Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: BH droids reality check
Jake,
Bounty Hunters used to pay 200 credits per Seeker Droid and 1000 credits per Arakyd Probe Droid, correct? And these were single-charge droids, correct?
Some Droid Engineers wanted to "fix" the price of our new 10-charge Seeker Droids and 5-charge Arakyd Prode Droids at the old terminal price when the conversion you mention happend. That would have been 2000 credits for a 10-charge Seeker and 5000 credits for a 5-charge Arakyd.
Other Droid Engineers wanted to make a quick buck and/or garner favor with their local Bounty Hunters and so started charging less. I know of one specific instance where a Bounty Hunter player actually created a second account so that he could make a Droid Engineer and undercut all of the other Droid Engineers on the server because he wasn't happy with the prices that were being charged. This despite the fact that the prices being charged were, on average, well below half the price that Bounty Hunters formerly had to pay at their Bounty Hunter terminals.
Now many Droid Engineers are realizing that keeping BH droids stocked is a time-consuming process. I wouldn't go so far as to say that it is difficult, but as has already been pointed out it does take quite a bit of real time to make all of the subcomponents that are necessary and then make the BH droids.
The law of supply and demand applies directly to this situation. With the current prices so low - my own included - many Droid Engineers do not feel it is worth their time to make Bounty Hunter droids. So they leave the market, which slowly concentrates sales on those of us who are still willing to sell at the current going rate.
If my volume were to pick up, though, and I had to start spending hours and hours making BH droids just to keep up, I would probably either raise my price or stop making them. My Bounty Hunter customerswould then have to decide whether or not they were willing to pay the higher price or whether they wanted to find a new Droid Engineer to buy their droids from.
At some point an equillibrium will be reached. Due to supply and demand, however, it is extremely unlikely that Bounty Hunters will ever have to "go without" their droids. Someone will always be willing to make them as long as there is profit to be made... but Bounty Hunters might have to pay closer to the old fixed rate than they have been lately.
At the old fixed rate (2000 per Seeker and 5000 per Arakyd) I'd be happy to make BH droids my sole product. That's an incredible profit margin for a Droid Engineer, and with a couple of factories it would be fairly trivial to keep supply up and still have time to enjoy the rest of the game. The problem, as it were, is that Bounty Hunters are no longer willing to pay the rates that they used to be forced to pay. Many now think that they somehow deserve a lower price, and that if Droid Engineers try to charge the old price that they are "ripping off the Bounty Hunters". In reality, it's the other way around. Bounty Hunters have been getting such a good deal from us for so long that they no longer remember what it used to be like.
are you expecting me to feel sorry for bounty hunters?
I hate to say this but in order to get to master de you need roughly 1 million in steel, and another 470k in fibro. Price it out at 3 cpu and your going to pay about 4.5 million in resources just to get to master DE.
Everyone has issues getting to master... not just bounty hunters
I still sell at the high prices and still sell out
2k for 1 stack of seekers, 6k for 1 stack of akaryds,
what amazes me is that some of you charge this much for crates of these, and thats what I charge for a stack. I became a DE to make money, not to be a charity. My vendor always contains 10 or so stacks of BH droids and my Artisan friend is running a factory one day a week to keep up with my orders of components.
Considering the number of charges and how much BH make on each mission, this is still well worth the BH buying them.
JakeWindstar, thank you for your constructive input and your opinion on this matter. It does not fall on deaf ears. I know I dont speak for all DE's but I know I speak for a few of the dedicated ones you will find here when I say, BH's are one of our main customers and it is my goal to always keep them happy. That is why I make it a point to always keep my vendor stocked with BH droids at reasonable prices.
Keep your eye open for one of us old timers who are dedicated to this proffession. Send us a tell or in game email to say hello. We appreciate that. We appreciate you as our customer too.
(BTW, check my sig. When I say always, I mean always.)
1.4k for a Seeker and 2.8k for an Arakyd - no discounts on crates. Why should I give a discount for paying the factory and saving the customer inventory space?
I hate making them but I do it as I pity the poor BHs who cannot find any droids anywhere. It's pretty easy cash, too, considering what a pain in the neck it is to do the more complex droids in factories 
While we are on the topic of BH droids, can any of you provide a short but clear description of the two BH droids (Seekers and Probes), such as the difference between the two, how they are used, when can you use either droid (I was told Investigation I is a requirement, then I was told it's not),does a BH need just one or the other or both, etc...
I am constantly asked this question by BH and non-BH droids alike and since I have never picked up any real combat skills (not to mention BH), I really have no idea. When I ask the few BHs that buy them from me, I get very odd, non-sequiter, unclear, and usually very short (since they're usually attacking a mark) answers.I would love to have a nice short understanding that I could put in the notepad and email to customers who ask.
Any answers would be appreciated.
My understanding (I'm only a DE, but I have BH friends):
Seekers are used to locate a mark on the current planet. They're used starting with Investigation 1 and continue to be used all the way to Master. At the early levels of BH, Seeker droids are "one shot" in the sense that each charge just gives you the mark's current location. By the time the BH gets there, the mark may have moved and another Seeker will have to be used. Various Bounty Hunter skills modify the way Seekers are used, particularly at Investigation 3 when a bug kicks in and the last charge from a given Seeker droidis never expended. This bug is akin to the cluster stacking bug in Droid Engineer - some Bounty Hunters think it is obviously a feature and that it is supposed to work that way while others believe it is a true bug and that destroying the Seeker after you "use" the final charge is the only way to avoid exploiting it.
Arakyd Probe Droids are used to locate a mark on a different planet. They're used starting with Investigation 3 (it might be 2, I'm not completely sure) and continue to be used all the way to Master. With the more complex missions at higher Bounty Hunter levels, a BH might need several charges from an Arakyd to finally pin down a mark, at which point the BH will have to switch to Seeker droids to get a location on-planet.
Cygany wrote:
JediKnightMark, I think you explained well the process and the amount of time it takes to make a probe. A little thing about your math. Besides the hours involved in factory runs, a crate of 5 Arakyd probes, including the seperately factory produced GP and Mem electronics, is 173 x 5 = 865 units per final crate, not 517.
JakeWindstar wrote:
Since none of us can change game mechanics, you'll still need to use the same resource and time consuming schematic, and I'll still need to send out probes to progress.
JaxomDarkell wrote:
Because the BH in my City say they would not pay more than 2.5k per case, I sell them for 2.8k per case (+city sales tax). I think I might be breaking even on my seekers.
I think the real problem here is that the BH Terminals sold the seekers for an unrealistic price
I sell individual seekers for 2k! You're being seriously taken advantage of by your customers. The old droids had one charge, so 2k per seeker is matching the terminal price.