Shipwright Archive
Thread: An Observation Regarding Low Ballers and their Future as Shipwrights.
Debrick wrote:
Tanks wrote:
...went to the shop the told me was much cheaper then mine and found the compnents where FAR worse than mine. One told me about this shop that sold for a third of what i charged and when i had a look my mk2 stuff was 50% better than thier mk4.
Yep, my experience exactly. Today I went to this shop that had "great" selection and prices. His Mark 4 reactors were 60K compared to mine that are 75K, however my MK3 reactors which sell for 45K have 1.3K more regeneration rate. So, it is a good deal if someone is looking at prices only, but in reality they are getting ripped off.
I think part of what we need to do also is to educate the Pilots. Components with optional sub-components will cost more and of course provide better performance as well. That is already happening somewhat, I have people coming to my shop and buying stuff for their friends as well, once they see the stats.
I was reading though this and I thought that a lot of you are comparing things that should not be compared. And Tanks hit it on the head; its not about the price per unit of resource, its the price pre QUALITY resource. Most lowballers (with the exception of those with the power of large guilds handing them their resources) are just throwing out chassis’s and components to put them out without really putting much thought into it. They are not true crafters and do not realize the goal of excellence. True shipwrights will charge what the part is worth. If it is a top quality part then it will bring a premium.
It all about that you can live more thantwice as long with a higher quality ship. If the differences are as vast asTanksis saying then the ship with the cheap parts would be the equivilent of a Jalopy and will be a piece of junk.
hase2 wrote:
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.
The problem with this is that most players do not have the amount of money you are asking for chassis and parts. There are definately people out there that can afford to drop tons of cash on the best quality ships. Heck, I have 7 pre-orders for firesprays when I get my last segment (20 mil per) but a majority of the population simply can't afford what you're selling. I have done ships with both high quality (stats over 900) and low quality (all stats under 400) and came up with minimal difference. The point is, there are markets for both. I sell higher quantity, you sell higher quality. Not everyone can afford a Mercedes, most people I know have to settle for a Ford, or Chevy.
-eliza wrote:
Vymordryss is right. Things are crazy on Starsider.
JtL came out. My armor sales went straight through the floor. I thought, "Oh, I'll grind SW and sell chasses to buy more materials." O, foolish girl! (We won't even mention what JtL has done to the market for hides. And what SW grinding has done to the resource vendors. Ugh.)
I've bought tier 0, tier 1, and tier 2 chasses on the bazaar. Yes, dearies, tier 2. Only a trickle of my grind-quality stuff has sold at 4cpu, so I've postponed my grind. I'm going to wait a month and see how the situation is at the time. Lots of things about SW look interesting, especially the RE. But it's a zoo right now.
-eliza, hey there. Never really talked to you but I think we have seen each other while advertising our goods 
-eliza can attest to the fact you can't buy steel on Starsider for less than 4cpu, if you can even find it period 5cpu is actually more of a current accurate price. So selling stuff for less than the raw material is worth is batty imho.
Luckly for us, I had 10m of grind quality, 10m of mid-grade and 20m of ultra high grade stockpiled. So when we saw the market shift, we just used grind quality for chasis, still making them pretty well which allowed us to sell them at 6cpu and still turn a profit. Useing mid-high grade on Ordnance and selling for 10cpu. Then we have 2 classes of equipment, one high grade at 20cpu and 1 ultra high grade at 40cpu. I know the 40cpu is high but we are using some resources that would sell raw for 20, like Takuv. Reguardless we still clear massive sales ever day.
Harvesting your own just does not work for us. We produce A LOT. And there are really only two of us running the shop as the 3rd is a bit MIA. We stock multi ships and 1000's of ordnance. We burn millions and millions of steel every couple days.
----
Anyhow, there is a simple solution. Make the resource values REALLY COUNT. There are a lot of people that don't mind paying a jillion creds for very high end stuff. They will always exist. There are also people that don't care about quality and just want something dirt cheep. So let the lowballers have thier market, and let the high end crafters have thiers by increasing the weight of the resource values.
PS - Send me a tell in game sometime Eliza, maybe we can work something out
DingoBoi wrote:i buy my resources.. I markup and resell.You harvest your resources and markup and resell.While the principal is the same, the fundamental concept being missed is that those resources you harvest have an intrinsic value in themselves as raw materials. If you can sell them raw at 3cpu, and you price say at 2cpu for finished ships, why even bother?Just don't claim to run a business when you are running a charity.
It has been stated before: This is a game.
