Weaponsmith Archive
Thread: I had no idea how tough it was to be a weaponsmith...
Most people who work on the Weaponsmith or even the Armorsimth profession always miss the simple things. Resources.... You can always power Grind the Weaponsmith profession if you get tons of steel. but if you want to make weapons worth selling, then taking your time to grow is best.
like one said, it should take you at least 2 months to gather enough materials to be competitive. I myself, I've been gathering resources since the servers are live and barely compete with the people who concentrated on weaponsmithing from the beginning.
Now, towards pricing.a fewways to look at it.
1. If you buy Resources from others, then you have to figure your prices so that you make some form of profit when you sell the weapons.
2. If you Have 8 Heavies collecting the Good/Excellent Materials that spawn every week, then prices will mainly be set by the cost of Harvesters.If you have multiple accounts, then you can place more. (*I myself only Harvest, never buy, so my weapons are rather inexpensive*). Having more then 16 harvesters is more trouble then its worth. (*2 Fusions can handle 10-14 harvesters, depending on size*)
3. Guild Help. If you are part of a good Guild, then asking them to help you harvest a good spawn to help you out is always a good thing. Plus, they might know where a High Resource Spawn spot is then you. If they place 1 or 2 Heavies for you on a Resource spot you provide, they wont really care. (*Say you will pay maintance and keep it powered for them*) just have them place you on Administration.
Making money is one thing, Making Excellent weapons that everyone wants is the prime thing. Dont overcharge for Almost Perfect Weapons to where no one will buy. Look at the Market, and price lower then Majority. Specially if you are near their quality in weapons.
I hope this helps.
Wabbit Season -- Bloodfin
The_Strider_Family wrote:
The hard part I thought was getting to Master Weaponsmith, then I thought the hard part was getting the resources to become competitive and now I am thinking the hardest part is to actually get people to come use your product instead of the one they have been used to using for 2 months.
I don't think it's very hard at all to break in. Specialize my friend. Specialize...
Find what class is being ignored (normally it's melee or commando) and make stuff for them. Eventually they'll ask for your other stuff to.
Also, the people who have been elevated to 'god-like' status normally begin charging an arm and a leg to meet demand. There are plenty of people who will not pay their prices. You've just got to find them.
Look for medics, entertainers etc with a low-end gun in their hand. Give them a gun at cost if need be. They'll come back to you later.
Resources are definitely the key to making weapons. To be a good smith, you need to mine those good resources, track everything that has come and gone. And you have to be ready to go balls out to stockpile the best resources while they are available - this often requires taking some risks by making significant investments into resources that might not pay off for months, and those expensive stockpiles could be completely outdated tommorow when a new resource spawns. Its a tough balancing act, and its hard to figure out how much of some resource you might need 2 months from now - getting enough of it might make you one of the best smiths on the server, and if you are lacking in it, your reputation will suffer. WS is quite a bit more competitive than other crafting professions in that respect. You have the BEST, and then you have all the rest - and it is not easy to stay ahead of the crowd.
The biggest thing that you need to build a solid customer base though, is simply consistency. If customers come to your vendor half the time and cannot find what they are looking for, you will never gain many customers. If you are always stocked, you will still build a customer base. Its better to overcharge slightly and keep a good variety of weapons in stock than have empty vendors. And of course, being around to answer questions, make repairs and help people out also goes a long way towards building a good reputation.
Surefoot-SOK wrote:
Heh, try architect some time. We can't sell anything for anywhere near how much weapon and armor smiths sell their gear, which come no where near the resources required for structures.
The biggest myth in the game is that Architects make less money than Weaponsmiths. I like being a weaponsmith despite some of the attendant frustrations, andI know my Architect partner goes through 20x the amount of ore I do? But I also know he has 1/10th my customer base, and I have 1/3rd of his net income. That's .net. income, after any extra resources are purchased.
Maybe it's because My prices are fairly low compared to others on the server, but in part that's how you get and keep customers.
Dang... lots of good posts, and I probably don't have much to add, other than the following:
That's just my take. What are you guys doing to try and break into the big time?
Thought I'd better answer this one before responding to anything else, since it qualifies a lot of my responses. Just for the record, I have no interest in breaking into the "big time." I made my weaponsmith to make swords for my main character because I felt I could make better swords for myself than anyone else. Since then, I've come to realize that it's entirely dependent on resources, but what the heck - I'm willing (and can afford) to waste 10,000 units worth of materials to get ONE sword that I like. Can't say that about anyone else, and what the hey... couldn't necessarily say that about me, with regards to selling my swords to anyone else. Of course, my idea of a "great" sword is one that was hand made (no factory runs), at 98% to the damage rating, with a 33-35% damage or speed slice.
Heh, try architect some time. We can't sell anything for anywhere near how much weapon and armor smiths sell their gear, which come no where near the resources required for structures.
Apples and oranges here. Try 100k for a large house, as compared to 10k for a laser rifle. That's just an example, of course, since the only thing I sell are swords, but you're only applying one scale to this particular argument, and that's the cost per unit of materials. I'll certainly grant that selling a heavy harvester for 100k doesn't make a lot of sense to me (27,700 units of material for 100k, or approximately 3.6 cpu), when I can sell a katana (two-handed curved sword) for 14k (79 units of material, at 177 cpu). However, there are at least a couple factors that go into pricing as well that are completely ignored by this statement:
1.) Thetime and effort required to harvest the materials for a typical melee weapon are significantly greater than that required to harvest structure materials. I only make swords, which makes for a very easy harvest, relatively speaking, but Dolovite Iron does not spawn on a regular basis, and Dolovite Iron with a high Unit Toughness is even rarer. God forbid I actually chose to make firearms, though. Just try to find some Gallinorian Rainbow Gem; insofar as I know, that's only spawned two or three times since launch, and the only concentration I ever found was extremely low quality.
