Bio Engineer Archive
Thread: seems we are not a real crafting profession in some chef eyes :(
The time that goes into running factories is important, but again it is only a small part of the cost involved with making tissues. I'd assign a value of no more than 100k to the cost of operating a factory for a full run of BSNs. That accounts for maintenance, power, the cost of the factory (usually paid off long ago), the cost of using up a structure lot (means less harvestors or houses/storage space, etc.), the cost of 3+ days where my factory is tied up and unavailable. All these things add up, but only to a small amount in my view, again I'd say no more than 100k.
My price plan is very simple. I value my schematics at 400k based on the value of my grinding up BE and spending the skill points on it. I consider running a full run of tissues on my factories having an additional cost of 100k (as outlined above). Tack on the cost of the resources and there you have my final price for the tissues.
- Price for just a schematic = 400k
- Price for a run if someone gives me the resources for it and I use my factories: 400k + 100k = 500k
- Price if I buy the resources (usually around 1.1mil cost) and run it in my factories: 1.1mil + 400k + 100k = 1.6mil
I don't like to let my final price vary too much from one run to the next, so even with changes in resource quality (and cost) the final price stays nearly the same. This means that sometimes my profit is lower and sometimes it is higher and hopefully it averages out, which I think it has for me so far. I raise my prices for exceptionally good tissues and I lower them for relatively poor ones.
I think this is fair, and based on the business I've been getting, there are other chefs who think it's fair too.
What if the resources were given to me by my guild and I invested no time at all in the actual gathering process? What if I simply bought the resources off a vendor in the mall next to my house? The element of time keeps being brought up. I say the time is really the least of the factors when determining profit. If my profit is 500K from a full run I should sell a schematic for 50K because the time is worth 450K? That makes no sense to me. It is the schematic that bears the weight of the value. Not the time it takes to craft it. I can accept a compromise that the schematic is worth 400K and the time 100K to come back to my profit of 500K. That makes much more sense to me.
I should have worded this one different but what you gonna do. You say its the schematic which bears the weight of the value, I don't agree. The schematic is useless without the resource and a schematic made with a lesser resource wouldn't have the same value as a better quality one. Hence the value comes from the resource, which is my main point. So to answer your question if a guild member gave you the resource or you bought them then I'd say free to charge what you will. If someone else supplies the resource then all you are supplying is time.
What would you charge? Would you give me the schematic for free? It only takes a minute of your time to craft it.
If you're looking to make buffs for yourself you'd need 9 schematics. If you wanted to mass produce them then we're talking about 18 schematics. So if you supply the resources I'd pretty much charge 10k a schem then round up the figure, so 100k for the first example and 200k for the second.
I hear this a lot. My typical, non-uber, CL10 animal leaps off my vendors. I make the vast majority of my money selling pet stims. They sell very well and very quickly.
This is good news cause it means you're making money from other sources than tissues. In which case I have to ask whats the big deal with tissue schems.
We aren't charging by the skill point. The issue regarding skill points is that a chef doesn't have to invest one single point in BE or medic or scout in order to run tissues when they buy a schematic. That fact alone has a value. Mind you, BE's do not make tons of profit off tissues. They sell for a retail price that gives an impression there is a lot of money to be realized from them. The truth is I cannot afford to purchase more meat for another run of tissues because my 500K profit does not allow it.
See this is the whole point of a schematic. An expert has put a blueprint together in such a way that a first day noob with 250 skill points available can still use it. Its seems to me that in this case the expert is looking to make the same amount of money from each schematic regardless of where the resources come from. As I've stated above I see the value of a schematic coming from the resources used. So if somone else supplies the resource what have you done to get 500k profit? At what point do you say that you've sold enough schematics for 500k that your skill points have paid for themself?
The great nerf occurred in late 2003. I can make money harvesting resources for armorsmiths, docs, and chefs just using my scouting skills and invest those BE skill points in combat (which by the way, many BE's lack). I'd never have to make a single schematic at all. Why would I invest all those skill points in a profession that nets me 50K from a chef every now and then? And you ask if that should be enough for me?
