Shipwright Archive
Thread: For those having trouble deciding on a price
00over0 wrote:
Many people seem to be having trouble with this issue--kudos to you for even worrying about what to charge instead of just charging as much as possible.
First, if you mined your resources yourself, put the cost down as 1 cpu for the resources used in that particular object (basing prices on cpus is just intuitive--cpus are how the basic costs are valued as well).
If you're buying your resources, then put the cost down as whatever you paid.
Now add 1 or more to that number (I add two, personally, but I'm trying not to be judgmental--add two, three, four, five--whatever is appropriate to your server (power on my server is easily had at 1 cpu and 13 BER heavy harvesters run about 100k each, and we are not overly crowded). Do not add in extra yet--this is just to cover the basic costs (energy, maintenance, surveying time, travel time, etc.).
This will ensure that your basic costs are covered--you will now not lose money as long as you have buyers for what you produce.
Shipwright is a time-intensive profession--like smuggler and tailor, it takes your time and you have to deal with customers on an individual basis. Add in some amount to cover your time (and note, if you do not enjoy this aspect of the profession, you may want to rethink being a shipwright). Your time value can bevariable--was the customer easily pleased? Did they want to fully outfit a z95 with tier 3 equipment and didit take you 2 hours and 100k in resources to prove that, yes, you can fit one tier 3 item into that chassis? Were you able to fit leftover components from that idiot with the z95 who walkedaway without buying anythinginto the next customer's tier 2 ship without any trouble and they were pleased?
For a custom ship, I would add in anywhere from 3 to 10 cpu, personally, on top of the basic costs. To avoid pricing oneself out of the market, try to keep this number on the low-end the more resources that are used. So, add another 5 cpu for an item that requires 1000 in resources to make, but add only 3 or even 2 to something that takes 15000 in resources. The reasoning for this is that you're making a certain amount in less time, even if the job is somewhat difficult, by selling a large component. It takes less time to make one large sell, usually, than it does to make 20 small sales--so your time value should reflect this.
This will ensure that your sense of worth is covered. You should now not feel that you're beingundervalued. Keep in mind that this is the part that is competitive. Someone who values their own time at 20 cpu may be pricing themselves out of the market. Likewise, someone who erroneously values their time at 1 cpu may be pricing their self-esteem out of the market (in other words, they burn out after two weeks of being generous and quit).
If something is purchased out of a vendor, then I charge only the basic cpu rate--it didn't take me any extra time to sell it. If I have to customize a ship for someone, then I add in the time rate as well.
So, an item that takes, say, 50k in resources has a base price of 150k credits--that's what it will sell for on the vendor. If that same item has to be custom tweaked to fit it inside someone's ship and that is something I have to spend a lot of time on and maybe more than one try, then the final price of it might be 200k-300k credits or more.
I hope this helps. It's just meant as a very general guideline as to how to go about the difficult issue of pricing. Good luck!
However, for a shipwright who doesn't want to run all over the various planets chasing down spawns and planting harvesters and finding people to mine for him/her--I'm a difficult person to compete with. That shipwright is buying their resources on the market, which means they cost them an arm and a leg and they therefore have to raise their prices in order to make any profit at all.
00over0 wrote:
You have a good point, Sevardos. But I've run a mining business before (and it can be very lucrative)--I'm trying to run (if my copy will ever arrive) a shipwright business now--I have no intention of selling my minerals on the open market, even if they could go for more than what I'm selling the ship for.
Here's a simplifiedexample for you for an alternative to your way of thinking.
Let's say most producers of cars buy their steel from steel producers--the cost of this steel is 5 cpu, though it actually only costs 1 cpu to produce. Five cpu is the market price of the steel and is what the car producers pay. This makes the final automobile cost 50 credits.
Now a new car company comes along...and they produce their own steel. They can produce steel not for 5 cpu, but for 1 cpu because they don't have to make a profit on the actual steel--they essentially sell it to themselves at cost,using 100% of what they produce. They can therefore now produce cars much more cheaply than the other car producers--they could go for a high profit margin and sell the cars at 50 credits and not use their competitive advantage, or they could go way under everyone else using their vertical integration (meaning they own their supplier) as leverage and put the rest out of business, but also have a very narrow profit margin, or they could split the difference and make it difficult for the other car companies to survive as they are and in the meanwhile take a healthy profit.
I'm not interested in selling resources. My resources have no market value because they are not on the market--they have value only to me because they will not be used by anyone else.
However, for a shipwright who doesn't want to run all over the various planets chasing down spawns and planting harvesters and finding people to mine for him/her--I'm a difficult person to compete with. That shipwright is buying their resources on the market, which means they cost them an arm and a leg and they therefore have to raise their prices in order to make any profit at all.
My style of play involves a lot more work for less pay. It's not that way because I'm stupid (no one's called anyone stupid, I'm just making a point), it's that way because I like the work involved, and I don't care that much about the pay.
