Droid Engineer Archive

Message Edited by Crustyfur on 11-24-2004 01:11 AM

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Fernas wrote:

i make up about 20 udcm's. i put 10 on the bazaar at 1k per (decided on this price after extensive price checking on the eclipse server). then, if notice that the same guy bought them all, i wait a small amount of time and put the other ten up so normal people who just need chips can actually get their hands on them at a reasonable price. so far its worked quite well and i've gotten several thank you's from players i have never met before.

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JerethBane wrote:

Someone on Tempest is selling unprogrammed chips for 10k apiece, cases for 250k

Someone is trying to get a message to them that their prices are a bit....steep.

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Good for "someone" - they realize that these chips are indestructable and are more valuable than 500cr/1K each.

I'll never tell everyone to raise their prices - only those people who complain about the DE economy sucking, because that's sort of like saying "My arm hurts" in between repeatedly bashing it with a stick using your other arm.

By the same token, I applaud the DE who values his products - and I don't see why anyone would try to "get a message" to him that his prices are "steep" - unless people are simply upset that's he's making more money than they are.

One or two (I honestly can't remember, because I dismissed the /tells very quickly) wanna-be price-check police sent me a /tell within moments of my vendors being stocked with chips for the first time. I totally ignored them, and those are the only complaints I have recieved - no one has since. And I sell dozens of these chips a day at 10K each, crates available with no discount.

Remember, each pilot only needs a few of these chips - there aren't that many for each profession. Some DE's are under the VERY mistaken impression that these chips need to be replaced, which is NOT true. They do not decay, they do not get used up, they live forever.

So who do you think is buying them now? People who are reselling them burnt. Now, burning a chip takes NOTHING but having the skill - no resources, nothing but one of our blank chips, a couple of clicks, and voilla, it's suddenly worth tons of credits. These people are already selling them for 20-30K, so selling a crate for 250K when they could make three times that by taking five minutes and burning the chips - yeah, 10K seems like a fair deal.

If you don't want credits, then this doesn't apply to you, but I do not understand why some DE's who DO want to make money value our products so little. Is it because you are in guilds that not appriciate droids or DE's? Is it because people have ingrained in your head that "droids suck", so you feel like you should sell them for nothing? Seriously...I honestly have these questions because I just see it as self-fufilling prophecy.

I'm not ragging on this topic for fun, I'm trying to make a point. To those DE's that don't care about credits and only handcraft, please, continue on making yourself and people happy - no one has a right to tell you that you are wrong if this is what you enjoy. But to those who are trying to make a business simulation out of it, who want to make more money making droids than they could if they just spent their time running combat missions instead, I'm just trying to express that no one is ever going to value your products unless you do first. No one (well, very very few) people are going to say, "Wow, I got so much use out of this chip I got for a measley 500cr - maybe I should pay the DE more since I'm getting such value from it." It's the same thing I say about medical droids - Doctors are selling buffs from 10-15K and they can't sit in front of a Starport and spam their services unless they have a medical droid. Yet I see people selling them for less than 10K for med 6! That's insane, since it will last forever and a Doc is going to make millions more because that droid frees them from sitting in the med center.

Of course, there are other factors - if you just have a single vendor on some remote planet in a small player city, no, you won't see huge sales ever, likely. If you aren't listed on the map you might as well not exist (hire a merchant to put up a dummy vendor just to get you listed - with 12 vendors many master merchants are doing this now that weren't before). And, occasionally, it helps to go advertise at a Starport - it's dirty, but it works and I've gotten more people sending me /tells saying "THANK YOU! It's so hard to find a stocked droid vendor," than I can count. You've got to work on it, but the DE economy is just fine for those of us who a) run it like a business, and b) price our products based on their value not some "CPU" scheme. I'll be honest - I couldn't even begin to tell you how many resources go into most droids. I don't care - I care about the value and enrichment this will bring to players and price according to that. It's made me a very rich DE, and if getting rich is your goal, you can do it too.

Honestly, I've been waiting for it to become less profitable...I've wanted to retire for quite some time. I have unlocked six trees of FS skills, and just need to start the grind - but I haven't yet, because I just can't quit selling droids when I continue to make millions each week. I've even raised my prices to discourage sales, hoping that I can keep a vendor stocked for awhile - but they just buy more. No joke - people are funny, I've learned. The business IS out there, and the capability to make buckets of credits selling droids - but it's got to start with you as a DE (who wants to make money) taking a stand, pricing your products based on function, and a bit of self-promotion.

Unless people do that, they have no ground to stand on when saying the DE economy isn't good - it will never produce billionaires like AS and WS (well, not yet - I still have a long way to go to get that far, LOL), but you can make a very nice living as a DE, even just part time like me, if only you stop selling yourself short. Again, if you don't want to make credits, ignore everything I have said - this is directed to those that want it but don't think they can - when in truth haven't really ever given themselves the chance.

AO

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Solinus wrote:

I sell mine at 1k per, which I thought at first was a bit high.

My flight computers go for 500 each.

Course, I'm barely a Novice Merchant, and only 0001 DE, so I don't expect to make too much cash just yet.

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Fernas wrote:

i make up about 20 udcm's. i put 10 on the bazaar at 1k per (decided on this price after extensive price checking on the eclipse server). then, if notice that the same guy bought them all, i wait a small amount of time and put the other ten up so normal people who just need chips can actually get their hands on them at a reasonable price. so far its worked quite well and i've gotten several thank you's from players i have never met before.

