Shipwright Archive
Thread: Shipwright turning to another poor architect?
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ENERGISLIGHTSPD
Mon Nov 01, 2004 6:06 pm
#1
Well folks i thought i would never see the day but this prof is slowly sinking into the same problem architects have and that is it just costs to much resources to make and the bulk of people are to poor. There is an added twist though.
All shipwrights have to hand make everything they sell so right now people are making items, selling them for what they paid for resources and wasting there time playing the game. Now if i was a player though i would be very happy for you since you made my life very easy, if i was a shipwright i would go and buy out everything you had. This causes a problem. Most everyone spent the exact same amount of resources mastering the profession, this is all being wasted. You have to have something loose in your head to waste those kind of resources and still sell at cost.
I for one love the profession and you really feel like you are helping out but when someone says what gives? you are selling for more than this guy, you go. wow he is selling for a loss how in gods name can i keep up with a person who is running a failure of a business.
I just wanted to know what other crafters feel about this and what you players feel about this.
ZenDragonMLS
Mon Nov 01, 2004 6:20 pm
#2
I'm not at all worried about it. There is a difference between people who will be a flash in the pan and those who will be in the business over the long term. I've been in the Architect business for over a year and have done quite well. I'm part of a team putting together a premier shipyard, and I expect we'll do well over the long term.
Along the way we will see the people who chained themselves to a crafting station for 8 hours at a time, or who have to run a large harvester field, or who ran Janta missions to subsidize their shipwright business drop out. Will they have totally distorted the general public's perception of what it takes to get a ship and gear together? Sure. Will the survivors have to spend lots of time explaining things to the customer? Yep. Will some customers "rebel" and not want to buy? Sure - until they go to empty vendor after empty vendor of the "low ball" guy.
Trying to articulate any realistic vision of the economics of being in the shipwright *business* over the long term is pointless right now. We have a huge diversity of people in this forum, with a large gap between people who have had successful crafting business and people who haven't. I don't even bother reading any of the pricing discussions, because people don't understand economics or the marketplace and talk about things like "how much profit are you *entitled* to", as if this was about "morality".
We don't have a lot of heated arguements about pricing anymore in the architect forum, because the people who are left and have been around for awhile have proven themselves able to run a business. If someone new comes along and talks about how they are going to sell for 2 CPU, it's ok by me - they won't be in business very long. The same thing will happen here.
I *DO* wish that people would get over the need to argue about prices, since they aren't going to change their's anyway, and help tackle some of the open issues, bugs, and analysis that we need to do to make the profession work "technically". But enough people are doing that that we'll be ok too.
Along the way we will see the people who chained themselves to a crafting station for 8 hours at a time, or who have to run a large harvester field, or who ran Janta missions to subsidize their shipwright business drop out. Will they have totally distorted the general public's perception of what it takes to get a ship and gear together? Sure. Will the survivors have to spend lots of time explaining things to the customer? Yep. Will some customers "rebel" and not want to buy? Sure - until they go to empty vendor after empty vendor of the "low ball" guy.
Trying to articulate any realistic vision of the economics of being in the shipwright *business* over the long term is pointless right now. We have a huge diversity of people in this forum, with a large gap between people who have had successful crafting business and people who haven't. I don't even bother reading any of the pricing discussions, because people don't understand economics or the marketplace and talk about things like "how much profit are you *entitled* to", as if this was about "morality".
We don't have a lot of heated arguements about pricing anymore in the architect forum, because the people who are left and have been around for awhile have proven themselves able to run a business. If someone new comes along and talks about how they are going to sell for 2 CPU, it's ok by me - they won't be in business very long. The same thing will happen here.
