Weaponsmith Archive
Thread: Weapon Prices
Okay here is the deal, I recently redid all my prices using the formula (5CPU*ResourcesUsed)*5=Price
For example a laser Rifle Uses 299 Resources, I buy my Resouces at 3 to 5 Credits a Unit, so 299 X 5 = 1495 my cost to make the weapon, I then Multiple it by 5 again and get 7475 as the cost I charge my customers. I think it is better than Charging 15k Plus for a weapon that costs me onlt 1495 Credits to make. If Anyone can give me their thoughs On this would be great... I will give you an Example of my Price List below
Laser Rifle 7475
Laser Carbine 6900
T21 Rifle 15975
Elite Carbine 7800
Rocket Launcher 34225 (Most Expensive and resource Intensive weapon in the game)
Scout Pistol 2775
FWG5 3675
Any one think my Prices are Reasonable, more than fair?
Avinista
Master Weapon Smith of Broken Hills
Officer of the Trade Federation
One simple question...
Why would you ever lower prices if people are already paying it? What's the point?
If people are paying 10-15k for a weapon, maybe it's because they're worth 10-15k. I mean think about it.
Why are you complaining that you're making TOO much money? That doesn't make sense.
Everyone is going to use their own method for pricing their goods. If the consumers like that vendor, he'll have a better customer base with word of mouth. I base mine off of tier level. I harvest my own resources and I can't keep my weapons in stock. Seems I have a customer base who feels I'm a fair vendor.
I'm trying to find a fair Tailor. People think Weaponsmiths are greedy SOBs? Look up Tailors. I mean sheesh!. 50k for a master class product? I can't tell if they're smoking to much spice in game, or IRL. I don't support these type of people. They don't get my money and I am quick to word of mouth better vendors in a Spatial chat. These that are fair deserve the business ... not the greedy.
Base off what I've seen from other weaponsmiths, your prices are fairly low, especially for the 'cheap' weapons like the scout blaster.
From a strictly ECON 101 perspective, you want to charge the maximum amount you can, adjusting prices lower only so you get "enough" sales.
Right now, prices aren't really dependent on how difficult an item is to make. They're dependent on the desire and ability of the customers' to pay for them (since there's a lot of cash floating around the high end of the economy). I recommend pricing according to desirability, which is tough. You can't base desirability on resources used, the level they cert comes at, or the level the schematic comes at. For instance, Scout blasters are really popular, even though they're on the lower ends of both the marksman and weaponsmith trees.
The crazy pain-in-the-ass weapons, like the T21 and rocket launcher, are exceptions. I think they cause so much anguish to the weaponsmith that the prices will always be high. 
I was sweating a lot of pricing issues for a while, and finally decided to use a simple formula: I price weapons at what I think is right. If they sell fast, raise the price. If they don't lower the price. Simple supply/demand. For example: On Radiant the flavor of the day pistol is in high demand, if they're made with this out of shift iron, out of shift copper, out of shift steel, etc etc, you know, for maximum effect. Fine. I started making some very nice ones, and based on what the local market seemed to be plus how fast my stash of resources was, I priced them at 15k. They flew out the door. So I bumped to 16k. They flew out the door. 17, 18, 19... they're now running about 20, and I still cannot keep them in stock, and pretty soon I can see going to 21. I have no qualms at all about raising prices until I find what seems to be a nice equilibrium. If some other smith is selling equivalent weapons cheaper and people go to him, my sales will drop and I'll lower them. If I didn't raise prices, I would be doing nothing with my time except redeeding my factories to get around the bugs, making parts and pistols, and running out of the resources I needed in about 4 days, at which point I have lost the ability to make this weapon (and others that also depends on the extinct resource), and will be steadily losing money, wondering why I didn't sell for more. It's true, you can be so successful you go into bankruptcy, if you undercut enough.
Now the argument about resource pricing to me is inherently flawed. The weapon did not take 299 resources to make, it took 299 to produce that model, plus the maintenance and power you spent on yourfactories, plus the resources you threw away during your prototyping if you experiment heavily, plus all the inferior materials you invested in during previous shifts but are now rendered useless by a new and better metal, plus the thousands of weapons you have wound up destroying on your way up through various skill levels and material changes, since unless you bazaar everything you make which is out of date, nobody will buy a weapon that's even 1 point of damage lower than "your best." I don't bazaar everything I make which is out of date, since that's market flooding, and I suffered enough pre-master to know that lower tier weaponers have a hard enough time as it is; I'm not going to bankrupt them by selling an almost-perfect master level laser rifle for 3k.
However, everyone has the right to price however they see fit. If you undercut enough, eventually the demand will drive you crazy and run you out of resources. I've seen more than a few master crafters of various types driven to quit the game by undercutting the competition enough and winding up with more business than they could handle. I think if you just fluidly adjust prices according to flow, you'll find your niche. It can be hard to tell sometimes though; I can go days without selling a single carbine, then some guy comes in one morning and buys ALL of them. 
I had just this predicament last night. I had no idea what to charge.
I had just gotten Firearms I so wanted to make some weapons and set up a shop of my own.I spent a couple of hours doing missions to raise some cash, then I bought a house and harvested/bought the best resources I could find straight away.
