Pilot Archive
Thread: Anyone else have a love/hate thing for SW's?
Ducimus wrote:
Heh, im not going to do another pilot profession. Getting a vette group together is a PITA and i dont feel like camping out in kessel or sitting in cnet for a week hoping to catch one. That and i still have a full compliment of high quality rebel ships im still trying to sell to recoup my SOME of loss on them. I think i'd have better luck just giving them away to some newbie.
I'm just saying, you have done so BEFORE.
"most SW would make more money just selling the mined resources than spending the time to turn 60,000 minerals into a 200,000cr chassis."
Thats the truth, plain and simple.
The way I see it is people who think SW charge too much for higher level stuff must be terrible pilots. The prices I was charging for my ships and components were laughable - I could buy 10 times that with one duty mission I found out when I started piloting all the time. All I do, the secret, is fly duty missions until my inv is full of components then I go home. I always come back with 90 or so components on top of whatever cash I make in the mission.
Maybe, maybe, SWs overcharged before they put in Chassis vendors buying components, but not any more.
Now i did not one star you, I even 5 stared your first post. What I see as not being understood very well in many of these posts is the fact that SW are selling at less CPU (even the gougers) then most every other profession as it is. They also spent a ton to get there. Now if you are going to reply with "I don;t care what it took" then my response is simply I dont care what it took to you get that 1 mill cr, I am going to charge you that much for the chassis
Ducimus wrote:
1.) Im not paying your way to master SW. I dont care how much you put into mastering a profession, that is NOT my problem. My problem is the part or ship in question that i want to purchase, not how much you want to make up for whatever it is you lost in grinding skill boxes. Take your problems out on my credits in bank and we don't do buisness, plain and simple.
Not meant in a bad way, but then how would you think a SW goes about offsetting the over 5 million units of resources used to master?? the difference is HUGE compaired to other professions. I am not looking to flame ya here, just to understand that even at 1 cpu its over 5 million CR to master. Thats an investment (in time/cr/whatever) a MSW made and anyone would expect a return on that. You can't expect a MSW to "forget (s)he paid that"
2.) Everyone knows chasis/parts cost resources. But theres a big difference between
2A.) the SW who says, 750K for a 235K mass ship and 1 mill for a 240K mass ship
The issue here is resource quality and the difference that 5K mass can make in a ship. It's a better argument to say that its a big deal when a weaponsmith or armorsmith charges more for a better slice when that makes no difference in resource cost or the final prodoct made. They get a few that have have a max slice and it sells for a TON more. That 5K difference in mass is a big difference in resource quality and can make all the world of difference in loading out a ship at master.
and
2B.) the SW who says, all ships , 5 CPU, no chassis is undermassed. 240K ship for 760K. thats fair in my book.
Message Edited by MonsofoLexius on 12-30-2004 07:47 PM
Message Edited by MonsofoLexius on 12-30-2004 07:47 PM
In my mind its fair to charge a person what the part/ship in question cost in resources, plus a reasonable markup for profit. It is a buisness after all, not a charity.
However,
I think its wrong to charage a person for the resource cost for the item, profit markup AND *drum roll* some "extra fee's" (however you want to name it) just to get back some of the cash lost while grinding for SW skill boxes. This was the point i was trying to make.
I dont intend to be mean, but if you take up a profession to do,buy, sell something, thats entirely your perogative. That was your decision, not mine. I had nothing to do with it. So i dont see why i should be made to pay for that decision.
Ducimus wrote:
My issue with point 1 is really a matter of principle.
In my mind its fair to charge a person what the part/ship in question cost in resources, plus a reasonable markup for profit. It is a buisness after all, not a charity.
But that 5K difference in mass IS a difference in cost of resources. Unlike that uber slice for WS/AS. A difference likt that on Scylla means using some resources that have not spawned SINCE JTL went live. That stuff does not come cheap
However,
I think its wrong to charage a person for the resource cost for the item, profit markup AND *drum roll* some "extra fee's" (however you want to name it) just to get back some of the cash lost while grinding for SW skill boxes. This was the point i was trying to make.
Any businessIRL that is started has to offset the costs of starting that business. So "the customer is always right" and "nothing is free" even masteringa profession in SWG
I dont intend to be mean, great conversation btw but if you take up a profession to do,buy, sell something, thats entirely your perogative. That was your decision, not mine. I had nothing to do with it. So i dont see why i should be made to pay for that decision.
