Tailor Archive

Here is my answer to the question based on my experience with several other crafting professions:

Pros:

a) Low harvesting requirements. You'll spend a lot less time harvesting as a tailor then just about any other crafting profession. Tailors require a lot less materials then say architect, and much less in the way of very specific materials like a weaponsmith, bio engineer, chef, or many others. It really is possible to go to the bazar and buy all the materials you'll need to make say 90% of the possible clothing schematics very very easily and cheaply.

b) High profit Margin. Tailor items are much less "commoditized" than many professions so you have the opportunity to have a much higher markup. Some tailors have chosen not to do this, and to go with a resource-based calculator, but the opportunity is there.Unlike say guns or small houses,there doesn't seem to be an across the board expectation of what, say, a muscle shirt shouldsell for.

c) Roleplaying and Face to Face customer interration. If you like face-to-face customer interration, tailor is supreme as far as the crafting professions. It is one of the only ones (aside from image designer) where you have the opportunity to get a lot of "live" customer interraction. This of course could also go in the "con" list depending on how you look at it.

d) Bugs. There is a lot less bugs and other imbalances in this profession than many others. In many of the "stat-sensitive" professions like chef, weaponsmith, armorsmith, and bio engineer there is constantly exploits, imbalances, and flat out broken aspects to the profession. You simply don't have those kind of problems in tailor.

e) Maturity of customer base. This is a biggie as far as I'm concerned. Since most of the real immature players seem to be combat-oriented, and since tailors generally don't have all that much to offer those types anyway, you'll see a whole lot more patient, mature, appreciative customers as a tailor then you do in many of the other crafting professions.

Cons:

a) The Uber Merchant factor. Most artisans want to run a store, and most that run a store want to stock a vendor which offers a decent selection of the schematics that they can make. The difference between tailor and any other class is that we have like 10x the number of schematics, and since colors are such a factor this number is even bigger. Whereas a most classes may put 20-30 items in a vendor and consider themselves extremely well stocked, as a tailor you can safely multiply that number by 10 to even being to have a comperable representation of your schematics in stock.

b) The necessity factor. Tailor products are pretty much luxury items which means that we tend to be sort of at the very end of the priority list when it comes to spending. You buy clothing when you already have everything you REALLY need, and don't have anything else to spend on. Basically every time some new cool thing comes out in the game (vehicles, mounts, player cities, space expansion etc), clothing sales come to a screeching halt.

c) Class stagnation. The tailor profession has not had any significant changes to it since launch. Same items of clothing, same products, same abilities. I doubt there is another profession in the game that gets less developer attention then tailor. If you are looking for a "class on the move", or a dynamic class that will change and offer you new challenges as you go, look elsewhere.

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Verse wrote:
So master tailor, merchant, some scouting and either TKA or some kind of ranged profession is a nice balanced tailor then?

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I really don't think there is much synergy between scouting, combat, and tailor. Tailors need a lot of hide, and tiny amounts of bone, but seriously, I could go to the bazar right now and probably buy 6 months worth of hide at 5cr/ea or less, so I would question getting scouting and combat skills simply in the name of better tailoring. Choose scouting and combat if it's fun for you, but not to enhance your tailoring.

If you're concerned about making yourself the most effective tailor you can be I'd say consider thefollowing skills, in order of usefulness: merchant, surveying, bio engineering, armorsmith.

Tailor was my very first profession all those months ago and I would never drop it. It's a lot of fun and if you like socialising...do it.

Now one advantage is it requires the least amount of skill points for any master profession (except the starting ones) so you can get other things. I am master tailor, master creature handler and trickshot pistoleer. It's a nice mix. Merchant sucks vader's arse in my opinion...I was 4141 or something and dropped it without caring. In fact I am 04 00 artisan now. No vendors at all anywhere and I have gradually got to the perfect balance of trade coming in and having time on my hands to do things I want to.

It is a bit tricky getting to master...I was horribly poor before I got there and messing with harvesters was a real pain. I have not harvested a single unit of anything for probably three months now, and just buy bulk fiber, petro and metal once in a while. I did manage to grab chunks of the rarer things way back (green diamond, plexite, thoranium, titanium) which does help.

One thing I have noticed is that the old-school tailors on my server are dwindling. You will be a sought after person for sure.

VERSE, IM UR EVIL CLONE! MUHAHAHAHA

How to get grinding money:

Invest in a factory and then...

1. Sell crates of synth cloths on the bazaar. Even if you don't sell many the point is that people grinding armorsmith - or just armorsmiths in general - will contact you for more.


