Bio Engineer Archive
Thread: What to Stock?
Feal your confusion. The only thing that can be said is that all variants have a value. So carrying weapons on the extremes is worth looking into. I will give you an example of one weapon and you will see my point
DH17 carbine. This weapon is valued by a number of classes in multiple varients. For the novice marksman its best to stock but not to scope short of a one point ham model. Simply put these are new players who will not use the range modifier properly. So why stick them with more ham costs. BHs use carbines to stick state attacks. They are not looking to use this weapon to do damage. They are looking for speed, and low ham costs. In this case you do not stock the gun or scope it, and wherever possible use a faster component. They will then go get this gun sliced for speed, and use it maybe as a first and second shot weapon. Master marksman. The player that has matured, and wants a powerful weapon. This player has learned how to use range modifiers properly, and may have less of a concern about ham cost.
Basically every fighting class is looking for something a little bit different in weapons to play to their skills. A novice marksman might cherish speed on a rifle. While a master riflemen preferspower. My advice is to carry weapons that ere on all sides of the spectrum, because there is someone out there looking for a gun that does something specific. There is no magic formula for each weapon what makes it more likeable. Every player uses weapons a little differently. Ask your customers. What they prize in a particular weapon. Once you find a average carry that variant in higher quantities then the other varients.
How much to stock depends more on where you are and who lives there. If your on lok odds are higher end weapons might need more space on your vendor. If you live on corellia lower end weapons might be the way to go. Though there are some weapons to be wary of. Guns that hardly anyone buys.
acid stream launchers beam rifles powerfive pistols sg82 dl44s.
Grenades imperials cryoban c22 c12
melee heavy axe rykk blades sword one handed swords. Lance vibro lance and two handed axe.
These will sell eventually but can take some time. Carrying just a couple on your vendor for varieties sake will do.
I'd say it really depends on your server economy/customer base. I live in a player city where I give out free weapons to all my fellow citizens. They tell me what kind of weapon they need, and then I make a few extras to put on my vendor at the same time. This has taught me a lot about what people want: for instance, through talking to all the TKAs and smugglers/commandos grinding unarmed, I've learned that for a Master TKA you want max damage, because of all the class speed bonuses make the speed of the VK insignificant. But for all those just grinding the lower unarmed levels, speed is what really matters. Some aren't even certified to use the VK, so they aren't going to notice the max damage of the weapon at all. But lack of cert doesn't affect speed, so they prefer it.
However it isn't that way with all weapons (speed is much more more a factor for riflemen, who have weapons of speed 8,than it is for a fencer, who don't go much higher than speed 3.something). Talk to the combat professions in your city or PA orhang out in Coronet/Theed and shout something like "Master WS making weapons, send tells for price quotes." If even one person comes to you wanting a certain build of item (say a Low HAM Featherweight FWG5), odds arethere will be other people who want that same weapon, so it will have a market. Another route is to go to the various combat proffesion boards, and check their sticikes. A lot of them have either a "What weapon is best" thread, or if not some sort of general FAQ or class info thread, which will have suggestions for the best weapons.
You might also want to pay attention to your server's galactic trade board. All the LTB (looking to buy) threads should give youa good idea of what weapons players on your server want, and even the weapon sales threads of other WS's on your server can give you some idea of what's hot ATM.
Personally I've noticed the following:
For allcombat professionsexcept TKA, there is a variety of options, but only a few of them are really worth making. Some are just plain useless, Most people don't get a new weapon every time they get a new Marksman or Brawler skill, but they usually get several new weapon certs from it. So for the lower cert weapons make maybe 3 or so different schematics for each combat profession. For instance for Fencer I would suggest not making survival knives, because a lot of people start with them, and those that don't buy them from artisan grinders on the bazaar. You could start with a good dagger if you want, for those experienced players who have credits and want the best possible equipment to help grind their new profession, but those aren't too common, so I wouldn't bother. Instead, just make a good (high damage/delay ratio) curved sword. Since the fencers using this weapon won't be as far up the skill tree, they won't have enough speed bonuses to make the weapon hit the cap (1.0 is the min delay after class skill speed modifiers). However once they hit the third box or so of their speed line, they will start hitting the speed cap with a curved sword, so they switch to a gaderfii baton, which is typically slower but higherdamage. A good gaderfii baton can be a fencer's main weapon from that point on, through the rest of their career. However, somewhere along the way most will also want a stun baton (since it does stun rather than kinetic damage, getting around certain creatures'/players' armor)and possibly a vibrodagger (its the only fencing weapon with armor piercing). Typically only the more experienced players want those alternate weapons though, so damage will usually be more important than speed.
