Chef Archive
Thread: What do YOU hate about dealing with those Bio-Engineers?
MozzerKing
Mon Jul 26, 2004 8:01 am
#27
Saitek wrote:
Let's simplify:
FACT 1: Chef's NEED BE's
FACT 2: BE's don't need Chef's
FACT 3: There aren't enough dedicated BE's in the galaxy to meet the demand for food enhancements so Chef's are forced to take matters into their own hands.
Step up to the plate, meet the demand, and we'll make you rich. If you can't keep up then don't be surprised when we find ways to make ourselves less dependent on players who continually let us down....
Message Edited by MozzerKing on 07-26-2004 08:01 AM
Okin_Sin
Mon Jul 26, 2004 8:05 am
#28
FACT 4: Most serious Chefs are already master BE themselves, or have an arrangment worked out with a friend/guild BE and don't need to look for BE's at all.
Distaste
Mon Jul 26, 2004 8:24 am
#29
Okin_Sin wrote:
I feel like BE's want to be treated like Gods for thier proffesion sometimes. If you as a BE did all that leveling to make all your profit off of food additives, I think you went the wrong direction. Ive read so many BE posts were the BE's think they should make the same profit off of the additives that Chefs make off finished foods. I will try to recap what I think the main points are
1) BE additives regardless of how hard/expensive to make are just a component
2) This component is only sold to 1 proffesion, Chefs
3) Chef foods are sold to every proffession in the game, therefore have a MUCH larger customer base
4) Most BEs I seemed to talk to say they won't make the additives because the profit margin is to small, and also refuse to make schematics
5) It has been proven that even at 15k for BSNs people CAN make a profit
6) BE additives have 1 line to experiment, the resources only uses OQ,FL,PE and ANY master BE can max out the 1 exp line
7) Chefs have 4 lines to experiment with and use all the stats on many resources
8) Chefs spend many many millions of credits on skill tapes to enhance this experimentation and make better food
The point is the Chef and BE are not at all the same, and don't deserve the same profit for a finished product. Also BEs are not gods, its just a proffession like any other. In all honestly there is not even a need to rely on one in a game that you can this easily just grind BE yourself and make your own tissues.
For all the Chefs out there looking for BE schematics here is a bit of advice. Don't look for Master BE's, look for Master Chefs that are also BEs, they in general, are much easier to deal with, and don't expect millions of credits for a schematic they made in 1 minute and lost 0 resources on.
As for BE being so "hard" to master, come on it took me what three days?? cry me a river on that one.
1. Component for Chefs yes true, but isnt Krayt Tissue just a component? and whats the going price on that?
2. We have components that can be made for tailors as well. It isnt a mandate that all BE have to make Chef Tissues.
3. Much
Distaste
Mon Jul 26, 2004 8:45 am
#30
sorry forum decided to post before i finished.
3. Much Larger customer base right...seems to me since our Tissues are in those foods you sell that we have the same customer base, just that chefs are middlemen. Also if your customer base is so large then you can sell it all very fast. Thus meaning you can lower your prices because you sell so much so fast.
4. Try paying the BE more, and why should you profit from that BE that grinded for a week? OMG OMG 50k YOUR MY MASTER. Keep your credits, most BE wont undermine others buisness by handing out schematics.
5. 15k hmmm seems to me you need to look at meat prices again. Even at 3cpu for flora and 15cpu for meat(as if you would get good quality that cheap) we would make maybe 4k profit and 1000 run takes 2 days...i can kill janta's faster with NO FIGHTING SKILLS for 30k, take your 4k and shove it where the sun dont shine.
6. True but whats this have to do with the price of beans? Thats like saying all master chef's have Experimentation points and can use them. We get critical failures as well you know.
7. Well if your a good chef its really only 3 lines, you can eliminate experimenting on filly by using the correct resources...and **edit** is so hard about taking it to 45 mins, and 400+buff and why not toss in just enough for 21 uses. Any idiot can fill in bubbles, remember the SAT's or did you spell your name wrong.
8. **edit** does that have to do with the degrading profit we get? The fact that you can afford to spend 45 mill on getting 20 experimentation points?
