Droid Engineer Archive

Well personally speaking DE is a nice profession for me - you get customers that want custonm made droids and there is always the stable sellers of the BH droids and flight/astromechs. Lots of nice sustomer interaction etc so yeah I'd say go for DE!

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CohibaMonCal wrote:
Well personally speaking DE is a nice profession for me - you get customers that want custonm made droids and there is always the stable sellers of the BH droids and flight/astromechs. Lots of nice sustomer interaction etc so yeah I'd say go for DE!

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K, i will try it out, making custom made droids sounds fun

should i invest in some experiment CA's? is it needed?

The CAs are really needed but they can be useful on a couple of modules. If you have the money I'd say get them, they should be pretty cheap as far as CAs go.

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Kejid wrote:
The CAs aren't really needed but they can be useful on a couple of modules. If you have the money I'd say get them, they should be pretty cheap as far as CAs go.

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Thank you Skizzik-, that is what I meant to say. Hope I didn't confuse you Othdrakk.

Ok,I got my spell check; when will they invent stupid check so I don't do something like this again? Wait ... if I used stupid check I would never be able to send anything again.

Here's my 2 cents. Take or leave it as you will.

In my view, there are really 3 classifications of product that we sell:

1. Consumables: droid batteries, repair kits, BH seekers, BH probes, and bomb droids.

2. End-template droids: these are droids for the experienced player who has completed his template (for now) and knows exactly what he wants. This droid will likely be an Advanced R3 and will be loaded with the best modules you can make. The droid will not likely be replaced and you will probably never interact with this customer again, unless he decides to get a backup droid for item storage or because he's regriding to a new template.

3. Grinding droids: these range from what I'll call "entry level droids" for the first-time droid owner, to droids fitted with low-to-mid level data modules for pilots grinding their way up.

Category 1 (consumables):

A Bounty Hunter will tell you that a DE makes a lot of money in category 1. The problem is these droids are commodity items: you have to sell a lot of units at low profit margins (compared against other crafting professions). If you want to get into the BH droid business, you'll need 3-4 factories running constantly in order to keep up with demand. You'll also be competing against other bulk manufacturers who don't care as much about profit. Since there's no differentiation in the final product in this case, the BHs will gravitate to the lowest seller. If that's not you, you're stuck with slow sales. If that is you, you're very busy but not getting a whole lot in return for your effort.

Category 2 (end-template droids):

These droids are very rewarding to make just because making these kind of droids is fun. It's also nice when it is a custom order because you get the reaction of a happy customer.

If your customer is an experienced player who knows the value of what he's getting, you can charge in the neighborhood of 100k credits. If you mine your own resources this is a nice little profit. The problem here is this is a one-time-only sale. The droid will not decay or be destroyed (unless SOE introduces a new droid nerf), so don't expect to make gazillions of credits with this method.

Category 3 (grinding droids):

This category is surprisingly where I'm making the most money these days. What I do is load up an Advanced R4 or Advanced LE Repair. I load the Adv R4 with 1 mid-level data module for piloting and 2 level-4 item storage modules. The Adv LE gets 2 combat, 1 auto-repair, and a sarcastic personality chip. Both types of droids also get level 4 armor (I see no point in investing in armor segments to get to level 5 or 6). I then do a factory run of these droids and throw individual units on the Theed bazaar at 20k a pop. These sell quite well!

Using the above methods, I make enough money to pay maintainence on all my structures and grow my bank reserves a little bit. It is a comfortable living but doesn't earn enough so I could go out right away and drop 8 million for a Firespray.

Knowing all this, I advise you to consider your financial goals AND be sure to read the Issues thread stickied in this forum. If you love droids and can deal with the numerous bugs/issues, then welcome to our ranks. But if you're just looking to make money and don't like bugs, then DE isn't for you.

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MickGrey wrote:
Here's my 2 cents. Take or leave it as you will.