I'd initialy disregarded pet sales as I didn't see you netting that much cash from them. Seems you can get reasonable sales from low level pets so theres part of your income. Pet stims for these pets will add to your income. Sales of crated tissue will net you the 500k when someone who doesn't have the resources themself buys them. You could even sell your skills to GCW base hunters, the options are there for you to generate credits. Holding chefs to ransom seems unfair to me.
Anyhoo, feels like I've been writing this for ages. Time to stop.
Boab.
Grozurr wrote:
Just remember this line:
"pester me more and i'll kill your factional bases!"
ok so it doesn't REALLY work, but i love the base takedown mini-game...imo it's the 2nd most interesting thing this game has to offer, only after pet crafting (which is really strange because looking back the base takedown mini-game ISN'T very complex at all...yet it's so very amusing)
Grozzer Agoutt
Kauri
MBE/Sentinel
I love base take down too. I get calls on my cell phone now to go take out a base. The min-game isn't very hard, but I just love working through it. I treat it as a the SWG version of tetris. Simple yet addicting.
I even got a stopwatch to time myself. I'm down to 2:13 and getting faster.
BoabMcGrae wrote:I'd initialy disregarded pet sales as I didn't see you netting that much cash from them. Seems you can get reasonable sales from low level pets so theres part of your income. Pet stims for these pets will add to your income. Sales of crated tissue will net you the 500k when someone who doesn't have the resources themself buys them. You could even sell your skills to GCW base hunters, the options are there for you to generate credits. Holding chefs to ransom seems unfair to me.
Anyhoo, feels like I've been writing this for ages. Time to stop.
Boab.
hmmmmm Holding chefs to ransom. Yeah, not a great idea. Although alot of Chefs move lots of credits around so they could afford to pay the ransom and not involve the cops.
There is another side to the schematic selling, or more or less something that factors into it at least where chefs are concerned. This other factor is the cost of meat.
Often times chefs or docs are willing to pay a higher amount for the meat than is really profitable. These chefs typically have an alt or someone they can trust to make a schem for them. They simply makeup the lost profit on the tissues in the end product sales. A BE trying to sell tissues really doesn't have this option in this case. If the price the hunters are asking for the meat has been raised by people that make their profit in another area it simply squeezes out the BE's without combat skills to harvest. This has happened a number of times on my server, and there's anouther server where good meat is so scarce it sells for over 200cpu. Well beyond the profit point for a BE selling to a chef. This realy isn't anyone's fault, it just what happens sometimes.
Somebody posted an estimated factory cost of 100k for a full run of tissues. This number is really high. I think most people haven't run the numbers. I recently checked on the profit I was making selling swoops for 10k. Here are my numbers.
Harvester % Max Maint/hr Power CPU
80 10 50 50 0.208333333
Power Gen % Max Maint/hr Eff Mod CPU
90 14 60 1.3 0.061050061
Factory Maint/hr Power/hr Time/sec Cost per unit
50 50 250 6.944444444
Swoop Metal CPU Cost Price Profit
8000 0.269383394 2162.0116 10000 7837.9884
The harvesting %'s are a little on the high side, but things just don't change that much when you drop to a 70% spot and a 80% spot on power. The efficiancy mod on the power is due to using radiactives getting more than one point of power per unit. This exapmple uses really good rads.
You can see the factory cost per unit is roughly 7k for a full run. How much value to place on tying up lots and factory time? I think that depends on what else you could be doing with those lots and factory time. What's the going rate on renting lots per day? I don't know cause I've never really considered renting lots. As for the time taken up in running the tissues, well that's what the factory is for. Sure you could be using the factory for something else, but it's a choice to run whatever your running in it at the time. For this I don't see it as reasonable to assign a value to that time.
So in my view (and only my view) is the lot that the factory is taking up worth 93k for the time it's running 1k of tissues? If that's the case then what about time the factory is idol.
The credit is so devalued in this game that I think people forget what the real out of pocket costs for things are. I realize the table I listed above has a small flaw in it, but the costs really are close, and the last factor in there is a variable that changes each time so I didn't really include it.
I'm going to edit out my prior comments to keep this readable. I'll make my new comments green to stay in keeping with the format. This is a good discussion by the way.