As I've no factory and I've not got even Tech I yet, the guns were pretty hit and miss. I got some nice XP out of it though and was able to stock my vendor. But I had no idea on what to charge. I looked around at a few other local weapons shops, and saw guns far superior to mine going for a pittance. There was a shop only 200m away from mine (which I only discovered after planting my house, doh!) who's guns were all loads better, and all 2-3K. If I sold for that I didn't think there was a point selling at all. So I put all my guns up at 5K as an experiment, and when I checked back a few hours later I'd had loads of sales!
So ignore what everyone else is charging I say. Charge as much as you can, and if they don't sell then drop the prices. If you sell out too quickly, then raise prices. It's as simple as that.
Honestly I have been thinking of Aquire a couple of APprentices, and to help them make money make Schematics for them... It would allow them to make money and spend time grinding, considering they then would be able to produce master quality weapons, personally I think this would be a great Idea, since I know we can sell Schematics and such
Price is based on demand. The reason people even ASK about prices on these boards is due to the fact that there are sooooo little Weaponsmiths, compared to the size of the market, that nobody really knows what the standard prices are on their server.
3 Master Weaponsmiths, selling at god-knows-what on their server aren't going to set standards.
30 Master Weaponsmiths, each affecting the other's prices, with a healthy dose of competition, are going to pretty much set standard prices on their server.
Using any sort of "formula" is NOT feasible for weaponry, because the demand is very unbalanced, compared to supply. It will take you 5 hours to make 100 Scout Blasters. If you sell them at 3K, I guarantee you're going to need at least 4 factories, running non-stop, to keep Scouts on your vendors. Of course, those factories are going to be grinding out Scouts...NOT any other weapons. With the vast amount of weaponry we can build that's in demand, you have 1 of 2 options: Specialize on a few items, and sell them better and cheaper than anyone else....do a large array of items, and sell them at a price high enough that your stock isn't wiped out every night.
This is the way the economy works now...if you buy a Hard Drive off a company that sells nothing but Hard Drives, you're likely to get them at a cheaper price for better quality. If you buy a Hard Drive off of a company that makes Hard Drives, along with Motherboards, Memory, and 20 other things, that Hard Drive is going to be more expensive, and probably not as good. The limiting factor is simply the power of production. Company A can leverage itself to build awesome Hard Drives, focusing to reduce costs by not building other things, and creating a large supply of HDs, at the expense of other items (analogous to using 4 factories to pump out nothing but Scout Blasters)...Company B, however, chooses to create a variety of items, covering their costs by using an increase profit margin on their low supply of each item (analogous to using 4 factories to build 4 or 5 different things). Company A runs the risk of being blown out of the water when the demand for their particular item is gone...Company B runs the risk of being undercut by Company A on certain items.
In the end, supply/demand will dictate prices...if you're building a billion Scouts, and sell them at a rate of 100 a day, at a totally cheap price, you're fine. If you're building everything, and keep running out of Scouts because you sell them too cheap, then your other stock is going to hurt, because you won't be producing as much of it, since the Scouts, which need replacing constantly, will be eating up your factory time.
So, pricing low will kill you.
BTW, just to point out how off your "formula" is, no Commando will pay 35K for a Rocket Launcher, because they have VERY limited uses.
Regardless of the resources, a Rocket Launcher needs to sell cheaply, because they're non-renewable, and they're so limited.
However, the credits you'd otherwise "lose" by selling cheaper Rocket Launchers, you COULD be gainning by selling more expensive Scouts or T21s.
I get 75K for my T21s on Naritus...people will pay it. That's all there is to that.
At no point do I see you calculating in the cost of the days and days of endless grinding that allows you to be able to now produce these items. 15K sounds reasonable to me for a laster carbine, thats for sure! It wouldn't break my heart to see the prices go UP actually.
--Tyriel Lupar
Tigsen wrote:
My pricing formula takes into consideration the DPS of the weapon, the HAM costs in comparison to the damage it deals out, and lastly a simple scaling variable that I adjust up or down to increase or decrease the final price to the level I think it should be at. This lets me price out, for example, two different FWG5 pistols relative to one another if they do different damage amounts.
I'll typically make a bunch of the weapon in question, determine what I think the best one I made is worth in the current market and then price the others relative to the first based on the formula. This is really only applicable though when I'm hand-crafting the weapons as opposed to doing factory runs.
If it sells out fast, you priced it too low.
Tigsen
Heh, the first two paragraphs= WAAAAAAAAAAAY to much trouble.
Last line = Perfect.
Toss the formulas out the window, they're a hassle, and you don't need em. Sell at the price the market bares. That's it.
As for the guy interested in functionality, fine...when I'm off buying a Star Destroyer with my 10 mill, and you're off kicking cans on Rori with the rest of the shmubs, I don't want to hear "I can't make any money off my profession...waaaah...waaaah!"
Plus, to be more realistic, charging adequate prices keeps the economy balanced. Sure, I'm sitting on way more money than I'll EVER spend playing SWG, however, I keep those credits on myself and OUT of the economy. I *am* one of my server's living money sinks. I make it so that people HAVE to go out and buy a Novice's weapons when their broke. In other words, I'm the guy that's really looking out for the little guys.
However, if you want to be a Master, and sell items at dirt-cheap prices, and totally ruin it for the rest of up-and-commers, go ahead...I know a pack of wild Novices that would love to rip you apart.