses almost as many resources and rare ones, but is far inferior to composite. Should it only cost 5% less? No, it is far less desirable, and therefore should quite a bit less.
this message is not aimed only at you, nor should you take it as an attack, cause you are free to play however gives you the most fun, but I sell my Mabari for twice what you do, and my Chitin for 3x what you do. So for every suit I sell, you have spent 3x more resouces, 3x more time crafting, and we both have the same amount of cash in our pockets. Assuming we are harvesting the same amount of resources, I now have a solid comodity in the form of two suits worth of resources as well.While you are stuck spending your time crafting to keep your vendor stocked, I can travel, makescustom suits for people, ordo anything else I want with my time.
For proof that you are too low, aside from your empty vendor,I wouldsuggest you look on the bazaar.I seldom see anything butcrap there, telling me to raise my prices for my stuff, which is betterthan thatstuff. If your stuff is better, sell it for more, for your sake and everyone elses.
First is material quality. I can get crappy materials easy, but for really good steel, copper, etc... prices can far exceed 5cr/resource. and for specifics, especially hides, prices of 15+cr/resouce arennt rare. You need these to make descent armor. Add a profit on top of that, and you are already selling for a loss.
I never pay more than 3cpu for standard resources regardless of quality - its rare to get a material that is high in all important aspects. If I did find a resource that was 800+ in OQ, SR and Malebility then I would go stick a mine on it. Mined resources cost less than 1cpu to mine so at 5cpu thats a hefty profit. For specific hides the most I've ever paid is 6cpu, I know how to get what I want for the price I want to pay. I've made contacts that sell even wooly hide at 3-4 cpu. They're happy to get the money. I've met random people in the streets that just give me hides and bone. I know where to go and when to get stuff much cheaper than the bazaar. And sometimes I even skin a few evil bunnies myself.
If I'm selling for a loss why do I have 50k in my pockets? I know to you thats not a huge sum of money but whats the point of money if I have nothing to spend it on? My fixed expenses in a day are around 5k, thats half a set of chitin that I *have* to sell per day to keep my stuff running. Thats all I need.
Second, is that your time is worth money, specifically the time you spend crafting each day, as well as the time you have spent before now earning your experience. Simply charging based on resouces isnt' enough, cause the higher armors don't take that many resources more than the lower ones. Using your assumptions, a piece of composite chest (approx 510 resources) has a maximum price of 5100cr. This would equate to a suit cost of only like 40k or so. If that was the case, wouldn't everyone have composite, even the newbs. It is already the most popular armor, but at least there is demand for the others since a higher price is prohibitive.
This argument has been around since beta and it is 100% flawed. My time is worth nothing for a very simple reason - I am an armoursmith, that is my chosen profession. To progress in my chosen profession I have to craft armour whether I choose to sell it or not. When I am a master armoursmith then my time will be worth something - not much but something. But until then I need to make armour to level so I might aswell sell it and theres no reason to sell it for more than cost plus a little somthing for myself.
Shlo_mo_shun wrote:
...for your sake and everyone elses.
See you are hitting on a point that I think is really important, and that is one of being in line with the other armorsmiths on your server. I think that is very important. Regardless of what you think of the prices, I think its good to have most people in the same ballpark. Drastic undercutting can be bad in the long term. It will hurt everyone.
Also you mention about all the factors going into construction. This is one of the problems that comes with trying to figure out a "formula" for pricing. I have found it to be very hard. There is no general rule that seems to catch it all. It seems like every one I have looked at or tried to come up with ends up with some arbitrary figure that is basically just pulled out of the air. If you are doing that then I think its easier to just use a figure based on less exact factors such as just the "market value" than trying to devise some all inclusive formula.I've tried, and I just havent been that successful.
This is a hard thing to figure out. Those magic numbers are veryelusive.
My current pricing is
adv comp (50/58) 90k
comp (40/48) 60k
adv padded 50k
padded 40k
adv ubese 40k
ubese 30k
cheap yes, because scylla has some very good masters who sell for cheap prices (you guys know who you are lol) and they churn out huge runs of composite for cheaper than my prices. Oh to be on a more expensive server.
Here's a formula you can use.
Take the number of armor segments used. Then multiply that by 5k for basic composite or 10k for advanced composite.
