Droid Engineer Archive

Dear Fellow DE's,

I have been working for the past two weeks building an excel spreadsheet that I hope can help many DE's lives easier withdroid pricing, both for setting prices and for fluctuating resource costs. I use this program regularly to give customers a price based on the droid model and the modules they want (as well as a quick explaination as to why things cost as much as they do as well as a price breakdown). It should be pretty self explanatory andhelpful notes are includedin the red triangles.You can download the file from the link here to my website:

http://www.jcarlson.com/swg/droids.htm

Disclaimer: The chart uses many nested functions and if/then statements so even though I have checked and rechecked the file there may be some minor mistakeswith cellreferencesetc...

I have built this spreadsheet to build Droids without cheats or exploits so as the Devs fix things the spreadsheet will work as Droids are supposed to work.For instance, I am not sure if the Devs have want us to be able to stack things like storage modules so I have left that option out of this version although I can easily add it later.

I have protected the worksheet to prevent deleting the functions I put in. This will make it easier to enter in information without risk of entering in the wrong cell. There is no password so if you want to modify the spreadsheetfeel freeif you see fit by unprotecting the document.

Also I must note that nestled functions only allow for 7 if/then statements at a time. That is why there are 4 columns where you enter the droid models and module information.

If you find an error, haveconstructive criticism,or would like me to include something in future versions as I make the spreadsheet more complicated, please post below. Updated version notifications will be posted here.

Enjoy!

Cameo - Droid Builder/Droid Designer

Shop Located South of Coronet, Corellia at (-48, -5656)

Naritus Sever

Just grab Open Office (free (mostly)MS-Windows compatible Office suite):

http://www.openoffice.org

I use it in place of MS Office and it is working fine for me, it certainly worked with the above spreadsheet well enough to be useful.

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"Is there a viewing program that will allow those that dont have a spreedsheet program to be able to use the chart? "

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If you go to http://www.download.com there are freeware spreadsheet programs that will read Excel files (type in spreadsheet or excel under search). I can't recommend any but try one or two and see how they work. Good luck.

Cameo Droid Builder/Droid Designer

Shop Located South of Coronet at (-48, -5656)

Naritus Server

I dont wanna flame ya bud, and most of this post is not aimed at you, infact your post was cool, nice of you to attempt to help the newb DE's out there =)

but just a few things.

I set my own prices for droids, based on the max priceI cansell emfor, not for what is best for my customers. I also run a fine establishment, and to be honest prolly rake in more than most of the DE's on my server (invest in merchant skills if u havnt already), I dont over charge if thats what your thinking, I simply set a price I think the unit "SHOULD" at least be worth. It makes me sick watching the way a CH can make money, I may be a rich DE but im nothing compaired with the hardcore CH's, spending no resources and selling pets for figures of 10-100k if not more. Now if some guy wants a crappy 3PO protocol droid, even thoughthey do nothing, but he just wants to pimp it, roleplay etc, then he will happily pay a nice amount for it, because he wants one, and he wants one now -

Now any of you small time guys that build units per order, i.e you only make droids when someone asks for one, with your pathetic stuck up comments like "I refuse to play DE properly until it is fixed", you guys should just get your skill points back, and go be a CH......leave these forums and the rest of us proper DE'salone.

It may be a bugged proffesion that needs alot of work, but its star wars, and we can build droids, we can sell em for alot too if you guys would stop ****ing moaning - dont you realise that the only reason droid prices fall is coz droid engineers go around saying stuff like "im a DE, its total crap, nothing works", how you expect to sell anything withh an attitude like that I will never know.

If you wanna make mega cash outta DE do these4things....

1. Master the proffesion, Get a Shop, Get Merchant skills, advertise on planetary map (the buisness you get from advertising on planetary map is amazing)

2. Fully stock your vendors with advanced droids, a variety of different combos (if you stock alot of good stuff, customers think your loaded, they also see a market appeal of mass produced items, ultimately customers love to have a choice)

3. Dont sell for ridiculous prices, but never, ever, ever, ever, sell cheap droids, they crap xp, crap profit, and a crap waste of your time. If someone asks for a MSE, fully loaded with all mods, tell em you dont stock em in vendor (only stock advanced or high end droids), tell him you can make him one custom, but charge him for it!!!

4. Whenever you feel weak, and wanna sell droids at stupidly low prices, remember this motto "Its a dog eat dog world, and I got bigger teeth than you".......screw em all, sell at the prices YOU wanna sell at, you are the Creator after all =)))

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Saigo - Chunder - Jushin - Brekke

QUIT COMPLAINING ALREADY!!!!

/bow /thank /etc

Wow thanks for the lesson Xaldain_! It really cleans up my spreadsheet. I couldnt understand why it was so hard to make what seemed likesuch a simple reference. VLOOKUP reallytakes it to the next level. Thanks again!

Cameo

This spreadsheet seems based on a couple incorrect assumptions:

Assumption 1: That a finished product should cost more than the raw resources required to make it.

This assumption is true in real life, but false in SWG. Why? Because raw resources are far more valuable to the community. They can be turned directly intoXP, whereas a finished product cannot. By turning resources into a finished product you are usually reducing their value. This factor will shift as the percentage of people looking for XP decreases. But right now that percentage isstill extremely high.

Assumption 2: That a product should be sold at a price determined mostly by the raw materials that went into it.

This assumption is false in both real life and SWG. In business school you are taught to use profit maximization equations to calculate the exact intersection of two lines where you can make the most profit. The first linemaps out the number of customers you get when your product is sold at varying prices. The second line maps out the amount of profit you get from one sale when your product is sold at carying prices. When these two are combined into a maximization function, you come out with the exact price at which you should offer your product to make the most money. This spreadsheet does not track how many customers you have at varying prices. It only tracks the second line, the amount of profit from one sale, and makes an assumption that you must keep profits per sale low to have any customers at all. This will not lead to the best profits. In fact, it could lead to very poor profits.

Remember that your prices should be dictated by the number of customers you can sustain at certain price levels as well as the amount of profit you can attain per sale. If you can make just as many sales at a higher level of profit per sale, or the number of sales only decreases by 5% when you increase your prices 20%, then you should definately be increasing your prices to maximize profits.

-Raystonn

Cameo,

Guess what? I am not going to critique your work. I like the speadsheet. It just confirms that I my current pricing is not too far off. This is a nice tool to use just for me to justify that I am pricing my droids just right.

Thanks

Warrhawk - Thanks!

*Spreadsheet Updated!*

Ok thanks to Xaldain's great excel teachings,I have updated my spreadsheetto use VLOOKUP instead of IF/THEN statements. It is greatly cleaned up and should help simplify things further!

Cameo