Point is Chef and BE are both professions, and Chef's cannot expect us to provide them with a component they NEED to make there product. Chef's make 300% profitthen turn around telling the BE that we make to much with our measly 25% profit, just go ahead and spit on us. Telling me we think we are gods, all we want is respect and a slice of the pie.
For all the Chef's out there, treat your BE good and you will get what you need.Im a Master Chef and now a Master BioEngineer, I am not giving a schematic to no one, grind BE or find another person. Im not going to sell out the BE profession because you cant get enough money fast enough.
BE is as hard as Armorsmith to grind....12 hours crafting, and depending on how fast you go and what you sample maybe 12-14 hours of DNA sampling. 1 full day of grinding....Chef took maybe 12 hours for the whole thing? DNA sampling isnt just sitting there with a macro on...there is danger and it is frustrating having 4 sampling attempts in a row fail, not to mention when mask scent fails and you have to wait 45 seconds to mask again.
Yep takes 1 minute, 0 resources, yet someone just lost that little 25% profit we do get.
sciguyCO
Mon Jul 26, 2004 9:57 am
#31
First, lets try to keep the flames down. I know this is a touchy subject for both chefs and BEs, but if a discussion degrades into shouting insults back and forth, no oneis going to be happy.
To answer the original post, I try to find additives priced around 15-25k for MNS, 25-40k for BSNs, and 40-60k for INNs. Higher quality tissues (57+/87+/116+) are obviously preferred, and I'd pay a larger price for them.
To the Chefs:
- If you want to provide the resources and buy a schematic, you're not just paying for "5 minutes of their time". You're also paying for the time it took the BE to grind to Master (since you probably want one made with the full 10 experimentation points), and the 92ish skill points you don't have to use up.
- BE's are not obligated to provide schematics, and if they choose to, they have the right to charge whatever they want. Of course, you also have the right to take your business elsewhere if you don't like the price and can't haggle down. The wonders of economics...
- Tissues take somewhere between 2x and 4x the amount of factory time than even the most time-intensive food. So it's likely that a Chef running 24/7 making brandy (and it's components) can out-strip a BE making BSNs, especially since we tend to "pipeline" our components in multiple factories.
To the Bioengineers:
- Vasarian Brandy is a very popular drink, so the price chefs charge reflects that. However, BSNs are also desired for other, less popular, foods. I don't know about other chefs, but I use the higher profits from Brandy to "subsidize" other foods that use medium additives that have a slimmer profit margin so I can offer a larger variety of foods.
- The "raw" cost of a crate of casked enhanced brandy (using 3cpu for low-quality resources, 7cpu for high-quality flora, and 80 credits per trim) is a bit over 25k plus the price of a crate of BSNs. That's counting factory maintenance andpower. I usually get BSNs for 35k per crate, and charge 125k per crate of brandy, so the highest markup you can accuse me of is 100%, which I don't think is unreasonable for most crafting professions.
- Many chefs feel "burned" by the revamp and the customer's apparent feeling that only BE-enhanced foods are worth buying. It's unfair, but some do take this out on BEs. Sorry.
- When chefs come to you asking for a schematic, would it be unreasonable to price it at just the profit margin you would've gotten selling it yourself? Maybe a bit less, since you're also saving yourself the play time handling the loading/unloading/marketing tissues? So if you profit 10k per crate, wouldn't an offer of 400k for a 1000 run schematic be fair?
I've occasionally brought up the subject of schematics with BEs I've done business with (when I happened to have a large stack of decent meat), and all of them turned down the offer. I basically said "fine", and kept just going to their vendors.
Flamingdeath
Mon Jul 26, 2004 10:27 am
#32
I read these posts and the answer is so simple but so many chefs fail to see. If you want alot of additives and your BE can't keep up then obviously your not paying enough for him to expand his operation to include purchasing meat from hunters to help fill his order for you. Chefs want to make money then you better be prepaired to pay descent for your components. Nothing worse then running out of components cause you the Chef wanted to be cheep. You'll find that the best crafters on every server already know this and pay their suppliers top dollar and their suppliers stay loyal and working hard to keep the crafter happy.