Although the whole stock/scope thing makes ranged weapons a little more complicated, the same basic rules apply. Most people want a couple of weapons to grind with, one main weapon that they start using once they hit a certain point on their skill tree, and a few alternate weapons that do alternate damage types, or have armor piercing. Also there are a couple player made bleed weapons out there (Modified Republic Blaster and Enhanced E11 Carbine) which most players will want to get (although not as their main weapon, since they won't want to waste the bleed uses on every hit). As for whether to use scopes or stocks, I wouldn't use scopes on a grinding weapon, as most newer players don't utilize buffs/consumables to up their HAM the way experienced players do, and so adding to the HAM costs on their weapons is a bad thing. For main weapons and alternate weapons the majority of your customers will have ways of raising their stats, and will want to convert their newfound HAM in to greater damage. Therefore a scope which makes them hit more often is usually worth the HAM price. However if you want to please everyone, it doesn't hurt to make a low HAM and high HAM version of popular weapons (some experienced players don't use buffs, and even those that do sometimes where heavy composite armor which makes HAM costs relevant in longer fights). The same is pretty much true of stocks as well, although I am more likely to put a stock on a grinding weapon than a scope. Many newer players don't appreciate greater wounds/range mods, but they do look at damage (and sometimes that's all they look at) so stocks are often worthwhile even for those weapons.
If you can I highly recommend getting in to the rare weapon market. I have made something like 250k on making 5 scythes (4 of which the customers brought me all the schematics and components, so all I had to proivide was the resources). I'm currently working on making a line of Featherweight FWG5's and while I doubt they will be quite so lucrative, I expect to get at least 25k each from them. Throw in the bleed weapons, that acid rifle, and the new beserker rifle, and you have the potential to make lots of money. Likewise, if you can afford it consider buying weapon enhancements for a few high priced uber-weapons. Krayt tissue can make several good items (though its only really cost effective to use it on pistols, which require only one tissue per weapon), but there are also lots of lesser known enhancements (check the stickied thread at the top of the forum). I've found weapons with these enhancements are very popular, as people often are willing to pay any reasonable price for the best possible weapons. I'd recommend putting the name of the component in the name of the weapon (i.e. krayt republic blaster) to let people know why you are charging so much for that particular item.
Anyhow, I don't know if that was at all the kind of info you wanted, but I hope it was at least somewhat helpful. I guess what it all comes down to is that (for now at least) vendors have limitless space, so you should stock as many different variations of weapons as you feel comfortable maintaining (since everything that doesn't sell after a certain period of time has to be re-priced, keeping up a wide selection can get to be a real chore). But at most, you shouldn't need more than two variations of each grinding weapon, maybe 3 variations of the main class weapon, 2-3 variations of the alternate damage/AP weapons, and probably just one version of rare schematic weapons (since their limited uses encourage you to make a few attempts at a factory schematic of a single variation, and after that you need to get a new schematic). But doing that for every combat profession means a metric arseload of weapons, so just start by making what you are comfortable with (don't have advanced components?stick to speed weapons) and then over time add more based on what your customers want.
By "stock" I am under the impression you mean stock up your vendor, and not add stocks to your weapons... What I did was i stocked around 4 of every weapon listed on the weapon crafting tool possible, and watched very closely what sold and how long it took to sell that particular weapon.As i noticed what sold and what did not, that is how I judged and still judge how many more to make, it alsohelps a bit in the way that if a better new resource shifts in for a group or just one type of weapon you can esaily sell out of the older version and then stock the new improved version without missing any sales...I also would shop around ( and still do ) to compare my stats on my weapons with other masters out there who sell them as well, and i would price mine competitively 
After all it is important to have weapons in stock for the players that are new to a profession as well as advanced or mastered in a profession, and if you make competitive weapons and appeal to a person at a novice combat prof. chances are they will come back and buy their other more elite weapons from you as well... also it is VERY important to having a fully stocked weapon vendor as much as possible... one thing i despise is going to a planet advertised vendor to find hardly anything or nothing on it for sale... chances are i will not waste my time at that vendor again...
as far as adding a stock to weapons, I have Stocked and un-stocked T-21's but since other rifles and carbines speed is also a factor even more so, i usually only sell stocked weapon versions if special ordered... otherwise i notice they just sit on my vendors...having an advanced stock added in creation to weapons slows the weapon dwn by quite a bit
hope this helps
When it comes to riffles all the master rifflemen are interested in is damage. They get insane speed modifiers at master levels. I found this out by doing a bit of asking around and noticing the selling paterns on my vendor.
