Weaponsmith Archive
Thread: Disgruntled Weaponsmith about smugglers.
Well, if money isn't the issue and selling to the most people is, then wouldn't you have to up your production anyway? The more people who buy from you, the more product you need.
Look, you can call it an etiquette issue, but the way I see it, if someone's buying the guns, let 'em buy the guns. My notoriety will survive.
If it's an issue of not having enough weapons for everyone, you have two ways to control for that: 1.) control the number of weapons you make, 2.) control the number of weapons you sell.
This means either you boost productivity to account for people doing this sort of thing, or you limit the number of weapons sold on your vendor. You don't HAVE to sell an entire run on your vendor. You can stock one of each weapon you make, then keep the rest in reserve, or stock three of each, or whatever, then as supplies on the vendor dwindle, you put more weapons on. If your issue is "but then I'll sell fewer weapons" what do you care? Money doesn't matter, right? Guaranteeing that you hit the most number of people per run is what counts. So, the solution would be that you artificially limit how many people can buy your weapons.
Your only other option is to ban people who buy too many weapons from your shop and leave it at that.
Honestly, though, if people want to make sure they always have enough stock/materials on hand to supply a set group of players, maybe you should hold back certain weapons for your special customers. Or you could go into the custom weapons market and only sell hand made stuff (excluding the components, that is) to players. Ultimately, that's what I plan on doing so as to avoid a lot of these hassles. (Plus, I won't have enough skill points to get a vendor as an artisan.)
/sigh
This slicing debate has been ongoing in the smuggler forums for quite some time now. And while my kneejerk reaction was to flame the original poster for whining about smugglers, I feel that this is a problem incurred by my own smuggling profession after having pondered the issue.
The true problem IMO, is the perception that any slice worse than 20% is a bad slice. This perception has been reinforced repeatedly by many of my fellow smugglers who send direct and indirect messages to their customers when achieving a slicing result less than a given percentage, by either A.) apologizing for a slice or B.) refusing to charge money for a slice below a certain percentage.
This has made many people begin to compare slicing percentages when trying to determine the benefits of their weapon, instead of comparing pre-slice stats to post-slice stats as would be more accurate.
Unfortunately, there is no apparent solution to the problem because the smuggler community seems to be split on the issue. Some only care about the slicing results, while others just like to slice because it's fun. What has undoubtedly compounded the issue, however, has been the relationships forged between Smugglers and smiths. Weapon and Armorsmiths alike often have two vendors for their wares (sliced and unsliced). To my dismay, these relationships have placed even more demand on achieving high quality slices. And, for a smith to slice a crate of FWG5's and recieve slices less than 20%, it once again adds to the general perception that low slices are "BAD".
Anyway, it's too bad there are so many pessimists in the world with high expectations. Otherwise, slicing and weaponsmithing would be pure joy.
Cobra01 wrote:smugglers actually smuggle crates instead of 1 ? , gasp that doesnt fit with the profile of smugglers
if you have a problem with smugglers buying you out , then thats your problem , you are selling weapons , they are buying them
What I am arguing is that this is not the weaponsmiths problem. This is a community relation problem. Remember that making weapons for everyone else, is neither my duty nor my work, it is my hobby.
to solve the problem :
So let me go over your 3 "solutions" one by one...
1) send said smuggler an mail explaining to buy custom made orders
The smuggler (or person buying to get weapons sliced by a smuggler) has already brought out the stock. A ban will make sure that person never does it again. A mail can at best give you a promise that it will not happen again, but nothing will prevent that person from repeating the deed thus getting to buy you out two times before the ban hit.
Even if the "smuggler" does start to buy by pre-order then, it is that many more weapons you have to make.
2) offer crates on your vendors made for smugglers , you know you have a problem , do something about it
If we could produce the extra weapons, we likely would. It is a question about time and resources, not about lack of will.
With production time in factories and acquiring resources, and limited playing time... Well there is a upper limit to how many weapon a weaponsmith can make each day. Making crates to put up for smugglers will reduce the selection available to the more normal customers.