OditeFosore
Mon Jul 26, 2004 10:55 am
#33
There's nothing I hate about dealing with BE's. It's a game, and the game's economy and markets aren't far off from reality, at least in some aspects. It's fun to be competitive and to see how much market share I can get, what prices I can price atand remain competitive, what deals I can make with my suppliers (BE's included) - it's all part of the game.
Ican't answer your question as to how much I'm willing to pay because I pay different amounts to my different BE's, pretty much depending on how hard they bargained with me and I'm not willing to share my different prices.
I treat the game as a market economy and I negotiate the best deal that I can come to - I'm still on very friendly terms with my BE's, but I do make the best profit I can make. I make it clear that I want to come to mutually agreeable prices that will allow us both to make a reasonable profit, but after that it's whatever the lowest price I can get agreement on that I go with. After price though, there are other factors that affect my decision for which BE's I go back to. Does the BE deliver and is the BE consistent and timely with orders? Does the BE accept trades? Does the BE buy anything from me in return for my business?
It's just a game and folks seem to be taking it awfully personally. Vendor relations are fun in real life and they're fun in game. It's a pretty cool concept built into the game that makes it more complicated and difficult to be successful. It weeds out the folks that can't cut it I guess, as there's more than just 1 or 2 factors to juggle in order to be a successful chef - you have to arrange the drop off of several components that are created by outside vendors in 1 location at the right time in order to get them into your factories with the correct other ingredients and then make sure that you paid prices that will not only allow you to make a profit but also your suppliers so that they will want to keep you as a customer in the future. Good stuff in my opinion.
Sleksheea
Mon Jul 26, 2004 11:46 am
#34
aswex wrote:
The temperature's rising in this thread, but I've still only got one person who posted a price for chef tissues (1k per tissue). Here are some facts that you can use to help you come to an estimate if you're a chef that's never really thought about it before:
MNS: 20 organic, 15 flora food, 15 creature food
BSN: 35 organic, 25 flora food, 20 creature food
INN: 55 organic, 35 flora food, 20 creature food
Important stats: FL: 20%, PE: 30%, OQ: 50% (It's a lot of fun looking for resources with good scores in all three categories. I hear you chefs only have to worry about PE and OQ- is that true?)
I don't borrow lots because I'm trying to function as if I'm in an actual player-run economy. I use 2 lots for a house, 1 for a merchant tent, and 7 for factories. I can usually buy my flora for 2 cpu and my creature food for 15 cpu. My MNS's are usually between 53 and 56, my BSN's are usually between 83 and 86, and my INN's are usually between 113 and 116. So based on what I pay, what do you think you should pay?
Resources:
- 20x Tatooinian Berry Fruit
- 25x Tatooinian Fruit
- 25x Tatooinian Vegetable Tubers
- Subcombines:
- 3x Alcohol (Novice Chef) (identical)
Required Ingredients:
- Resources:
- 10x Cereal
- 1x Cask (Mixology II: Fruity Drinks)
Required Ingredients:
- Resources:
- 150x Crystalline Gemstone
- Subcombines:
- 2x Trim (Formal Wear I: Fashion Basics) (identical)
Required Ingredients:
- Resources:
- 5x Inert Petrochemical
- 20x Fiberplast
- 1x Heavy Food Additive (Master Chef)
Required Ingredients:
- Resources:
- 20x Water
- Subcombines:
- Choose one of:
- 1x Intelligent Nanonutrients (Master Bio-Engineer)
Required Ingredients:
- Resources:
- 20x Creature Food
- 35x Flora Food
- 55x Organic
Okin_Sin
Mon Jul 26, 2004 11:59 am
#35
"1. Component for Chefs yes true, but isnt Krayt Tissue just a component? and whats the going price on that?
2. We have components that can be made for tailors as well. It isnt a mandate that all BE have to make Chef Tissues.
3. Much Larger customer base right...seems to me since our Tissues are in those foods you sell that we have the same customer base, just that chefs are middlemen. Also if your customer base is so large then you can sell it all very fast. Thus meaning you can lower your prices because you sell so much so fast.
4. Try paying the BE more, and why should you profit from that BE that grinded for a week? OMG OMG 50k YOUR MY MASTER. Keep your credits, most BE wont undermine others buisness by handing out schematics.
