Smuggler Archive
Thread: Make a million credits from spice
TarynGuinn
Tue Nov 02, 2004 5:45 am
#14
how long ago did this all happen? hope it wasn't me who put you out of business. for 3 months i was selling faster than i could produce as well. then real life happened and i left the game for a month, and came back to find my spice empire was gone... I didn't put enough maintenance in my harvestors/factories/warehouse. pooof! came back to nothing. thought about rebuilding it all... but now all my time is spent on grinding out pilot.
Din Tarish
Master Smuggler
chimera
Kelko
Tue Nov 02, 2004 7:09 am
#15
The funny thing is I have two other characters that I started before my Smuggler and never really appreciated spice until I started to play my Smuggler. Now all three of my characters carry a crate of Muon and Pixie at all times. I have found it to be extremely useful when I get in a heated battle, especially since it stacks on top of buffs and food.
KaiRan
Tue Nov 02, 2004 9:13 am
#16
I've actually managed to make a few million selling spice, but it takes a very long time, and sales come and go (need to move my vendor from the once popular, now nearly dead, Smuggler City Mall, for example).
The fastest way for me was to grind out a Master Merchant on a second account and plop merchant tents as close to FotM grind points as I could. My tent outside the Imperial Theme Park still makes some creds, but not like it did when the corvette first hit live servers. Tents outside sites like the Squill cave and Beatle Cave when the Hero of Tat quests were fixed, briefly had popularity. Obviously, nomadic sales like this are not the best way to sell.
Coronet bazzar is definately *not* the place to go- it appears to be the dumping ground for new smugglers who think that people buying out their entire stock is good business, then later realize they were selling for less than the total cost (once factory maint and powerare considered). Instead, try bazzars in cities frequented by the FotM crowds, even they forget to pack the spice sometimes. This also is the best place to use the 6k cap, as you are saving them the buff time they'll more likely be willing to pay the extra. JtL has altered the map a bit, population and popularity wise. It will be interesting to see where things settle in the end.
Keeping a droid full of Muon and Pixie at all times helps when blowing through a city, if you can land even one sale in the 5 min wait, the ticket is paid.
In the end, my spice vendors and in-person sales pay for all my day-to-day expenses (tickets, maint, clothes, armor, tools) and let me do what ever I please with the monies earned on missions.
GoldMemberBria
Tue Nov 02, 2004 11:03 am
#17
Here is the problem with this story, and the actual economics of it.
muon gold: 45 units of resources x 25 +45 (for schematic) = 1170 resources/crate
pixie:45 units of resources x 25 +45 (for schematic) = 1170 resources/crate
If you sell this stuff for 5k/crate like I've seen on the bazar, that is 4cpu (6k/crate = 5cpu). Even grind quality materials sell for 3cpu (and you can certainly get more than that if you put some effort into it). So your 14 points in the spice tree, and all the time and money you spent to cultivate those skills, and all the money and time you put into the upkeep of your factory, and all the effort you put into selling the spice,is only worth *at most* 2cpuover the price of the raw materials you put into the spice.
Now compare this to a chef. For chef foods, they charge roughly 75cpu-100cpu for their foods/drinks.
So I guess what I'm saying is... you'd have been a millionaire whether or not you sold any of that spice. The thing that you really did to be come a millionaire was to harvest that much materials, and you'd have made virtually the same money had you just sold the gemstone etc. on the bazar instead.
Message Edited by GoldMemberBria on 11-02-2004 10:14 AM
Gooney
Tue Nov 02, 2004 1:35 pm
#18
Spices ahh yes. I had a similar situation but when the spice market dried up I had a brilliant idea...or I thought so. I sank my last 200k into weapons.. Yes folks my idea was to put up a block merchant, slice a bunch of weapons, sell those weapons sliced.
The only weapons that sold really well was the LLCs and Flamers, everything else pretty much sat.
Needless to say I took a bath on the whole thing and ended up selling the weps to guildies at cost or just giving them away. I dont know what I was thinking.
So nowadays I use my slicing on mission terms and the occasional slice request. Theres no money in smuggling...because there is no smuggling. I had very high hopes for JTL, foolishly thinking that the smuggler revamp would be happening right after.
