Chef Archive
Thread: What do YOU hate about dealing with those Bio-Engineers?
I TOLD them they should have made our spherical space station out of the same magnetically shielded walls as the garbage compactor! -Sleksheea
Sleksheea wrote:
BE's are WAY overating the difficulty of collecting meat. I'ts harder than flora, but not hard enough to charge what BE's think they should get for throwing it in a factory and forgetting about it for 2 days. And I'm sure a lot of you n00b BE's are going BS... it's called Enranged Bull Rancor missions. They drop 500+ units of meat with veghash and hunting IV... not to mention the 14K credit mission payout you get from doing them. That's 8 rancors at 4000 units of meat per mission (if you milk the lair.) So 5 missions and 45 minutes later you have your 20K meat for your run of INN's. So in the length of a set of doc buffs, you can get a 100K stack of rancor meat for 5 full runs of INN's or BSN's or almost 7 runs of MSN's and 350000 credits in mission reward payments.
As a non-combat BE, thank you for putting together this detailed description of creature harvesting. However, after reading it, it certainly doesn't seem easy at all. Please correct me if my assumptions are incorrect, but this method of creature harvesting requires mastery of an elite combat class and three hours of time for 100k units of meat. It also requires enraged bull rancors todrop high quality meat.The doctor buff and veghash are a negligible cost, I'm sure.
If you don't have a fighting class character, welcome to the world of you can't have it all!
I believe you made this comment sarcastically since it runs counter to your statement above. I believe in it fully. If only more people who complain about 'needing' alts realized this. I believe that the cost of BE tissues should assume that creature resources are purchased, not personally harvested. The game designers purposely provided an amount of skill points so that everyone could not be a fighter/crafter/merchant. Therefore, iftheprices you believe are fair assume that the crafters harvest their own resources, I will disagree with those prices. That being the case, it really doesn't matter how difficult it is to collect meat. All that matters is how much the meat costs the BE's. If it really is easy to collect me as you've described (I wouldn't know- as I stated I am noncombat), then hopefully the price will drop below 15-30 cpu and BE's will be able to sell their tissues at a price you think is fair. But, as another player succinctly wrote, 'the economy is still in flux'.
Message Edited by Lozareth on 07-29-2004 01:52 PM
Okin_Sin wrote:
All BE's have scout, just wait till the next great Dath Carn Meat shift, and go to Dath Outpost. There will be tons of people yelling looking for Rancor groups, group up with one. I have done Rancor groups with a cdef pistol equiped and didin't even have novice marksmen and no one said a word. The reason most Rancor groups form is to pull the missions in the first place, not cuz they need the people to kill a Rancor.You have plenty of skillpoints after Mastering BE to pick up Master Swordsman who can solo these Rancor missions, or pretty much any other animal with ease. Enraged Rancor missions pay about 39,000 credits each, and a swordsman can do it in minutes.So you get around 4k meat and 39k credits in a few minutes. Everyone is talking about "how hard it is" to get meat, I made millions of credits just off doing the missions that give the meat. If you choose not to pick up a fighting class that is your decision. If you are paying 20+ C/U for meat then don't expect to make as much profit. Why is it most serious Chefs have an alt BE, or an alt scout to harvest meat for them? If you are a serious BE you would not rely on someone else to get all your resources for you, you would do it yoruself, and it would allow you to make plenty of profit selling tissues at a much more reasonable price.
We have fundamentally different playing styles, Okin_Sin. Neither one is correct, but we both strongly adhere to our choice. As a friend of mine likes to say in these situations, "That's why there's vanilla and chocolate" (I'm a vanilla ice cream man, myself 
)
As I stated in my previous posts, I believe the game was intentionally designed so an individual player could not be a fighter/crafter/merchant. It seems that you do your best to get around that, while I do my best to play in what I call 'the designer's spirit of the game'. When you state"If you are a serious BE you would not rely on someone else to get all your resources for you, you would do it yourself", I am vehemently opposed to that notion.I'm not saying that your approach is unfair, immoral, stupid or anything else. It's just in stark contrast to my approach. True, everyone was allotted enough skill points to be a Master Bio-Engineer, Master Elite Fighter-Type, and Artisan 0/0/3/4 (barely), so everyone could be a "serious BE" as you call it or a"micromanaging BE" as I call it. I only have so much time to actually stare at the computer screen. I have to weigh three hours of killing Rancors with a CDEF pistol versus paying someone15-30 cpu for three hours of their time killing Rancors with a T-21. I willingly accept less profit for saving three hours of my time. Towards the end of your post it seemed that you weren't addressing me, but were addressing other BE's who you feel have unreasonable prices and complain about their profits- my prices have fallen in the low-end of the ranges most chefs have posted in this thread and I haven't complained about my profits.
