Bio Engineer Archive
Thread: prices prices i know its a dead horse
Page 1 of 2
JustAnotherPerson
Fri Jan 21, 2005 12:40 am
#1
First off mastered be about three weeks ago 
have made a few monsters have made a few newb pets
have made a few tissues, been stickin with the 1k per point rule or the 1k per cl and 10k for light armor
but!!! I made some schematics for one guy a 12pt chef, he gave me 75k per schematic is this normal about right ?
then another chef, who happens to be known as one of those with really really high prices, offered me10k per schematic for 70 schematics.. is it just me or is that really really really low ? sure its 70 schematics but still . any advice help baseline prices regardless of economy would be great
Reason im asking is am a master CH Master BE, i know what to charge for pets cuz i know what i would pay for but i rarely buff and i rarely use food cuz well only been playin bout three months and other than the 75k order thats the first time ive actually seen over 500k in my bank acct . any help advice would be appreciated and yes ive read the faq's used the calculators but they dont really address schematics and i dont have the money/resources yet to do tissues solely and im always buying meat so money comes and goes
Halthron
Fri Jan 21, 2005 3:35 am
#2
IMO, 70k would still be low for all but the smallest economies. Let me give you an example how I figure things out.
Take the cost of meat (20 units per additive, times the cost on your server, say 30 cpu for this example) and add in the cost of the flora (60 units, 4cpu for this example) 20 * 30 = 600 + 60 *4 = 240. Addthem together and you get a raw cost of 840k for this run or a cost of 21k per crate.
Now, what is a fair profit margin do you think? Some people think 10% is fair, others 25%, 50%, 100%, etc.
Chefs on my server tend to sell good brandy at 175k per crate. Each crate will use 75 units of flora components, which for good ones will probably run 7-8 cpu. Let's use 8. 75 *8 = 600 credits per brandy * 25 = 15k cr their flora cost for a crate. You can see they still have 160k to both buy a crate of additives and have some profit.
Somewhere between 21k and 160k is the profit for the BE and for the chef. When you make a schematic for 70k, you're charging 1750cr per crate with no expenses. That means that of the 160k, you're taking 1.75k, the chef is taking 158.25k or, to put it into perspective, you made 70k he made 6.3 million off that one schematic.
Now, let me ask you again, what's a fair profit percentage? If a run of additives costs you 840k to make, and if you sold the additives for your cost, the chef would make 139k profit, how much of that profit should be yours? Even If you demand 100% profit on your cost, the chef is still making 118k profit, or 200% profit over his cost.
The question you need to ask yourself is, how much do I want other people to make off my labor?
JustAnotherPerson
Fri Jan 21, 2005 6:23 am
#3
no no no nooooo ../targ self /slap /slap /slap /slap
heh, i have seen the light, guess next time i just need to go look around at prices before i go makin schematics
i was happy i made 500k now .i feel robbed 
i gave the guy a break the 75k one because he was saying he was new, he was saying prices were dropping due to solo groups
thats it .. im just gonna make pets..
Kivrin
Fri Jan 21, 2005 6:24 am
#4
Argh. This sucks.
There's no way to compete with the super chefs. There's a nice chunk of 10 lots of 13K Dath carn on my trade. It's currently being fought over by the chef's and it's up to 60 cpu for all 10 lots. 60 cpu! Assuming 4 cpu for the flora and that.s 1.6 million for a factory run, or 40K a crate. That's what I sell it for! How can they afford 40K a crate when they do the run themselves but only want to pay me 35?
I really really hate to be ranting about Chef's and whatnot, but it makes this aspect of BE really tough to love. Halthron hit it right on. It costs 60 units of flora and 15 units of water for brandy. It's 70 flora and 20 meat for BSN's. Brandy goes for 160 a crate and tissues for 40. Even subtracting the cost of the tissues it becomes 120 vs. 40 for raw cost using less, albiet specific, resources! Can a little profit be shared please?
okay /endrant
There's no way to compete with the super chefs. There's a nice chunk of 10 lots of 13K Dath carn on my trade. It's currently being fought over by the chef's and it's up to 60 cpu for all 10 lots. 60 cpu! Assuming 4 cpu for the flora and that.s 1.6 million for a factory run, or 40K a crate. That's what I sell it for! How can they afford 40K a crate when they do the run themselves but only want to pay me 35?