-Gooney
Gaj
Wed Nov 03, 2004 2:19 am
#19
Are you suggesting I throw it in and become a miner?
I am deeply hurt 
But you are right. Even on a good day the profit margins in spice are pretty slim...
Gajarga.
hrmpf2
Wed Nov 03, 2004 3:38 am
#20
I had a period where I tried starting a smuggler shop, now it's giving up. Thing is, such a shop should contain everything needed, including clamps, A/WUKs, knives and of course spice. So few realise the (albeit rather low) value of spice, mostly because a standard buff plus chefs food will take you through almost any situation, so selling spice for a decent markup is hard. Even worse is seeing clamp crates on the bazaar for 6k, 90 metals goes into a single clamp, 2250 for a crate, that's 2.66 CPU you "earn". Assuming you harvest everything yourself, you'd be much better off just selling plain metal on the bazaar, say at 3 CPU. Only thing that makes up for the terrible low profit is if you actually like the manufactoring part, as I did for a period. Unfortunately spice gets sold so slow it's hardly worth putting up crates, even if the profit is a bit higher.
I'm sorry, but I'm getting really annoyed over the uselessness of spice, or at least how chefs got their stuff bumbed through the roof. +500 mind from a Muon, only one in use at the time, and a long time after where you're mind is crippled. No thanks, I understand why people take the 800+ from drinks with absolutely no downside. What on earth where the designers thinking?
This certainly isn't a revarmp matter, it's taking an entire branch of a profession and making it useless, fix it NOW! Just make the downer short, say 30 seconds, even better remove it entirely and nerf buffs AND food/drink. Make it so spice can only influence one stat, instead of only one spice at the time, this would open up for a booster blue combined with muon. Maybe make smugglers delight actually possible to get, for pete's sake, 40 milk? One of the hardest resources to get, and you need 40 of them? Let's not even get started on the fact you also need quality milk, not just any crap. Why ruin a complete branch? Pure lack of overview on the designers, amateurs.
I'm sorry, but I'm getting really annoyed over the uselessness of spice, or at least how chefs got their stuff bumbed through the roof. +500 mind from a Muon, only one in use at the time, and a long time after where you're mind is crippled. No thanks, I understand why people take the 800+ from drinks with absolutely no downside. What on earth where the designers thinking?
This certainly isn't a revarmp matter, it's taking an entire branch of a profession and making it useless, fix it NOW! Just make the downer short, say 30 seconds, even better remove it entirely and nerf buffs AND food/drink. Make it so spice can only influence one stat, instead of only one spice at the time, this would open up for a booster blue combined with muon. Maybe make smugglers delight actually possible to get, for pete's sake, 40 milk? One of the hardest resources to get, and you need 40 of them? Let's not even get started on the fact you also need quality milk, not just any crap. Why ruin a complete branch? Pure lack of overview on the designers, amateurs.
Message Edited by hrmpf2 on 11-03-2004 11:47 AM
Ternque01
Wed Nov 03, 2004 10:40 am
#21
Wow Gaj, that was a great story. Well written and interesting. You should go into business slicing for an armorsmith or weaponsmith. I had an armorsmith that paid me 33% of the money made from selling pre-sliced composite. That was a guaranteed 100-200k a week with me just coming in once a week to slice his stock.
GoldMemberBria
Wed Nov 03, 2004 10:47 am
#22
No no no, heaven forbid no. I'm saying you are a miner, lol. Of that million you made, nearly all of it is attributable to your great mining prowess 
Gaj wrote:
Are you suggesting I throw it in and become a miner?
KaiRan
Wed Nov 03, 2004 11:15 am
#23
GoldMemberBria wrote:
So I guess what I'm saying is... you'd have been a millionaire whether or not you sold any of that spice. The thing that you really did to be come a millionaire was to harvest that much materials, and you'd have made virtually the same money had you just sold the gemstone etc. on the bazar instead.
lol
Who's your supplier? 'Cause it sounds like you need a change.
