Droid Engineer Archive

I sell singles all the time on Kettemoor. I even had the BH who bought the most ask if I could make crates. I refused as I am not yet a master. But I put them on the baazar for 1k for the both of them, and I can hardly keep my factory running enough for my GPs and EMMs. Not to mention the tells I get from random BHs asking for a couple Seekers or Probes here and there

What size creates do you sell for those prices?

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Blue77 wrote:

Hi guys.. a BH here...

Selling seekers in crates smaller than 5 is useless for us... (infact I normally buy 2-3 crates of 10 at a time)...

They only come in crates of 5, if they came in crates of 10 we would sell them that way.

Prob droids aren't quite as bad, but I would say selling them in 'one at a time' manner is silly for us... the missions take almost an hour to run each, and I don't want to find my local DE every fifth mission...

I have been buying Seekers at 1k per.. and Probes as 2k per.... I expect at least a 10% discount on crates of 5, and perhaps a little more on a crate of 10...

I don't really do discounts in crate, though I don't really ever sell single BH droids out of crates on my vendor unless a crate messes up in the factory. I sell seekers in crates of 5 for 5k and probes in crates of 5 for 8k.

The thing is once a BH finds his DE, he will not want to 'shop around' but recently I found a DE that was selling the droids for 1k and 800 per.. with no discount on crates...

I haven't changed, but have talked to this DE, and he says he still makes about 2x the build price PER droid at that rate (meaning at 2k and 1k you are ripping us off.. but hey you make them and sell them for what you can get)...

This DE you know has no sence of buisness whatsoever, and he doesn't make money selling at those prices. He may make enough to keepa few harvesters running but he isn't making money. At those prices he is selling BH droids at under 2 credits per resource, and this DE mistakeingly thinks he is doing good becuase he mines his own resources and undersells his recources. He could sell the recources alone by them selves for 3 or 4 credits per resource, make more money with less hassle. Even selling at seekers at 1k it is less than 2 credits per unit, and selling probes at 2k is less just over 2 credits per unit. And we DE's are already the least money making crafting proffesion out there, except maybe for chef. So even at selling at 1k and 2k we arn't making very much money at all, I'm not and I am a major supplier and sell out a full run ofBH droids in under a week. Now I do make a little more money than just keeping my harvesters running, but we make no where near what other crafting proffessions make, and my droid buisness is very popular and successful.

OH and just so you know quality doens't mean ANYTHING on these droids... so if you are useing 'good materials' you are being silly... use lessor materials.. and pass the discount on... you will be rich in no time.. (even at 800/1k)...

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Ok Just for fun lets go through the BH droid making proccess. First we need to get Master Artisan as we can't make BH droids without it. I'll assume we are mining everything ourselves becuase it is more expensive to buy it. I need several minneral havesters and at least one chemical harvester, at least one factory, and I'll need at least 2 wind power generators to keep all those running at the same time let alone a house to have a vendor in. We will call a full run to equall 100 BH droids.

Now to do a full run of seekers I will require 400 Master artisan parts, which will require at minimal 2 seperate factory runs to make those which ocupies my factory for2days unless I play 24 hours a day. Then I add the extra recources that seekers require put in all the Master Artisan parts I made and set my factory to run for yet another day. Then I have my 20 crates of seeker droids.

Now I have to do that all over again for the probe droids, exept they only require 300 master artisan parts but need more recources for building. So at the very least we are running our factory for 4 to 6 days straight(depending on how much playtime we get) to supply BH droids for less than what we could sell the recources for. Let alone needing the factory for the regualr droids we sell as well as all the time spent crafting our other droids.

Hmm, that kinda sounds like I am complaining, I am not, I enjoy being a DE, I make credits doing it and i have fun. I will be a DE for a long time to come. The main point is that selling BH droids at 800/1k is not worth it no matter what DE says, I have seen a few DE's on my server selling at these prices, however, they never seem to be major suppliers, and would probably buckle under the time spentmaiking BH droidsI do to be a supplier to as many BH's as I am.

Ah it is a business.. and you make what you can... same as any other business...

I'm not sure what the the damand for other droids are, nor other things DE's make (I own an advanced probot, but only purchased one)...

It is also useful to know your market (as Kmart doesn't try the same mark up as Macy's etc)... until this last patch, BH's lost money on every single mission they ran... NOT counting the Droid prices... I had to run OTHER missions to PAY for my BH missions... so the cost of a droid required to run our missions has historically meant ALOT (as it dertermines HOW much we would lose PER mission)...

