Bio Engineer Archive
Thread: How do you buy meat anyway?
I mastered BE because I was a chef and I needed a BE.
correction: I ground out jedi to unlock a second toon so I could make that second toon a BE.
For a long time I played the depend on someone else game and I went thru quite a few, very good BEs. I'm not kidding when I say I went thru 4-5 full runs of addatives every week. It wasn't easy to find BEs who could keep up with my production. So when it came to resources, my motto was I'll take all of it, and wonder what to do with the extras (if there are any) later...
As far as meat and other creature harvested resources go, you have to make friends with people who like to hunt for money. Get yourself a list of people who are willing to hunt and email them when you find something worth hunting. These people aren't that hard to find. Goto where the good resource is and start spamming at the starport. If you see a Master Ranger title, /tellthem and ask if they are a hunter for hire. Odds are anyone who is worth asking to hunt for you will be where the good spawn is. Also, if you are in a guild, get an email out to the guild that you are buying and that you could use their help collecting. If your guild can come thru for you, then you don't even need to bother with other people.
How much should you buy? That is a rough question. If people ask me, i tell them my motto (all of it). The people who were on my hunter list knew that I would keep buying as much as they would collect. Is that bad? Yes and no. No, because good resources will always be good resources. Yes, because sometimes people collect more than you really need (ex: I was buying some really good dantooine wooly hide (preCU I was also an AS) at 100cpu. The spawn lasted almost 20 days instead of the usual 8 days. I now have a nice carpet in my house made up of 100k stacks of 100cpu hide). Can you tell people you have enough? YES! Send out an email to your hunters when you have about enough, and that you will buy whatever they have already collected. OR you can just tell each hunter to get you a set amount.
For starting out how much meat should you get? I'd say as much as you can afford if there is a good current spawn, but don't bother trying until there is.Don't forget you will also need good floral to go with the meat. The best meat to ever spawn isn't worth much if all you can make is +84 BSNs because your other resources are terrible. For starters, get real comfortable staring at SWGCraft.com and taking samples randomly to check meat quality. In the mean time, get some harvesters going on the best florals you can. Sooner or later you will have enoughstock to make a few runs of good stuff. Don't settle for sub-par products either. No chef wants to use +75 BSNs when they can get +85s. Price isn't usually the issue, quality is.
How much should you pay? The old CU randomizer has messed this all up totally. It is now quite easy to harvest a ton on resources from lvl 80 missions.So, IFyou can get missions for the resource you want, then the price should be reasonable (10-20cpu +/- server economy). If not... well, you might have to wait for something else to spawn depending on how hard it is to find wild spawns and how much can be harvested from each kill. Or you might be tempted to pay too much as docs were forced to do for preCU avian meat. Don't over pay! You will drive your production costs up very quickly if you do. Chefs/tailors will not pay premium prices for your wares even if they charge an arm and a leg for thiers.
And one last thing while I'm rambling on... Get yourself (or at least access to) a creature recycler. Stuff all the little extra bits of meat in it and you get a nice big stack of processed meat for making pets 
ADVICE: Put the stuff you made on a vendor. You can price them according to your cost, or you canprice them according to the prices you can find on the bazaar's vendor search. [I recommend option 2 if its more than your cost of production] Collect some more resources to make a few other things. Put them on the vendor in bags with 10 or 20 crates, with perhaps a few loose crates thrown in for good measure. (make sure the names all have some kind of code in them so people can tell different runs apart from each other without having to examine them). If stuff sells, then you're a hit and you should make more. If not, then try advertising. If that doesn't work, uhm... lower your prices? Give it some time... If that doesn't work, uhm.... panic?
best of luck to you!
first check how much tissues cost at your server
then calculate how much you can pay for meat and other resources.
Make a pricelist for them
Then: start auction for the stuff you like most (and yes - i LOVE swgcraft.com *g*) I use a line like
"desperately looking for MILK ... Paying 400k for a stack of 20k milk (20 cpu) or 150k for a 10k-stack milk (15cpu) or 60k for 5k (12cpu);
BUYing other creature resources also"
Or "WTB Airdouve, Nabooian Animal Bones - 5 cpu
BUYing other creature resources also"
Spam that from time to time.. that means NOT every 30 seconds please ...
And:
Check bazaar for creature resources fitting your pricescheme and then buy it - and then mail the person who sell it. In the mail you need to put the info what you pay and where you vendors are to drop the stuff.
I also send out a "newsletter" with the "resources of the week". That are resources that pay higher then usual.
My standartprice for "bad meat" is for example 1.5 cpu. But its possible that some meat is good for a special item so you would pay more. Then i mention the resource, the price and the standartprice liek this:
22 cpu for stacks above 5k (normal price 10 cpu)
Higivi, Rori Carnivore Meat
dropped by for example flesh eating chuba, borgles, pugoriss, vrobalet, kai toks, tusk cats, tortons, vrobals
DR=433, FL=938, PE=978, OQ=976 » Marked as available on Rori 8 days ago
I always put several resources in the gmail and send it out to all suppliers. Every person who offer creature resources on my vendor land on that list *g*
After a while you dont need to check bazaar anymore because you will have enough suppliers ,)
Meat prices have dropped on my server. I no longer have to compete with Docs for the meat I need. I scour the bazaar and occassionally will have people offer meat/bone/hide to my vendor.