3) put an item up with a msg for smugglers , if they want a good deal , so they contact you for crates at a discount
I doubt many (many one in 50) will respect it. Most people want the items, and wand then now and not the next day. That is if they even bother reading it.
last time i checked smugglers arent spychic enough yet to sense that said weaponsdealer doesnt like to sell his weapons in bulk
You know, I have NEVER even considered it a legitimate action, I would consider it a brake of common courtesy. That leads me to one of the following to conclusions:
One: the people who buy large amount of weapons for slicing are jerks that do not care about how thair actions affect others.
Two: the people who buy large amount of weapons for slicing have no idea of how difficultly it is to provide thoughts weapons.
I choose to believe nr two, witch is why I even bother debating this. Else, I would just advocate a "ban them, Then put them on ignore, and forget about them".
Tarnak_Archvold wrote:
What I am arguing is that this is not the weaponsmiths problem. This is a community relation problem. Remember that making weapons for everyone else, is neither my duty nor my work, it is my hobby.
Is your hobby the actual making of the weapons themselves or the selling of the weapons? If your hobby is making the weapons, what do you care who buys them and how many they buy?
So let me go over your 3 "solutions" one by one...
1) send said smuggler an mail explaining to buy custom made orders
The smuggler (or person buying to get weapons sliced by a smuggler) has already brought out the stock. A ban will make sure that person never does it again. A mail can at best give you a promise that it will not happen again, but nothing will prevent that person from repeating the deed thus getting to buy you out two times before the ban hit.
Even if the "smuggler" does start to buy by pre-order then, it is that many more weapons you have to make.
Not everyone who buys in bulk is going to be a smuggler. Granted, it's in a smuggler's best interest to have a nice stock of well sliced weapons, but some folks may just buy a bunch if they intend to grind with 'em.
2) offer crates on your vendors made for smugglers , you know you have a problem , do something about it
If we could produce the extra weapons, we likely would. It is a question about time and resources, not about lack of will.
With production time in factories and acquiring resources, and limited playing time... Well there is a upper limit to how many weapon a weaponsmith can make each day. Making crates to put up for smugglers will reduce the selection available to the more normal customers.
Absolutely true. Time and resources will likely be your gating factors, so I agree that there's a limit on just how many guns you can make, even with factories. Personally, I wouldn't put up crates specially for smugglers. But then my solution is a bit different from what most people seem inclined to do anyway. More on that in a bit.
3) put an item up with a msg for smugglers , if they want a good deal , so they contact you for crates at a discount
I doubt many (many one in 50) will respect it. Most people want the items, and wand then now and not the next day. That is if they even bother reading it.
I wouldn't put up messages for smugglers, I'd just make it clear to people that buying in bulk direct from the manufacturer (IE: You, as opposed to your vendor) will get them considerably better prices. The advantage of this is that it gives you time to let them make the order, you take payment, then craft the weapons (or craft the weapons, then take payment). Just make it clear that your business will go on as usual and that their order may take a bit longer. What they lose in time, they make up in profit on the back end. Since smuggling isn't currently the most lucrative profession, this may actually make them a bit more inclined to buy in bulk.
last time i checked smugglers arent spychic enough yet to sense that said weaponsdealer doesnt like to sell his weapons in bulk
You know, I have NEVER even considered it a legitimate action, I would consider it a brake of common courtesy. That leads me to one of the following to conclusions:
One: the people who buy large amount of weapons for slicing are jerks that do not care about how thair actions affect others.
Two: the people who buy large amount of weapons for slicing have no idea of how difficultly it is to provide thoughts weapons.
I choose to believe nr two, witch is why I even bother debating this. Else, I would just advocate a "ban them, Then put them on ignore, and forget about them".
Well, I suspect that you're right that most people fall into #2, but posting about it here won't help. Try going to your server boards and posting a new policy for your store of no more than X number of weapons per customer. If you don't want to do that, you can always petition SOE to allow a feature for vendors that lets you limit how many items can be purchased by a particular person in X amount of time. (IE: 4 guns for every 4 hour period or something)
Or, you can take matters into your own hands and control availability. But you have to be clear on what your goal is. The way I see it, weaponsmithing can have three distinct, but related goals.
1.) To sell a lot of weapons so as to amass a personal fortune.
2.) To sell weapons to as many people as possible so as to create a personal relationship with a lot of different people (your "regular" or "favorite" or whatever customers).
3.) To sell weapons to as many people as possible without regard to a personal relationship so as to "make a name for yourself."
