Shipwright Archive
Thread: An Observation Regarding Low Ballers and their Future as Shipwrights.
OHafi
Fri Nov 12, 2004 6:12 am
#27
I mastered SW on the first day too. I sell everything at 4cpu. I dont consider that lowballing. I consider it fair. First of all, my guild has really helped out, and have dropped probably 50 harvestors for me. Steel is the biggest problem of course. I did have a lot stockpiled, but I find I cannot go crazy overcharging my guildies when they are helping me out with free resources. And all my chassis are made with best resources, as well as components and sub components. Ok I am not making 100 million a week but so? I get repeat customers who are very pleased with their purchases, refer me to their friends and who return again and again.
I also r/e all the loot my guild (170+ people) brings to me for 1 cr each and re-sell it at 1k each, and so people who dont have a lot of money are still able to find some real deals on that vendor, like a 900+ capacitor with 45 recharge, all for 1k.
I charge 10k per Mark for crafted components ( all with top notch subcomponents)for those who dont want looted components. And back to 4cpu for ammo.
I would rather charge a fair price than an inflated one. People soon see that quality and fair prices are more important than buying a 6k chassis on the bazaar that wasnt experimented on and will not be able to hold any upgraded components. I will continue in the profession, as I did with architect because I think demand will always be there, for something, and I see it as providing a service to the community rather than a gouging of the community.
I mean, really, what good is 100 million in the bank when there is so little to buy in this game?
And the fact is, it gives me more pleasure to hear someone say "wow, your ships are the best and you dont try to take advantage of the demand. I'll be back and I'll tell all my friends."
Thats really what I am in it for. A good, fair reputation.
_SilentWarrior_
Fri Nov 12, 2004 6:29 am
#28
ok think of the independant sw who doesn't have guildies to drop 50 harvesters for him for his resources.thats fine to give discounts to guildies for suppling you with resorces but the independant will need to charge alot more to keep his resources stocked up and to make a profit.its the sw's that are charging 2 cpu that are undercutting the market and hopefully they will be gone soon.
Demio_Olaron
Fri Nov 12, 2004 6:34 am
#29
Jagged-F3l wrote:I'm in this for the long haul, so I have come up with a simple list of business rules for my shop:
- Try to keep prices in line with the economy. This consists of watching other SW's prices, checking bazaar on occassion, and monitoring resource prices. This might mean that I have to occassionally pull everything off my vendors and put it back on at different prices--I don't have a problem doing this.
- Don't rip off my customers. I want to build a respectable client base, and you don't do that by ripping people off.
- Try to make a reasonable profit. I have overhead in the form of maintenance and energy costs (i.e., structures, harvesteres, and factories). More importantly, I have to keep saving money to make that occassional resource shopping trip, which can easily cost millions.
- Attempt to keep my vendors stocked with inventory I foresee people needing. Sometimes I miss on my predictions, and have to adjust. The key to this is talk to people that come into the shop. Take the time to talk to folks that send tells (because they did a search and found you, or saw you run by with your coveted "Master Shipwright" title). This is all new, and people have a lot of questions. I feel grateful that I had a 2 month beta experience to lean on.
- For a lot of reasons, do allow customers to come to you with special orders. I have easily made more sales through fulfilling special orders than through my vendors. What are the reasons? First, as I pointed out, people have questions. Second, people that have been learning want to differentiate themselves. For example, I have one customer that has developed tactics that require speed and agility, while I have another customer that has developed tactics on having a big, heavy, hard-to-kill ship. Third, JIT (Just In Time) business strategy will win every time, especially for items that require a great deal of resources. What are you going to do, stock your vendor with 10 YT-1300s--what if you do this, and 10 customers immediately come to you looking for Decimators? You can't underdo those YT-1300s, and you just spent all your resources on making YT-1300s. You're toast at this point.
