Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: My droids.. My droids.. Why is it that I make more CPU on raw materials then a finished droid?
ElitrosFF wrote:
Why is it that I make more CPU on raw materials then a finished droid?
Becuase your prices are too low?
Message Edited by Niklut on 03-29-2004 11:12 AM
I dont knoiw what u doin wrong, master on bria, and im gettin between 70 and 100 cpu...and sellin so fast i cant keep up with demand...eg still sellin Adv Probot for 120k...thinkin of droppin prices tho, i mean there is only so much money u can use...lol
then again, i wanna buy me a big fat star fighter when they finally get here...
cant wait til publish 8 and then the new R Unit...bug $$$ for us there
NZSithSniper wrote:
I dont knoiw what u doin wrong, master on bria, and im gettin between 70 and 100 cpu...and sellin so fast i cant keep up with demand...eg still sellin Adv Probot for 120k...thinkin of droppin prices tho, i mean there is only so much money u can use...lol
then again, i wanna buy me a big fat star fighter when they finally get here...
cant wait til publish 8 and then the new R Unit...bug $$$ for us there
Hmm - this 'new R unit' you are waiting for?
You do realise it isn't a craftable droid -- don't you?
NPC 'battlemech' is all
o...$hit,
i ddnt realise that, i been too busy to actually read about it...that sux a bit, but thats ok, cos the new droid modules will be ok and help a bit...just wish we had more chassis...like the bug headed one in RoTJ and some pit droids, call them anywhere to repair ur vehicle...
but thx for pointing that out to me Shian
(Responding to msg title/original post)
1. (Obvious) Your prices are too low. Raise them to roughly 5 cpu as a starting point. Once you have a strong business you will probably need to raise them more. Your real question should be: "Why is it that I can't sell as many droids asI would like?"
2. Product Demand. You may be selling droids no one wants. Find out what people really want, then sell it.I regularly sell Pack Droids (advanced MSE with two level 4 storage modules) for 10k apiece. I haven't checked the exact cpu but it's something like 25-50. This is a droid a mid-level DE can make easily, and it requires only a few subcomponents. I make them in factory runs and they sell out pretty quickly. Once you have a customer base, you might get special orders and learn what other kinds of things people want. But the basicneeds are: Storage, medical, combat, and crafting. If your droid doesn't fill one of these four needs, it won't sell.
3. Presentation/Business. If you want customers, you have to draw attention to your product. Spamming at starports might generate one or two sales, but it's also just as likely to turn people away. Get a small house, decorate it if you can, put in a vendor, and make sure the house's sign (name) indicates what's for sale. You not only want people to go inside, you want them to like what they see and come back. Empty vendors, or a house that's empty except for the vendors, do not get customers back.
4. Advertising. If you seriously want to make money as a DE, you should also plan to take up Merchant, and get at least 3/0/0/0 in it. This lets you register your vendor on the planetary map so that when someone is really looking for droids, they can find your vendor from anywhere on the planet. If you don't want to go the Merchant route, try making items in the bazaar with your shop name and waypoint in their name. Put these items in the nearest galactic bazaar and pay the extra for a premium auction. If it generates even one sale, then it is worth it. (btw, put your ads on 7-day auction for max price, otherwise sometimes people will buy them).
5. Support System. Join a mall or make a partnership with another crafter. If someone goes into a mall looking for armor, but sees a droid vendor right next to the armor vendor, often they will browse and even buy from you -- even though they didn't want droids when they walked in.
Just so you guys know, Elitros is probably one of the richest people on our server, he runs his own successful 'super'mall with some very well known crafters of all different types on our server, and also some great resource providers, and he generally knows what he's doing 
Hehas a good ideawhat droids people want andhe has enough advertising already. So on that side of things, I think he's covered
I think he's talking more aboutcomparing the best resources CPU's (which he most likely has many million units of....
) with the price that people will pay for finished droids. I don't even use my very best materials for combat modules since people will not pay enough for these droids to make it worth it to usemy really old, rare, top qualityresources. Perhaps this has something to do with our servers economy being very different to the most others. The majority of items seem to sell for cheaper on our server
Message Edited by CM_Mephiston on 03-30-2004 10:38 PM
I was just trying to give some background on the situation A few posts were saying things like 'your prices are too low', and the post before mine was answering Elitros's question as if he was new (it wasn't a bad post though, it'll be helpful to some people )
But in my opinion, on Radiant, ifsome of usraise our prices, people just won't buy droids for those prices, and using some of the top quality resources, it doesn't seem worth it to use them in droids.