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There's a couple of you who're selling those chips at 1K a peice on Eclipse on the bazaar, and I've been eating them up, selling for 5K and making a nice 4K profit. Why? well, I AM making a profit, and they HAVE been selling well at 5K. Not an unfair price. But moreso... I'm not wasting my time, energy, and resources on harvesters and factories for these. I have been using my installations for greater purposes making other parts and droids, harvesting high quality resources rather than grinding quality ones for UPDC's.

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SmallpoxA wrote:

I

Now, with 11.3 we can kiss this income good bye. The devs have changed the requirements for programming a droid. You only need an unprogrammed droid control module if you want to program your flight computer or astromech with a command that you don't know. Thus, the market for these items just went into the toilet.

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SmallpoxA wrote:

I have been selling these things like hotcakes--can't keep them stocked. I have done 4 factory runs of a 1000, and I still can't meet demand. It was a nice piece of income.

Now, with 11.3 we can kiss this income good bye. The devs have changed the requirements for programming a droid. You only need an unprogrammed droid control module if you want to program your flight computer or astromech with a command that you don't know. Thus, the market for these items just went into the toilet.

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With the bad comes the good, though.

To begin with, I am running on the assumption that the first "wave" of new JTL is over, i.e. the early adopters have adopted and those that haven't gotten the expansion (a surprising number of players I know) are waiting, that we are in between the (hopefully) next wave that will come with Christmas. We got in on that ground level as DE's - since I was selling them for 10-15K a pop, I made quite a nice bundle on chips alone already. Early adopters are also big spenders normally, so we had ample opportunity to make credits - I'm proud to say I did business with that in mind.

However, with this change will bring much greater awareness of the fact that burnt chips are tradable. I don't think a lot of people know. Most people I have talked to have "heard about it", but not "tried it". Many think it's an exploit, and to be honest many people just haven't experimented with droid commands at all until they get to the higher levels.

To be frank, I think the burnt chip market is about to explode. Most people have only been buying a stack of five or ten, because you really don't need more than that. Now, everyone is going to want to get one from every faction - I just think not very many people were aware it was possible. If you look at the pilot trees, it's kind of obvious - for instance, the Rebel shield proggy's are a lot more useful than Privateer's "reactor overload" bull-crap (I have a great reactor, overloading it doesn't seem to do anything for me...).

Do I like the change? Not really. In some ways, however, I think the value it will raise in awareness will be keeping our demand rather steady for awhile. More than anything, I wish these things has SOME sort of decay - i.e. you get 10 uses before the chip degrades, or when your ship blows up your droid and chips take damage as well. I don't think it's too much to ask to give us SOME repeat business, especially since these aren't "required" for anything but enhancement. That's honestly going to the tippy-top of my "top 5 issues" list, because while we all want general decay we know it's going to be a LONG time coming, and just chip decay would give us a very nice boost - especially if they also has simple experimentation (i.e. one line, for durability - how many "uses" you get before the chip goes kaput).

AO

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AudioOrgana wrote:

To be frank, I think the burnt chip market is about to explode.

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cl0kwerq wrote:

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AudioOrgana wrote:

To be frank, I think the burnt chip market is about to explode.

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*points at his post on page 1*

Congrats on your businessmanship

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Hehe, thanks.

It wasn't a huge leap in logic, but I do try to stay one-step ahead of the patch notes. That's how sucessful merchants do it in SWG - long-term speculation doesn't pay off very often in an MMO, but staying a step or two head of Joe Player is all you need to make consistent profits.

As an update, I haven't changed the price of my chips...I know people are selling them for cheaper all over, but it's not worth my time to sell them for less right now - I'd just have to restock. Besides, these chips just went from "required if you use the optional droid features" to only required if you want ALL the features (bonuses), plus the resale factor. (I wonder how many people I see selling them for 1K/ea, or 25K/crate, if they know they are being resold for 10K, 20K, and more, EACH?)

I definately am not doing the volume I was, but part of that is the new non-requirement of chips for your own profession and part of it is certainly the fact that JTL demand has finally begun to drop. I'm still selling a good amount of level 4+ mechs and v5+ flight computers, but chip sales are now restricted to large crates with the occasional set of singles. I have a feeling once my current stock of chips runs out, I'll do a new run, mark them down 25%, and just put them up as full crates of 25 for resellers.

I expect a "run" on JTL again later this month - post-Christmas, when I have a feeling many people who didn't upgrade to JTL yet (a surprising number) will do so, and of course the combination of holiday gift-giving and vacation time will help with that. However, I'm very quickly begining to see JTL products as just a part of business, not the focus as it has been for the past month or so - which I am actually seeing as a good thing.

I personally haven't gotten in to selling the burnt chips myself, but I do have several deals with suppliers which has done quite well for me. It kind of bothers me that I didn't get into it, but to be honest I've just been too darn busy. I'm finally having to restock my pre-JTL intentional overstock - i.e. I made tons of my specialty droids before JTL so I wouldn't have to worry about them for awhile (one of my draws is that I am always stocked with my high-rated models) and am doing my first restock since then. Then let's not forget the Aurilia quests/FS training. Or the space loot vendor I'm making a bundle on. Or, heck...that I'm Tier 4 and itchin' to make Master Pilot. Or trying to find the new loot. Or decorating my SoroSub. Or finishing my new house...

I will say this for SWG - you may not *like* the things to do in the game (they may not be for you), but man, there sure is a LOT to do these days.

AO

Message Edited by AudioOrgana on 12-05-2004 07:55 PM