If your goal is #1 primarily, then you probably don't care who buys the weapons, long as they sell.
If your goal is #2 primarily, then you can easily control this problem by offering fewer weapons on your vendor and choosing to do most of your sales face-to-face.
If your goal is #3 primarily, then you're in a bit of a bind and you'll just have to either ban people who buy "too many" (however many that may be) weapons from you, or limit how many weapons you put on your vendor, or up your production. If you want to raise your production, then raise your prices to accommodate for overhead, buy some more factories (you may have to sacrifice harvester lots for this or rent new lots), and stagger your production so that you have a constant supply of weapons.
I think it really depends on what you want out of weaponsmithing. Me, I'm looking to make a modest living, and make personal contacts with people. I can't have a vendor, soI don't really worry about this problem, and I'm a smuggler who's intending to make Master, so I won't worry about slices either. I'd rather make fewer weapons and deal with people face-to-face than produce mass quantities and let my vendor handle it all. But then, that's just my own personal goal. Your mileage may vary.
Regardless, there are relatively easy solutions to this problem, you just have to be willing to take them. The easiest one to me is don't put all your stock up at once. Stagger how much you put up on the vendor so it can't sell out instantly, and you always have reserve stock.
Solo4114 wrote:Is your hobby the actual making of the weapons themselves or the selling of the weapons? If your hobby is making the weapons, what do you care who buys them and how many they buy?
My hobby is community support, well it is properly the best description I can come up with. I Aim to become a Master Weaponsmith/Master Merchant/Master Artisan, so that I could provide the community with good weapons at fair prices.
Solo4114 wrote:Not everyone who buys in bulk is going to be a smuggler. Granted, it's in a smuggler's best interest to have a nice stock of well sliced weapons, but some folks may just buy a bunch if they intend to grind with 'em.
Regardless the intended use, the effect is the same. However, know one needs 5 weapons at once to grind a profession. I could se someone buying 3 different guns to (carabineer, rifle, and pistol) grind with, or buying 2 of the same weapon (one for use and to save in the bank for a time when good guns are unavailable). Neither of these two would brother me.
If someone uses a gun up in say 2 days then buying 5 at the time still do not cut it in my book, buying 2 and then coming back every 2 days to buy another would however be ok in my book.
Solo4114 wrote:Well, I suspect that you're right that most people fall into #2, but posting about it here won't help. Try going to your server boards and posting a new policy for your store of no more than X number of weapons per customer. If you don't want to do that, you can always petition SOE to allow a feature for vendors that lets you limit how many items can be purchased by a particular person in X amount of time. (IE: 4 guns for every 4 hour period or something)
The discussion cropped up here, thus I debate it here. Now I do plane on composing a well written post that explains the issue in a clearly understandable fashion that wound offend anyone, so that I can post whenever it becomes relevant, but that will take some time to get done right.
Solo4114 wrote:Or, you can take matters into your own hands and control availability. But you have to be clear on what your goal is. The way I see it, weaponsmithing can have three distinct, but related goals.
1.) To sell a lot of weapons so as to amass a personal fortune.
2.) To sell weapons to as many people as possible so as to create a personal relationship with a lot of different people (your "regular" or "favorite" or whatever customers).
3.) To sell weapons to as many people as possible without regard to a personal relationship so as to "make a name for yourself."
If your goal is #1 primarily, then you probably don't care who buys the weapons, long as they sell.
Well My goal is properly closest to nr 2 with a bit of nr 3 and a negative amount of nr 1
Making an insane amount of profit on the weapons will ruin part of my fun as I would not think of them as "fairly priced". A god example are the VK's. I had a hard time getting ant solid petrochemical fuel, and when I got some it was in a limited amount, so the VK's I made I put up for sale for 1000cr. That is way more then I would have liked to charge, my aim at price would have been closer to 500cr if I could, but I only had enough for like 20 weapons.
Well when I mad a sale of a VK I did not feel as good as when I made a sale of any other weapon, simply because I felt I was taking advantage the buyer.
Solo4114 wrote:If your goal is #2 primarily, then you can easily control this problem by offering fewer weapons on your vendor and choosing to do most of your sales face-to-face.