I am a smuggler and a WS so i slice all my weapons prior to throwing them on vendor. I usually have at least 10 of each of the popular weapons on there. The damage sliced T21s far outsell the speed sliced ones.
The mostpopular weapons on my server atm are BH related weaps, Riffles (mainly t21's , jawa's and lasers), laser carbs and dxr6 carbs, dx2 pistols, featherweight fwg5s and flamethrowers.
VKs I sell hand over fist, I remember selling them at 6k each on the bazar and i was getting throught 5-6 crates a week.
Then there are your big earners which are the Scythes and disruptor riffles. My disruptors go for anything from 150K and up depending on the cubes and slice.
Best bet is to stock a good selection and then work out the movers and shakers and make sure you always got good stock of the popular ones. Nothing pisses people off more than coming to an empty vendor. Remember that, if they see your vendor empty once they probably wont bother coming back.
Start where you can make the best weapons AND that you can sell most of.Cash flow is king right?At the beginning, barring a big inherritance,your resource limited. Look at the low end weapons first because you will be able to max out damage the easiest on those and sell a good weapon:
Pistols - D18, scout blaster Carbines- DH17 carb Rifles - DLT20 Sword, 1H curved sword, heavy axe
As you become resource and time enabled, begin making the most common main-stay weapons first after that. This is because this is where the sales numbers are. These would be:
Pistols-DX2, Republic blaster, (maybe the scatter) Carbines-laser carb Rifle-laser rifle Vibro Knucklers
Wait to sell T21's until your stats are at least 350-9.0. (a good one is on the order of 380-7.4). Everybody trys to get these out as soon as they can ... but alas, while they do sell they do not move in large numbers.
Tangle pistols are another shinny thing .... don't rush. They sell but maybe 1 to every 10 DX2.
Munitions ... commandos want crates of C12's to grind with and they are easy to make. Don't make too many tho, there only so many commandos grinding.
I sell the above in much greater number than any of the other weapons. Also very good are crates of survival knives and crates of "weapon upgrade kits" (artisan) for smugglers to grind with.
After your up and going with that branching out to the rest will come naturally. Some of the first weapons to look at is for the "leets". The top sellers in that catagoryon my vendor are:
Rocket launcher, Light Lightning Beam Cannon, Flame thrower
Good luck,
Howdy;
Another issue to consider also is what to Crate and what not to. Two frames of mind on this and I toggle between themsometimes <grin>
CRATE: Especially a good idea when Nerf-Dumb hits the boards. EXCEPT, the Xmas FWG nerf did not allow any of the crates to be unloaded <shrug>. Easy to transfer many weapons to remote sales vendors and can manage to have a few of your current Hotty's handy. Also is necessary for those Limitied Edition Loot Prints. Another PLUS is if you are max'd out on the XP for a particular weapon with current resources, then further XP does not matter. Grab a gob of the resources needed and make 200 or more of these Thangs and quit worrying about supplies of them for a bit.
UNCRATED: Always tweaking with the New and Improved Spawn of resources. Especially thought of when your factory reports DONE and 250 made, then tomorrow a resource spawns that kicks butt on what you just used. So now you have many weapons that are Sort ofOK <frown>. Another plus here is those Scopes and Stocks show up. If you think that is not a seller then you are not using scopes and stocks <grin>. Have to admit, some of these weapons really Look Hot - even though they are about matched in other variants without the graphics. Sex Sells, and apparently Looks Matter 8] .
The big difference here is that initial XP rating. If you are smashing the 29% levels, go for a Golden Amazing that max's it out and allows a durability of 1K plus and Schematic that puppy. Crate em up and move onto another weapon type.
One place I really like to crate (one of the few places I almost always do) is the Rocket Launcher. These Commando Toys eat up two factories for a few days and sell in spurts. Get 100 of these crated and wait for the next vendor run. When the pleas for more Rockets come /telling, you can say Wait A Minute, and go un-crate a few - instead of Wait A Day and actually expect that bloke to return.
Message Edited by DrkSyde on 04-21-2004 08:14 AM