Ikooga wrote:
I'm a chef, I haven't read everything, here so forgive me if it was already said
I'm commenting on the chefs complaining about paying 50k for a schematic...
Just think about that: A guy comes to you gives you 20 berries, 20 fruits, 1 cask, 1 medium additive, and says "hey come on, only takes you 1 minute, make me a Brandy schematic for free"
Would you do it?
Sure i would . First of all he couldn't bring me casks , he could only bring crystalline gemstone and trim. Second where is the alcohol ? . I wouldn't take a single credits cause he'll be more likely to understand what crafting chef merchandise means and praise the time and effort we spent . He'll %99 be a dedicated customer (%1 he'll be a chef himself )
Assume he is aware of all the facts what a full run of brandy needs , he would bring me 10k cereal for alcohol. And he couldn't bring me medium additives, he could only bring me BSN and after that i could give him the medium additive schematic.Letspretend he brought also the trims and gemstone and i made another cask schem for him too.And after he bring me the first samples of alcohol ,medium additives and casks i make a FINAL brandy schematics.
Even if the person in question is persistant and patient enough, i dont think he'll never ever try this again.
Now should i give him the brandy schematics ? Why not ?.Would i charge him millionsfor my timeto be amaster chef, nope i wont. Nobody forced me to be a chef. That was may decision. I'm a proud Master Chef not a Master Whiner ..
Ai-Di
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?
I have a BE friend who charges me 20k for 117 INNs, 17k for 87BSNs, and would probably charge about 15k for MSNs if I used them. That's per crate- I don't buy schematics because I would rather save time. He finds this fair (he suggested these prices!), I find this fair, everyone is happy. The fact is that BEs don't make the same profit margins as Chefs because BEs are not chefs. BEs are a supply industry which support CHs, Tailors, Chefs, and the like. Hell, BEs can make so many different things that I just don't know what else they are capable of. But their services are in demand in a different way from Chefs' services. The BE additive takes three resources from the way you portray it, and with three important characteristics. You seem to be getting a bargain on your resources compared to what I have heard from other BEs, but I guess what you charge should depend on how much you want to sell. I could see charging 25k/crate starting from the MSNs and increasing upwards from that by 5-10k. This is much higher than what I pay, but that's because I have developed a very good relationship with my BE, and my orders are responsible for his AV21 landspeeder. I definitely couldn't see paying more than 50k for a schematic- and wouldn't charge that much for a schem if I were commissioned to make one as a chef (Dunnoif anyone ever does that...). Chef foods are in demand across the board from combat professions (though with new Doc inoculations we'll see what happens with mind foods), and require a great many resources and different runs, etc. BE stuff is in demand from Chefs and Tailors. That's two out of Thirty-two professions. If it wasn't that Chefs were so in demand at present, BEs would not make anything at all. Rough calculation shows me that your INNs should cost you 12k to make (based on what you say you pay for resources). So if you sell them at, say, 45k apiece, you are making 33k on the deal. 73% of that price is profit. If I make a crate of Canape (Let's say, +761 for10 min 36 filling 7 uses) which I charge 180k for on Gorath, the resources cost me 10000 a crate for berries and fruit, and assuming I bought the INNs from you, 45k per crate for enhancements. So that's a cost of 55k in total, on which I make 125k. And looking at that, we find that I have a profit margin that is 69% of my gross revenues. 4% less than you'd be making on your INNs. And if Iwas a chef who doesn't use moisture vaporators but instead buys water (which I am not), then there might well be another 2500 or so tacked on to my costs. And Canape is one of the cheaper runs that a chef can make! Brandy is far more expensive- the profit margin drops incredibly when you have to buy the materials for casks. Taking into account that a lot of chefs just ask for schematics, a lot of BEs are making infinite profit off of their services. I think the profit margin is well-shared here. It's just that chefs aren't willing to pay 180k a crate for their enhancements because then we'd have to charge a hell of a lot more for our foods, and that would throw the whole system off. We pass on the profits percentage wise (I remain willing to pay my BE the price mentioned above, but he's offered me a deal I can't turn down), which is all that a supplier for another producer can hope for in an economy.