2.) The time and effort required to master the profession are significantly higher. Granted, 1.4 million XP for master architect as opposed to 900k for master weaponsmith, but the XP gained from architect numbers in the thousands. The typical architect itemsgrant anywhere from 10-100 times the amount of XP. For example, the "best" WS grind item is the projectile rifle barrel, at 94XP. The best architect grind item is the crafting station (any type), at 945XP. I can prove to you (or you can look up the post- it's already here) that architect can be mastered in approximately 70 minutes, not counting breaks.
3.) Just in considering the amount of time that goes into building items, I wouldventure to guessthat architects get a much higher return. Again, I'm a complete noob at selling things (probably only have 5-6 sales to date), but if I spend four months trying to find the appropriate Dolovite Iron to make swords with, and then sell them for 10-20k each, that seems significantly less return on my investment than if I sell a medium harvester (which requires perhaps a week of gathering readily available materials) for 45k. And for the record, I haven't sold any harvesters yet; just had that offer.
You can always power Grind the Weaponsmith profession if you get tons of steel. but if you want to make weapons worth selling, then taking your time to grow is best.
This point I disagree with. Granted, I would say that taking your time to grow will impart a certain level of knowledge on weapons in general that one doesn't get from grinding, but I'll say quite bluntly that even the guy who is handed 450k of steel and grinds his way through the profession in five hours (or however long it takes) could easily make any weapon available at exactly the same stats and same level of quality as any other weaponsmith on any other server, assuming he has at least a minimal understanding of the experimentation process. The ONLY significant difference between any of us masters is our access to the materials in question.
Now, having said that, I'll point out that someone who mastered it the "slow way" is going to bring a lot more knowledge to the table.He's also much more likely to have the resourcesneeded to build a better weapon. I can certainly look at the schematic, see what's needed to build a T21, and build you the best darn T21 you'll find anywhere, but someone who mastered weaponsmith the slow way (and actually has the experience in building firearms) is going to have better materials to make that T21, and will also be able tell you if that's the right weapon for you or not, whereas I'm not going to have a clue (like I said, all I build are swords).
I think the lame thing is the resource shift. 100% of my wepsmithing frustration is that there are no metals of good quality avaliable.
Dont understand why SOE does not just put in ALL resources in the game and just SHIFT their locations, not their avaliability.
For example, that high quality phrik aluminum would only spawn in an area 5000 meters squared in 1 planet at a time.. resource shift and this phrik jumps to some other planet in some other location.
This would effectively stimulate the resource hunters and provide wepsmiths with all resources needed... the catch, the hard thing, would be to have the right contacts to buy or mine those minerals.
But having to wait MONTHS for one goddarned metal to appear is just idiotic beyond belief.
nils
-when you see nm don't think nevermind, think nils makaby
master weaponsmith
kauri/corellia/tyrena
I obtained Master Artisan, Master Weapon Smith, Master Droid Engy and a Minor in Archy the hard way. I used no Macros and the factory exp got changed to 10%. It took me over 2 months of pure grind crafting.
I am far from a 24/7 player alas I do enjoy playing every night after work. Upon reaching my triple M status I learned an even harder lesson. Several key minerals will not spawn for many, many months. (I.E Osterine Ore and Dolovite Iron)
Without the Osterine no one can make Adv Pow Handlers, and with the farming of Krayte tissues many have made up for not having them. Now I have made a decent living at making above average Non Krayte/sliced items. I get weapon tells constantly Yet if you don’t have Adv pow handlers (Witch btw Osterine has not shifted on sunrunner in almost 120 days) or Krayte the person replies.
"Oh you don’t ok thanks never mind, you really have to know your minerals if you want to make it as a WC, good luck"
I am a pure crafter, I have no combat or healing abilities and for the most part I can make just about anything as long as the minerals have shifted. Alas most non-WC doesn’t know this.
In short if you’re on sunrunner and you don’t have Osterine from when the server first went live. As well as Krayte tissues you better prepare your self for reasonable price setting for your items as you will not sellenmass to your server without the above.
Make no mistake I enjoy my profession, and the majority of my customers keep me busy with special orders. Of the things I’ve learned over the last few months, mineral quality and Conductivity means everything---Repeat—Everything.
Now, Let us Pray for Osterine Ore to shift on Sunrunner.
ArkkyleThe Wookiee.
Master Artisan
Master Weapon Smith
Master Droid Engy
Minor Archy 4/2/2/1
On my way to master Weaponsmith, I combined a little of the two styles. Yes, I grinded my behind off on PRB's. But, along the way I stopped when I got each new weapon schem, and crafted 3-10 variations of the same model, experimenting with each category to find out everything I could about crafting that weapon. If I knew anyone mastered in the profession that used said weapon, I'd ask them questions so I make intelligent answers and suggestions to my customers when they are looking to buy a weapon. Right now my only regret is that I did not stockpile resources that heavily. At the momentI would kill for some Class 3 solid petro fuel, but none is to be found thusfar. If anyone would happen to know where I can get some on Valcyn, let me know! I didnt become a weaponsmith to make a lot of money, just a comfortable living. I know some of the weaponsmiths I look up to (Spectre, Raziel, etc) run factories constantly and sell 100s of units a day. Maybe one day I'll be there, maybe I wont who knows. For me weaponsmithing provides fun from crafting the highest quality weapons I can for my friends and customers.. if only I could find the resources I need to do so, LOL.
So.. for you prospective weaponsmiths... horde materials if you can possibly afford to, you'll be glad you did later. If any of you need help on your way to MWS with anything, feel free to send Cyruss an email or a tell in game, I'd be glad to offer whatever help I can.