My grind quality supplier sells to me at 1.6 to 1.7 cpu average as a long-term customer. If its a rush, I see maybe 2.2 cpu, tops, generally 2.0 cpu. And when he can't pull through (lives in Florida... hurricane season was brutal) my backup is averaged out at 2.0 cpu. I get my radioactive at 1.0 cpu for power, helps to shop around and stockpile when people dump on the market. My master merchant alt helps out by dropping the cost for maintence on the factories to rock-bottom.
I'll admit it takes money to make money, but thats how it works son. IRL and here.
BEST: 5000 - ((1.6 * 45) * 25) = 3200 profit (minus factory maint and power)
WORST: 5000 - ((2.2 * 45) * 25) = 2525 profit(minus factory maint and power)
Now... it is possible I could just mark up my supplier's resources and re-sell em on the bazzar... but that just aint smuggling!
GoldMemberBria
Wed Nov 03, 2004 11:59 am
#24
Well, pity, charity, friendship, whatever you want to call it, he's giving it to you well below market value. I have no trouble unloading any of the crap that happens to spawn right next to my house at 3-6cpu depending on what it is. Stuff like gemstone and water (incredients for spice) would sell for the high end of that range, even for crappy quality.
KaiRan wrote:
GoldMemberBria wrote:
So I guess what I'm saying is... you'd have been a millionaire whether or not you sold any of that spice. The thing that you really did to be come a millionaire was to harvest that much materials, and you'd have made virtually the same money had you just sold the gemstone etc. on the bazar instead.
lol
Who's your supplier? 'Cause it sounds like you need a change.
My grind quality supplier sells to me at 1.6 to 1.7 cpu average as a long-term customer.
KaiRan
Wed Nov 03, 2004 12:16 pm
#25
GoldMemberBria wrote:
Well, pity, charity, friendship, whatever you want to call it, he's giving it to you well below market value. I have no trouble unloading any of the crap that happens to spawn right next to my house at 3-6cpu depending on what it is. Stuff like gemstone and water (incredients for spice) would sell for the high end of that range, even for crappy quality.
No argument here.Some of theresources are certianly worth a great deal more than 1.6 - 1.7, but perhaps 2 of the 6 in my regular orders could come in at 2-3 cpuand up here on starsider (grind qual is a dime a doz). The key is to place large orders of multiple types at once with the same vendor every time, averaging out the cost and gaining both bulk order and repeat customer discounts. I have spent 4 cpu+ on 15k of water but under 1 cpu on 15k of some particularly useless metal to make up for it.
Remember- we smugglers can move a considerable amount of spice every other month or so if we try. Having a single supplier for all of it is usefull because he knows you're comming: All that time he's normally idely waiting for a good enough resource to pop up, he's instead grinding outstock for your future orders with his harvestors and stockpiling. I'd say I burn a minumum of 20 crates of Muon and Pixie each in a bad month. Thats an order of 90k resources total, every other month. Partner with a shipwright grinder and you could get in on some better discounts by combining orders.
Ifisa
Wed Nov 03, 2004 2:21 pm
#26
Wow........I wish I had a story like this 
Instead i'm (not trying to gloat here) a millionaire who barely did any work for his money. If they fixed spice to make it a HUGE increas in mind (like 1k) and pixie increase 1.5-2k, make the downer even worse, give smuggler's a skill that reduces the downers (to what they currently are if they make them worse) and there you have it. Every FotM pvp'er will LOVE a muon that kicks up their mind by 1k. Plus make the lower level ones more useful, and make you able to take 2, seperate spices at a time, though if you can take a muon and a pixie it would be really overpowering. Spices need to be fixed and, imo, they should just cost you money, at a supplier, instead of making them yourself. You're a smuggler, not a drug dealer!
Instead i'm (not trying to gloat here) a millionaire who barely did any work for his money. If they fixed spice to make it a HUGE increas in mind (like 1k) and pixie increase 1.5-2k, make the downer even worse, give smuggler's a skill that reduces the downers (to what they currently are if they make them worse) and there you have it. Every FotM pvp'er will LOVE a muon that kicks up their mind by 1k. Plus make the lower level ones more useful, and make you able to take 2, seperate spices at a time, though if you can take a muon and a pixie it would be really overpowering. Spices need to be fixed and, imo, they should just cost you money, at a supplier, instead of making them yourself. You're a smuggler, not a drug dealer!