Game Guides Archive

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Darksfallen wrote:
Cost Per Buff Set: 848 credits
Cost Per Single Stat Buff: 142 credits
Resource Per Single Stat Buff: ~260 units

And we pay this much for buffs..... why?

Because - you incredible weasel - WE CAN!!!!!

And while we are at it Mark Twain once said that there are "Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics" All you've done is SELECTED a fist full of data, put your blinders on and did some fundamental math.

It's a free market.

And you are a whiner.

Captain Jonny

I am going to answer this the simple way. I will pay 15k for buffs because they are worth that much to me. Would I like them be cheaper? What paying customer wouldn't? But I can make that much money back in one mission.

The question to me is not in production cost. I am not in the med crafting/buffing business and I have no desire to be. A buff is worth this much to me and if docs are getting a gigantic markup good for them. Thank god I am not going through that resource nightmare.

Initially, when Tempest first came around, Fenster made buffs and buffed people. He did not sell his buffs to other people becasue he felt he made superior quality and it set him apart (and it did). He came up with the standard price of 6k per buff round. No one really used buffs much back then and didn't really understand so he was able to justify this price with the demand for them. Eventually the demand increased and the prices went up (and Fenster stopped buffing publicly because the demand was too great). I see Doctors charging 15k with lines that wrap around the coro spaceport rather frequently now. So while I appreciate your math, I think its rather beside the point. The point is most people deem buffs worth 15k and as such will pay this.

/shrug

Ultimately your only power is with your wallet. If you don't like the prices, don't pay or if you buff don't charge as much. I suspect if your prices are 6k or even lower you will burn out in one try when you realize how annoying and rude players can be. But maybe not. Do what you see fit. Me, I will pay what I think is fair regardless of what profit margin the doctor is or isn't making.

- Danison

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Darksfallen wrote:

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Mordeth123 wrote:

That means you forgot to add the period when you have no actual income from it, gathering resources without selling any products made with it costs money. Your buffpack theory has so many flaws that I would say it was a waste of time making it.

And btw, you say you have a 5cpu price on your ships. You can have that price atm cause Shipwright is a totally new profession, and the special resources was added into the game just recently. So tell me, what will you do that day when for example the best Gravitonic Fiberplast on your server costs 50cpu, and there hasn't been a good spawn of it for months(I have no idea how important Gravitonic Fiberplast is for SWs, it's just an example)

I gather my own resources, I don't care what it costs, I supply myself.

My previous Chassis Prices: Tier 1 20k, Teir 2 40k, Teir 3 80, Tier 4 100k

Go to Coronet at prime-time and buff for no charge with high quality buffpacks for a couple of hours, see how it works out.

I've done it many many times. It's the only wany I buff, most of the time I spend my time in Mining Outpost on Dant

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Ok, lets see. You're just avoiding my question. You say you suply yourself with stuff. Lets say you get 600k of the best Gravitonic Fiberplast on your server. After a couple of months you've run out of the good plast, and there has been no good spawn in the mean-time. Then you have to choose; buy some of the good fiberplast,(most likely at higher cpu than 5) and you have to charge more for a ship. Or you can sell crappy ships at that noone wants....
Note: I say it again, I don't have a clue about SW resources, so Gravitonic Fiberplast may not be important, I'm just making an example

I'm a medicore buffpack maker on Chimaera, I used to buff public but I don't have time to do that now. Lets see how I use my in-game time: Surveying, cheking harvies, supplying vendors, starting up factories, getting people to hunt for me. And the most time-consuming is to make schematics, it can take several hours to get 6 schems of good ABECs. I have 2 chars, one combat char and one doc/crafter char, I never have time to play with my combat char. But I enjoy it, I think it's fun, the crafting system is what keeps me in this game

The time it takes to gather resources, you just say it's easy to just plop a few harvies and let it run. Well, you need Herbivore and Avian Meat aswell. I hunted over 100k of Herbivore and 50k of Avian Meat before I started making anything. And during that time I had no in-come from it, I could have done other things, like mining for other crafters, so I have a potential in-come. To me that counts as a loss in-come.

This is just a game and you do as you choose, if you want to buff people for free and "loose" money on it(you have a higher potential income) that's fine. But don't whine when other people do as they choose. 95% of my customers are happy with the prices, and I've never moaned the times I had to pay 15k for a buff session for my combat char. I think people should just be happy that there are docs that bother to buff in public(it ain't much fun), we should be thanking them. And all they see when they get to the Doctor forum or Game Guides forum is whining about their prices, so why should they bother buffing people ?

Message Edited by Mordeth123 on 12-02-2004 11:50 AM

I never pay more than 10k.

