Smuggler Archive
Thread: Slicing Prices
KISS prinicpal? Do you mean to rock and roll all night? AND party everyday? Or to lick it up? Or to call Dr. Love? 
Yeah I know Keep It Simple Stupid, but I had to ask.
Prior to hitting Master Smuggler, I charged 2k flat
After hitting Master, I knew I was going to recieve a lot more requests to slice, so I raised my prices to 3k to cut back on demand. However, it doesn't seem to have affected that at all. Since reputation is everything, I added the 100cr/% pricing scheme.
What I did was create a macro that explains it all and tells people that they're ultimately responsible for keeping track of what the weapon's stats are. I probably should do the same in case someone tries to complain that I lied after they get their weapon back.
While the flat rate is nice for keeping things simple, I think the option to do % pricing makes the customer feel more satisfied with the resutls.
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Hello everyone,
Awhile back there was a post, but is now buried, about the prices each person charged for slicing weapons and armor. I wanted to bring it back, or its likeness, to see the feedback. I know alot of the prices change due to theserver, skill, and persona of a each person, but perhaps we can come together, for the most part, and come up with a nice set price for these things.
FAN 40Material
x 3 Credits
120 Credits
CLAMP 90Material
x 3 Credits
270 Credits
KNIFE 4Material
x 3 Credits
12 Credits
KIT 30Material
x 3 Credits
90 Credits
CLAMP 270 Credits
KNIFE 12 Credits
KIT+ 90 Credits
372 Credits
It costs us about 372cr to actually slice a weapon or armor, but that does not cover the cost of our time or service. I have notice that if a weaponsmith has us slice a weapon, the price of that single gun rockets up 5,000-10,000cr. This goes with the weapon upgrades as well. 10 power-ups for 1,000-4,000cr which only are a limited "slice".
Here is what I charge currently, and is not complained about by customers (actually have many regulars).
Weapon 150cr per %
Armor 200cr per %
I've been charging 100 creds per % increase for weapons, and 2k per piece of armor. I thought I had to charge these prices to remain competitive with the up-and-coming slicers who spam the starports.
However, I've been thinking about raising my prices, since I don't play the game as much as I used to (been busy with RL things), and I don't want to spend all my time in-game running around to different cities, or waiting for people to come to me. I get more money running missions on Dathomir than I do slicing anyways.
For now I usually keep my title off and remain anonymous, only slicing for a few select customers that are good tippers.
It's not like there's much else to spend money on in this game anyways, aside from saving up for the perfect krayt weapons and gambling on slices. I don't see why spending a few thousand credits for a slice would be such a big deal. On my server, it seems like most masters are still charging 4-8k apiece for slicing, regardless of the result. I don't see any reason for me to not raise my prices.
I created a spreadsheet as a record for common schematics my weaponsmith and smuggler use, and came the same conclusion (though the knife cost I got as 9.6 credits, from 16*3/5?).
Rounding up, a slice costs 370 credits based on materials costing 3 credits per unit, but doesn't take into account initial and running costs of factories to create the items - I guess you could "hire" a factory as and when required from a trusted friend to keep these costs down.
If you source your own materials by harvesting it'll work out even cheaper still - but I tend to only harvest good (not grind) materials, so I end up buying mine in for smuggler kit.
The "going rate" on Bria is 100cr per % sliced, and I apply this to weapons and armour, but I have the following exceptions:
- slices under 20% are free
- multiple items get a discount (so armour slices will get cheaper per item if I slice an entire suit), it often works out at about a 20% discount
Applying these principles, I never get grief, I do getcustomers returning (one guy even took a shuttle to find me to slice 2 weapons after I provided a service for him a couple of days back), and I often get tips above what I ask for (a set of armour had "raw" slice cost of about 22300, so I said to the guy "call it 17k?" and he tipped me 30k).
I never understood the "fixed charge per slice" ethic - to me it makes sense that you pay for the quality of the slice, and leaves me enough scope to be able to waive charges if it's sub-par.
I have taken to putting in my smuggler's bio the summary of how slicing works, as I got people yesterday saying:
"How good are your slices?"
"I need a damage slice of over 25%"
"I need encumberances slices on all but my boots"
My biggest, easiest income from being a Smuggler, though, is missions on Dathomir.
Slice the terminal and you can get up to 37k missions - if they are kamuriths then there are only 2 at a time, with 6 in total per lair.
Easy money.
Slicing is what I do when I'm done with hunting and just fancy something relaxing
I play on the Eclips server and a one of the founders of <Shade>who is a smuggler guild or union. One of ouer golds is to control and raise the price for a smugglers services. I have start to take 5000 crfor a slice no mather what the slice outcome is. And for those who still are not slicers and use clamps we recomend a price of 2500 cr. Some times when I am in Coronet I get floded with tells like "Can you slice my weapon". Then to take 100cr % for that feels like slcing for free.
If you like to give a variable to your slice I think a fix price of 2500crand then a 100-200cr %. So say that you take 2500+200cr % and you slice a weapon for 20% the price will be 6500cr.
Actually, just thinking on this, are we better to introduce ascale for slice costs based on the actual damage increase or speed decrease, as an absolute value rather than a percentage?
Taking Morbird's example, if a good Scout Blaster costs 5k to buy and gets a poor speed slice of 20%, is it reasonable to ask for 6.5k for that?
Most people would surely just say "forget it" and go buy a new one rather than have their sliced one ransomed back at a higher cost, I think?
Given that the damage of a weapon is usually a good indication of its original cost, we could charge per max point of damage added instead, making Scout slices cheap, but Rocket Launcher charges expensive (in line with their cost).
The danger here is that the system gets more (too?) complex:
- what about AP weapons? double the "cost per point" for light AP?
- does it scale unreasonably, making RL slices cost as much as the weapon itself?
- do we stick with a percentage for speed slices, or rifles cost more to slice than pistols, every time...
All that said, shouting "Master Smuggler services, 100cr per % sliced - /tell" is much easier than something like:
"Slicing weapons at (2000 + (damage increase*(AP+1)*5)) credits for damage and (2000 + (speed decrease%*10)) credits for speed"
