Chef Archive

Hey all.

I am an experianced SWGer, been playing longer than i care to admit, so you dont have to use noob language with me, unless you feel like it=)

Im really big into crafting, my main is a DE you can go ahead and assume i am a sucker for punishment. My Alt is an BE (so you can tell im not kidding about the previous sentance.)but i havent been taking advantage of his skills.Right nowhes basicaly a mule. I was thinking about taking upChef, which would compliment his BE skills, and looks sort of fun.I hear it pays well too.What i'd like to ask about iswhatarethe hardcore peoples impression aboutbeing a chef, what kind of mindsetdo you need. What is irritating, and whats tricky. Basicaly what would you recomend i do.

Sell me your profession

Start by going on your server and buying every single organic that you see that is the most expensive on the market. Then scour every single resource vendor in your galaxy for grind water and crystaline gemstone. Then you're going to take what will inevitably be 400 items and transfer them back and forth from factory to factory about 10 or 20 times a week. Then sell some random stuff that you have for less than you spent making it because the additives you used in it are more expensive that what it's worth. Continue on to have a vendor and recieve constant e-mails about how every single item on that vendor is too expensive and just for their gracious comments and suggestions these e-mailers should all recieve a free crate of your hardest to make and most expensive food.

Now shove all this into your mouth with a few rusty razors with the name "Bug" stamped onto them, and after about a month of gargling this mix. You'll start spitting out giant hunks of gold.

Note: This view of the chef profession may be a bit pessimistic. Those who cannot take sarcasm beware.

Um...Good Luck?

(Gives high five to the second DE/Chef he's seen, lubricating oil in the brandy what?)

-------------WFO Superstore-------------
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------{ /way 135 -5470 on Corellia }------
Maximouse and Mephit - Master Droid Engineer, Master Chef, Master Shipwright

ingame: Ankor Hunter, 12 point Master Chef
Winner of Iron Chef Bria contest
DMD Shop - food, weapons, armor, medical supplies
588, 0, 2955 on Tatooine (just outside Mos Entha)

/wonders if TheEpigoni is trying to cut down on competition....

Well, for the most part chef is pretty profitable. We're selling a consumable good that every hardcore player needs (well, really wants) to be "ub3r".

One problem you'll probably hit is that chef is a very Master-heavy profession. The best stuff (i.e. the stuff that sells the easiest) is made by 12 point chefs have hoarded the best resources from the last 6-12 months. But the same can be said of weaponsmith and armorsmith.

To get started actually making money, you have to be a Master chef. We've got four different categories to experiment with, two (buff size and duration) that are very important, one (filling) that can be important depending on the food, and one (quantity) that is usually ignored. So the more experimentation points you have, the better. It's not like artisan or a BE tissues where you only have a single category to experiment with, which can usually hit the percentage cap with 8 or 9 points. +Experiment SEAs aren't vital, but definitely help.

Next, you have to find good resources. Foods use a pretty wide variety of stuff, but it's mostly flora and meat so you usually have 10 planetary varietiesto work with in any given shift. Good berries and fruits are the first thing you'll want to get, since those are used in two of our most popular items (Brandy and Vagnerian Canape). You'll also need a lot of meat, especially for the BE tissues. You don't actually need the "most expensive on the market" (as Epigoni put it), since that's usually Avian meat, with docs throwing offers of 100-150cpu around. The only specific type of meat we use (at least for our top 10 sellers) is carnivore for Bivoli, and with all the Rancor hunts going on, if there's a good spawn of Dath carnivore you can usually get a good sized stack for 20-30 cpu, maybe 50 if it's really good.

It's generally best to start with a small set of food, and branch out as you accumulate resources. Brandy, Ahrisa, Canape, Bivoli, Havla, Synthsteak, and veghash is a good starting menu. As you get more variety, you'll need more vendor space. Novice merchant, maybe with Management 1 is almost a requirement.

Foods do have some subcomponents to deal with, but probably not as bad as DE. The BE tissues are probably the worst (a full run of those takes something like 2-3 days). The chef components churn out pretty quickly. Having at least 2 factories is a great help, some high-volume chefs have 5 or more although personally I can't plan that well.