Course, I never buff so...

You missed alot of details. It took me 4 months to get set up for making buffs due to how RARE good avian meat was on Ahazi for a while. Then once it came around, the long time doctors jacked the price of all the resources. 80 cpu for herb meat, over 200 cpu for avian meat, 8 cpu for Tatooine fiberplast! ANY NOBODY is bringing me any resources for free or loan exchange or ANYTHING.

And on top of it all, it takes alot of time doing this crap to the point I almost quit several times. Whatever money I make off these I have coming. And I charge less than everyone else. It's not as easy as going, "Hey, I want to make/sell buffs! Let's grind to MD and make it happen." I tried that and I am STILL working on it. Thankfully good avian meat finally showed up and solo groups got nerfed so the hunters will stop grinding for credits and refusing to hunt because they don't think the money is good enough.

Sure it sounds easy, but try it and compete with the Buff Kings on your server and see how well it goes. Then tell yourself after all that work, that you are not going to charge what everyone else is charging, because if you don't, you won't make it. You won't be able to afford the high prices they set on meat and other resources, and you will close shop.

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Darksfallen wrote:

It's all in there, even if you buy meat at 100cpu you will still profit 10million on a pack of 50 of each.

~8000 units needed for a whole set of 50 of each buff pack

8,000,000 credits at 100cpu

Selling buffs are 15k each will get you just shy of 19million...

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LOL! 10 million profit off a pack of 50? NEVER HAPPENED to me! I don't have time to sell what I make in starports, that's why OTHER doctors do it. It's a full time job trying to keep my resources, vendors, and factories stocked and going. I cannot afford to stay in starports for 2 hrs to buff people.

I used to buff, now I make the buffs and let other people sell them and make profit.

My profit off a pack of 50, at most would be 2.5 million at the prices I pay for resources, and the fact that I have to keep them cheap or else somebody else will get my business.

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Orthell wrote:

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Darksfallen wrote:

It's all in there, even if you buy meat at 100cpu you will still profit 10million on a pack of 50 of each.

~8000 units needed for a whole set of 50 of each buff pack

8,000,000 credits at 100cpu

Selling buffs are 15k each will get you just shy of 19million...

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LOL! 10 million profit off a pack of 50? NEVER HAPPENED to me! I don't have time to sell what I make in starports, that's why OTHER doctors do it. It's a full time job trying to keep my resources, vendors, and factories stocked and going. I cannot afford to stay in starports for 2 hrs to buff people.

I used to buff, now I make the buffs and let other people sell them and make profit.

My profit off a pack of 50, at most would be 2.5 million at the prices I pay for resources, and the fact that I have to keep them cheap or else somebody else will get my business.

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Try doing a comparison, maybe two weeks at a time (to get as much data as possible to compare with).
First two weeks, sell at your normal low price and do a note on how much you made (income-costs) and make a small note about how much time you spend making the amount of packs sold.
Next two, up the price and do the same comparison.

You might make more profit in less time with option 2, and can do something else with the extra time you get like starport buffing, corvette/dwb/whatever group hunts as doc, make other forms of medicals etc.

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Mordeth123 wrote:

Ok, lets see. You're just avoiding my question. You say you suply yourself with stuff. Lets say you get 600k of the best Gravitonic Fiberplast on your server. After a couple of months you've run out of the good plast, and there has been no good spawn in the mean-time. Then you have to choose; buy some of the good fiberplast,(most likely at higher cpu than 5) and you have to charge more for a ship. Or you can sell crappy ships at that noone wants....
Note: I say it again, I don't have a clue about SW resources, so Gravitonic Fiberplast may not be important, I'm just making an example

I'm a medicore buffpack maker on Chimaera, I used to buff public but I don't have time to do that now. Lets see how I use my in-game time: Surveying, cheking harvies, supplying vendors, starting up factories, getting people to hunt for me. And the most time-consuming is to make schematics, it can take several hours to get 6 schems of good ABECs. I have 2 chars, one combat char and one doc/crafter char, I never have time to play with my combat char. But I enjoy it, I think it's fun, the crafting system is what keeps me in this game

The time it takes to gather resources, you just say it's easy to just plop a few harvies and let it run. Well, you need Herbivore and Avian Meat aswell. I hunted over 100k of Herbivore and 50k of Avian Meat before I started making anything. And during that time I had no in-come from it, I could have done other things, like mining for other crafters, so I have a potential in-come. To me that counts as a loss in-come.