I really really hate to be ranting about Chef's and whatnot, but it makes this aspect of BE really tough to love. Halthron hit it right on. It costs 60 units of flora and 15 units of water for brandy. It's 70 flora and 20 meat for BSN's. Brandy goes for 160 a crate and tissues for 40. Even subtracting the cost of the tissues it becomes 120 vs. 40 for raw cost using less, albiet specific, resources! Can a little profit be shared please?
okay /endrant
Message Edited by Kivrin on 01-21-2005 08:25 AM
Zadokk
Fri Jan 21, 2005 6:33 am
#5
I only ever made one schematic and I charged 100k less then I sold a run of additives for (even using his resources)... was the easiest 1.5m I ever made 
LloydPickering
Fri Jan 21, 2005 1:31 pm
#6
The fairest wayis to work out the cost you could sell thenutrients, and the profit you would want from that, and then charge the profit as the cost. That way you aren't undercuttingother BEs from the market.
If you give it to them for a discount then you are undervaluing the entire BE market on you server. (Particularlywith 70 runs ) It takes you a lot less time to make a Chef 70 schemtics than it does to make 7 runs, which means BEs are losing out on jobs. Someday it might be u.
) It takes you a lot less time to make a Chef 70 schemtics than it does to make 7 runs, which means BEs are losing out on jobs. Someday it might be u.(BTW I never make schematics, but if I did, I wouldn't do it for 10k. 70k sounds a lot more reasonable, although maybe still on the low side)
Reptilian_Greenskin
Mon Jan 24, 2005 8:54 am
#7
Saying that you should make the same amount of profit off a schematic as actually having to get the supplies is stupid. You do no work except 2 seconds for 1 click and done. Everytime a BE does this it causes a chef to pick up a BE alt like i was forced to do. No BE willing to sell additives in full runs for any price, and a BE not willing to make schematics or for 2 million dollars using my resources and my factories.
Sorry that just doesn't work. My advice would be to direct them to a BE that makes additives that is looking for business, if there is such a thing. If there isn't any BE that will make them, then you are free to charge whatever you want for a schematic as you are not taking away any business from a BE.
Sorry that just doesn't work. My advice would be to direct them to a BE that makes additives that is looking for business, if there is such a thing. If there isn't any BE that will make them, then you are free to charge whatever you want for a schematic as you are not taking away any business from a BE.
LloydPickering
Mon Jan 24, 2005 9:04 am
#8
Reptilian_Greenskin wrote:
Saying that you should make the same amount of profit off a schematic as actually having to get the supplies is stupid. You do no work except 2 seconds for 1 click and done. Everytime a BE does this it causes a chef to pick up a BE alt like i was forced to do. No BE willing to sell additives in full runs for any price, and a BE not willing to make schematics or for 2 million dollars using my resources and my factories.
Sorry that just doesn't work. My advice would be to direct them to a BE that makes additives that is looking for business, if there is such a thing. If there isn't any BE that will make them, then you are free to charge whatever you want for a schematic as you are not taking away any business from a BE.
If you could not find a BE, then I would advise you to look at my thread 'Why you can't find a BE on your server' It may explain why...
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=bio-engineer&message.id=86235
PlainWhiteSocks
Mon Jan 24, 2005 11:02 am
#9
Reptilian_Greenskin wrote:
Saying that you should make the same amount of profit off a schematic as actually having to get the supplies is stupid. You do no work except 2 seconds for 1 click and done. Everytime a BE does this it causes a chef to pick up a BE alt like i was forced to do. No BE willing to sell additives in full runs for any price, and a BE not willing to make schematics or for 2 million dollars using my resources and my factories.
Sorry that just doesn't work. My advice would be to direct them to a BE that makes additives that is looking for business, if there is such a thing. If there isn't any BE that will make them, then you are free to charge whatever you want for a schematic as you are not taking away any business from a BE.
Don't know why I'm bothering, but here.....
There have been many many times when I'd like to buy the meat to make a run of BSN or something to sell on my vendor. The last time I asked people to hunt for the meat they asked how much am I paying. Fair enough. I told them 30cpu. They laughed and said they were able to sell to another player for 50cpu. I finnaly got somebody to tell me who was paying 50cpu for the meat (not great stats). A few days later I was stupid enough to have my BE title on going through Theed when the same guy that was buying meat at 50cpu asks me if I was selling BSN's. I Said I might be able to pull enough meat together for a run. He asked how much. I said 35k per crate. He said he wouldn't pay anything more than 24k per crate, cause he saw a vendor that had them at that price. 24k a crate is less than the cost of the meat at 50cpu. I told him the best I could do is 30k per crate, he laughed and told me I don't know how to make money. Huh? I was dumbfounded.