5. 15k hmmm seems to me you need to look at meat prices again. Even at 3cpu for flora and 15cpu for meat(as if you would get good quality that cheap) we would make maybe 4k profit and 1000 run takes 2 days...i can kill janta's faster with NO FIGHTING SKILLS for 30k, take your 4k and shove it where the sun dont shine.
6. True but whats this have to do with the price of beans? Thats like saying all master chef's have Experimentation points and can use them. We get critical failures as well you know.
7. Well if your a good chef its really only 3 lines, you can eliminate experimenting on filly by using the correct resources...and **edit** is so hard about taking it to 45 mins, and 400+buff and why not toss in just enough for 21 uses. Any idiot can fill in bubbles, remember the SAT's or did you spell your name wrong.
8. **edit** does that have to do with the degrading profit we get? The fact that you can afford to spend 45 mill on getting 20 experimentation points?"
Ok ill try to answer all your objections, kinda funny you had one to every single point isn't it ?
1) There is a huge difference betwee Krayt tissues, a rare monster with even rarer loot, then something anyone who spends a few days getting BE can make. Your mixing issues here.
2) Just trying to point out that these are the people you are selling this component to and only them .. therefore they are the determining factor on what the value is .. value equals what people are willing to pay
3) Ok next time someon wants some canape hand them and INN and ask for the cash and see if they are your customers
4) My point might not have been clear, but if the BE isn't willing to produce them for what people are willing to pay, then they could still make a profit off the schematics, but this is also unacceptable to most BE's just seemed strange to me.
5) I bought Hundreds of thousands of meat at 10 c/u and harvested my own flora at .33 c/u, and it makes +87 BSNs and +117 INN's I guess we are going about it differently
6) Nothing to do with beans, but has to do with the difference of Chefs and BEs. Any master BE given the same resources can make the same BSN, this is not the same with Chefs. A 12 point chef will make a better Brandy with the same exact resources as a 10 pointer.
7) Im not so sure you know as much about how Chef works as you think, also Brandy is not the only item on the vendor. If your a good chef you don't ignore any parts of your product, you find out what you think is the best you can make, and you make it that way.
8) The point is that Chefs have a lot more invested in making the products they make, and therefor have to charge more profit margin to recoup the expenses of 45 million credits. My point was you can be the Best BE you can be without this cost.
Notice how I answered the points without any personal attacks on you?
Sleksheea
Mon Jul 26, 2004 12:20 pm
#36
I find most BE's can't even keep up with my demand for food additives. So I had to just start collecting all the resources myself, harvesting the flora with my fleet of 30 flora harvesters (or part of it anyway), and getting my own meat (I'm a master TKA as well as master Chef with scout 3,0,4,0), and also paying for most of the meat I use. I then just have a guildie make me a bunch of schematics with my own resources (who all get 50% off food anyway), or pay a non-guild BE 5k per schematic or a free crate of food of his choosing for a whole pile of schematics... charging 50K for a single schematic is pretty retarded I think... talk about a rip-off... when it takes less than a minute of time to make one, I think 5k per is reasonable. AND none of you BE's have a leg to stand on as to making a rebuttle concerning this. Why? Because you never have the stock available or even the resources to fill orders, and if you do, chefs have to wait eons before you get it finished. I use about 8-10 INN's, 5-6 BSN's and 3-4 MNS's per week. Could any BE actually even come close to filling that order? No. The prices BE's usually ask for food additives are inflated by their own lack of ability to supply the demand of chefs. I say I need the above order in a week, you think well, that would take all my time and money and resources, etc. to even fill half that order so I'm justified in cranking prices up. Well, I fill that order all by my self in buying/gathering my own resources and getting schems made for them, AND keeping up with the food demand as a chef.
Now before you BE's get your enhanced synthcloth panties in a bundle, let me admit why I can do this and you can't. It is because I make bank on my food. I can afford to pay 33 CPU for Dath carnivore meat (I bought 3.5 million units of it at that price during the last good spawn... do the math). That will last me fora good while till the next good spawn. Why do I make bank? Well, it's NOT because I'm a chef. Many chefs can't make two bucks. It's because I'm a damn good chef who happens to have stockpiles of uber resouces that can make the best foods on my server. (For example, my brandy is +440mfw/45min/50fill/18uses. Which may be mediocre on some lucky servers, but on mine is pretty good stuff). People are ready to pay top dollar for the best stuff...