Generally, I won't pay more than 10 cpu and eventhen the stats have to be in the 900s for OQ/PE/FL.
If you are using meat as an organic, why not switch to wood with a OQ in the 900s?
I agree with everything the previous responders posted. As for my personal experience, I pretty much built up my hunter list by offering them a fair rate (formerly 150cpu for avian), now 20cpu for just about anything that I ask them to get. For things like Talus Scaley which is difficult to get in quantity, I offer 50cpu but limit those offerings to my top contributors so I can control the yield a little more closely.
I found most of my hunters by scanning the bazaars almost daily looking for the people selling quality meats at low prices. I used to use harbivore meat for my introductory purchases since there were so many people harvesting large quantities of meats on Dantooine (including herbivore from pikets). I now look for those offering current Tat meats at low prices (1-5cpu). Those are typically the new guys and they get really excited about being offered 20cpu for something they like to kill anyway.
As for how to control yield, I am certainly not the right person to ask about that. I recently put out a 20cpu offer on Tat Reptile and have received over 3million units so far! As a matter of fact, I have run out of funds and had to send out an email to my hunters informing them that I am no longer accepting that meat (other than currently harvested of course).
Great information everyone and thanks so much for the detail ...
Dor
Once I had these determined, I made a list with matching cpu in notepad, created a low-end chef tissue, and copied the list to the name. I then put the tissue on the counter at the front of my store, so everyone that entered could see what I was looking for. I also posted my formula in case people found something not on my list.
(Backpacks make good signs because you can change their name and add color!)
Seiryuu wrote:
When I was a BE, I figured out the price point I was willing to pay for certain qualities of meat. I had a formula that took into account OQ, PE and Flavor, although whatever criteria you want is fine. Then I matched the resources at swgcraft with my formula so I knew what I was willing to pay for the current supply.
Once I had these determined, I made a list with matching cpu in notepad, created a low-end chef tissue, and copied the list to the name. I then put the tissue on the counter at the front of my store, so everyone that entered could see what I was looking for. I also posted my formula in case people found something not on my list.
(Backpacks make good signs because you can change their name and add color!)
All good points although another point to take under consideration ishow mucha chef/tailor/doctor/cm will pay you for your tissues/additives/meds. If your cost is high but demand is low you will loose out. It is a fine line to walk and many BEs are able to do so and be not only successful but well-off as well.
While we don't have to compete with docs for avian and herbivore meat any longer, the armorsmith uses the same hides and bonesthat we use and I'm sure that we may be competing on some level with some of the other professions.
I tend to try to keep my cost low so that the cost of my product is affordable. This doesn't make me rich but it's kindof a vicisious circleand I am a consumer as well as a manufacturer (we are not really considered crafters) and like low prices for finished goods.
I managed to sell these and used the money to pay for more meat. For a short while everything I put into buying meat was the money from sales. This meant I was treading water for a while, but then if you only buy the best meat spawns and stockpile (as a BE) you will pretty much bankrupt yourself before filling up with a load of money.
As for finding the meat to buy, I placed ads on the Trade Server Forums, and spammed in game. If someone dropped meat on my vendor, I added them to my friends list, and eventually I got to the stage where I didn't need to bump my forum posts so much as I had a few dedicated hunters.
You are fine to say you only want 1mill units or 500k...so long as you are quick to warn people when u get enough, and buy any excess already offered to your vendor. There are always others who will want to buy a good spawn so don't worry about people left in the lurch...but if they have already offered, I class it as rude to reject it.
Around Christmas Time I had about 15 factories going and was tearing through meat. I ran out of meat, and had to say to Chefs that I would still make them tissues if they gave me the meat...this worked out rather well for me. I discounted the price by the server price of meat...but that meant I was getting the same profit off the tissues for the Flora alone.
As for selling the tissues themselves...I rarely if ever had them on a vendor. I always used to work by mail order. My customers when I began were new chefs who didn't have BE contacts who wanted the odd half and full run, and towards the end, I was predominantely used by high volume chefs who had a need of excess tissues and for one reason or another their normal supplier was unavailable to make them. This was better as the high volume Chefs have enough cash to pay you straight away, and often buy multiple runs at a time (Once I was asked for 5 of each MSN/BSN/INN...My eyes nearly popped out when I read the email, particularly as it was about 7 days before I was due on holiday
)I could make pets, Tailor tissues, and harvest flora with 2 factories on the go. When an order for 5 runs or so came in, I would tear down some fora farms, and put up extra factories to suit the size of the order.
Heres my 5 point plan
1. Buy as much of a good meat spawn as your bank balance will allow.
2. Harvest as much as u can of any good Flora that spawns, even if its worth too much for using in tissues - you can always sell it to others.
3. Try to develop a list of ranger/scouts who drop off stuff on your vendors.
4. Keep a lot of factory deeds around so if u do get a large order you can quickly get going. (No need to have them using up lots and maintenance when u can harvest flora though)
5. Never offer more than the server price of meat (unless you are late to ask for it) as this will lead to inflation on meat prices as others do the same to try and get enough.