Tailor Archive
Thread: Feedback Requested : Tailoring Pricing & Infrastructure Operating Cost Calculation Software
Greetings,
I’ve been playing a Tailor on and off for the better part of the past 2 years, Nathus Stele on Sunrunner, and Marthen Brennus on Chilastra. In that time, I’ve gained and lost fortunes, as many of us have I’m sure. I’ve mastered the profession twice with my two characters, and enjoy it thoroughly.
During this time, I’ve created, and ultimately lost or gotten rid of two complete price lists for every clothing item in the game. Both times these lists, along with infrastructure operation cost algorithms were created using a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. These were relatively easy to use, but difficult to alter, and time consuming to create.
I’ve also spent numerous hours trawling the web for some manner of cost analysis calculator or pricing calculator. These have yielded a few modest attempts by individual users, but nothing that I felt really suited my needs.
In light of my past experiences, and due to the fact I’m returning to the game after a 5 month breather, I’m starting anew, and have conceptualized a software application which could encompass all of these features. I’ll be using Microsoft Visual Basic .NET to create this application, and learning as I go. I’ve had experience with Visual Basic 6, but that’s the extent of my familiarity.
The primary purpose of this post is to “get a feel” for what other Tailors out there would like to see in such an application. I needn’t say that this is a large project for one person to take on, but in the end I feel it will be very beneficial to all Tailors both new and experienced.
What I have so far:
To this point, I have only the most skeletal components in mind. The primary function of this application will be a price calculator, in which the end user will be able to enter the amount of credits he or she have paid, or charges, for resources, organics, and sub-components. Once this is done, I intend to add an optional “markup” category, which will allow the Tailor to adjust his or her prices (via a percentage above base cost) to a level which will effectively mirror the galactic standard pricing for the merchandise in question. Or simply, to satisfy their own greed. Whichever comes first?
Once this has been completed, a “calculate” function will provide output in the form of an accurately calculated price for every clothing item in the game, based upon their preset specifications.
Other ideas I have so far include:
- Infrastructure Operational Cost Reporting
1. Buildings
o Calculating Factor: Maintenance credits per hour
o Calculating Factor: Current property tax (if located within the limits of a player city)
o Application Product: Daily & weekly maintenance cost
2. Power Generators
o Calculating Factor: Base Extraction Rate
o Calculating Factor: Maintenance credits per hour
o Calculating Factor: Current property tax (if located within the limits of a player city)
o Calculating Factor: Current resource concentration
o Application Product: Daily & weekly maintenance cost
o Application Product: Projected daily resource quantity gathered
3. Extractors
o Calculating Factor: Base energy cost (produced, or bought)
o Calculating Factor: Base Extraction Rate
o Calculating Factor: Maintenance credits per hour
o Calculating Factor: Current property tax (if located within the limits of a player city)
o Calculating Factor: Current Resource Concentration
o Application Product: Daily & weekly maintenance cost
o Application Product: Projected daily resource quantity gathered
4. Factories
o Calculating Factor: Base energy cost (produced, or bought)
o Calculating Factor: Base sub-component cost (produced, or bought)
o Calculating Factor: Maintenance credits per hour
o Calculating Factor: Current property tax (if located within the limits of a player city)
o Application Product: Daily & weekly maintenance cost
5. Vendors
o Calculating Factor: Maintenance credits per hour
o Application Product: Daily & weekly maintenance cost
What I’d like from you:
Suggestions regarding whether or not you'd be interested in the creation of this application, and what other features you personally feel would prove useful in an application of this nature. Please feel free to make aesthetic suggestions as well, after all, that is the nature of our profession; a humble balance between form and function. 
I’d like to thank you all in advance for the time and attention you may devote to this, and for your support. Something I know the Tailor community never lacks in.
Here is my advice (and a short story about it):
When I started as a tailor back in Aug '03, I was completely lost when it came to what to charge. When you start out you generally have no idea what your competitors are charging, what sells, what doesn't sell, what sort of customer demand you are going to see, and all that. At that time there were pricingcalculators,exel spreadsheets,and all kinds of crackpot theories about how to come up with the "perfect price", but I didn't find any of that to be terribly useful. There I was, making clothing, putting it on the bazar or making it for a customer, and I needed a starting point. Some frame of reference to get me going. The thing I *did* find useful was a nice, simple, easy to read, easy to understand, single piece of paper that I printed out known as "Nivea's Pricing Guide". It contained every item of clothing (in a small font) on a single piece of paper with a price next to it. Now nearly 2 years later, I'm still amazed how manytailors use it. Of course over the years I've strayed from it more and more, but when I'm asked to make something I rarely make, my brow furrows, and out comes that (now yellowed, crumpled, slightly torn) piece of paper with all those prices on it (many of them crossed out with new prices written in).
So I guess what I'm saying is that established tailors are already going to know whatthey want tocharge, and many of those that don't aren't going to want to enter 100 different variables that they have no clue about into an app. So if you're going to write such an application make sure it:
1) has reasonable "default" values for everything, because a noob isn't going to know to enter in a ton of data. He/she is going to want to hit "ok" and get the answer (then refine it later once he figures out what he's doing). And if the answer comes out "grand ball gown: 10cr" that'll be the last time he uses that application, guaranteed.
In the bio-engineering community somebody wrote a really excellent application along these lines, but really didn't put a lot of thought into what he put as the default values, and I still get a laugh everytime somebody posts "I used it and it said I should charge 100k for my pet, what a POS".
2) make sure in the end it generates a single sheet of paper with price lookups on it based on all the calculations. Nobody is going to want to type dozens of values into an application each time they want to find out how much to charge an impatient customer for a muscle shirt. The most useful thing, is having a nice easy printed reference right there on your desk.
3) oh, and make sure you have the ability to set prices based on completely arbitrary criteria. Ahooded cloak costs more then a regular cloak. Why? /shrug, just because it does
that's my $0.02
Message Edited by ArthurDentOnBria on 05-24-2005 06:25 PM
Creating these lists are a part learning the profession for me, and when done are going to be the quick references I need when shopping for resources or crafting something I do not usually create.
As for the end prices, do they really matter that much. I know that I with my main looks less on the price of clothing, and more on the colour. If the colour is wrong, no price is low enough, on the other hand if the colour is right the price mater less.
Considering that I have more then once spend 1m on shopping sprees for my TIE, the cost of clothing have never mattered that much. A drop in the Ossian so to speak.
I am sure it is the same way with most established combat charters. I will most likely end up charging just a few different prices for the different articles of clothing. I guess I will se how the concept holds up.
Oh and the short version, personally I would not use such a tool to calculate my prices.
I don't think you'll find VB6 and .NET all that different for it. One thing you'll want to include is an option to just type in how much you paid for resources. Since Tailor doesn't have stringent resource requirements, many of us just buy grind-quality resources at very low CPU. (I picked up a stash of really bad polymer for ~1/3 CPU a while ago. Still using it up!)
Good luck with your project!
Message Edited by Parody on 05-25-2005 12:34 PM