I *DO* wish that people would get over the need to argue about prices, since they aren't going to change their's anyway, and help tackle some of the open issues, bugs, and analysis that we need to do to make the profession work "technically". But enough people are doing that that we'll be ok too.
pervel
Mon Nov 01, 2004 6:23 pm
#3
I think it is a bit too early to judge the viability of the profession by the current prices. After all, the profession is only a week old. I also don't agree that people are selling at a loss necessarily. A loss compared to what? If they harvest their own resources and sell ships for perhaps 2-3 cpu, they are making a profit simply by the fact that it doesn't cost that much to harvest the resources. Now some people will argue that you could have sold the resources alone for that amount or more. However, that is actually a hypothetical argument. I don't think that you would be able to sell the same amount of resources at the same rate as you can probably sell ships.
In the end it will always be a matter of supply and demand. So I am pretty sure it will adjust itself nicely over time. That being said I doubt that shipwright will be the most profitable profession in the game. Armorsmiths will probably still hold that position.
fatgato
Mon Nov 01, 2004 6:33 pm
#4
I am not selling at a loss for sure 10 cpu for chassis , 20 cpu for components and I still have to turn customers away.
ravingbantha
Mon Nov 01, 2004 6:34 pm
#5
3 words... Buy them out.
If you ee a shipwright selling to cheap, get your friends to buy a bunch of stuff from him, you as well. Buy it all back from them and place it on your vendor for what you want to sell for. In the end he'll get fed up with it, if nothing else he'll take the title off the stay out of tell hell.
fatgato
Mon Nov 01, 2004 6:35 pm
#6
ravingbantha wrote:
3 words... Buy them out.
If you ee a shipwright selling to cheap, get your friends to buy a bunch of stuff from him, you as well. Buy it all back from them and place it on your vendor for what you want to sell for. In the end he'll get fed up with it, if nothing else he'll take the title off the stay out of tell hell.
Good idea, yeah we cant really let alot of people decide to sell far below the average CPU or we will get affected badly.
Chra
Mon Nov 01, 2004 6:46 pm
#7
From Ranger to Shipwright ....
There are those that play for what the stats give you or the money you can make from crafting the uber [enter item here]. As a Ranger of a little known and now all but extinct guild (bless you Mel) on Kettemoor, I have never wavered in my calling or in my passion. I never made much money, and as the game developed I have made even less (never been one for hunting).
I was satisfied in being a Ranger.
Now there is this profession of shipwright, and the new piloting skills as well. I have found value, not in the sales, but in the crafting of the perfect mix, or as perfect as I can make them, of components for myself, my firends, their ships and their particular piloting styles.
I get emense satisfaction from taking the time to tweek my ship, great or small, to become the finest piece fo machinery I can put together for the model and for my style. It is one thing to pilot and to make the best out of your looted parts, or to get custom orders filled. It is one thing to make the pieces and craft them for the mass market or the paying customer. These are noble time honored past-times and I wish the best to those that follow that path.
For me ... to fly with my friends ... to see my own shortcommings and strengths, and theirs .. .and to make the equipment the best it can be by making it myself.
Some days I will not have the components ... and some days I won't have the money. But even then it isn't about that for me. It is about getting under the hood and crafting a work of finely ballanced and tuned art.
So if the profession should go the way of the Archetect, as you say .... or if it should not, I don't think it will impact my choice. I love the profession for the completeness of it. Armorsmith, Architect, Weaponsmith all in one, with a few new jobs to boot.
I admit ... it is early to make such claims. But I have dabbled in just about everything at one time or another. The last time I felt this way about something in this game was the day I became a Ranger. Since I have been a Mater of that profession (a testament to my sanity I am sure) sinceOctober of '03 ... I think I will have the staying power.
Just thought I would share. It seemed a good first post for this forum.
BillyBobthe50th
Mon Nov 01, 2004 6:49 pm
#8
At least for making ships you dont have to have a large amount of factory made components for everything andmaster artisan components, Shipwright doesnt even NEED any MA parts for ANYTHING!, maybe DE's should start charging 300k for a crafting station droid? Would you like that? and if you complain we will say "thats for making me have to make all those factory schematics and get all those ma parts!"
TenchiZa
Mon Nov 01, 2004 6:52 pm
#9
Price fixing is bad. Reselling is smart actually, buying to destroy is silly (and wasteful).
ravingbantha
Mon Nov 01, 2004 8:32 pm
#10
TenchiZa wrote:
Price fixing is bad. Reselling is smart actually, buying to destroy is silly (and wasteful).
