Shipwright Archive
Thread: What makes money in SW
Jasconius wrote:
I've mastered SW for about a week now and the sales are going very slowly.
I don't keep my parts vendor stocked completely because I figure most people only want RE'ed components.
So what one thing really sells.
I notice I sell a ton of Tier 1 ships, but not really enough to keep the boat floating.
If you're looking for a magic bullet, you're not going to find it.
I strongly disagree that players only want reverse engineered parts. I am strictly a crafting shipwright andaverage a solid 2M credits per week (for the limited time I spend in game).
I run a one-stop-shop. Making money is not a problem.
You need to build up a good stock, of good part. And you need toa established reputation as a crafter.
The fastest seller lately has been large starfighter cargo holds, everyone is getting into mining for vehicle restoration kits for their BARC. I get asked for one almost every night. I usually make 2 and list one on my vendor. It is gone the next day.
I recently started stocking chassis again. I usually sell one per day. But if I have a good stock of components, that same person buys a lot of equipment for their chassis too. Yesterday I sold an oppressor. The customer turned around and bought 3 Mark IV proton launchers and a factory crate of ammo. That is worth a lot more than the oppressor chassis and has a much better profit margin.
I have been having no problem selling both crafted and RE'd components. I target certain items based on customer demand, but I also offer a small number of other items, too. My prices are hard to beat, considering the quality I offer. I do a lot of comparison shopping of other SWs vendors to get a good idea of what's hot in the market and price ranges.
The very best components I REare offeredto my PA members first, but some do end up on my vendor.
The RE'ditems that do best are lvl 5-9 weapons, reactors, capacitors, and armor.
My crafted armor, reactors, and shields alsodo very well. I put one or two up at a time and they're usually gone within 24hrs.
Chassis don't do so well.
Missile packs are veryexpensive to make and it's hard to get people to buy them, even at a reasonable markup. I rarely stock them.
I average about 300k-500k a week in sales.
I make about twice that every week out in space killing NPC ships for loot to re-engineer.
Making money as a Shipwright is easy.
I'm rich.
Mark 3-5 Blasters
Mark 4-5 Engines
Pre-programmed Droid command chips
Mark 2-4 Reactors
Mark 2-3 Capacitors
Mark 3-4 Armour
The only mark 1 items I stock are boosters (rarely sell) and chaff launchers...
I never stock chassis and so far I have not bothered with anything that needs asteroids (tried a batch just after ROTW and got 3 crit fails in a row on experiment, so I had wasted a few hours and never wanted to do it again).
I sell at 10K per level (so a Mark 3 is 50K, Mark 5 is 90K) and if I don't make sales of 500K per day minimum then it has been a very slow day. I usually sell around 1m per day and more at weekends...
Problem is... the resources. I hate mining, so I buy my own. And I get through a ton. That said... I have been commercial SW since just around 1 month after the CU (respecced my main after having an alt do it for a while). I started with 15m in my bank, and a few resources I had left over from a previous life as a WS. I now have around 45m, lots of nice resources, and a pretty nice crafting suit
It's true that the cream of the crop pilots mostly use RE'd loot in their ships, but the majority of players either don't understand reverse engineering, or don't care.
The only chassis I sell are Master ships and the Heavy variants. With all the grinders and undercutters out there, there's no point to even try. At least on my server, anyway.
Of those ships, Krayts and Heavy TIEs sell like mad. The rest can sit there for a couple months.
A normal day is 5-10mill. Friday-Sundays are usually 10+
Paint and texture kits sell well. People seem to buy one of each texture to see what they look like. (I must be pricing them too cheap :-) )
To advertize your store, make some mark 2-3 engines and put them on the Cnet or Mos Eisley bazaar with your vendor ad in the text. Newbies (and quite a few veterans) take a long time to figure out vendor search, so don't depend on it.
Yeah I'll echo others' sentiments here.
To me, the key to breaking into Shipwright was to find the hole in the market and exploit it for all it's worth. No single shipwright can keep up with everything, so there's most assuredly a hole somewhere. For me, when I became a shipwright shortly after the CU, the hole was in asteroid components. I sold 17 High Mass ships in one day. The server's established shipwrights would come to me for their mining lasers, cargo holds and tractor beams.
This gave me enough money to invest in the server's best resources for my components. I've kept a philosophy of only stocking components which are the best or very close to the best on the server. So for a while I didn't craft capacitors or engines. But I quickly got the reputation for having top of the line stuff. Customers started pouring in and I made enough money to heavily re-invest in tapes and more resources, and now I stock everything but boosters.
My best selling items are my Mk3 and Mk4 armor. I also highly recommend making a big run of each of the texture kits and lots of paint kits. You'd be surprised at how many shipwrights don't keep those stocked. And chips have been a consistent and profitable seller for me as well.
So to wrap up, try to find out what the current shipwrights are lacking in, and become the best in that area. The rest will take care of itself.