So to get going on chef, you'll need to pick up a lot of grinding material to get the Master. While you're working on that, watch swgcraft.com for good flora and meat spawns. Drop harvesters on anything that looks promising (generally 66% PE + 33% OQ >= 800, FL > 600 a bonus). Oh, you'll want a few medium flora harvesters. Heavies aren't really needed, they're less efficient and flora spawns last long enough that mediums get you a good stash beforethey shift out. A couple mineral harvesters (heavies do tend to work well here) for the gemstones you'll be using up by the 100k to make runs of casks (and don't forget to find a tailor who can supply you with trim) or find a resource supplier (quality doesn't matter). Same with water, although I've been getting by with a single medium vaporator.

Another skill is advertising. Not just getting your vendor on the planetary map with Merchant Advertising 3 (although that's handy). Word of mouth can be even more effective: post vendor listings on your trade forum, put up single stacks on the vendor with a waypoint to your shop in the description, or just putting your shop location in your forum sig. Key things people look for: quality items and a well-stocked shop. If someone comes to you looking for Brandy and don't find it, they're less likely to ever stop by later. If you do have it, and also have some other stuff you generally get impulse buys.

It can take a lot of work to break into the chef market, but once you do the money does roll in. At least, so I've heard. It's also a lot of fun, in my opinion. Especially if you play around with mixing-and-matching different "meals", which can mean tweaking filling andduration for a particular effect or buff set.

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Kriles Ch'artoff , Chilastra server
Master Chef (retired)
Currently doing....stuff

Here is how I see Chef, at the beginning you suck. You are getting subpar resources, and struggling to find them. From those resources, you are making subpar foods, and struggling to sell them. You save up and search and beg and plead for skilltapes, and you hit 11 points. By this time you have a bit better resources, and your food starts to somewhat resemble what the Top Chefs are making, but only a tiny bit. You advertise like a maniac, and stress over every days sales, contemplate quitting due to not breaking in the market etc. Through all of this you keep buying tons of organics, harvesting anything descent, and buying every bit of good carn meat you can see. With better spawns your food gets better, and you start to get repeat customers. Eventually comes the day that you get lucky enough to find yourself a 12 point chef, by this time you have a pretty massive store of resources, and you know what to look for on the random vendor. You have a good idea which fruits/berries make the uber brandy, and which insect meats can get 50 fill vercupti. Your sales start to pick up, but your still advertising like a maniac. You continue to gather resources, and buy meats. Eventually you get so many sales when you spam that you can't keep up, so youcut down on the spamming, but continue gathering resouces and buying meats. After a while it all becomes routine, you quit advertising, cut down on the intense resouce buying and harvesting, you only go for the top quality spawns. After a while you look at your resource stash, and you have millions of units of old carn meat, you have 10's of millions of the servers best organics. You look at your bank account, and its the highest its ever been. You realize you havn't spammed or advertised in months, and your sales are still up. You recieve emails saying your food is the best that person has ever seen, and then you realize that you did it. You are a Top Chef!

Most have already covered the big points. Being a Chef makes you a resource hog for anything organic with decent stats, so start harevesting now. Out of all the crafting profs I have done though, Chef is my favorite. Lots of fun, and easy to make money. Just remember that you will have to run a good vendor and advertise a lot in the beginning. Once you get a steady stream of customers you will be on your way. Because Chefs need/use so many different resources, there is almost always something to be out harvesting.....makes it fun. You are never really "done" with gathering resources. LOL.

Zemzam Zeman
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The crafter formerly known as Chef Vomit
New Profession: PURPLE PEOPLE EATER!
PLEASE DROP OFF ALL WINNINGS AT 3079,3154 Revenance, Lok

-=tEh ChEf's fOod & dRinK=-
Oasis, Naboo -1227, -4936

-=Oasis Master Sales=-
Coronet, Corellia: -200 -5500
Mining OP, Dant: -190, 2620

Chef is rewarding to me based on the fact that there is hundreds of people enjoying their gaming experience with the help of my products. I just think that is awesome