If your goal is #3 primarily, then you're in a bit of a bind and you'll just have to either ban people who buy "too many" (however many that may be) weapons from you, or limit how many weapons you put on your vendor, or up your production. If you want to raise your production, then raise your prices to accommodate for overhead, buy some more factories (you may have to sacrifice harvester lots for this or rent new lots), and stagger your production so that you have a constant supply of weapons.
I wish I could do most of my sales face to face, but I am not on as much as I would like, and as I am European I can not always be online in the US prime time.
Solo4114 wrote:I think it really depends on what you want out of weaponsmithing. Me, I'm looking to make a modest living, and make personal contacts with people. I can't have a vendor, so I don't really worry about this problem, and I'm a smuggler who's intending to make Master, so I won't worry about slices either. I'd rather make fewer weapons and deal with people face-to-face than produce mass quantities and let my vendor handle it all. But then, that's just my own personal goal. Your mileage may vary.
All I need are some credits to repair my speeder bike, and to buy a new out fit once in a while and then of cause to give good tips the dancing girls
. But if that was all I wanted I could just do an hour of survey mission on my bike and the I would be set for the day.
Solo4114 wrote:Regardless, there are relatively easy solutions to this problem, you just have to be willing to take them. The easiest one to me is don't put all your stock up at once. Stagger how much you put up on the vendor so it can't sell out instantly, and you always have reserve stock.
In time I may be able to build up enough of an stock pile to do that, but not for the moment. Actuarial I am hoping to find a resource supplier that can provide me with all the resources I need, and corporate with a few more weaponsmith with similar goals. However that is easier said then done, and until it happens I will have to protect my self from burnout.
Sweet bejeezus...Enough of the quotes gentlemen.
OK, I understand where my fellow weaponsmiths are coming from here, but there is one thing that I don't think anyone has successfully answered.
It seems like the general consensus is that weaponsmiths don't care about the money as much as they do their reputation. Many people here have said that they'd prefer to be known as the best weaponsmith on their server, thus having the most people demanding their services. But in the same token y'all want to pick and choose your customers?
That doesn't make sense to me. There's been a couple of really good suggestions to try to avoid having your vendor emptied, but the issue is getting clouded by knitpicking on peoples phrases.
If your vendor is getting emptied because of the way you're trying to develop your reputation (ie. Advertising) then my suggestion would be to look for an alternative method of developing your client base. In fact, a mysterious weaponsmith who is renowned for the best weapons solely because of word-of-mouth advertising surely would be quite an interesting ego stroker indeed.
Well, as Intelerebel pointed out, there've been plenty of suggestions on how to manage your stock and customers. You've offered us a few more here, which I think are excellent suggestions.
Intelerebel also points out that you can't be famous/notorious AND managea vendor AND expect to control it. There's just no way to do that.
Does it suck if someone buys out everything on your vendor? Maybe. Personally, I don't think so, but that's me. I won't even have a vendor, so it's a moot point for me. It DOES, however, suck that a particular profession is being labeled as the "cause" of this or the "source" of this problem.
Smugglers and slicing are not the cause of this problem, at least not really. The cause of the problem is simple: economics. Or rather a lack thereof.
Money means nothing to people, and we've certainly shown that in this thread. Why? Because it's easy to come by. Just run enough missions and you'll get your cash. Hell, I made 20K in 2 hours when I first started doing nothing but delivery missions one night.
Were it not for the problem of economics, no one would be ABLE to buy out your vendor because they wouldn't have the cash. A $5K investment would really MEAN something an the $3K bazaar limit would not be something to sneeze at the way it is now. By incorporating mission terminals into the game and creating an infinite source of money throttled only by how many missions you can take at a time and what skill level you are, they REALLY screwed the pooch.
As a result, there are ridiculous sums of cash floating around in this game. Yes, the vehicles will be money sinks for people. But lets be honest here. If you can run survey missions back and forth to your harvesters with these things, how much of a sink will maintenance really be? THAT is why you have smugglers or other players buying out your entire stock at a grand total of, say, $300K. Because they don't even blink at dropping that amount of money.
And you know what's REALLY scary about that? They don't care because they know they'll STILL turn a profit off of a sliced gun or two. That means they figure dropping $300K is worth it, because they know they'll make MORE when the sell the sliced guns. Now doesn't that strike you as a bit silly?
