Shipwright Archive
Thread: Shipwrights: In demand? How much do you earn per week?
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Ballpark
Mon Mar 14, 2005 11:55 am
#1
Hey--
I've beenthinking aboutjoining the profession, but I wanted to know how in demand ships actually are and about how much a regularly working Shipwright can possibly earn now a days. I understand it'll vary per server, but five me some figures. I play on bloodfin myself. Let me know please.
IIscandar
Mon Mar 14, 2005 12:21 pm
#2
If you keep a good stock of high quality parts in addition to chassis, you can make millions a week. It depends on your skill at running a business and keeping track of the demand of your products.
I sell20 components to every 1 chassis.I putabout 150k to 300k into the business each week, and usually make around 500k to a million. This doesn't count the cost of resources I had to buy if there have not been any good spawns in awhile. I do whole lot of crafting though. a WHOLE lot. =)
-Padre-
Mon Mar 14, 2005 12:59 pm
#3
3-6million credits a week and 20x the work any of the top-5 armorsmiths, or weaponsmiths,buffmakers,and chefs do.
if you like to craft and like to talk, dont go shipwright. you wont have time for both.
if critical fails get you down, dont go SW.
if having 5 houses filled with nothin but resources depresses you...dont go SW.
if waiting for 2+ weeks for a crap resource to re-spawn makes you sad, dont go SW.
if having your a$$ kicked for a month at a time, because someone *wanting to save the world* starts charging 1.5 cpu for crafted parts bothers you...dont go SW.
if you like the sound of humming factories, SW probably isnt your bag.
other than that, its a fun and challenging profession. the lack of factories kept the afk-money-monsters away from the profession. the demand for high quality components is there....but getting your name out there is a challenge. competing with already well established operations with months of resource spawns to back them up will be extremely difficult. you cannot go out adbuy 5 million worth of resources and expect to do well....not like you can with doc, smith, or chef. 5million is about what i spend every 2 weeks on resources.....and i run 50 MOBILE (not static) harvesters with the aid of a few friends.
it is not an un-serious business. if you take it VERY seriously, it will be rewarding, and you will crush the competition.
Message Edited by -Padre- on 03-14-2005 12:00 PM
Ballpark
Mon Mar 14, 2005 4:52 pm
#4
so shipwright isn't about running schematics through a factory? I know nothing about the profession... you have to make each individual ship? This is an interesting idea to me... sounds fun... may wanna try this with one of my characters.
IIscandar
Mon Mar 14, 2005 4:55 pm
#5
Ballpark wrote:
so shipwright isn't about running schematics through a factory? I know nothing about the profession... you have to make each individual ship? This is an interesting idea to me... sounds fun... may wanna try this with one of my characters.
You can make subcomponents such as max-damage intensifiers in the factory that you can then add in when making a blaster for example. You can use a factory to make missles, but for components and ships, it is all by hand.
Subcriminal
Tue Mar 15, 2005 7:56 am
#6
It's not a lot compared to armorsmith but it's still a very cushy living. However the work is hard because the money is in ship parts and consumables, most final combines need to be hand crafted and theres a LOT of variation for types of weapons and armor. It can get annoying when you need to make:
a big batch of mark 3 quick-shot ions, blasters, disrutors..
another big batch of mark 3 max-damage ions blasters, disruptors....
another big batch of mark 3 speed limiter ions, blasters, disruptors.........
Oh lets not forget the mark 4 quick-shot ions, blasters, disrutors..
And the mark 4 max-damage ions blasters, disruptors....
And the mark 4 speed limiter ions, blasters, disrutors..
Oh but WAIT we're not done....
Let's not forget the mark 5's, luckily you don't have to stock as many as those since Aces usually only need to buy equipment ONCE since they're done with the grind... Make some speed, max-dam and limiter versions of all kinds of those...
Oh wait, did I mention pilots need different types of capacitors depending whether they have a multi-gun ship or a single gun ship? But don't bother making those except on request since looted ones are usually much better....
Keep in mind this is a fraction of your crafting headache, as this pretty much just weapons...
Notice I say mark 3-5 and not 1 & 2... well, if you had to hand craft this much stock by hand, you'd probably rather focus your crafting time making the parts that actually pay the bills.
Message Edited by Subcriminal on 03-15-2005 09:57 AM
Ackew
Thu Mar 17, 2005 7:06 am
#7
Ballpark wrote:
Hey--
I've beenthinking aboutjoining the profession, but I wanted to know how in demand ships actually are and about how much a regularly working Shipwright can possibly earn now a days. I understand it'll vary per server, but five me some figures. I play on bloodfin myself. Let me know please.
Well if you can make the best on the server then you CAN make MANY millons but as the above people have said its a LOT of WORK. You need NINETEEN different resources and ALL of these MUST BE UBER.
