Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Droid Market, new DE
Mostly I make everything myself but I am not opposed to buying parts made by others if the price is right and I run across a good deal.
Most MDE are also master artisans so they can make their own electronics. I have guild fellows that can help me with that though so I became a Master Weapon Smith mostly for the money and the guild needed one. Now I am saving what skill points I have left for Shipwright!
Hope that helps and welcome aboard
Golrok wrote:
From what I read I think you will be provided new skill points to spend on shipwright, since it is one of the new profs,but I might be wrong.
From what has been said that will be true for the piloting professions. But they haven't been clear about how shipwright is going to work into that mix. In one of the interviews they mentioned the possiblity of treating shipwright as a standard elite profession that requires standard skill points, but didn't say definitively if that would be the case or not.
DrakoonShao wrote:
I'm pretty small scale when compared to most DEs. I have no vendor and make droids on a per person basis. All customers come in by word of mouth (same as 90% of my slicing customers). Usually, if I am on for any prolonged period of time (over 2 hours) I have no problem selling 2 or 3 droids. I don't make a lot of money, but still have lots of fun. For me, the profession would lose it's appeal if I mass produced the droids and had a vendor. Wouldn't be able to see the reaction of people who really wanted the droids when they receive them. Plus, droids produced fully on an assembly line don't get souls
OMG the souls comment made me spit my Soda all over my desk.
I have a vendor that is always fully stocked. I have pretty much any model and combo you could ask for. When I first opened my vendor, I made a million really quickly, but then it slowed down a lot. A million a month probably sounds about right.
DE is a lot of fun, but it probably wont make you rich.
In my case, we're talking a little over a million a month profit after factoring out expenses. I'm not the richest of players, but that definitely puts me well above theaverage in terms of how much money I have. Most players I've met rarely, if ever,push a million.
Doctors make a lot more if they buff in the starports regularly, but their way of making money is really tedious because they can't sell buffs off a vendor while they aren't logged in like I can do with droids.
Well, this question comes up pretty much every day here. I believe that DEs are the "middle class" crafter. On average, i make abt 500k per week from droids and droid related products. It all depends on how much you market yourself. I have two vendors one near Theed and one in a large player city on Naboo. My vendors are visible on the planetary map and I also spam the starport(although ive been doing this less lately). I also mass-produce most of my droids in the factories. It is time consuming but i enjoy it. That is the key- Enjoyment.
If someone wants to make money as a crafter they should either be an armorsmith or weaponsmith. Those crafters make millions per month.
Since i cant edit i have to repost. I forgot to mention that we have seen two publishes and JTL promises to give us even more love.
The demand for droids is not huge but DEing is getting better with each passing publish.
I really have no major complaints.
The market is steady but slow.2 milliona month sounds about right. If you sell droid batteries and droid repair kits, the profit from these should not only pay all your exspenses (resources,rent,travel), but even provide a small income. So whatever you charge for your droid is free profit.
The people who say the market is dead probably dont have a well stocked vendor. I visit my competition once a week to check prices and availablity. Over 1/2 the droid vendors listed on the planetary map dont even have 1 droid in them!!!! And the rest have 5 or 6 droids and maybe a few crates of BH droids (which I refuse to make or sell till they fix the unlimited seeker bug)
Meanwhile. if you visit my vendor you will find anywhere from 30-50 droids, at least 10 crates of batteries, and at least 5 crates of repair kits. And I sell at least 2 droids EVERY NIGHT. Some days I log on, and I see someone has bought 3 droids, 2 crates of batteries and a crate of repair packs. And there are days when 2 or 3 people like that visit my shop.
Varieity is the key, show people droid combo's they normally would not buy. I sell an R4 with a crafting station in it for 10K. Put the same crafting station in a Power droid, and I charge 25K. And they sell (like hotcakes as a matter of fact). Im even thinking of reducing production and increasing prices on these.
Lets say someome walks in to my shop looking for a Food/Chem crafting droid, look at the options I provide them:
R4 Food/Chem crafting station - 10K credits
Power droid F/C crafting station - 25K
R2 F/C Crafting, Med 110%, 10 Item storage - 35K
R3 F/C crafting, Med 110%, 10Item storage, 3 Stim dispensers - 50K
BLL F/C crafting, Med 110%, 10 item storage - 75K
Some people walk out with an R4, others with the BLL. But they have a choise.So whatever they want,I offer with many models to choose from. If you are going to have a vendor, keep it stocked, trust me, word of mouth will spread that if people want droids, yours is the shop to visit.
To throw my comments into the mix.
I've been a DE now pretty much since Xmas. I only made it to MDE about 2-3 months ago.
I have one Large Shop outside Mos Espa, one small shop outside Mos Eisley. Three factories permanently anchored outside my HQ and a generic small behind for storage (right little city I've built of my own 
)
With all this stuff I mainly produce droids for stock on my vendors, but I occasionally get a custom order or an order from an existing customer for something a bit different.
I do NOT make bucket loads of cash. Although my assets are worth a lot more, my bank balance has NEVER reached 1 mil. I probably make about 300k a month.
Oh, and to complete that...
I have three vendors in my HQ - one for finished droids, one for components and a bargin bucket. Every now and then (about once every three weeks) I will place a high worth item in the bargin bucket. It may be a droid it may be a crate of batteries or repair kits. Whatever the item, the bargin bucket always sells things for 2k each.
Not many people have cottoned on to this yet, despite my vendor barking about it. In fact I had three R2 Field Medic droids (R2, Med ability, item storage, stim dispensors) bought from my vendor for 60k each, whilst one was in the bargin bucket for 2k.
Seek and ye shall find...