Personally, if I had my way, I'd kill ALL mission terminals for a month or two and let the money seep out of the economy. The money sinks would actually WORK in that situation and we'd have a relatively balanced economy. As it stands, more money comes in than goes out which makes for the situation we have here. But don't try to pin it on the smuggler. He's just trying to make a buck.
Intelerebel wrote:
don't care about the money as much as they do their reputation. Many people here have said that they'd prefer to be known as the best weaponsmith on their server, thus having the most people demanding their services. But in the same token y'all want to pick and choose your customers?
That doesn't make sense to me. There's been a couple of really good suggestions to try to avoid having your vendor emptied, but the issue is getting clouded by knitpicking on peoples phrases.
Wanting to be "the best" doesn't alway mean you want the most people demanding your services. I want to run a "medium" sized shop. In other word I want a good volume of sales but not tons! I don't want the have to spend 8 hours a day trying to stock my vendor just to meet demand. But I do want to make the best quality weapons and want anyone who sees my weapons think "man those are GOOD!" or something like that 
Since that is my goal the only advertising I do anymore is having my vendor on the planetary map (and I'm on Dantoonie). I don't tell people about my shop when they post on the server boards. I keep a lower profile.
Anyway I think what we are saying will make more sense to you Intelerebel if you make a distiction between "fame" and "reputation." Fame means how many people know of me. Reputation is what those who DO know of me know. See the difference.
Stonecloud wrote:
In conclusion 2 things need to be put into place, 1) the quality of the smuggler supplies NEEDS to be included into the slice 2) Thier skill needs to be incorperated as far as max caps per level of slicing.
Can you at least learn a bit about the profession before being jealous and try to nerf it?
Their skill ALREADY is factored into the slice. First level of slice will get around 15-20% with the occasional 8% or 25%, then at slicing IV, they can go up around 30%+, not sure if there's a bonus at master, but I think that's up to 35%.
Why should the quality of supplies matter? A clamp is a clamp, as long as it does its job. I believe the flow analyzers quality matters, but they're a chance at best, with clamps it is either yes or no. You're cutting wires with those components, not adding anything.
The only thing I can see that would be involved is the WUK's. But that would be a WS issue. Also, by making the quality matter in WUK's, you're not hurting the slicers, but the novice weaponsmiths. Novice weaponsmiths already have the short in of the stick with things to sell, yet you propose to take even more away.
The thing that you could do with improving the quality of slicer equipment (not weaponsmith upgrade kits, mind you -- don't want to screw the novices even further...) is to leave the ranges there, but tighten them up.
IE: a better made laser knife will tighten your range from 8%-25% to more like 12%-25% at Slice II-III. Using a better knife plus a better FAN will get you 15-25%, and a clamp would get you 17-25%. Your max woudl still be your max, but your minimum could be made better. That said, it won't help the weaponsmiths who feel pissed at the smugglers. It'll just make smugglers want to use better tools and THEN buy your vendor out.
Like I said, the fundamental problem here is economics and that's it. ANYONE can buy out a vendor because the cash is available. There's also a pretty wide rich-poor gap so that it's really just anyone at the top of a combat profession who's doing the buying. The novices or specialists aren't going to have the cash to buy out your vendor. Just the elites and masters. But the notion that anyone COULD do it is pretty ridiculous and speaks to theSERIOUS economic problems in this game. Not that they'll change any time soon, but they're there and they cause problems just like this one.
As long as there are weapons, people will want to own them. There are any number of reasons to buy out a vendor, not the least of which is slicing the weapons and reselling them. But you could also buy out weapons to provide 'em to your PA, to buy out the competition so you're the only WS in town with stock, to resell them for some other reason, etc. As long as you have the ABILITY to do so, the problem will continue.
Solutions to this problem:
1.) Petition SOE to include vendor controls to limit how many items a person can buy in a given time frame.
2.) Sell weapons only face to face -- don't use a vendor.
3.) When you do a run of weapons, only put SOME of them on your vendor and hold others back for your "valued customers" or just to put on your vendor when the first load runs out.
4.) Up your production by renting more lots, harvesting more resources, running more factories. You can even stagger production by waiting for a factory to get halfway through a load of schematics, then start a second factory to run a different load and just keep doing that -- thus, constant supply of parts/equipment.
5.) Give up and accept that sometimes people will buy out your vendor, but it doesn't really matter. If your customers can't handle that fact, too bad for them.