Currently I make about 5-7k per HOUR of BH missions I run (again not counting droids)... I could easily make 3-4x times this much per hour just running faction missions... so you aren't talking to the 'richest' of the combat classes either.. and marks don't all you to 'harvest' to suppliment your income...

Again there is also the 'loyality' issue.. as most BH's stay with one DE, it is important to us that we don't feel 'ripped off' (again not because of 'good business' which it might very well be, but because if we stay with you and buy 100's of bots over a month or so.. we don't want to fee like we could have saved a TON by going next door)...

DE's don't get much love... that is for sure.. with the 'probot' nerf, there are 10x the CH's than those using Droid pets (and those that choose droids are because they want to feel a bit of SW instead of EQ)... other droids don't really 'decay' ... so there isnt much repeat business...

So your repeat customers are BH's (as far as I can tell) so while you can mark up you droids the same across the board (5 per for every single thing you make), perhaps you should also consider your BH's your 'freqent flyiers' (much like airlines want to win the business of those that travel alot), and take a slight it on your profit PER droid, in exchange for the volume we move...

BUT back to the begining... you sell them for what you can get for them

Just wanted to give you some BH perspective, as we are one of your 'required' clients (in that we can't do our missions withour your droids)...

Consider my opinion a single one of a 'focus group' (a good marketing tool for serious business people)... and remember I'm looking out for what is best for me (just like the rest of your customers)... as a business person your job is to make me feel like I'm getting a good deal while looking out for what is best for YOU...

Actually, I think part of the issue is this:

DEs tend to be pretty nice people, I think, and most tend to be rather helpful to customers, and also concerned over their customers' problems.

When bounty hunter terminals first appeared, many, many of us sold these droids at firesale prices to help you guys out. I did.

When charges went in, I raised prices to what seemed more reasonable to me, and simultaneously the droids became a *much* better deal because few people increased by a factor of the full number of charges.

Now that you guys are actually MAKING money rather than losing it on the missions, and after having run things through my spreadsheets, as well as looking at my supply/demand curves, it just plain makes sense to charge a bit more than I had been.

Honestly? Making BH droids is a royal pain, as pointed out up above. At least if I get a reasonable level of financial compensation for it, I don't feel quite so used and abused... And you're more likely to find them in stock when you come on by. The bottom line is I try to be fair, not only to you but to myself as well.

And that seems very fair.. just keep in mind though... we don't buy droids like other customers...

We are the 'buy 10 pair of sneakers, casue we need the sneakers and are going to wear through them' kinda customer... so we shop at Kmart

Doctors, etc.. are the 'hey look how neat these sneakers are.. they might help some, but I only need one pair' so they buy the 'coolest' they can.. and shop at the Gap...

You put a bigger markup at the Gap.. than at Kmart.... it is expected...

We don't want you to cut your thoats.. but we also don't want to go from FINALLY making something, to breaking even, or even losing money again... does that make sense?

And I agree DE's are some of the nicest gamers I've met... and that is why I am loyal to the one I first 'picked' because of their great attitude..

I sell mine,

Probe - 5512 for a crate

Seekers - 4216 for a crate

I try not to sell them in singles unless the factory starts acting stupid and spitting them out 2 in one crate, 3 in another. (not sure why that happens when i dont change the schematic or resources used and dont stop the factory)

Anyway. Wish they would make them in 25 or 50 unit crates. Would make it a lot easier.

Oof, must show the lack of DEs on Eclipse. Typical pricing is 3 to 3.5k for either type. (I was pricing alot lower but raised prices after looking at what my mentor was selling for.)

Let's see... 1500 for Seekers, and 2000 for Arakyds. I couldn't keep them stocked, so I may be raising that price.

Oh, and I'm not making Crates of them, because I need the crafting XP more than I need the money.

Thank you for all of the response.

I'm intention was to guage how well they were selling and to compare prices, which you have all answered. thank you. Currently on my server, Bria, I've been noticing a trend of people selling both crates of probes and seekers for 10k and I thought this was kind of high. Thank you for answer my questions. And Blue.... sorry BHs were NOT losing money on every mission they did. If they lost money, it was very rare... they just weren't making a whole lot on every mission.

Thanks again,

Mechis

I often don't understand why people expect discounts on crates of BH droids. It actually costs more to produce them that way.

I never really make BH droids anymore because at the prices they move at for the effort involved it's not worth the time to me.

I always justrefer people to Tallin.

ditto, its more of a hassle as it ties up the facs forever to make them, i just did a run of 1000gps thats 35 hours nothing else can run...im selling out at 7500 crate o seekers and 11000 crate o probes...oh and i love these pricing posts they never fail to entertain