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Thread: Ship Costs
DigiDante wrote:
I much rather connect with a customer on a person to person basis then to mass produce something I'm not satisfied with.
Thats why I like shipwright so much, its a personal profession.
I agree with that. Like I said, in our coop, we have millions in very good resources. Diva steel, Kammris iron, yadda, yadda. Between the 6 of us and all our alts, we have 140 available lots to drop whatever. Last Lokian wild wheat spawn, we yielded over5 million units (for our doc).
We are very personable with our clients as well. We craft very good weapons, very good ships. We have ONLY high quality in mass production for our vendors.
The bottom line is, shipwright is simply too much profession for one person, as the high prices plainly show. As others realize this and begin group shipwrighting (made that word up, I think) your business will wane. I'm simply suggesting you share the prof with someone else, so that you can achieve lower prices and stay in business.
Different shipwrights focus on different components, and we work cooperatively.
I do contract work vs the engines and reactors I stock. I seem to make some of the best engines and reactors around, so thats what I focus on mass producing, but I do not mass produce hulls and waste my resources.
I'm on Corbantis, not sure what other SW are charging as I haven't seen much being sold in the open market, which is where I do most of my business. Anybody else on Corbantis that can give me an idea of what ships are going for? Or for that matter any SW/Artisan guilds I could join on Corbantis?
In game name : Tatcha DaBootcher.
These Shipwrights are basically saying: "Entertainers? F*ck them. Non-Combat Masters? F*ck them. Crafters who dont run a huge business and own 200 static lots? F*ck them too, as long as Im making money why should I care?" Its just not on. Work out how much an item costs you to produce, the tack on an appropriate sum for your time and effort, dont just say "I can sell this resource for XX cpu, so Ill charge XX+2 cpu for my ships!"
Mkappus wrote:
Here's where I have a problem. 10cpu and 20cpu for resources is simply gouging. There's no reason to sell it that high. Most servers have a bad inflation problem, and the root reason is this. If I sell on the trade forums, I always offer a buyout of around 6-8cpu (and 8 is stretching it). Could I get more? Sure. But that's not what it's about.
What is my time worth? If I price things at 20 cpu and they are bought as fast I can make them, why drop my price?
I have spent1 hour in space flying, and 14 hours doing shipwright since the expansion went live. Trust me I would rather be shooting down ties, but I am trying to provide a service to people.
Right now people are valuing it at 20 cpu or higher. It is not gouging it is the cost of my time to make things, and the cost to recoup the million in resources I used to get to master.
You keep missing my point. Sell for less, you will make more!!
Crafters have a decision to make. Either you want to make your losses back (then sell for less, I promise you will make it back), or you want to take to the skies and jack your price up for what you think your time is worth.
But don't try both, It may seem to work for now, but it won't in the longrun. The best business is repeat business and I, for one, don't want someone down the line saying, "Yeah, he's like everyone else and gouged because of the JTL craze."
I'd rather be know as the one who took care of someone while everyone else was gouging "just because they could get it", or "just because people are payin git." Gotta think ahead.
Message Edited by truewildman on 11-02-2004 08:40 AM
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Jazerai wrote:
now i'm a shipwright. to stay afloat, i need 2 accounts for lots. all of those lots require maintenance. i spend at least half the time i used to spend running around seeing the sights and shooting random mobs, checking harvesters and surveying. the resources needed for a set of ship blueprints is unreal. if i want to build a fewa-wings, i need to dedicate 10 harvesters for days. yes...days. i could sell these resources easily for3-5 cpu (high quality stuff) on the public bazaar. so why would i charge less when i put those same resources together into a ship?
truewildman wrote:
Jazerai wrote:
now i'm a shipwright. to stay afloat, i need 2 accounts for lots. all of those lots require maintenance. i spend at least half the time i used to spend running around seeing the sights and shooting random mobs, checking harvesters and surveying. the resources needed for a set of ship blueprints is unreal. if i want to build a fewa-wings, i need to dedicate 10 harvesters for days. yes...days. i could sell these resources easily for3-5 cpu (high quality stuff) on the public bazaar. so why would i charge less when i put those same resources together into a ship?
My group calculated it up one time. For the price of a harvestor, maintenance and power (if you mine the power yourself), then place that harvestor for the length on one spawn (usually 5-7 days) the worst case scenario price was 0.8cpu, usually closer to 0.5 cpu. That's the overhead. Anything past that is pure profit.
Now we get into the difference of the price one puts on one's own time. 0.5 cpu for the resources, I'd say 3-5cpu charge for a chassis is right on the mark. That's 2.5-4.5 cpu in your pocket.
Or, if you allow the "grind margin" another 0.5 cpu for grind quality resources, that's still 2-4cpu pure profit. Make one, say, Tier2 ship that uses approximately 18000 units in resources (forgive me if I'm off substantially, I'm at work) that is 72k in your pocket per ship chassis.
That's pretty good. Sell 10 chassis, you're almost a millionaire.
You sound a lot like the master shipwright I buy from He sells all his ships with top only resources at 2-5 CPU and he meets you and talks with you and is really nice. He is backed by one of the established"fun"guilds. So from the start he had, and still has,access to hordes of resources for grinding and for top crafting at no cost to him. He never sells out because of his guild backing. So he has absolutely amazing quantities in stock, all at the best of quality.
I send everyone to him. Every time I tell them his prices they go nuts. People selling for a ton ofcredits (mainly the ones not backed by a guild - not there fault) might be making what they think is a lot now, but the guy I found running his shop the way he does is rolling inshipwright profitsand has a pretty good permanent established customer base. He won't even need to advertise 
word of mouth takes care of people like him.
Example: I'm in game atm and just sent an ingame mail to a shipwright spamming is shop info and about custom orders. I asked for a price check on a style 4 Ixiyen as close to 80k mass as possible. He said around 730K. As opposed to the shop I goto where it's 200k with top end resources. Expensive guy was not backed by a guild. I told him I was comparing prices and we talked about these very things. Was a nice guy and he agreed that people backed by guilds can undercut by amazing amounts and just have way more time to run a good shop because they don't need to harvest full time (or even part time) and don't always have to buy resources from miners.He seemed a bit frustrated, especially compared to someone who is guild backed, but what can ya do about that? Not much.
Message Edited by toastyuroven on 11-02-2004 10:36 AM