And if somebody has fun selling his ships below resource market price, so this is something he can do. Sure, he could get richer, just selling those resources. But he might not have as much fun. For some people the reason to start crafting is not the money. My SW has more money, then she is likely to spend during the next few months or even years. So what benefit do I get from making money?
On the other hand, profiding a fellow player with a ship helping him to outfit his ship is fun for me. The interaction with the pilot is fun for me. Return customers are fun for me. Crafting and finetunig ships is fun for me.
So where do I earn more fun? Putting resources on the bazzar or a vendor might make me more money, but building ships makes me a lot more fun.
Me, I am in this game for fun, not for credits...
(However, things would probably be different, if I could exchange credits for RL money
).Regards
Niacia
DingoBoi wrote:
i buy my resources.. I markup and resell.
You harvest your resources and markup and resell.
While the principal is the same, the fundamental concept being missed is that those resources you harvest have an intrinsic value in themselves as raw materials. If you can sell them raw at 3cpu, and you price say at 2cpu for finished ships, why even bother?
Just don't claim to run a business when you are running a charity.
I don't factor in resource value in the open market as my resources are not for sale on the open market, hence have 0 intrinsic value. Now you may say I'm ignoring the fact that they can be sold for that, but I say I'm not a resource seller, I'm a shipwright.
I know what they cost me to get, and how long it takes me to make things, then I work out what I feel is a good price based on that
Example:
A Master level ship taking 150k units of resource would cost me close to 100k to get (harvesting power and paying maintenance on harvesters to get the the resource) nowif I sell that ship for 450k credits, I make 350% profit.
I'm happy with that amount of profit on an item that takes me a couple minutes to actually craft (the harvesting time I don't mind as I'm constantly harvesting, so will always have an stream of resources coming in). My customer is happy with that because they see those Ships selling for 1 Million plus.
Aomircko wrote:
Aomircko wrote:
I don't factor in resource value in the open market as my resources are not for sale on the open market, hence have 0 intrinsic value. Now you may say I'm ignoring the fact that they can be sold for that, but I say I'm not a resource seller, I'm a shipwright.Then you are only fooling yourself. They do have intrinsic value whether you choose to believe that or not.
I know what they cost me to get, and how long it takes me to make things, then I work out what I feel is a good price based on that So you have a HOBBY and not a business...how nice for you.
DingoBoi wrote:
Aomircko wrote:
Aomircko wrote:I don't factor in resource value in the open market as my resources are not for sale on the open market, hence have 0 intrinsic value. Now you may say I'm ignoring the fact that they can be sold for that, but I say I'm not a resource seller, I'm a shipwright.Then you are only fooling yourself. They do have intrinsic value whether you choose to believe that or not.
I know what they cost me to get, and how long it takes me to make things, then I work out what I feel is a good price based on that So you have a HOBBY and not a business...how nice for you.
Ehm, is SWG for anyone of us anything else then a hobby? No one is running a buisiness.
The only difference is: "For some of us, it is a hobby to pretend they are running a business".
And, even taking a look at RL, even some companies are run in a way, that it appears somebody is having a hobby...
You cannot force somebody to use the same prices to sell stuff, that you use. If somebody is running a charity, it is his choice, and there is nothing you can do against this. Nor should you be able to do something against this.
This game can be played in more then one way, and the only relevant thing is, whether a player has fun. As long as a lowballer is having fun, he will be selling ships. He is not in the SW "business" to make as much money as possible in as little time as possible. If he is making credits in this process, all the better. And no pilot is going to complain.
Of course, it hurts those of us, that want to make as many credits as possible. Or rather, it does make earning credits somewhat more chalenging.
Regards
Niacia
DingoBoi wrote:
Aomircko wrote:
Aomircko wrote:
I don't factor in resource value in the open market as my resources are not for sale on the open market, hence have 0 intrinsic value. Now you may say I'm ignoring the fact that they can be sold for that, but I say I'm not a resource seller, I'm a shipwright.Then you are only fooling yourself. They do have intrinsic value whether you choose to believe that or not.
I know what they cost me to get, and how long it takes me to make things, then I work out what I feel is a good price based on that So you have a HOBBY and not a business...how nice for you.
Now why on earth would I stop mining my 10 cpu Iron to make 5x less profit? shipwrights aren't the only profession in the game. I'm sure other crafters are really interseted and will pay that. If spawns on your server are good they aren't low balling for long.
Message Edited by gregdlewis on 11-16-2004 06:12 AM