But with the global vendor serach comeing i would'nt bother as thats going to be the end of crafting as we know it.
Jagged-F3l
Thu Mar 17, 2005 11:59 am
#8
I don't make alot crafting ships, maybe on average 250-400K per week. You have to take into account that I don't keep my vendor as well stocked as some would like me too (it mainly comes down to time; the current state of the profession makes it time consuming, and hence you take out of it what you put into it). However, most of my revenue comes from custom orders, which derive from players contacting me, followed by lengthly discussions concerning their tactics and what they want out of a ship. The reward hasn't been the credits, so much as it has been the relationships I have made being a shipwright.
Cormyr
Thu Mar 17, 2005 6:02 pm
#9
Agreed, more factory support is needed. This is an issue that needs to be worked out with the devs. Hand crafed ships are cool though, and give it a personal feel.
Votiva
Fri Mar 18, 2005 12:58 pm
#11
I'm sorta in the same boat. I've been toying off an on with getting into the shipwright business myself. Mainly because, well I love to fly but I'm running into issues finding good reliable shipwrights. Not just people who will make a bunch of parts and throw them out on a vendor, but someone who will sit down with the customer and actually go through the steps on a total ship refit with them. Yeah doing custom work for people is tedious, but I look at shipwrights the same way I look at custom car mechanics in the real world. Maybe I've just had bad luck on my server, but I've only found one shipwright who's able and willing to sit down with me and help work out what my ship needs based on what I want to do with it.
So what would you folks say the job market (for lack of a better term) would be like for someone doing custom work on Starsider would be like? Is it something that I should even bother with? And at the same time, do any of you know shipwrights who pay that kind of attention to their customers, because I would hate to hurt someone elses business.
So what would you folks say the job market (for lack of a better term) would be like for someone doing custom work on Starsider would be like? Is it something that I should even bother with? And at the same time, do any of you know shipwrights who pay that kind of attention to their customers, because I would hate to hurt someone elses business.
Strudle
Fri Mar 18, 2005 10:12 pm
#12
honestly I am sickened by the "save the galaxy" crafters I see in this forum who think its great to not have factory support.
Its actualyl destroyed the proffession. Im sick of having to re-experiment re-assemble and re-type the name on components i am making that are suppsoed to be the same on my vendor.
Any SW that tries to keep a full vendor is simply bored by this
TomoRainer
Sat Mar 19, 2005 12:12 am
#13
Votiva wrote:
I'm sorta in the same boat. I've been toying off an on with getting into the shipwright business myself. Mainly because, well I love to fly but I'm running into issues finding good reliable shipwrights. Not just people who will make a bunch of parts and throw them out on a vendor, but someone who will sit down with the customer and actually go through the steps on a total ship refit with them. Yeah doing custom work for people is tedious, but I look at shipwrights the same way I look at custom car mechanics in the real world. Maybe I've just had bad luck on my server, but I've only found one shipwright who's able and willing to sit down with me and help work out what my ship needs based on what I want to do with it.
So what would you folks say the job market (for lack of a better term) would be like for someone doing custom work on Starsider would be like? Is it something that I should even bother with? And at the same time, do any of you know shipwrights who pay that kind of attention to their customers, because I would hate to hurt someone elses business.
I actually do a lot of custom work for people on Starsider and it's very profitable. Fun, too; taking a ship right up to its mass limit is one of my favorite parts of the profession.
Judging from the amount of people coming to me these days, I'd say SSer's job market for custom shipwrights has got to be pretty good. Certainly good enough to have room for one more if you wanted to take it up. Besides, different shipwrights fill different segments of the market, so I don't think you have to worry too much about the competition.
As far as factories go, sure it's a pain, but if you craft 25-50 of a given item at a time, even a high-volume shipwright can keep a stocked vendor with minimal time invested. Furthermore, the gross profit we're making is so intense that I've come to view them as even more necessary than I used to. Not only that, but the lack of factory support makes our profession much more resilient to the upcoming merchant changes. Even if one guy floods the market with high-quality, low-cost stuff, he's going to have a hell of a time keeping up with demand when he's got to handcraft every item. That incites him to change his pricing even as it leaves the market open for other shipwrights. I know some of us remain unconvinced of the positives of limited factory support, but most of us think it's a good thing, maybe one of the best things about shipwright.
As for the profit potential.. the upper limit is very high. For a while I was making 500K-1M a day, then after Christmas it dropped to about half that, and late last month, when I was busy and couldn't keep up with restocking, it may have been as low as 50-200K a day. But over the last four days I've made roughly 30M as a shipwright. I'm not even sure how it happened, and it's taken a lot of work, but it's a wealthy business if you get the market figured out.
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