Droid Engineer Archive

Can anyone give me a general list of what droids go for? thanks

Why is it that the questions that could really help someone trying to learn the profession get ignored? C'mon people, not even one reply to a simple and honest question?What if thisperson decides to start selling droids at cost? You all know resources cost about 3 credits per unit, average. What if SiameseFluff decides that he/she will charge 3.5 credits per unit used in the making? Small profit margin, flood the market, and KILL your rivals' businesses by removing demand for their overpriced stuff. For your own sakes you should be eager to respond to questions like this! Are you all daft?

To SiameseFluff I say this: I am brand new at this too. I can only make MSE's so far. I've been told they average 700 to 1000 creds with a decent module installed. Doesn't matter what kind of module. Since I don't know any other droids, I can't help you with any other prices. If you are beyond my level already, I would appreciate any guidance YOU could give ME for pricing what I intend to make sure are above average quality droids... If you are not beyond my level, post anything you find out so that I can avoid underpricing stuff as I learn to make it.

In another thread I read that many droid engineers who have had thriving businesses going for a while are sick of newbies asking questions. The person complained that we (the newbies) are not "plugged in" to the issues, and don't understand. Well, how else do you expect us to educate ourselves on the issues if you will not even reply to a politely phrased question like this? For shame.

You're going to hate my answer but...

I give them away. I'm still low on the tree and I give droids away as loss leaders to sell batteries. I make far more profit on batteries than I make on MSEs or R5s with a junky medical capabilities.

Since becoming a droid engineer, I've made over 100,000cr net profit selling batteries. My droid sales? 2 R5s, 1 Treadwell, and 1 MSE;2,000cr total. Unless I can sell those droids for 25K a piece, I'm not making money with the droids themselves. So I've taken it upon myself to use an age old marketing technique. Since I've got to make the droids anyway to grind my way to something decent, I might as well give them away and kill three birds with one stone. First is thedroid XP. Second is the battery sales for cash flow. Third is advertising the free batteries and getting people to browse my vendor and pay the access fee on my house. This gets me Merchant XP, which just got very hard to get after the last patch.

JansosHosphe, I've been having this "price" debate on these boards for well over 4 months now. The truth is, it drasticaly varies depending on the server you are on.

There are two things to really consider when you price a droid;

Do you use one base price, no matter what modules are installed?

Do you change the price depending on the module?

My prices have seriously fluctuated (both up and down) on Starsider over the past5 months simply because the demand for them changes so much. For this reason, I always sell each droid with a set base price .. no matter what modules it has, it will be the same. This means that (rarely) I may lose out because a customer asks for ALL modules.. but generaly I'd make money on it. My current prices are below (this is for the Starsider Galaxy):

(These are all advanced models .. I tend not to sell standard models)

R2 - 20k
R3 - 25k
R4 - 20k
R5 - 15k
Surgical- 20k
LE Repair - 15k
Protocal - 30k
Probot - 30k
Powerdroid - 30k
Arakyd Probe (BH) - 2.5k
Seeker Probe (BH) - 1k

I don't tend to sell any other model, so I don't have set prices for the rest ... but generaly, my prices stay around 20k-30k. Its not really that much, and it doesn't earn you a fortune .. but its enough to live on

Mine sell for much the same as Vampiric (I'm also on Starsider)

R2 - 25k

R3 - 27.5k

Probot - 30k

Protocol - 27.5k

Surgical - 20k

LE - 20k

Starsider prices seem to fall aroundthe prices Vampiric & I listedprices. I actually do a nice bit of business, but then I advertise at every star port I go to & my vendor is in my PA Hall with other member's vendors (which brings in even more customers). Made about 300k credits yesterday purely from droid sales (of course, I don't ever keep much money on me, I pay maintenance on the PA Hall & all of our PAs factories).