A new chef who can't make top notch food is pretty much SOL. You new BE's are lucky enough that in a MUCH shorter amount of time, you can get decent resources to make competively powered food additives and quickly enter the market. You have 2 resources that need to be good to make good additives and that's it. Chefs need goodeverything on the entire flora tree, the whole creature tree, and parts of the mineral tree andchemical trees to make good stuff. Thattakes patience and dedication. That also justifies a higher price for the end products made vs. be food additives as far as charging credits per unit of resource. So that is why chefs deserve to be more profitiable in their food than BE's in their additives (note: I'm not considering the other items BE's make, just additives). But guess what... BE's demand to make as much as chefs do CPU wise. It's funny, but I've never had a tailor demand money for trim or trim schematics... heck, I've even gotten factory runs of trim for free just because they were bored! (I of course repayed them with food and whatnot.)
In conclusion, I think chef's generally sell on a CPU scale. Same as BE's and their additives... and chefs get mad when they see BE's trying to sell a simple subcomponent that generally requires no skill in crafting (IE it's easy to max out the one stat bar) for the same or higher CPU as the much more complicated food the chef is making.
P.S. BE suppliments are not what increses the buff power of a given food, it is the food additive the chef makes using the suppliment as a subcomponent in that food additive... just being technical
I TOLD them they should have made our spherical space station out of the same magnetically shielded walls as the garbage compactor! -Sleksheea
MuttonJedi
Mon Jul 26, 2004 2:18 pm
#37
I think 50k/crate for BSN's and 65k/crate for INN's is fair. And by that I mean that is the price I am happy to pay even though I have a BE alt and can do it myself for just the cost of resources.
I once considered dropping chef to focus on selling additives, but unless BSN's were going for 75k/crate it just wouldn't be worth it to me. Brandy does take more factory runs, but its mostly resources that are trivial to get compared to meat. Even the flora for BSN's has taken me more effort than the fruit and berries for brandy.
I won't buy any additives though if they are not of similar quality to what I would be making for myself (at least 85 for BSN's). Also, I see gathering resources as most of the work of making additives, so I'm not sure what a schematic should be worth. I dislike the whole concept of trading schematics and try to ignore it as much as possible.
Mutton
I once considered dropping chef to focus on selling additives, but unless BSN's were going for 75k/crate it just wouldn't be worth it to me. Brandy does take more factory runs, but its mostly resources that are trivial to get compared to meat. Even the flora for BSN's has taken me more effort than the fruit and berries for brandy.
I won't buy any additives though if they are not of similar quality to what I would be making for myself (at least 85 for BSN's). Also, I see gathering resources as most of the work of making additives, so I'm not sure what a schematic should be worth. I dislike the whole concept of trading schematics and try to ignore it as much as possible.
Mutton
Meplorium
Mon Jul 26, 2004 2:21 pm
#38
Just for the record I was a BE before I was a chef. I picked up chef since I had a bunch of under used skill points on my Architect main. So my loyalities aren't either direction on this, but I do know both sides of this equation.
BEs are really shooting themselves in the foot. About as many people with 1 account have 2 accounts. They did a poll a while back on these boards. It was about 40/30 or so. With that said, after the jedi revamp most people will have two charactors on a given server, either with two accounts or an extra character.
The reason why BEs are shooting themselves in the foot is that they are about to become irrelivent, if most aren't irrelivent already, to chefs. The reason why BEs are shooting themselves and not the other way around, i.e. chefs shooting themselves, is that great food is not simple to make. Good additives are pretty simple to do.
After the flood on the new second characters comes around, we will see a lot more crafters of all types. However being a great crafter is pretty difficult for most. So I don't see the high level chefs taking a dive when that happens. I do see them all having a BE as an alt and the dedicated BEs either working with low level chefs that can't pay much or not working with chefs at all. The chef additives are really the cash cow for BEs and that is a lot of skill points just to make a few pet stims and non CH mounts.