FreeRadical42 wrote:
Rough calculation shows me that your INNs should cost you 12k to make (based on what you say you pay for resources). So if you sell them at, say, 45k apiece, you are making 33k on the deal. 73% of that price is profit. If I make a crate of Canape (Let's say, +761 for10 min 36 filling 7 uses) which I charge 180k for on Gorath, the resources cost me 10000 a crate for berries and fruit, and assuming I bought the INNs from you, 45k per crate for enhancements. So that's a cost of 55k in total, on which I make 125k. And looking at that, we find that I have a profit margin that is 69% of my gross revenues.
I'm not exactly sure how you're calculating your % profit. According to your example, my INNs would be marked up 275% and your Canape would be marked up 227%. My full run would net me 1.32 million credits (I actually make about half of that because I sell INNs for less than 30k). Your full run would net you 5 million credits. Percent markup and net profit should both be looked at. It takes three days to create the full run of INNs. How long does it take you to create the full run of Canape (I know you have more than one factory run required to do it)
aswex wrote:
FreeRadical42 wrote:Rough calculation shows me that your INNs should cost you 12k to make (based on what you say you pay for resources). So if you sell them at, say, 45k apiece, you are making 33k on the deal. 73% of that price is profit. If I make a crate of Canape (Let's say, +761 for10 min 36 filling 7 uses) which I charge 180k for on Gorath, the resources cost me 10000 a crate for berries and fruit, and assuming I bought the INNs from you, 45k per crate for enhancements. So that's a cost of 55k in total, on which I make 125k. And looking at that, we find that I have a profit margin that is 69% of my gross revenues.
I'm not exactly sure how you're calculating your % profit. According to your example, my INNs would be marked up 275% and your Canape would be marked up 227%. My full run would net me 1.32 million credits (I actually make about half of that because I sell INNs for less than 30k). Your full run would net you 5 million credits. Percent markup and net profit should both be looked at. It takes three days to create the full run of INNs. How long does it take you to create the full run of Canape (I know you have more than one factory run required to do it)
If we pay 10cpu for flora like you're saying you do for fruits and berries, our INNs cost us from 30k a crate with cheap 15cpu rancor meat to 47.5k a crate with expensive, non-rancor 50cpu meats. Our flora is has to be higher quality to hit a chef acceptable range of bonus than a chef's resources have to be to hit a player's acceptable range of bonus/duration so it's not unfair for us to also apply 10cpu to our flora, though personally I've always considered mine worth 5 when determining my prices but I do mark-up if I break down and buy stuff for 10cpu. If you harvest your own fruits and berries, the actual cost for 1000 of them is around 300 credits, give or a take some for differences in concentrations. It's why I've always considered my profits huge at 5cpu for flora, especially when I considered the 150 units of grind wheat for carbosyrup and 250 units of grind wheat for dough to also be worth 5cpu. I add a 30% mark-up on top of this and end up with prices most chefs consider low, but I know I'm getting more than double my money back. Anyone, I got a little off-topic. To simply, I guess I meant to say, to be fair, you have to consider a BE's flora to cost the same as your flora, we're buying from the same people and/or harvesting in the same ways afterall.
For Aswex's replay, the heavy additives take ~24 hours to run, the carbosyrup ~6 hours, 2 runs of dough either 6 hours or 11 hours each (can't remember if dough is 24 or 40 on runtime), and I think canapes are 128 runtime so 35 hours on those.
Lozareth wrote:
So now you're saying we shouldn't profit from hours of gathering meat in rancor missions while your pretty much free fruits and berries that are harvested while you do other things should go for 20cpu (according to your posts in the BE forums)? Also, why are you slamming me for harvesting my own resources and then turning around and saying everyone should harvest thier own resources?
Message Edited by Lozareth on 07-29-2004 01:52 PM
What is your deal with the free fruits and berries thing? My top seller is bivoli (+25.49, 15m35s, 3 uses) and that not only needs 20k of any type of meat in the INN, but also 20k of specifically carnivore meat in the final product (amongst several other flora resources and subcomponents). Guess what... NO FREAKING FRUITS OR BERRIES. Again, stop whining and making statements that just show how little you know.