To think that someone would not want a return on profits is crazy. No different then a gouging MSM (I am not one of them) saying "I dont care what it takes for you make X, if you can't afford it then change your profession
Message Edited by MonsofoLexius on 12-30-2004 08:17 PM
I suppose from one point of view you could look at as
resource cost
profit markup
labour fee's
Although realistically, eventually you would make back your loss on just your profit markup alone, and a factor run isnt very labor intensive
Then comes another question, at some point you would get your initial investment back, but at what point do you stop charging people for your decision to be shipwright? (wordsmithing 4 teh win)Not to change the subject, but it Almost reminds me of the music industry. You know music CD's used to be really expensive to make. BUt now are really cheap to make and produce,(even after royalties) so most of it is PURE profit. They never lowered their price to reflect newer technology that reduced the cost to produce them. SO they've been ripping everyone off for years and continue to do so. *shrug*
Message Edited by Ducimus on 12-30-2004 08:26 PM
The problem is that, for us shipwrights, a 100K block of high-quality steel can disappear depressingly fast. If I were able to harvest this stuff on a regular basis, it wouldn't be so bad, but Starsider has had one spawn of 900+ OQ steel since JTL launched, which is over two months ago now. And I need steel in EVERYTHING. Literally every item I can make, including subcomponents. When I blow through all this stuff, what can I do to get more? Why, I can buy from resource vendors and auctions.. where I'm competing with armorsmiths and weaponsmiths who charge 50-150 cpu for their product. And good lord, don't even make me think about competing for reactive gas with doctors charging 300-500 cpu for buffs /suicide
Remember: I'm selling my stuff for 16 cpu. To make a decent profit, especially when you think about all the time I'm spending with my nose pressed against the crafting station, I can't afford to buy any resources for more than 10 cpu. But these auctions and vendors, they aren't setting their prices according to those professions that sell at the lowest cpu, they're setting them to what the highest can pay. End result is I can never compete for the most uber of the uber resources up for sale, and I have to work my tail off just to find great stuff in the 5-10 cpu price range that results in what I consider a decent profit. I mean, I have to WORK. I have to watch the auctions like a hawk, check a dozen different resource vendors on a regular basis to see if any of them have anything listed for less than it should be, and whip all my friends into lending me their lots when that uber inert gas or carbonate ore or radioactive or aluminum or precious precious steel shows up in the galaxy. I'm sure other crafting classes do all those things sometimes, too, but in their case it's either to see even greater profit margins or because they've got too much energy. In my case, it's a cold, cold necessity.
Then, funny thing, I take all these killer resources I've picked up here and there and burn through them making ship parts that often sell at a cpu rate lower than some of the resources in them. Like the 995 OQ carbonate ore I found at the bargain-bin price of 10 cpu and is better than stuff I see listed at 50 cpu. Or the 996 OQ reactive gas I pulled up that I now see going for 20-35 cpu thanks to those accursed docs lusting after it. I'm not losing money in any tangible sense, since I never pay more for resources than I make selling them, and I offset some costs by mining the great resources on the occasions they deign to show their faces, but I try not to let myself do the math of my profit next to a top-tier resource dealers' potential, because I might make myself very sad very fast. And anyway screw that, I have a lot of fun making awesome parts that I know are making a big difference for the (wise and deadly) pilots that use them.
Point is I know it's expensive, and I bet a lot of pilots see my Advanced Blasters sitting there at 60K each and think I'm an incredibly fat man sitting at the peak of a mountain of equal parts gold and large-chested women. But a good shipwrights' margins are a lot lower than you'd think, and if we're rich it's often by virtue of hard work and good business sense, not by skinning pilots alive. I like being a shipwright--a lot of the things here I've called "work" often turn out to be fun, especially the sense of accomplishment I get from knowing I've put together a great product that pilots can, sometimes grudgingly, afford. It just sucks when the pilot thinks I'm ripping him off when I think I'm delivering him a bargain. Because wow, am I trying hard to do the very best for him.
(As an aside, I know the original post was in good fun, and I didn't take any offense from it or anything that's followed. Been a good discussion, one that prompted me to lay all this out in hopes that those love/hate pilots will have a better idea of why we're squeezing the blood right out of their bodies like some kind of orange that's filled with credits instead of juice.)
Easy: First in first to profit. Those who mastered first and gouged made an insane profit due to bieng the only ones that could make certain items. Anyone that purchased something in the first week or so probably paid for it, a lot. This is where the MAJORITY of most SW profit came from.
Try starting one now and see how much profit you make. /snicker