That's exactly what I'm thinking
Jenden
Fri Nov 12, 2004 7:17 am
#30
I think there's one thing a lot of people are missing, the value of the resources isn't what it cost you to get them but what you could sell them for. I'm using all high quality resources, stuff I could easily sell to a WS/AS for 10cpu on my server, or use in my own droids which work out to about 10cpu. Why would I charge any less for a ship? If I were using crap resources that sold for 3cpu, I would sell at around 5cpu, but I prefer to make quality stuff. As it is I've lowered my prices under 10cpu and still get laughed at for charging 450k for my X-wings, and I'm essentially taking a 2.5cpu loss on every one I sell. Resource prices may start dropping with the solo group changes, but until I see that they will/do, I will not sell at any more of a loss.
hase2
Fri Nov 12, 2004 7:31 am
#31
then tell me - with the insane chassis decay.
why should i buy 1 ship with slightly better stats when i can get 2 for the same money (leave out broker costs)?
i doubt, that your high quality ships last 2 times as long as the med quality ones.
Bsshadow
Fri Nov 12, 2004 7:32 am
#32
_SilentWarrior_ wrote:
have a sw on lowca doing the same thing 500k for a YT-1300 and saying everyone else is over priced,he's charging 2-2.7 cpu for his chassis's
Guess he means me by this post. But I never stated anywhere that everyone else is over priced. Would love you to show me a post where I stated that.
The only post that came relatively close to this is the one where I warn people to check the crafter on their purchases. Why, because I have had SW's buy out my stock multiple times to resell at 2-3 times the price. That is ripping the customeroff. I have no issues with how any shipwright prices their stock that they make, but I do take issues with people buying me out and reselling my stuff at a much higher price.
And I don't plan on quitting shipwright anytime soon. I price my chasis where I can make a decent profit (since my resource are almost all mined). Where I make more money is in my components (even though they are priced resonably as well).
If all I was after was a profit, I could sell my stockpile of resources for a much higher CPU than what I get making SW stuff to sell. I do SW because I enjoy the interaction with customers. I don't need a bankroll that exceeds what I need to survive in game. I still have enough credits stockpiled to buy almost anything I want in game, so why do I need to charge 10cpu for something that only costs me .5-.6 cpu to make?
Vedacon
-Padre-
Fri Nov 12, 2004 9:53 am
#33
a few intersting points were brought up, but i feel the author(s) didn't analyze or expound on their comments enough, so im adding my 2 cents:
solo-group-nerfing is going to do alot more than reduce the influx of credits. the chain of events is like this: credit/hr goes from 500k to 100k. to reach the same amount of cash, players will have to play 5x longer, which directly effects doctor buffs. doctors will be buffing twice as much....players wont stay on for 5 hrs and if they do they'll need to get buffed twice. if they dont stay online for 5 hours, they wont have made as much money as they previously were making, so they'll have to go get buffed again and play a little more to get that 500k cash pool. of course, that is assuming players will *think* they need the same amount of cash.
and who in real life decides making less is better than making the same, or more? NO ONE.
this free-for-all in space is going to end. people are going to have to make cash if they want good parts, because no shipwright is going to sell for less than 10cpu (ON ANYTHING, even chassis), once they've sold out, had to run around and buy material at 5-15cpu, and get screwed over by resource sellers. resource sellers arent going to come down until the demand for matrerial comes down. the demand will lessen, but im already making people's SECOND master class ship because as one poster astutle pointed out:
chasis decay, and you cannot stop it. making it out of 999everything wont keep that from happening. period. and the decay/damage rate differential between an *uver* chasis and a *moderate* chasis is soooooo minimal it is NOT worth it to dump 999everything into a chasis. 400-800 works just fine on chasis, and produces results within 1% or less of 999 chasis. so you who are making your *uber* chasis, keep on doing it and keep on charging whatever ungodly price it is you are charging, because YOU will be the ones out of business, not the guy selling for 5-6cpu. no one is going to want to dump 2mil on your Oppressor when he can get 2 of the same thing with less than 1% difference, for the same price. and basically, a guy selling a 5-6cpu chassis can mine every component he needs, including the steel. the glut-rush of mass produced chasis and mass-selling of chasis is over. period. so if you'r whining about the guy selling for whatever it is he is selling for, maybe you shouldnt have used your 999steel. the demand for chasis will continue, but not like it was or has been for the past 2 weeks. therefor, all this mad running around looking for resource vendors who are stocked will also stop, or at least slow down. the resource vendors will start to become stuffed with over-priced raw materials and eventually, to sell their stuff, the miners will have to drop prices back to 2-3cpu. plain and simple, the glut rush inflated the market, and now that its going to settle back down, the prices will drop. that means selling 5-6 cpu chasis is TOTALLY feasible. within weeks all you 10-20 cpu chasis people will be the ones quitting SW, not the guy who is selling medium grade chasis @ 5-6cpu.
