Droid Engineer Archive

There is a DE on Naboo on the Eclipse server that is killing the DE economy. I have tried telling him about keeping general socket module clusters where they are supposed to go. I've offered to help him out on his way reduced prices too. He seemed to want me to help him once I sent him an email about an exploited probot and an offer to help him adjust prices. I went back to his vendor today and noticed about 8 more exploited probots on his vendor that were just added, full blown with crafting station, data storage, item storage, med modules, and repair modules. He is obviously aware that an advanced probot should only be able to hold 2 modules, no general module socket clusters, yet he continues to do so. Are they ever going to fix the general socket module cluster? He is killing the DE economy. I hate to ask, but can things like this be reported to a CSR so that the exploited droids are removed from the vendor? He's selling these probots for a mere 30K. If that's his max topout droid, that's pretty sad considering the highest he'll ever make is 30K from a droid. I'm selling droids for 45 and 55K, and they sell fine.

Could possibly be a fix in the Dec patch according to JustG, but you know how those Dev promises go.

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=829957&page=4

Though I understand where you're coming from, I just have to point out two things.

1. Why does it really matter? You only need at, maximum, 2 modules from DE. Crafting station and Med. Data Storage is useless, Item storage is marginally usefull, and Repair is near useless. I really can't see anyone being terribly interested in a Repair droid that can't actually repair your other droids. And you'd have to be outright insane to pay tens of thousands of credits for 10 more slots of storage or actually want a data storage module. I mean, if we actually had more than 2 modules that did anything it would matter, but since we don't, nest the heck out of them. They're pretty much useless anyways.

2. I am constantly in awe of what people charge for droids. For the prices you're quoting I wouldn't considering buying anything that didn't have all the modules in it. Maybe Radiant is cheaper than other servers, but the way DE's are raping customers is going to come back to haunt them some day. I know Radiant is the only server with a large number of DEs, but those prices are obscene. Especially for droids that don't actually do anything you can't get done just as well, if not better, somewhere else in the game. 55k for a Probot is just ridiculous. I'm no where near as cheap as Madcat, in fact I was right inline with the rest of Radiant, but I'm just in constant awe of the way people rip others off for droids. Even 30k for a Probot is waaayyy more than Radiant's average.

Of course, that does explain to me why so many DEs are against anything that would bring people into the proffession. Raping people that much for a droid is bound to cause some concern about others coming in and charging a realistic price. Good lord, that's gotta be somewhere in the range of a 40-50x markup on resources. I'd be terrified to see what some people are charging for BLL's, that's gotta be upwards of 200k.

But, in the end, it'll all be made right again. Robbing people that much is sure to guarantee a flood of people when the proffession gets fixed, and a Price War that leaves DE making 1.1-1.5x markup.

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Therearentan wrote:

And you'd have to be outright insane to pay tens of thousands of credits for 10 more slots of storage

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I agree with your post... I just want to point out that with the advent of decay-on-death, these storage modules are getting much more popular. They're like having a mini bank terminal in each campsite.

In general, I'm charging 5k base, 5k for an advanced chassis and 5k for each advanced module (2 storeage3's count as 1).

I'm not making a mint.But in thelast week, with "mount mania"dieing down a bit, I've seenmore droidsales than I have since I hit MDE.

Hm, I suppose it's sad that I will never take in more than 10k for a droid, then

I agree that the clustered probot is probably a greivable exploit, but no one can "ruin the economy" by charging a lower price. They'll run out of money and/or move too few units to matter. (they can support low pricing by making money some other way, but they'll spend so much time at that they won't make many droids)

You can make a profit at < 10k for a full blown R3 (maybe not a BLL, but any useful droid). If you choose to charge more, cool, more business for me. But eventually people will regard droids as a pricey luxury, rather than an affordable tool.

I think it is silly to expect DEs to NOT use the cluster "exploit" since it has been in the game so long, it is clearly not a priority for the devs to fix, they know about it, they know people are using it, they don't care.

The Probot is near useless as a combat droid so if you don't enhance it with some modules no one will buy it and there will be no DEs.

Now, that being said, I agree that DEs who charge rediculously low prices are indeed harming the profession but there is not much we can do about that except show them the error of their ways and hope they see the like.

