Shipwright Archive
Thread: Tips For Setting Up a Business?
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raheel117
Tue Aug 09, 2005 4:23 pm
#1
Hey, I am new MSW and and the task of getting all these resources is daunting, and was wondering if there were any tips which the accomplished SWs can give me or anyone else wanting to know how to go about setting up a succesful shop?
Lotifo
Tue Aug 09, 2005 6:55 pm
#2
There may be a sticky about this around here someplace too...
I don't know where you're at exactly, so I'll just assume you're starting from scratch.
I think the most sensible way to establish yourself is to work up slowly. Unless you have a ton of credits to begin with it can be rough getting your shop up and running.
If you're hurting for credits, pick up novice pilot and grind the hell out of space. Destroy missions will be your best friend. You'll get some much needed credits and even better, ship loot. I'd recommend you RE the level 1 parts only (they have the best bang-for-the-buck as far as getting firespray disks anyway) and sell the rest back to the chassis broker. Unless you come across something really nice anyway, but it'll mostly be low-level garbage at first and the instant credits will help you more.
With the credits you make in space, work on buying a fleet of harvesters. Start with personal harvesters (unless you can afford better) and start mining the bejesus out of steel. Alsokeep an eye on the bazaar for decently priced resources.
After that, just start stocking up your vendors and reinvest your profits into your business.Upgrade your harvesters to heavies as soon as possible: more resources = more items you can craft = more credits. Keep on the space thing in the meantime- you can always use space loot to RE and sell.
Before long, you'll have enough credits to buy some fun stuff. Like self-power kits for your entire fleet of harvesters. Yes, it's pricey, but I highly recommend it - you don't worry about accidentally using your nice radioactive, plus it's just kind of cool.
Good luck and welcome to the ranks. 
Goraf
Wed Aug 10, 2005 7:03 am
#3
Decide what you want to provide. Pick a few things that people need regularly and start gathering the resources and stocking that. Talk to pilots to see what they are having trouble finding. Add products as you go. Sell products for what it is worth. If you are lucky enough to harvest a steel selling for 10cpu on your galaxy trade forum, make sure you are selling those components for more than 10cpu.
Location location location. <1000m from a major starport is ideal.
Also, become a good pilot and learn how to design a complete component loadout for any chassis. That way you can craft what people actually want and need.
Finally, the price of SW skill tapes is still falling. Let the big guys get their suits together, then try to pick up the weapon systems, engine, and chassis tapes to get you to +20 for <250k per point.
Location location location. <1000m from a major starport is ideal.
Also, become a good pilot and learn how to design a complete component loadout for any chassis. That way you can craft what people actually want and need.
Finally, the price of SW skill tapes is still falling. Let the big guys get their suits together, then try to pick up the weapon systems, engine, and chassis tapes to get you to +20 for <250k per point.
Tangle
Wed Aug 10, 2005 7:54 am
#4
First of all, I'm going to come out against what one person wrote here. Don't even bother putting money into personal harvestors. Dropping 10 of those just isn't enough. You should be a pilot anyway if you plan to make ship components. I mean, if you're not a pilot then you won't know what a good component needs to be. Anyway, you can make some solid money up there so I most definitely recommend getting 10 heavies.
Honestly, I don't know where your head is at so I don't know what it is exactly you would like to do. When I started out I was set to sell premium quality and premium priced components. I'm one of the 20-30 cpu shipwrights. If you want to do this, honestly, harvesting your items isn't going to work out. You WILL have to purchase resources. You just can't mine everything you need. When an uber resource spawns, I drop everything I can on it. But this is far and few between. For the rest I go to the big resource sellers out there who have the crack I'm looking for. These guys still have resources that spawned a year ago.
What I do, is when I'm not currently mining something for myself, my harvesters are down mining resource contracts. It's great money for very little work. It maybe takes an hour a week. Something spawns, get a contract, and drop your heavies and come back in a week. If you're getting, say, 5cpu that will be near 5mil for your business. What this allows me to do, for example, is put this cost against a resource I need. So if I need another 500k of copper, and the price is 10cpu, I use my 5 million from the resource contract and put it towards the 500k copper.
Also, if I had it all over to do again, I would gather up a bigger piggy bank. I started this business with barely anything. I bought a couple stacks of good steel, a stack of copper, some ore, etc. It was very annoying having to get more resources every week. If I ever had to do it again, which I don't (lol), I would get a good 20-30 million credits worth of resources. Of course, hindsight is 20/20. When I first started I had no idea how much I would even make. My business could have crashed and burned and I would have been out 30 mil.
UmmonPrime
Wed Aug 10, 2005 8:35 am
#5
What ever you do, just remember it's a game. Don't let your online "business" run you or else you will get burnout.
Goraf
Wed Aug 10, 2005 8:39 am
#6
Tangle wrote:harvesting your items isn't going to work out. You WILL have to purchase resources. You just can't mine everything you need. When an uber resource spawns, I drop everything I can on it. But this is far and few between.
This is basically what I do as well. We just recently had some JTL resources spawn that were almost as good as the server best, I pulled in a big stockpile of these. Right now my harvesters are sitting on a JTL steel that has a high OQ but low stats on everything else. It'll be great for missiles, booster overdrivers, reactor overdrivers since those only use the OQ of the steel.
When there is nothing worthwhile in spawn, I harvest lower quality resources for chassis and paint kits if I have time.
In the beginning, gathering resources is the most time consuming aspect of being a crafter. Especially if you want to be able to make everything.
Lotifo
Wed Aug 10, 2005 6:45 pm
#7
Tangle wrote:
First of all, I'm going to come out against what one person wrote here. Don't even bother putting money into personal harvestors. Dropping 10 of those just isn't enough. You should be a pilot anyway if you plan to make ship components. I mean, if you're not a pilot then you won't know what a good component needs to be. Anyway, you can make some solid money up there so I most definitely recommend getting 10 heavies.
Actually, I agree with you - personal harvesters are pretty much worthless, but I figured I'd start from the bottom. 
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