I should have worded this one different but what you gonna do. You say its the schematic which bears the weight of the value, I don't agree. The schematic is useless without the resource and a schematic made with a lesser resource wouldn't have the same value as a better quality one. Hence the value comes from the resource, which is my main point. So to answer your question if a guild member gave you the resource or you bought them then I'd say free to charge what you will. If someone else supplies the resource then all you are supplying is time.
The resources are already accounted for. I'm not charging the chef 1.5 mil for a schematic. The chef accepts the cost of the resources when they bring it to me. The remainder is simply the time for crafting and the schematic. The simple fact remains is that the schematic has a value. Meat have a value. Without the meat the tissues can't be made. The flora has a value. Without the flora the tissues can't be made. The schematic has a value. Without the schematic the tissues can't be made. I pay close to 1 mil for meat to make tissues. Why is it that the schematic have such little value?
If you're looking to make buffs for yourself you'd need 9 schematics. If you wanted to mass produce them then we're talking about 18 schematics. So if you supply the resources I'd pretty much charge 10k a schem then round up the figure, so 100k for the first example and 200k for the second.
I respect this. If I come to your every few days with 200K to make 18 schematics for me will you do it? I have no doctor skills at all and yet you put me right in the middle of the buff market. I wish armorsmiths and weaponsmiths did this.
This is good news cause it means you're making money from other sources than tissues. In which case I have to ask whats the big deal with tissue schems.
It isn't a big deal to me. It is a big deal to the people I'm putting out of business though. I'm also undercutting their market.
See this is the whole point of a schematic. An expert has put a blueprint together in such a way that a first day noob with 250 skill points available can still use it. Its seems to me that in this case the expert is looking to make the same amount of money from each schematic regardless of where the resources come from. As I've stated above I see the value of a schematic coming from the resources used. So if somone else supplies the resource what have you done to get 500k profit? At what point do you say that you've sold enough schematics for 500k that your skill points have paid for themself?
Well, the resources have already been paid for. That expense has already been realized. This only remaining components are time and the schematic. I still don't understand why the time bears the greater value than the schematic.
I'd initialy disregarded pet sales as I didn't see you netting that much cash from them. Seems you can get reasonable sales from low level pets so theres part of your income. Pet stims for these pets will add to your income. Sales of crated tissue will net you the 500k when someone who doesn't have the resources themself buys them. You could even sell your skills to GCW base hunters, the options are there for you to generate credits. Holding chefs to ransom seems unfair to me.
This is the most contentious part of the discussion. No one is holding a chef ransom. Chefs can craft food items without BE tissues. Nothing stops them from doing so. A chef also has the option to take up BE themselves. Nothing stops them from doing so. A chef also has the option to buy tissues as a finished product. Nothing is stopping them from doing so.
Anyhoo, feels like I've been writing this for ages. Time to stop.
Boab.
But I think you may have missed the main point I was trying to make. Chefs seem to think that my price for a full factory run of tissues is ok when I do all the work for it, but some don't like my price when all I am selling them is the schematic. The cost for resources is pretty much a constant in the whole equation, it will be the same for the chef or for the BE regardless of which one actually uses factories to produce the tissues. The cost of running the tissues through factories is realtively low compared to the value of the final product, as I said it's a maximum of 100k in my mind and maybe even half or a quarter of that, and compared to a 1.6mil market price for a full run of BSNs that's just pocket change.
The point I was hoping to make is because that cost is so low, it isn't a valid excuse by a chef to expect a drastically lower price for a schematic simply because they will have to do all the factory work instead of the BE. (and I've had that excuse given to me by chefs before).
The part that chefs are asking BEs to cut on the price is the cost of knowledge, the cost of skill and expertise. It's another intangible cost, but it's real enough. Without someone grinding through 1000's of crafting items and sampling countless creatures for DNA in a long and arduous exp grind towards master, then there would be no tissues at all. Ultimately it's up to the BE to set a value for that cost, and the smart BEs realize that this cost stays the same regardless of whether you sell the finished tissues or are selling schematics - the grind to master BE isn't any easier for someone who only makes schematics.
This is the way I would expect any profession in this game to work, BEs just stand out perhaps because we get asked to make schematics more often than other professions.