Now I do both ends of the food making process. I can tell you right now the hardest part in the whole part is the distribution of food, i.e. selling the stuff or being a merchant.Making something is easy enough, getting someone to dish out 200k for a crate of something you made is another matter. The next hardest part is having the high quality chef ingredients to make the different kinds of food. The stuff that goes into the food is much more important than what goes into the additive. I can make good brandy with 82 power additives. I can only make bad brandy with bad fruit and berries.
The third most difficult is the meat. 10 to 20k of meat for a half run or full run of food. It is possible, if you hunt yourself for hours or if you get to the bazaar in cNet before the other chefs do. The difficult part there is timing. If you hit it just right, you can get a lot of meat fairly cheap.
Fourth I would put at making the last schematic. This takes many attempts and a knowledge about the food you are making. Food is not a max out one line schematic type deal. You need to know the market, what the food does and how to use it. Then you understand which numbers to hit. Why most people didn't bother with duration in their food at first and why many new chefs don't. A great chef saying, 'It's about not having a downer stupid'.
Fifthis the planning that goes into the food. Making sure you have all the stuff you need, organizing the factories and making sure you get all the sub components.
Sixth and last I would say making the schematics like dough or alcohol or the additives. These are pretty easy to do. I personally wouldn't make a schematic for a fellow chef, I would send them to my vendor with the final product. However making schematics for other things is easy enough and I give them out for free, when asked. So the schematic itself isn't that valuable. Getting the stuff to make that schematic and what you do with that schematic is the hard part. BE's alienating chefs, especially if they buy additives from you, is just killing yourself. They will be getting a second character soon. Guess what they are going to do with it if dealing with BEs is so difficult.
aswex
Mon Jul 26, 2004 3:33 pm
#39
Although the flames are getting higher, so-to-speak, this has been a pretty interesting discussion. Much of the discussion seems to be related to a comment I made in my original post, where BE's complain about tissue profits compared to brandy profits. I've never been a chef, only a BE, and after viewing the work that goes into brandy, I don't mind how much higher your markup is. In fact, I totally understand it. I take labor into consideration when pricing my tissues, not just cost. That's why tailor tissues, which require a larger range of more specific ingredients, usually creature resources, start at a 100% markup, whereas my chef tissues start at a 70% markup.
I would like to state my own opinion about the selling of schematics. I waited a while before doing this because I wanted to hear your opinions first and I felt that stating my opinion in my original post would have started this thread on the wrong track. My 'base prices' for MNS's, BSN's and INN'sare based on bonuses of +50, +80 and +110. I add an additional 10% to the base price for each additional +1 bonus. If I were to sell a schematic, I would probably charge whatever my profit would be for a base price tissue, regardless of the actual bonus. This would come out to 192.5k for MNS's, 270k for BSN's, and 300k for INN's. Of course, I must address the obvious: 200-300k for2 minutes of work and no cost? I do a great deal of work surveying for my flora suppliers and networking with my hunters. Therefore, if I have the choice between making 200k+ for my hard work already done or 50k (chef-suggested schematic price)for no work, I'll choose 200k+ (for +87 BSN's or +117 INN's I can make 700k+). Also, an in-game friend of mine once taught me "You have to spend money to make money." I would expect a chef with good business sense to know that, and considering the profits seen from many foods <i>other</i> than brandy, the extra 150-200k for a schematic requiring admittedly little workby the BEis worth it. I'd still rather you buy the tissues directly from me.
As far as not being able to <i>find</i> a BE, which many of you have stated as your number one concern, I can't say much about that. Well, I can say one thing: Bulls***. (Heh heh- please forgive me for breaking from my level-headed writing stylethusfar). I must be on the only server (Naritus) where chefs have no problems finding BE's. I have 20+ full runs of chef tissues on my forum- and planetary-advertisedvendor, mybest tissues (+56/+86/+116) are pricedunder 30k, and yet they do nothing but collect dust. (OK- my frustrated rant and gratuitous advertisement are over)
Thank you everyone for your input thus far. If someone makes a poor argument in this thread, please do not respond with "LOL" and a flame. Explain why their argument is poor and give them a chance to take the time to present a better one. They may have been trying to make a credible point, but didn't take the time to present it convincingly. If they can't present a better argument, <i>then</i> you win. 