Reselling is pricefixing to a degree...
CHRA I agree with what you are saying. I enjoy being a crafter, in fact I bought an account just to have a dedicated one. And once my slack @$$ guild gets together to do a DWB run I can drop DE and pick Master Arch back up. I love architecture and I already love SW, I would like to sell items so I can craft more, but I do not see the point in selling barely above cost... it becomes a waist of time at that point, and when you spend an hour or 2 restocking a vendor that makes very little becuase people try to undercut one another it begines to become more and more tedious.
I will do everything I can to keep ship prices around 10 cpu for chassis and 40cpu for components. Why? becuase I don't want this class to fall into the slump you see Architect's in. My biggest gripe really isn't about the living I make, but rather what the newer crfters that are trying to get where I am now will have to do. It will hit them much harder than me. When I ground out SW I didn't loose 1 dime... aside from what training cost me. I had all the needed resources on my storage vendor and then some, but not everyone that wants to be SW for the enjoyment factor has that option, for them they have to make money however they can. I would love to see them sell their chassis for 10 cpu while they try to master the class, for several reasons... one of which is to keep them funded to keep them going.
moody628
Tue Nov 02, 2004 12:55 am
#11
pervel wrote:
I think it is a bit too early to judge the viability of the profession by the current prices. After all, the profession is only a week old. I also don't agree that people are selling at a loss necessarily. A loss compared to what? If they harvest their own resources and sell ships for perhaps 2-3 cpu, they are making a profit simply by the fact that it doesn't cost that much to harvest the resources. Now some people will argue that you could have sold the resources alone for that amount or more. However, that is actually a hypothetical argument. I don't think that you would be able to sell the same amount of resources at the same rate as you can probably sell ships.
In the end it will always be a matter of supply and demand. So I am pretty sure it will adjust itself nicely over time. That being said I doubt that shipwright will be the most profitable profession in the game. Armorsmiths will probably still hold that position.
LOL!
I'm guessing that Pervel can't read or something... since I've seen him post in the threads where folks are complaining about 6cpu for resource costs, I know he/she can write!
/lol
There's absolutely NOTHING hypothetical in the equation. I, myself, have offered to buy the resources at 2-3 cpu from these bozos selling ships at 6k. And I know all the folks complaining about steel at 10cpu would do the same. So, clearly, folks could make MORE profit (as 5k resource ship at 6k sales is 1.2 cpu) if they'd stay out of shipwright and just sell the resources.
There are 3 levels of profit in the equation. There's the resource harvesting profit. There's the ship crafting profit. There's the merchant/sales profit.
If you are selling SW components at 2 or 3 cpu, then at best, the only profit you are taking is your harvesting profit. You've sold out your crafting profit, and your merchant profit. Given the market value of the resources you burned, you may havesold out your 1/2 of your harvesting profit as well.
Seriously... if you're selling ANY ship component for less than 10cpu, please stop making ship parts. Just go to the Galaxy Trade forum for your galaxy and post all your resources for sale there. You'll be cleaned out within a day, if not hours, and you won't have wasted all that time crafting by hand. You can just go fly your own ship so that your body is where your mind already is... up in the clouds.
Thanks.
SdDarktide
Tue Nov 02, 2004 6:27 am
#12
Problem with shipwright as i see it is, theres little repeat business. Once everyone has their chassis and best components thats it. No more cutomers for shipwrights, same as it was for architect. All the cash is made at the begining by people who capitalise and gouge the market. Sure, you'll still get people buying missile packs and the odd bits but thats it. I dunno, maybe ill be wrong.
pervel
Tue Nov 02, 2004 7:42 am
#13
Perhaps you are right that I can't read because the above makes absolutely no sense to me.
moody628 wrote:
I'm guessing that Pervel can't read or something... since I've seen him post in the threads where folks are complaining about 6cpu for resource costs, I know he/she can write!
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