Ranger Archive

One of my friends is a master Bio-Engineer. He has this massive complecated algebraic equation he uses to price his creatures which take many things into account and then multipy certain things by a random number and divide other things by a factor the the same random number.

I have a background in engineering, which is math intensive, but his equation makes NO sence at all to me. I asked him why, and how he came up with it and he says "i don't know" and i was asking him about why he was randomly dividing by 4 and he goes, "i don't know" So i asked him why he was even using it and he says, "so its consistant"

So it occured to me that anything which is a randomly massive equation is setup so that its consistant. But if its random, its pointless because it isn't consistant with anything else. So i would like to write up as formally as its ever going to get written up, "Laediin's Pricing Guide"

I'm pretty lazy and rarely structure anything. So there will be no equations used in this guide. I'm writting this for every other lazy player who doesn't feel like using really goofy equations to price something.

As a standard, i randomly chose the number 3 credits per unit of resource.

First of all, everything hinges on the kind of day i've had before i log on. If i've had a relativly good day and no one really bothered me or asked me anything stupid at work(rarely happens) then my prices tend to be lower if i'm feeling generous. If i've had a bad day where people are really on my nerves and no one understands how their insurance works, i tend to be more angry when i get home and my prices tend to be higher as a result.

Then it depends on how much the person wants to buy and what they are using it for. Most people give customers a discount on large quantities of resouce. I find that the opposite works just as well. If you want a large stack, you need it for something. You want a large stack, so you are already spending a lot of credits. If you want a large stack, its usually to make factory runs of things. Since it takes forever to accumulate a large stack of Hide/Bone/Meat and you want it, i end up charging a lot and people pay me for it.

It depends on what its used for. Typically i get 2 order types. I get grinding orders and i get factory orders. Rarely i will get the random amount custom order. Now if you are buying crappy resource to grind through your profession to get to any fun part of your gameing experience, i'm not going to be the **edit** that charges you an arm and a leg to do it, that is just wrong in my book. So crappy grinding resources are usually pretty cheap. For factory runs people want huge stacks, and those people are going to be making a lot of money on their final products. So i take their return into consideration and charge more for large quantities of anything medium or high quality. And people pay. The random custom order i get for 300 or so units of high quailty or medium quality resource i price somewhere in the middle because it didn't take me long to get and the person clearly isn't running a factory of stuff to make a massive profit, so i really don't feel comfortable charging them a lot of money.

It depends on what the resource is. Bone is easy to get there are 2 types and multiple creatures will generate the same kind so bone tends to be randomly lower that my random standard. Hide tends to be around my random standard because i don't get a lot of orders for it. Meat tends to be higher because i get a lot of orders for it from BEs and Medical types. BE pets are expensive and they make a LOT of money on them. Same goes for medics. I used to be a doc and i know its insanely cheap to make enhance packs and they go for 1k credits per charge. So meat i tend to sell randomly higher than my standard.

It depends on the buyer. When i get people telling me what they need, how much they need and they don't whine over my price and they tell me whenever i can get it to them is fine, they get a lower price because they aren't causing me any aggrivation. When i get people who send me a /tell and they have these unrealistic demands like "I need Herbivore meat with OQ over 850 and PE over 900. I need 10k of it in 2 days." even if i happen to have something like that on hand, because they are being nitpickey, and i know they are just going to make a huge profit i charge them a lot because they are causing me the aggrivation of reading all the stats and finding huge stacks of really high quality resources and being all impatient about they need them in some short amount of time and they expect me to drop everything and run out to them. So for those, i charge an arm and a leg.

If i am friends with the buyer, they get it for real cheap. If the buyer is nice, they get it for a lower cost. If its a repeat buyer, they get it for a lower cost. If the buyer has annoyed me, and trust me, i keep lists of that because you can't escape your reputation, i charge more. If the buyer causes me aggrivation for any reason, i charge more.

The quality matters. Crap is anything low enough in the stats that the person needs that it will come out poor quality. Average is anything that comes out that people would pay a reasonable price for on the final product. Good quality is anything that will come out superior that people will pay a lot of money for. So i modify accordingly.

This whole guide is random, the only solid number i used is my random standard of 3cpu. Everything is random off that. How does this all work?

As an example, the other day a BE messaged me and asked if i had a "large" stack of meat to sell him. I asked him, "what quality are you looking for?" and he says, "crap, anything that is crappy you have lying around, i'm grinding through BioEngineer so whatever you have." This made me happy to hear because i could get rid of random stacks of 300 that i had lying around my house(which is messy). Normally when people want a huge stack i charge them more because it takes me forever to get that large of a stack and i'm not out running missions. So my price shot up first. But then another factor kicked in. They were grinding on it and only wanted crap, which drops my price way down by a random amount which i decided on. Now I know its annoying when you are grinding through something pointless because no one wants to buy crap so you aren't making any money on it. Plus this is a potential future customer. Now meat i sell for more than my random standard of 3cpu because no one keeps large stacks of it and i can sell it for more. However, the person was nice, wanted a large amount(12k and his friend wanted 20k). And i was able to get rid of random stacks lying around my house. He was nice about it and told me whever i could get it to him that was fine. I didn't have to work today, so i wasn't annoyed at anything unrelated that could have happened. I ended up selling them at 3cpu. They both were exatic becuase they got a really good price on something that is usually expensive, so they were able to save their money to advance further in their professions.

So there it is. My random pricing guide for lazy people who hate formulas

-Laediin

Master Ranger

Kauri