I find the combination of advertising & actually having a nice variety of well made droids with popular modules helps keep sales brisk. All too often I see droid engineer vendors with some seeker crates & batteries & something saying to e-mail for custom droid orders. People who want to buy a droid usually want to buy it right then & not wait however long it takes for someone to log on & make it.

A big component of my price is the module (since this is what people are really paying for) for example if I sell an R5 and R4 with the same module the price wont be a hell of alot different, and as a result of this my WED's, R5's and DZ70s are all priced the same (until they make the DZ70s HAM higher anyway)

As for mouse droids I never bothered selling any, just ground my way up to the first blueprint box and started there. The reason being was that I was already an established droid merchant (selling other peoples creations) and I wasnt about to put a hole in my sales by pricing my MSEs lower (with the same modules) and by the same token I dont expect many people to buy an MSE for almost the same price they can buy an R5 for.

ASHRID, that is basicaly the same way I started. I think in the 5 months I have been a DE, I have sold 1 MSE droid.. and that was only sold to someone that wanted it painted in seriously ugly colours just so he can have fun with it (no modules at all)

I want to thank you all for giving actual answers instead of flaming me for ranting. =) You don't know how refreshing that was, and if I offended anyone by ranting, I apologize for that.

I like the idea of giving them away and selling batteries, but I don't think I'll go that far. Lucasarts could have given away SWG to get people to buy a subscription, but they didn't. I think my prices will be average,according to what you all have cited, and I'll be sure to put crates of batteries on my vendor right along side them. Maybe my batteries will be loss leaders... "buy the droid, you can always get cheap batteries here..." I'll use a factory (which I absolutely DESPISE doing, by the way... seems like taking the easy road) to mass produce the batteries.

Thank you once again. Your lists have been noted. I'm going now to visit the url in the first reply.

Wow, I've been undercharging. I'm on starsider also and I've been charging around 18k for most droids. (except R3's and Power Droids). I've been too afraid I would sell even less.

Prices listed here are about in the same relative range. Like what has been stated before, it's difficult to guage exactl pricing since it varies galaxy to galaxy. Plus vendor prices can only give you a small picture of prices, since selling can take place through several non-vendor means.

One thing to add - I usually vary my prices only slightly for the more difficult-to-make components, i.e. that require factory runs. Usually I don't price on resource availability or rareness.

FeartheMullet, it really all depends which planet you sell from on Starsider. Try selling a droid for 20k on Corellia and you'll get laughed off the planet. Try selling them for that price in Theed and people will likely comment on how cheap they are. Try selling them for that price in Bestine and you get a mixed "you are conning me ... wow great deal" response.

Its not so much your prices .. its how you sell them.

Also, the prices I added here was the prices I use when I'm standing in cities selling on-the-spot. I generaly add an extra 5k to the prices for things on my vendor.

Prices vary all over the place, even on a server. Here's my prices:

Crafting stations 4k, Level 6 module 6k, Level 4 module 4k, Repair 3k, Personality chip 1k

LE, 2-1B and R2 15k

LEa, 2-1Ba, R2a and R3 20k

Probot 18k, Adv 23k

R4a 8k

Seekers 1.5k Probes 2.5k

I know these are higher or lower than others on Tempest. Aquarius is a lot keeper than me and a new MDE Kaylor (I think) is cheaper. These prices were orginally based on that spreadsheet posted here a long time ago. Now they are adjusted to keep me from getting burned out and also still selling droids.

Here is what i charge:

• Crafting station-5000cr


• LVL 4 Module-500cr


• LVL 5 Module-1500cr


• R5-5000cr


• R4-8000cr


• R2-25000cr


• R3-35000cr (hate making these)


• MSE-500cr


• WED Treadwell-3500cr


• DZ-70-3500cr


• Arakyd-3000cr


• Seeker (stack of 10)-5000cr


• Le Repair-15000cr


• Probot-15000cr


• Adv. Probot-20000cr


• Surgical B-2-25000cr


• Protocal-35000cr


• Binary Load Lifter-50000cr

Those are the prices i charge.