2. Field wear 2: sell RFP's to architects and armorsmiths.


3. You can always split any crate as an advertisement, put a one-panel crate up and use that as an ad to contact you.


4. Advertise cloth production on your server boards. You would be surprised how many people contact me for cloths and I don't sell them, period.


5. Nobody ever seems to get bored of black dusters. At field 3 start cranking them out. Sell on bazaar.


6. Manypopular staples can be made without cool colors:black muscle shirts, camo pants, and black uniform boots. You can make uniform boots by the crate. They are my biggest seller.


7. Backpacks will always sell. You can't go wrong with backpacks. They can be produced by the crate as well.

Thanks! Great input and ideas. Will be handy. How much do harvesters generally sell for... and also, are there different types of harvesters for different types of stuff... like mineral and chemical harvesters or are they all purpose?

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Verse wrote:
Thanks! Great input and ideas. Will be handy. How much do harvesters generally sell for... and also, are there different types of harvesters for different types of stuff... like mineral and chemical harvesters or are they all purpose?

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Harvester cost will depend on server economy, especially for the larger ones. Small ones maybe 5 or 10k on my server I think.

There are different ones that match the survey tools: chemical, mineral, flora, gas, water. Then of course you need power, either buy that or get something that extracts power, like a wind turbine or fusion generator. Wind ones are much cheaper but give less efficient power.

Harvesters:

• you'll need chem and metal harvesters




• chem = plast, polymer


• metal = metal (ok, that was obvious)


• for grinding ribbed shirts it's same proportions so try to get a few of each. Eventually you'll probably want harvesters in approximately 2 chems: 1 metal ratio.


• Each harvester takes up one lot. So... if you have a lot of lots, you can afford to buy cheapies. If you're strapped for space you want medium harvesters. If you're a busy wacko like me, get the big ones. I'm not really sure about experimentation and all that stuff, maybe check the architect forums.


• Output: 2 smalls = medium. 2 medium = large. Again,check architect boards for experimentation output numbers.


• Cost: I would say expect to pay 700 credits for a small, 10-20k for a medium, and 100-200k for a large.


• Power: you will need to power up your harvs. Wind generators are cheap to get, but in my experience expensive to run for very little output. Solars are probably your best bet at this point. One solar will probably do it for now.




• as soon as possible buy a fusion generator. Then you can make money by selling excess power on the bazaar. That is a cash cow. Expect to pay around 100k for the fusion, but it's well worth it.


• For info on resource shifts, placing harvesters, surveying, and general info, check the artisan boards.

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Crudson wrote:

Harvester cost will depend on server economy, especially for the larger ones. Small ones maybe 5 or 10k on my server I think.

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Are you joking? holy smokes! On Bria, typical prices would be:

small harvesters: 500-1k

med mineral, solar, water: 15k

med flora, chem, gas: 40k

larges are generally 100k-150k or so

Let me get this straight, power generators produce power, which I put into the harvester (like the generator powers up a battery and use that battery on a harvester)?

Ok this all very helpful guys, like I said, I am a newb when it comes to crafting... I was looking on info about them and was utterly confused. Thanks guys for being patient and helping sort it all out

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Verse wrote:

Let me get this straight, power generators produce power, which I put into the harvester (like the generator powers up a battery and use that battery on a harvester)?

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That's right! The harv will have a Deposit Power option, or you can /addpower # (potentially dangerous if your finger tends to slip..I once put 20k power in, instead of 2k! )

You can use wind, solar, or fusion power - in ascending rates of efficiency (ie. you will get more fusion power in a given period of time than solar or wind). Note that power has different Potential Energy ratings; the higher this rating, the longer your power will last in your harvester/factory.

When you power up or pay your harvesters, you can click "status" to see how many days of each the harvester has. That way you know when to come back to empty the hopper. However keep in mind

• if you're on a really high concentration, the hopper will fill in a few days, rather than in a week


• your resource may shift leaving your harvesters eating your money for days while they harvest nothing. To avoid this, put the harvs on the planet you're generally on, and every day open your survey tool to make sure the resource you were mining is still around.

to redeed harvesters: yes you can move them, but it will cost you! The screens are now pretty idiot-proof and you have to go through a whole song-and-dance to redeed. But.... this is why it's relevant. Suppose you open your survey tool on day 1, and you see resource x. You have no idea how long resource x has been there. Do you want to waste your time mining resource x, just to have to pay to rip up your harvesters in 2 days when it shifts? OR, keep track of the resources on your planet, and when something *new* pops up, jump on it. Since resources stay around for about a week, you can keep your harvesters happily in one spot for that week, which saves you time and money.

Thanks for the info, I bought a power generator and I found a good conentration of power, problem is, I haven't used any slots, but for some reason it won't let me places down the generator. It's always red, no matter where I try to place it.