This is just a game and you do as you choose, if you want to buff people for free and "loose" money on it(you have a higher potential income) that's fine. But don't whine when other people do as they choose. 95% of my customers are happy with the prices, and I've never moaned the times I had to pay 15k for a buff session for my combat char. I think people should just be happy that there are docs that bother to buff in public(it ain't much fun), we should be thanking them. And all they see when they get to the Doctor forum or Game Guides forum is whining about their prices, so why should they bother buffing people ?

Message Edited by Mordeth123 on 12-02-2004 11:50 AM

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I didn't mean to avoid the question, sorry I guess I missed it. GFiber is a bad example as it's a ingredient for Shield subcomponents, while important, it takes about 25-250 units per object created. But I see your point. I don't know what would happen 100% honest, it's never happened to me. I'll be interested to see what does happen, perhaps I will but from Miners.... I would stop making things until a spawn happened though if it meant that or raise prices. People would be disappointed, and might go else where, but they would find good deals, and hopefully come back when I started making again. It's not about the credits to me, it's about turning out a good product at a reasonable price (profit being a very distant third).

I don't believe anyone here is whining. Asside from the 1* bandit that felt he needed to sweep all of my posts here reguardless of content... We are having a good conversation like grown up people, who feel strongly on both sides.

Again, I never said anyone was unhappy but me. I never said customers didn't want to pay the 15k or didn't value your buffs enough to pay that.

Why should they buff? Perhaps because they have the ability? Do they have to buff? No, I would venture a guess, and probably be right, they the majority of the Docs in this game are personal buff bots or secondary professions to buff combatants and PVPers.

There's currently nothing in the game for Docs, asside from other players and that content can be lacking when they have to deal with upset Docs (because of impatant/rude people).

You know as per the game Docs are never really meant to leave a Medical Center? That's our purpose? That Combat Medics are the "In the Field Healers?"

My hope is that Buffs will be fixed, 100% or 200% your current stat, nothing more. Prices will drop accordingly, I would help alot.

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Leana_Txorana wrote:

I finally understand the difference between Darksfallen and everyone else. We all recognize that time can be a factor but we are saying that your main source of income and playing time is based on being a doctor. Thus we must be able to have buff packs available and buffing on a fairly frequent basis.

Agree and somewhat agree but close enough.

That means we must hunt/gather/manage harvester much more often. It means we have to spend more time coordinating factory runs and much higher percentage of our time sitting in one spot buffing people. Thus this time component is huge.

My primary time is managing around 54 harvester, more sometimes if friends help out. Quite honestly and noncondesendingly I don't run out of resources. When I pull up any given resource I get up to 6-7 million. My primary time (when I am not badge hunting) is spent harvesting, surveying and handling maint on the extractors on the ground...

On the other hand, Darksfallen has said many times that it does not matter if you have to wait months for something to spawn, you can just do something else to make money while waiting for those great resources to spawn. In otherwords it seems as if Darksfallen will go weeks or more between the timesshe buffs people and uses that time to make his credits with other professions.

Hmm I see your point. I guess I missed this point. I don't sell buff packs so going a week or so of not sitting at a Star Port is not uncommon, or if I get a burr in the wrong place like with the corvette I spend hours and hours and days and days doing it. (AV-21 prices made me mad to... 2mil for a 0 effort item, but anyway...) Hmm I will consider this further.

I dont mean to put words in her mouth but it seems that Doctor is a secondary profession (or at least the buffing the general public) and when the stars are right and the resource have been gathered after months of little effort, she does not see any justifiable reason to charge for the timeshe sees as insignificant.

Doctor is very much my primary, though Pilot has my main focus right now (8 of 9 done!), along with Shipwright. But I'm always gathering resources for each profession. I dunno, I have 2 million of the last GREAT Vortex (Stun) Gemstone sitting in my living room, not sure why I never use it but it makes great coasters. I guess I have never hit a crisis... I'm sure it will come...

On ther other hand, doctors who buff the public as their primary source of income, may not have a good combat profession to harvest meat on the more advanced planets, would be spending a more significant time gathering resources, managing harvesters, doing factory runs, and the boring task of actually buffing the public. In this case the time component is much more compressed and thus significant and needs to be accounted for.

I have to disagree with Factory Runs, I'm sorry but nothing is more easy, our stuff takes FOREVER to factory, start it, change the name to reflect the completion data and time and do on with life. Finding an Extraction point can be hard, but if after all this time you are not on a Guild ingame mailing reguarding resource points, or like minded peers in the profession emailing of waypoints I highly suggest starting one... Harvesting can always be an issue I agree here, 15 sps and a droid and running along with a group gets you money and Meat. Just a suggestion, NOT telling anyone how to play or what to do.

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Great responce!