Again recently I asked around to see if someone wanted to hunt for some decent meat for me at 30cpu. Nobody wanted to cause they could harvest meat for docs at 150cpu.
Now you, Mr. Chef want a full run of BSN's. Got any ideas on how to get the meat? Three hours of harvesting time for me usually yields 12-17k of meat on a decent spawn, roughly 25k for Dath carni. The trick is I don't always have three hours a week to harvest meat. And you want how many runs a week?
Do the math. For BSN's 20 unit of meat, 60 units of Flora. If I buy meat at 30cpu the meat cost is 30*20*25 for a crate or 15000. For 50cpu meat it's 25000. The flora I use I can easily sell for 10cpu. Lets say I do 5cpu for that just cause I'm nice. That's still 7500 for the flora costs. That makes 22500 for 30cpu meat and 32500 for 50cpu meat. If I can get the meat for 30cpu (doubtful) then the profit is good enough for me selling at 35k per crate. If I have to pay 50cpu it's really not worth my time.
Oh and how much do you make off one crate of Brandy?
Grind level resources at 3cpu
Good resources at 10cpu
Trim 5k per crate
BSN 40k per crate
85k profit per crate.
You couldn't sell the stuff to a man dying of thirst in the desert if not for the BSN's
and you want me to make 15k per crate while you make 85k per crate? Would you sell brandy at 15k Profit? Didn't think so. Go pay your extra $15 a month to Sony (they'll love you for it) make your BE alt, and your fortune. Fine by me. Just don't whine about not being able to find a BE anywhere.
I guess I woke on the wrong side of the bed today. I'll shut up now.
Halthron
Mon Jan 24, 2005 12:05 pm
#10
My reply: Then buy them from him at that price. Mine are this price. You want them, they'll be here.
I don't mind not selling a ton of additives. Some people prefer to do that as their business and I have no intention of trying to compete on price or speed. I'm currently stocking my vendor with runs of additives and tissues and am trying for the whole gammut. Decent stuff gets at least a 1/2 a run while I'm also trying to support beginner chefs with lower quality stuff in 1/4 runs.
I don't mind not selling a ton of additives. Some people prefer to do that as their business and I have no intention of trying to compete on price or speed. I'm currently stocking my vendor with runs of additives and tissues and am trying for the whole gammut. Decent stuff gets at least a 1/2 a run while I'm also trying to support beginner chefs with lower quality stuff in 1/4 runs.
rahbert
Mon Jan 24, 2005 2:21 pm
#11
Some decent Carnivore meat spawned on Lok, and I started collecting it to make BSNs.... but then I found out someone is paying 100CPU for the meat.
So should I use the meat for BSN's and make little profit or sell the meat for 100CPU for 99% profit (gotta pay for buffs)?
Needless to say, I'm just going to sell the meat and use the money to buy cheaper meat.
So should I use the meat for BSN's and make little profit or sell the meat for 100CPU for 99% profit (gotta pay for buffs)?
Needless to say, I'm just going to sell the meat and use the money to buy cheaper meat.
LloydPickering
Tue Jan 25, 2005 6:15 am
#12
rahbert wrote:
Some decent Carnivore meat spawned on Lok, and I started collecting it to make BSNs.... but then I found out someone is paying 100CPU for the meat.
So should I use the meat for BSN's and make little profit or sell the meat for 100CPU for 99% profit (gotta pay for buffs)?
Needless to say, I'm just going to sell the meat and use the money to buy cheaper meat.
Funnily enough, a while back, I got some hunters to hunt some Carn meat for me at 30cpu. The price others were offering shot up to 40, so I sold it on. Even though it was good meat, with a value of 40cpu theres far more profit selling the meat, and I would class myself as a heavy tissue maker always after good meat.
Reptilian_Greenskin
Tue Jan 25, 2005 2:14 pm
#13
As I always say, every server is different. I pay 30-40 cpu for meat from my hunters and never have a problem getting them to hunt for me. I was more than willing to pay 55K/60K /crate for BSN that were quality, but not one BE would do it in the quantities i needed.
Instead of all BE's jumping on me or any one else just because they are a chef, you really need to take a look at the profession, and try to get something changed if you can't supply chefs as that is one of the things that your profession is there to do.
Page 1 of 2