which brins me full circle to ground-hunting. people will continue to try to earn as much money as they can. so the price of avain meat will stay at 350cpu, because doctors will be buffing twice as much (see above), and using 2x the resources. in theory, people will hunt whatever gets them the most cash. if janta missions were payng 25k a pop with no loot/meat/hide/whatever other than cash, and a guy can pull a Yavin mission for 9k, gather 500 meats per mission, and sell 5 hrs worth of meat for 1mil..........what do you think he's going to do? janta for 9k or avianmeat missions for 9k+350cpu meat? not hard to think about. and meat like that only shows up once in awhile....so its not like 999avian meat is going to be falling from the sky droping the price to 3cpu. or even 35cpu. just aint gonna happen.
think about the change as a piece in a great big wheel, and you will see that selling 10-20cpu ships is ludicrous. it will NEVER happen, and if you are dreaming it will, you might as well quit SW right now. SW is not armorsmith. its not doctor. its not DE. its 5-6cpu for ships, and 20cpu on parts, and thats as good as it gets. the demand for uber ships is NOT there, and never will be, because the vast amount of resources required prohibits 95% of the player base from ever obtaining a 999ship....a ship destined for the scrap heap within 2 weeks of constant use.
anyways, i rambled on and probably didnt make alot of sense, but then again, maybe i did 
-Padre-
Fri Nov 12, 2004 9:57 am
#34
i meant to say, no shipwright is going to sell chasis for less than 5cpu.
demand is going to go way down as more people master. there will always be people who need ships, just not in the record numbers we've seen over the past 2 weeks.
prices for quality parts will always stay high.
but if you think you're gonna get 10cpu on a chasis, dream on. those days are over, and you need to gear your business towards competing with 3-6 or 5-6 cpu chasis guys.
sumner
Fri Nov 12, 2004 10:29 am
#35
I still can't figure out why people get so up in arms about us selling for 5-10 cpu. Yes ships are expensive, but they require a metric buttload of resources. Lets look at another profession. On my server an FWG-5 averages about 10K, out of curriosity I went and checked the resource requirements on one, including all subcomponents, and an optional scope you have a grand total of....are you ready for this...hope you are siting down....ok here goes...121 resources! Talk about insane markups, that is 82.6 cpu! I think just for giggles all shipwrights across all the servers should band together and show these people just how little we are making versus our expenses! Imagine their faces when they looked on every vendor and TIE lightweights, Z-95, and scyks were all 413000 credits, and anX-wing was 4956000!
Tlk
Fri Nov 12, 2004 11:20 am
#36
To the original post Tanks, I am a low baller, and know what? I still make a profit by harvesting all my own resoruces and energy. The only way I or any otehr low baller Shipwright will go out of business is when we tire of the profession.
The mentality that only higher prices gaurantees a successful business is ludicrous. If someone knows they can request a ship chasis or special item, and with in a day retrieve it made to their specifications, then why would they pay more? I always bought my normal use items and special orders from people I trust and respect (and was willing to pay for their service). If low ballers offer good service, quality that is equal, then they can run a very successful operation, but it all depends on what "successful" is to you. To me, making a profit so that I operate in green is successful. If I am able to craft an item better than I ever crafted before, then I am successful. I may not pull in the millions of credits in profit the other shipwrights might take in, but my vendors can be up as long as theirs are.