I sell advanced probots on bloodfin with crafting station, item storage and medical, with 2 L4 armor mods for 24k. I have been told this is too cheap but it seems reasonable to me, considering it is arount 20 credits per resource used. Even though DEs have gotten the shaft on many fronts, we do have pretty good markups compared to some of the other crafters.

Just my 2 cents.

I don't really understand all this talk about "can't sell". I personally find it's more like "can't keep in stock".

I only make advanced probots to order, and that isn't very often, actually. I stock factory-made standard probots with maximum armor on a vendor, and they sell great. So do my med/crafting surgicals and crafting /storage R2s.

Maybe it's just that I have a great location for my shop, I dunno... Maybe it has something to do with the amount of customer education I do. Perhaps I'm just lucky.

With a cost 3.00cr/unit, the total cost to make the droid is 4,287.00cr.

Using a selling price of 24,000.00cr, your mark-up is 459.83% and will make a profit of 19,713.00cr. (16.79cr/unit)

Jonas,

You're painting too simple a picture of pricing, IMHO.

For instance, let's look at an R3 droid:

To build any R3, one needs two advanced droid brains from a factory crate. This means I need a factory, which means I need to pay maintenance on the factory, as well as pour power into it. Next, I need to SACRIFICE an entire droid brain's worth of materials, effectively forcing a critical failure, to create the schematic. Of course, one should amortize this cost over more than two brains, so you need sufficient materials, particularly the GP and memory modules, to cover the construction.

Oh yes, the GP and memory modules: That means before I ever got to the point of making the brain schematic, I had to make factory runs of both GPs and Memories. If one is a Master Artisan, as I am, this isn't too bad, but it does take time, effort, forethought and planning.

Now, when I make these things, I use high quality materials. Nevermind that 3 credit per unit garbage... I don't mess around, virtually all my materials are 900+ OQ, my copper is 977 Conductivity, etc. etc. This stuff does not come all that cheap, although I have a marvellous supplier who does make much of the really good stuff available at 4 credits/unit.

I find it amusing that people want to tell someone else what to charge. I also wonder why everyone thinks this cluster thing is an exploit. In a probot it has two slots for cluster mods. Thats two general cluster mod sockets. Now i dont agree with stacking mods but it has a slot for two. I also find it extremly amusing with such a pitiful class that anyone really cares what a de does to make a tiny living. Maybe when they worry about fixing the class we can worry about fixing somthing else.

The one thing that is not broken about DE's is the profit margins.

This is the one thing I really disagree with Sintrosi on. I actually would like to help show him how to make money - because I don't know a single Master DE who is as broke as he is.

The DE products make a higher ROI then any other profession, bar none.

There is one of these "undercutters" living near my vendor, and I still get great business - because I'm the best, and people know it.

We are broken in many ways, but the ability to make money is NOT one of them.

Audio

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shawns122 wrote:
He's selling these probots for a mere 30K. If that's his max topout droid, that's pretty sad considering the highest he'll ever make is 30K from a droid. I'm selling droids for 45 and 55K, and they sell fine.

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Hmmm...went back and read this again.

This is your problem - you are ripping customers off.

45-55K for a Probot?

You've got to be joking me.

I sell them at about 27K, and sell dozens a day - that's why I have millions, and you are in here complaining about the economy.

Audio

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AudioOrgana wrote:

The one thing that is not broken about DE's is the profit margins.

This is the one thing I really disagree with Sintrosi on. I actually would like to help show him how to make money - because I don't know a single Master DE who is as broke as he is.

The DE products make a higher ROI then any other profession, bar none.

There is one of these "undercutters" living near my vendor, and I still get great business - because I'm the best, and people know it.

We are broken in many ways, but the ability to make money is NOT one of them.

Audio

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couldn't have said it better myself. Most people consider my prices extrememly cheap, and I'm generally making 8cpu or so on a droid, I've been helping an architect friend out and he makes, at most, 2.5cpu for his stuff. I don't have the exact numbers on weaponsmiths and armorsmiths but given the fact that they need some rather rare resources and they don't sell anything if its not all of the highest quality, I'd wager that they don't make too much per resource either.

As for the cluster issue, The way I see it, nesting clusters isn't right (though I will admit I do it when I can't get my hands on the resources for some level 6 modules), but I don't really see anything wrong with putting clusters in general module slots. It adds extra time and cost to the droid, so its not like its a free couple modules, and it adds more chances to critical fail.