Doctor Archive

Sorry - the subject line for this post could probably be better, but it's the best I could think of. As I put together the Doctor FAQ, I've seen the question about pricing ("How much should I charge for X?") come up again and again. Unfortunately, as pricing is tied to each galaxy's economy, it's a difficult question to answer. Also, in my own experience, I've had trouble determining how much I can realistically pay for my resources and still be competitive while both making a profit and keeping my resource suppliers happy. It's a fine line that we have to walk, really.

In an attempt to alleviate these problems, I created an Excel Spreadsheet that attempts help clear up the pricing issues.

So, what will this sheet do for you? Well, it will show you what resources you need to acquire to make a given item and, based on the resource prices you input, it will tell you what your profit margin would be at various saleprices.

Now, what won't this spreadsheet do for you? It won't tell you how much to sell your items for. As a businessperson (you're selling something, so you're now as much a businessperson as a doctor), you still need to make that call. I'm just trying to display the numbers to you as best I can so that it makes your decision easier.

If you're interested in trying it out, you can download it at:

http://www.geocities.com/mcglonec1978/swg/profitMarginCalc.xls

Right now, it will only do Stimpacks (A through E). I can easily add the other items, and I plan to, but I'd appreciate some feedback from others before I go that far. If something needs to be changed/added, I'd like to do it now, before I have to change everything.

For those of you that are about to scream, "Virus!":

Of course, this is an Excel Spreadsheet and it contains VB macros so you may get warnings about hazardous viruses. If you have a virus scanner installed on your system, the document will be scanned as it is opened but, if you're afraid it contains a virus, just don't download it. I'm not forcing you to use it - I'm using it and I thought you might find it useful.

Think this is great, unfortunatly i can't seem to get it off of stim a's.

Dr. Kitkat Egeap

Renraku

Nashal, Talus (Valcyn)

Make sure you're not in "Design Mode." When you click on the drop down box, does it highlight it so that you can move it or does it drop down the selection so that you can select a new item? In order to protect you from Macros, I've seen Excel launch in Design Mode so that they don't run. Unfortunately, I don't know how to keep it from doing so.

In order to toggle between Design and Normal modes, bring up the "Control Toolbox" toolbar (View->Toolbars->Control Toolbox). In there, you'll see an icon with a pencil, ruler, and a triangle. Clicking that will switch you between normal and design modes. Try that and let me know what you think.

In the interest of making a virus-concern free version of this, there is no reason to use Macros.

Using checkboxes, drop down boxes, and some cell links, you can accomplish the same task much more cleanly.

Here is a really quick try at it. Voila - no macro warnings.

http://home.kc.rr.com/aspindler/Files/profitMarginCalc(Z).xls