A different style of play concentrates more on the final part ofshipwright--just the crafting, let's say. This person doesn't want to mine everything themselves, they just want to buy it and craft. That's fine with me, but that person should not expect me to price my product as if I'm doing the same.
Yet another style of play would concentrate on the selling--they might buy products from different crafters--in fact, buy all of their stock--then raise the price and resell it. Again, I am not going to raise my price so that this person doesn't appear to have an obscenely high price for what they're selling. That's the problem involved in their style of play--it's not my problem.
I'm not trying to imply anything about any posters past, present, or future. But this is my style of play--to be very involved in the process from beginning to end, and to price my product at what I think is both profitable to myself and convenient to others. I have no desire to amass an enormous fortune of virtual money (there are easier ways, such as the aforementioned mining business). I do have a strong desire to get everyone possible into space (hopefully in one of my ships or using some of my components). I want space to be crowded, and for interest in the game to be renewed.
Some companies are founded only on the idea of profit. Others are founded on the idea that they can make life better--while still being profitable.
That's a fair statement. Afterall, it's your $$$ to SOE every month and you play how you like.
However, I would then say that your post is a tad misleading in terms of positioning this as a broiler-plate for pricing. Not everyone has the luxury of either a large starting bank account or intimate knowledge of the value of resources.
In my opinion, pricing templates should be and must be, based on general principles that maximizes a crafters efforts within the economy. If you change your model to market pricing versus cost, you'd help out a lot of up and coming shipwright crafters.
Guess that's 4 creds now on the topic 
Sevardos wrote:
00over0 wrote:
You have a good point, Sevardos. But I've run a mining business before (and it can be very lucrative)--I'm trying to run (if my copy will ever arrive) a shipwright business now--I have no intention of selling my minerals on the open market, even if they could go for more than what I'm selling the ship for.
Here's a simplifiedexample for you for an alternative to your way of thinking.
Let's say most producers of cars buy their steel from steel producers--the cost of this steel is 5 cpu, though it actually only costs 1 cpu to produce. Five cpu is the market price of the steel and is what the car producers pay. This makes the final automobile cost 50 credits.
That's a fair statement. Afterall, it's your $$$ to SOE every month and you play how you like.
However, I would then say that your post is a tad misleading in terms of positioning this as a broiler-plate for pricing. Not everyone has the luxury of either a large starting bank account or intimate knowledge of the value of resources.
In my opinion, pricing templates should be and must be, based on general principles that maximizes a crafters efforts within the economy. If you change your model to market pricing versus cost, you'd help out a lot of up and coming shipwright crafters.
Guess that's 4 creds now on the topic
---
I intend to use something like this pricing scheme when I get my startup going. To my less-than-MBA understanding of economics It boils down to determine base costs and factoring in the timelike-aspect. I won't necessarily have huge market share - but then no single SW should
), but it's terribly broken.
00over0 wrote:
Many people seem to be having trouble with this issue--kudos to you for even worrying about what to charge instead of just charging as much as possible.
First, if you mined your resources yourself, put the cost down as 1 cpu for the resources used in that particular object (basing prices on cpus is just intuitive--cpus are how the basic costs are valued as well).
If you're buying your resources, then put the cost down as whatever you paid.
Now add 1 or more to that number (I add two, personally, but I'm trying not to be judgmental--add two, three, four, five--whatever is appropriate to your server (power on my server is easily had at 1 cpu and 13 BER heavy harvesters run about 100k each, and we are not overly crowded). Do not add in extra yet--this is just to cover the basic costs (energy, maintenance, surveying time, travel time, etc.).
This will ensure that your basic costs are covered--you will now not lose money as long as you have buyers for what you produce.
Shipwright is a time-intensive profession--like smuggler and tailor, it takes your time and you have to deal with customers on an individual basis. Add in some amount to cover your time (and note, if you do not enjoy this aspect of the profession, you may want to rethink being a shipwright). Your time value can bevariable--was the customer easily pleased? Did they want to fully outfit a z95 with tier 3 equipment and didit take you 2 hours and 100k in resources to prove that, yes, you can fit one tier 3 item into that chassis? Were you able to fit leftover components from that idiot with the z95 who walkedaway without buying anythinginto the next customer's tier 2 ship without any trouble and they were pleased?
For a custom ship, I would add in anywhere from 3 to 10 cpu, personally, on top of the basic costs. To avoid pricing oneself out of the market, try to keep this number on the low-end the more resources that are used. So, add another 5 cpu for an item that requires 1000 in resources to make, but add only 3 or even 2 to something that takes 15000 in resources. The reasoning for this is that you're making a certain amount in less time, even if the job is somewhat difficult, by selling a large component. It takes less time to make one large sell, usually, than it does to make 20 small sales--so your time value should reflect this.