In my view, there are really 3 classifications of product that we sell:

1. Consumables: droid batteries, repair kits, BH seekers, BH probes, and bomb droids.

2. End-template droids: these are droids for the experienced player who has completed his template (for now) and knows exactly what he wants. This droid will likely be an Advanced R3 and will be loaded with the best modules you can make. The droid will not likely be replaced and you will probably never interact with this customer again, unless he decides to get a backup droid for item storage or because he's regriding to a new template.

3. Grinding droids: these range from what I'll call "entry level droids" for the first-time droid owner, to droids fitted with low-to-mid level data modules for pilots grinding their way up.

Category 1 (consumables):

A Bounty Hunter will tell you that a DE makes a lot of money in category 1. The problem is these droids are commodity items: you have to sell a lot of units at low profit margins (compared against other crafting professions). If you want to get into the BH droid business, you'll need 3-4 factories running constantly in order to keep up with demand. You'll also be competing against other bulk manufacturers who don't care as much about profit. Since there's no differentiation in the final product in this case, the BHs will gravitate to the lowest seller. If that's not you, you're stuck with slow sales. If that is you, you're very busy but not getting a whole lot in return for your effort.

Category 2 (end-template droids):

These droids are very rewarding to make just because making these kind of droids is fun. It's also nice when it is a custom order because you get the reaction of a happy customer.

If your customer is an experienced player who knows the value of what he's getting, you can charge in the neighborhood of 100k credits. If you mine your own resources this is a nice little profit. The problem here is this is a one-time-only sale. The droid will not decay or be destroyed (unless SOE introduces a new droid nerf), so don't expect to make gazillions of credits with this method.

Category 3 (grinding droids):

This category is surprisingly where I'm making the most money these days. What I do is load up an Advanced R4 or Advanced LE Repair. I load the Adv R4 with 1 mid-level data module for piloting and 2 level-4 item storage modules. The Adv LE gets 2 combat, 1 auto-repair, and a sarcastic personality chip. Both types of droids also get level 4 armor (I see no point in investing in armor segments to get to level 5 or 6). I then do a factory run of these droids and throw individual units on the Theed bazaar at 20k a pop. These sell quite well!

Using the above methods, I make enough money to pay maintainence on all my structures and grow my bank reserves a little bit. It is a comfortable living but doesn't earn enough so I could go out right away and drop 8 million for a Firespray.

Knowing all this, I advise you to consider your financial goals AND be sure to read the Issues thread stickied in this forum. If you love droids and can deal with the numerous bugs/issues, then welcome to our ranks. But if you're just looking to make money and don't like bugs, then DE isn't for you.

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I'm selling BH droids at a very reasonable mark-up.I increased the price pro-rata when the crate & charges increased when a lot of other DE's didn't & I'm still doing a full run of each every 10-12 days or so.

R5 advanced with a 10 item storage & data module across all pilot ranges are selling well & I can't keep combat Probot (1 combat module + 4 21 auto-repair) droids in stock long enough & I've bumped up the price 3 times! They're now selling at only 15K less than a fully loaded R3 advanced combat droid ( 1 combat module + 5 21 auto-repair) so have stopped making those as that now seems pointless if ppl are buying the Probots (plus that sits a little better with me, Astromechs shouldn't be combat droids IMHO).

Still doing a few custom orders to keep things interesting but as has been said, it's the factory runs of sub-components (mainly EGP's & EMM's) that make DE 'hard work'.

I've been DE since launch & have just dropped MA, the dom arts line, SW& a lot of my Merch skills to do a little combat to keep my interest in the game - droids have so little going for them in this game at the moment that I must admit I'm starting to lose interest in SWG - it's becoming more & more diluted.

Anyway, going off track a bit there! Basically there's enough that sells to keep you going without getting swamped as long as you price yourself accordingly, and if you don't need credits quickly there's no reason to cut your throat trying to compete with others - if you keep regular stock it will shift.

Message Edited by Chaz_uk on 09-04-2005 05:58 PM