If it costs 2000 credits to harvest 5000 units of ore, and 1500 units of energy (which is harvested at 2000 credits for 7500 units) then it is costing a shipwright 0.67 credits per unit of resource used. Sellingone ship at 20000 credits (and it cost 15000 units to craft) yields a profit of roughly 10000 credits. Out of this profit there are other insignificant costs (vendors, house maintenance) but it is adequate in time to recoupe any losses in mastering the profession as well as the initial investment in the harvestors.
Edit: I also offer to make any ship for 5000 credits if the buyer supplies all the resources.
I hear this argument about valuing your time. Guess what, this is a game, I only craft if it is fun and enjoyable to craft (hence the time investedis meaningless unless your sole purpose is to make credits as quickly as possible), I sell at a price that will continue to allow me to craft. Huge profits, that is not what my business will be about.
Message Edited by Tlk on 11-12-2004 01:55 PM
LonelyGhost
Fri Nov 12, 2004 1:07 pm
#37
I'm on Tempest. I actually have not yet gone researching others prices yet. We have 2 or 3 shops with several SW joined up to offer a wide variety of stuff. They will likely be where I go first. But even if they are much higher or lower than me, I probably will not change my prices too much. If I meet my daily or weekly goal, I am content. I've been coasting on what I made on resource sales several months ago, and I very rarely splurge on stuff. I have some uber stack of stuff I sell when I wanna get back into 7 digits.
I must say I am overall pretty pleased with the way it has been going. Like was said up top, those who sell too low will get tired of having to finance SW through their other professions. But the sad thing is, there are lots of people out there with 9...count em NINE digits in their bank....thats a lot of financing!
BioBlender
Fri Nov 12, 2004 1:26 pm
#38
you all may not know but thay are nerfing solo groups on tc right now so it is going to become hard to think you are going ot get a mill+ for a mster level ship. I sell for 4cpu and have no problmedoing so I have been a crafter sence the game started and always come in around there. This is how much it costs me to harvest my resources. I am not going anywhere either as the poster a few above me stated.
Players should not have to spend a week or more gathering creds or have to pay for creds in rl to purchase a ship. How is a master entertainer, master musicin going to pay 1mil+ for a ship. thay should be albe to play the game the way thay want and still enjoy all aspects of the game. Solo grouping has ruined the game. I remember when everyone had to go out in a 10+ person group to defeat things on most planets. Well my 2 cents. Sorry we dont agree
BoogerSlinger
Fri Nov 12, 2004 1:50 pm
#39
BioBlender wrote:
you all may not know but thay are nerfing solo groups on tc right now so it is going to become hard to think you are going ot get a mill+ for a mster level ship. I sell for 4cpu and have no problmedoing so I have been a crafter sence the game started and always come in around there. This is how much it costs me to harvest my resources. I am not going anywhere either as the poster a few above me stated.
Players should not have to spend a week or more gathering creds or have to pay for creds in rl to purchase a ship. How is a master entertainer, master musicin going to pay 1mil+ for a ship. thay should be albe to play the game the way thay want and still enjoy all aspects of the game. Solo grouping has ruined the game. I remember when everyone had to go out in a 10+ person group to defeat things on most planets. Well my 2 cents. Sorry we dont agree
I agree with you. I personally use top resources and charge anywhere from 5-8cpu for all my goods. The biggest issue that most crafters in this profession are concidering now is their time and effort put into hand crafting items so the prices may vary from SW to SW depending on what they value there time at.
I think the main focus here are those who are selling good quality ships and components for less than 2cpu. This is actually happening as i talk to my customers about it. Example:
Had a customer ask me if 100K for a TIE Interceptor is good andI told him it depended on the mass and hitpoints. He stated the mass was 50K and the hitpoint were 1900......I was shocked to see someone selling this at 100K because that's roughly 1.6cpu. I said that it must be used then....Nope, brand new.
It's these guys and galsi think the post is referring too. And surely at these prices they will go belly up quick.