This will ensure that your sense of worth is covered. You should now not feel that you're beingundervalued. Keep in mind that this is the part that is competitive. Someone who values their own time at 20 cpu may be pricing themselves out of the market. Likewise, someone who erroneously values their time at 1 cpu may be pricing their self-esteem out of the market (in other words, they burn out after two weeks of being generous and quit).
If something is purchased out of a vendor, then I charge only the basic cpu rate--it didn't take me any extra time to sell it. If I have to customize a ship for someone, then I add in the time rate as well.
So, an item that takes, say, 50k in resources has a base price of 150k credits--that's what it will sell for on the vendor. If that same item has to be custom tweaked to fit it inside someone's ship and that is something I have to spend a lot of time on and maybe more than one try, then the final price of it might be 200k-300k credits or more.
I hope this helps. It's just meant as a very general guideline as to how to go about the difficult issue of pricing. Good luck!
The market value for the resources will be higher than you stated imo; no matter which server. Yes, each server has a floor price for grind resources but for resources with decent to great stats will sellfor a much higher price (cpu) than grind.
Therefore, if you're selling it through your vendor, you could potentially be selling ships below the market value of the resources to make them or at best, selling them at the same market value. If thats the case, your better off just selling the resources and skip the hassle of crafting it in the first place.
Cost and Market Value are 2 different things. If I can harvester a resource for 1 cpu and sell it for 10 cpu to various other crafts, why would I use it to make a ship that will give me less than 10 cpu when done?
Anyways, everyone is free to price as they wish. My main comment is that you shouldn't base it on "cost" but on "market value" of the resources you'll be using.
And also keep in mind that this is not the Architect profession and it's not grind-quality resources you'll be using. Quality does count in this profession for everything that is crafted.
My 2 creds on the topic.
Brilyn wrote:
I, for one, have no interest in planning/implementing RL business models in the game. Keyword emboldened.
/cheers to that statement
Neither do I. In the real world, I never get paid enough and they always want too much of my time/effort for what I earn. In the real world, I have to worry about a lot of other things. This is a game, I can afford to be nice to my customer instead of worrying about what the stockholders are going to do when they find out I could've charged more for my product.
As for helping out up-and-coming SWs--well, we are all competing with the others on the server. No doubt there is enough business to go around. And if there's not, people will get out--that person might be the one who charges less, or the ones who charges more. There is more to life and people's decisions than just price.
As for what some other profession earns in x-amount of time, that is a very slippery slope. You want to charge more for the ship, then the doctor charges more for buffs, everyone charges more for loot, and the miners charge more, etc. Why charge whatever you can possibly get? What good are all those numbers? You can't take it with you, and there is only so much to buy in the game. Unlike RL, there is nothing to bequeath it to, there are no future generations to educate--it's just an empty pursuit.
At the end of the day, I'd much rather someone said, "Hey, there's Etragahl, he makes great ships for a great price."
Than, "Hey, there goes Etragahl, he's the richest person on the server."
this isn't a flame, just my opinion
EnFERn0 wrote:
Selling your ships for 1cpu is a bad model.
All resources used to craft ships requires high quality.
I do not intend to make ships out of scrap resources.
My ships prices will be based on resources quality,
why sell ships for 1cpu when I can sell the resources for much more?
because you're not a resource seller, you're a shipwright, the resources have 0 value until put into a crafted item, then the item has value
if you want to sell resources, then become a resource supplier.
if you want to sell ships, then why sell resources ?
My own pricing structure is as follows (has been this way for architect and artisan and I do ok):
Resrouce generally costs me 2cpu to obtain (harvesting my own).
Edit to Add this bit: This is at the moment, as my harvies are new and I haven't recouped their costs yet. (Thanks to Brilyn for reminding me)
This is the important bit: Whether the quality is low or high, the cost to me is the same.
For guild members, I price at Cost + 20%
for non guild members (i.e. the public) I price at 3CPU + 30%
I get similar numbers of sales across both sets of people, so it works for me, we'll see how I get on as a Shipwright.
Message Edited by Aomircko on 10-28-2004 03:52 PM
Aomircko wrote:
this isn't a flame, just my opinion
EnFERn0 wrote:
Selling your ships for 1cpu is a bad model.
All resources used to craft ships requires high quality.
I do not intend to make ships out of scrap resources.
My ships prices will be based on resources quality,
why sell ships for 1cpu when I can sell the resources for much more?
because you're not a resource seller, you're a shipwright, the resources have 0 value until put into a crafted item, then the item has value
if you want to sell resources, then become a resource supplier.
if you want to sell ships, then why sell resources ?
My own pricing structure is as follows (has been this way for architect and artisan and I do ok):
Resrouce generally costs me 2cpu to obtain (harvesting my own)
This is the important bit: Whether the quality is low or high, the cost to me is the same.
For guild members, I price at Cost + 20%
for non guild members (i.e. the public) I price at 3CPU + 30%
I get similar numbers of sales across both sets of people, so it works for me, we'll see how I get on as a Shipwright.